Dean Peteet's blog

So if you haven't purchased In Rainbows by Radiohead via the internet yet, it's imperative that you do so with the quickness. It is I'd have to say their best recording since OK Computer. And I am not just saying that because of the intitial euphoria that comes with owning any new record by Radiohead . I am saying this because it is a great body of work with great songs along with a diverse palat of styles and moods. And yet it still retains a good cohesive musical theme. Also ever present is Thom Yorke's fragmented cut up lyrical content, with it's frantic cry for something that's not there. But with that said even the lyrics on In Rainbows seem to suggest a more subjective honesty that could even be seen, dare I say as an earnestness that hasn't been there in the past. Wow Radiohead without Irony, how Ironic. Gone now also are alot of the trippy experimental filler and the clumsy eletronic attempts at innovation (I think Thom Yorke might have gotten some of that out of his system with the Eraser last year) that permeated the last three records. Not that I have disliked all of these types of songs from those particuliar records, Its just that it feels like sometimes that the need or desire to be inovative for the sake of being inovative, can hinder the beauty and authenticity that comes directly from the artist's own individual pool of creativity. In other words doing good work artistically can come naturally without the need to feel like you have to be an ARTIST and "do something that has never been done before." Because no matter how hard you try, chances are somebody has already done it before (See Eclesiastes). Perhaps it's this philosophical presupposition that artists are taught in the artistic/pop culture and even academic world, that claims that making really good art has to be completely different from one's own previous material. The artist ( and the audiance for that matter) then can become so self-conscious about how relevant he or she is that it becomes easier for them to fein boredom about their own work, and look for novelty and shock as a means to relieve their boredom while making them feel important at the same time. Unfortunately most of our current day post-modern gallary art and literary fiction greatly reflects this ethos. It's here where I think Jerram Barrs makes a good point when he talks about the goal of the Christian Artist should be to be imitators of God's creative presence, not inovators. Meaning that inovation implies creating something out of nothing and no matter how creative someone thinks they are, nobody but God can do that. Innovation in actuality is the God given individuality that each one of us brings to our own work without ever intending it to be innovation. Generally whenever someone tries to be innovative as a means to an end, their work suffers and often times becomes either portensious, dated, or it ends up being more like propaganda than art.