like feeling excited for the very first time…

As many of you may have heard, Radiohead has announced their new album will be released nine days from now. Yes, just twenty-four hours ago the album was believed to be pushed back until early 2008 and not even a single (or a leaked track) was expected to surface until late December at the earliest (by my own oft-flawed estimation, anyway).

Not only that, the album can be yours for completely free (if your cheap-ass like Ben) or with any amount of money you feel you should pay (I tithe at my church, why not Radiohead?). And to top it all off, the album is promo-free, which essentially means on 10/10 every Radiohead fan (and the suit & ties of the music industry) will listen to the same album on the same day for the first time.

I’m the kind of music fan who rarely has an album that I fall in love with. Not that I don’t love music, quite the opposite. I love music like a drug addict embraces the needle. A worn-out analogy to be sure, but an accurate one nevertheless. That is to say, I wander the broad landscape of the musical world and it’s various subsections searching for that next kick, that next big thing… the next sequence of sounds that will blow me away.

Sure, there were times in my musical infancy where I would cling onto those albums that molded my life and some regrettably so (Parachutes didn’t age as well as I thought it would, but I blame that on two people: him and her). But I’ve long forgotten those days where a album really speaks to me and, this is the most important part, teaches me to love something I didn’t before. Coldplay may have sound tracked my days of middle school heartbreak but it didn’t take me out of it, it fueled my silent aggression towards pimply faced boys and girls with awkward boobies.

Radiohead took me out of that life and put me in a new musical landscape that seemingly existed on a higher plateau than the one I pranced around in before. It was 2001 (pre-9/11) and someone finally introduced one of the most difficult and beautiful albums of my entire life: Hello, OK Computer. An album that made even more sense in the chaos that ensued after 9/11.

There was a very brief period in my life where I doubted the greatness of this album but then I realized one incredible testiment to the album. In all honesty, all of my favorite albums this year would not exist if it wasn’t for that album and that band. No Spoon, No Caribou, No Super Furry Animals, No LCD, and most definitely, No Deerhoof! And that’s just talking in terms of this year, how many bands’ greatest albums weaved together ideas originally introduced OK Computer (Here’s looking at you Yankee Hotel Foxtrot)? Not to say that these artist aren’t great in their own right but Radiohead made their creative freedoms possible.

Now 10 years later from the release of OK, we see a band doing that same innovative take on modern music they did a decade ago. That excites me, friends. A combination of classical craftsmanship mixed with the punk rock “spit-in-your-face” attitude that doesn’t leave fans in the cold but teaches them to love something new from someone they trust.

These 9 days will not go by fast enough.