How Kids Interpret Radiohead
by phil on Friday Sep 19, 2003 9:57 PM
Art
Mitsi has consented to a simple experiment: We will play a career-spanning selection of Radiohead songs; the kids, equipped with Sharpies and blank sheets of paper, will simply draw whatever the music suggests to them. We don't even give them the name of the band. They don't know anything about Radiohead, the mountain of criticism, the mythology. Their thoughts and interpretations are pure, unsullied, literally unique.
Comments
Luis said on February 13, 2004 5:07 AM:
First question. What is a "kid"? I have no basis on this, but my intuition tells me that a "kid" is someone who has not yet entered the "social mainstream", someone who still depends on another and does not know quite well what to do.
A "kid" is someone still looking his place on earth, and is quite alert to the things people say to him. A "kid" is influenciable, a living question mark. The most sensible human being.
"How kids interpret Radiohead"?? Should be "What does Radiohead want to tell the kids". The band is the medium from which their most inside feelings TRY to surface (always censored by Freud's consciousness...). So the question must be: "What does Radiohead feel"? And we all know the thruth about this.
The difference is, while we "Adults"(bah) manage to barrier the emotional shockwave from Radiohead, Kids don't. So, there are two possible "interpretations": Or they simply don't feel it, or they kill themselves.
Why wouldn't they understand it? It simply does not speak their language. Linking Park, Eminem or Limp Bizkit is much more influential because they talk "kid speech" - musically and lyrically. And this is a pity, since the most influential bands AREN'T ideological. They just feel "life is fun", "live the music" or "fuck the rest". Marilyn Manson for instance is a self-conscious whore.
The only band to speak the language of common people and at the same time to question them were the Beatles. Pink Floyd also comes to mind. Radiohead is simply barried inside a thick wall and NO KID WILL "EAR" IT.
PS: And thanks god. I don't want the future to be so sad as they paint it.
