For a band between projects, a live album can be a way to keep its fans interested - or for the record label to turn a buck. Other times, it can be a way for the band to wrest control of its recordings away from concert bootleggers, as Pearl Jam did, by flooding the market with scores of authorized concert discs. Radiohead's new live effort, I Might Be Wrong - Live Recordings, collects material from various European shows. In the end, however, it seems more like an experimental exercise than anything else for the post-modernist rock band.
Why do fans want live recordings anyway? People shell out over and over again for live albums and spend countless hours organizing and collecting concert bootlegs because the studio recordings aren't providing something they want. Radiohead's only live release gives you something new to appreciate, but perhaps it's not the right kind of new.
Some bands (think of the Grateful Dead, Phish, Dave Matthews Band, B?©la Fleck and the Flecktones) perform with far greater gusto in person than in the studio, making the live experience richer than the recorded one. Moreover, they perform something new: songs with guest artists, improvised solos, different lyrics, even new songs that never made it onto an album. These are all things that you can hear, things that transfer rather well to a recording - unlike the mere physical presence of the band, which is remarkable only when you're actually there.
Radiohead half-misses the point on I Might Be Wrong by failing to bring out these typical "bootleg" highlights; from the virtual lack of crowd noise, you might not believe these even are live recordings. On the songs that are faithful to the studio, the band slips by failing to match up to its impressive recordings. On the songs that get new treatment, the contrast is severe.
Kid A and Amnesiac brought a new electronic flavor to Radiohead's former alternative-rock style. While this touch was met with acclaim, it can be difficult to balance such style in a live performance. The modulations and electronic effects are prominent, and while recognizable as those found on the studio recordings, they become overpowering here. Thom Yorke's voice is lost among the aural tricks in "Everything In Its Right Place," for example/
It's still impressive to hear the band perform its newest material live, however, putting to rest any suspicions you may have had that Radiohead couldn't reproduce the intricate effects of Kid A and Amnesiac in concert. While I Might Be Wrong's eight tracks do lose some of the precision found in the studio versions, the impressionistic tweaks and swerves of the originals are intact. "Idioteque" in particular seems virtually unchanged in performance.
Here's where the postmodern exercises come in: some of the tracks ("The National Anthem," "I Might Be Wrong," "Morning Bell," "True Love Waits") benefit from the live treatment more than others. The versions of these found on I Might Be Wrong are not entirely faithful to their studio originals. The stark, solemn tracks roughen their melodies crowded with extra growls and flourishes; they are given new twists and interpretations appropriate to the band's style.
As the band's last two albums involve sound-twisting reminiscent of electronic remixes, these tracks get some renewed twisting of their own. These aren't mere bonus versions with "extra-special guest stars," but instead new conceptions of the original songs. Radiohead's style has never been static, and neither, apparently, are the newest recordings. The "I" in I Might Be Wrong is the band itself; it's taking a new look at some of its songs and implying that maybe its interpretations were not right.
Looking at these tracks - and at the very fact that I Might Be Wrong sounds so little like a live album - hints that this might be Radiohead's way of getting the public to accept a kind of "reconcept" album in the guise of a live one. The unchanged tracks like "Idioteque" then come as a sop to fans looking for a traditional live album.
In this sense, I Might Be Wrong is a concert recording suited to Radiohead: tweaking some musical recording conventions while leaving others untouched. The twisted tracks and the lack of concert noise and banter are appropriate post-modern snobberies for a brilliant band (one, however, that has been assured of its brilliance a little too often), while the traditional portions are a concession to the expectant fan base.
Appropriate to the band or not, this live album is likely to disappoint some fans and please others. Just as Kid A both displeased and excited, I Might Be Wrong should be met with mixed reactions. As an album, it is faithful not to the recent recordings themselves but to the spirit and creative drive behind them: it tweaks parts of Kid A and Insomniac just as those albums tweaked their predecessors. As a successful live release, however, it's likely to miss the mark with many expectant fans. This one is good for the most religious of collectors - or for those who like the band best for Kid A and Insomniac - but not a surefire charge for most long-term fans.
