Thom Yorke is your weird neighbor from down the hall. You’ll be leaving to get some food as he’s headed downstairs to throw the garbage out. He’s wearing a dirty T-shirt and flip-flops. He will nod passively as you walk by and maybe mumble something, but he will not make eye contact with you. You wonder if he has some form of Aspergers or if he’s secretly making drugs and selling them to the other tenants in your apartment.  Then you find out that he has a girlfriend and three cats, and he also happens to make great songs like “Black Swan” in which he mumbles “this is fucked…up” over burbling synthesizers and low-slung guitar like the most disturbing ear worm in the history of recorded music.

Some days (a lot of days), I like The Eraser more than I like any Radiohead albums. And I like at least a couple of Radiohead albums (The Bends, OK Computer, In Rainbows) quite a bit.