Album of the Week #16: "The Eraser" by Thom Yorke

John · 26-07-2006 11:28pm #1

Does he have enough to go it alone or is he lost without Radiohead? Do you think he'll follow it up with more solo albums? Better yet, do you think Radiohead will let him do any of the songs live with them?

Tobias Greeshman · 27-07-2006 5:42pm

Not sure if he'll follow it up or not, the solo-album was a long time coming, and while it was a good, it wasn't mind-blowing.

He does have a brilliant voice, and is a very good song-writer, but I don't think he'd have the same fan base as a solo artist, that he has from being in Radiohead.

I can't see why the lads would stop him playing a bit of his stuff live. I'm going to the Marley Park gig, and would love to see him playing at least one of his new songs. I could see Jonny joining in and playing the Keyboards/Ondes Martenotte and the rest of the lads just stand back and let him play or join in.

Although letting him play a song at every gig in their tour is very unlikely, but for the 1st few it'd be nice, and sorta showing that the lads don't mind Thom having his solo career, and are very accepting of it.

Closing Doors · 27-07-2006 7:37pm

I've been avoiding Radiohead sites/messageboards so I won't be tempted to listen to the new stuff before Marley Park but I know that they played Cymbal Rush on their first date back.

He said he'd do a few solo shows if his arm was twisted so that could be interesting.

As for the album itself I think its fantastic. Didn't hit me straight away but with every listen it has gotten better and better. Only weak point would be Skip Divided.

ZWEI_VIER_ZWEI · 27-07-2006 9:17pm

Closing Doors wrote:

I've been avoiding Radiohead sites/messageboards so I won't be tempted to listen to the new stuff before Marley Park but I know that they played Cymbal Rush on their first date back.

Hmm, each to his own, but personally I enjoy songs at concerts more when I'm intimately familiar with them, it lets me appreciate the subtleties that might be there in a concert, but may not be as obvious, and also appreciate a different direction or an improvisation they added to it for a live performance.

Haven't heard this album yet, but I bear no Thom no ill will, he knows the score.

bluto63 · 29-07-2006 11:23am

I think I remember reading that Thom said he would not play the songs at concerts, even though the other band members were interested in doing so. Kind of a shame really, I'm going to Marley aswell and I would've loved to see his solo stuff live. What ever it is about the electronic stuff, It's just better live (referring to Glastonbury 2003)

As for the album, I'm beginning to love it. As someone else said, I'm starting to love it more and more with each listen and it is well deserved of getting album of the week. First three tracks are brilliant and so is Harrodown Hill. Now I feel like listening to the album...

jtsuited · 29-07-2006 4:13pm

bluto63 wrote:

As someone else said, I'm starting to love it more and more with each listen

that someone else be me, and it's never stops improving with every listen.
Minimalism at it's finest.

sterculelum · 30-07-2006 1:40am

I think it's actually pretty damn good. Not Radiohead... but you can't expect that. He's releasing Harrowdown Hill (I think) as a single/video.

bluto63 · 30-07-2006 1:10pm

sterculelum wrote:

He's releasing Harrowdown Hill (I think) as a single/video.

Yea I got an e-mail about that...What's weird is that I never subscribed to his site or anything...Maybe he just knows where his fans are at!

TwoBrackets · 30-07-2006 8:22pm

I think it's a decent album. Not quite Radiohead but it'll tide me over until their new release.

cerebis · 31-07-2006 11:01pm

tried listening to it...couldnt... yuk

Rich_Why · 01-08-2006 10:09am

My mini opinion shared with the world at an earlier date and on a different thread....

Rich_Why wrote:

I'd agree with the general opinion here. At first I thought it was cool and then put it down for about a week and then due to everyone talking about it so much I've had it in the CD player for about 4 or 5 days straight now.

Great album in my opinion, no Radiohead album, but still good work. Black Swan and the title track Eraser woudl be two favourites of mine.

As for whether he'll play some of his solo work at the gig, well lets hope so!:D I'd say he probably will, I mean I'm sure the rest of the guys in radiohead are totally cool with it and wouldn't find it threatening (The members of Radiohead are very different from the ego driven members of say Primal Scream for instance). Plus Tom could probably play some of them on his own anyway. Its not unlike him to come back on for an encore and belt out "True Love Waits" on his lonesome.

Lunar Junkie · 02-08-2006 9:15pm

I think it's pretty good, not a classic, but there are some decent tunes on there.. the cheap laptop kind of feel will put a lot of people off probably (how dare a rock singer attempt to make electronic music?) but I think the ambience is pretty effective.. I'm not sure whether it's really right to use this album as a yardstick to measure whether he could "make it on his own", it seems to have just been something he did casually over a few weekends for a bit of relief from the intensity of the Radiohead recording sessions.

Kaiser_Sma · 03-08-2006 12:54am

Heres a Thom Yorke quote from an interview in Mojo magazine:

The guys are talking about including some of the songs in the set. They seem well up for it. At the same time, we've got a lot of new songs of our own which we need to sort through first. I don't want to make it a big priority because it would be a lot of hard work to reinterpret stuff like that. It could become a major headache. But Johnny and i did a version of Cymbal Rush - that's my favorite- at a benefit show recently. It came out quite messy, but we'd only had two days to rehearse it.

Theres some hope then.

Eraser took him years not weekends. Hes been working on it since 2000. But i must admit it doesn't sound it.

bluto63 · 04-08-2006 12:42am

Oh theres definetly some Kid A in there though

aidan24326 · 06-08-2006 12:58am

sterculelum wrote:

I think it's actually pretty damn good. Not Radiohead... but you can't expect that. He's releasing Harrowdown Hill (I think) as a single/video.

Haven't heard the album yet but I saw the video for Harrowdown Hill on Channel 4 the other night (you know that channel 4 video exclusive thingy). Really liked the song on first listen and it's a pretty good video too.