Radiohead Post Songs Online
Two weeks before the release of Hail to the Thief, Radiohead have posted four finished tracks from the much-leaked album on their Web site, capitolrecords.com/radiohead.
Available for streaming are the album’s first single, “There There,” “A Punch Up at a Wedding,” the piano-based ballad “Sail to the Moon” and the driving “Myxamatosis,” named after a disease that killed British rabbits. The video for “There There,” which debuted last week on the Jumbotron above New York’s Times Square, is also posted on the site.
The band was frustrated earlier this year when unfinished versions of Thief tracks were leaked to the Internet. “It’s like having your house done over half way through having it done up,” bassist Colin Greenwood said at the time. “All the attention is gratifying, but we want it when all our hard work’s done and the best it can be.”
Since then, other versions of the album have also been leaked. The finished set marks a return to artful rock songwriting for the band. “We wanted to relearn the art of putting out shorter songs,” guitarist Ed O’Brien told Rolling Stone. “On tour in 2001 in America, I think we learned to swagger as a band. We wanted to capture that on record.”
Hail to the Thief track listing:
2+2=5
Sit Down. Stand Up
Stand to the Moon
Backdrifts
Go to Sleep
Where I End and You Begin
We Suck Young Blood
The Gloaming
There There
I Will
A Punch-Up at a Wedding
Myxamatosis
Scatterbrain
A Wolf at the Door