Hail to the Thief
Hail to the Thief is the sixth studio album by the English rock band Radiohead. It was released on 9 June 2003 through Parlophone internationally and a day later through Capitol Records in the United States. It was the last album released under Radiohead's record contract with EMI, the parent company of Parlophone and Capitol.
"A wolf at the door" redirects here. For other uses, see Wolf at the Door (disambiguation).Hail to the Thief
9 June 2003
September 2002 – February 2003
- Ocean Way, Hollywood
- Radiohead studio, Oxfordshire
56:35
- Nigel Godrich
- Radiohead
After transitioning to a more electronic style on their albums Kid A (2000) and Amnesiac (2001), which were recorded through protracted studio experimentation, Radiohead sought to work more spontaneously, combining electronic and rock music. They recorded most of Hail to the Thief in two weeks in Los Angeles with their longtime producer Nigel Godrich, focusing on live takes rather than overdubs.
The songwriter, Thom Yorke, wrote lyrics in response to the election of the US president George W. Bush and the unfolding war on terror. He took phrases from political discourse and combined them with elements from fairy tales and children's literature. The title is a play on the American presidential anthem, "Hail to the Chief".
Following a high-profile internet leak of unfinished material ten weeks before release, Hail to the Thief debuted at number one on the UK Albums Chart and number three on the US Billboard 200 chart. It was certified platinum in the UK and Canada and gold in several countries. It was promoted with singles and music videos for "There There", "Go to Sleep" and "2 + 2 = 5". Hail to the Thief received positive reviews; it was the fifth consecutive Radiohead album nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Alternative Music Album, and won for the Grammy Award for Best Engineered Non-Classical Album.
Background[edit]
With their previous albums Kid A (2000) and Amnesiac (2001), recorded simultaneously, Radiohead replaced their guitar-led rock sound with a more electronic style.[1] For the tours, they learned how to perform the music live, combining synthetic sounds with rock instrumentation.[2] The singer, Thom Yorke, said: "Even with electronics, there is an element of spontaneous performance in using them. It was the tension between what's human and what's coming from the machines. That was stuff we were getting into."[2] Radiohead did not want to make a "big creative leap or statement" with their next album.[2]
In early 2002, after the Amnesiac tour had finished, Yorke sent his bandmates CDs of demos.[3] The three CDs, The Gloaming, Episcoval and Hold Your Prize, comprised electronic music alongside piano and guitar sketches.[4] Radiohead had tried to record some of the songs, such as "I Will", for Kid A and Amnesiac, but were not satisfied with the results.[3] They spent May and June 2002 arranging and rehearsing the songs before performing them on their tour of Spain and Portugal in July and August.[3]
Artwork[edit]
The Hail to the Thief's artwork was created by Radiohead's collaborator Stanley Donwood,[5] who joined them during the recording in Hollywood.[5] Donwood initially planned to create artwork based on photographs of phallic topiary, but the idea was rejected by Yorke.[48] Instead, the cover art is a roadmap of Hollywood, with words and phrases taken from roadside advertising in Los Angeles, such as "God", "TV" and "oil".[49] Donwood noted that advertising was designed to be attractive, but that there was something "unsettling" about being sold something. He took the advertising slogans out of context to "remove the imperative" and "get to the pure heart of advertising".[50]
Other words in the artwork were taken from Yorke's lyrics[48] and political discussion surrounding the war on terror.[5] Among them is "Burn the Witch", the title of a song Radiohead did not complete until their ninth album, A Moon Shaped Pool (2016).[51] Other artworks included with the album refer to cities relevant to the war,[48] including New York, London, Grozny and Baghdad.[52] Early editions contained a fold-out road map of the cover.[5]
Comparing the cover to the more subdued palettes of his prior Radiohead artworks, Donwood described the bright, "pleasing" colours as "ominous because all these colours that I've used are derived from the petrol-chemical industry ... We've created this incredibly vibrant society, but we're going to have to deal with the consequences sooner or later."[50] The essayist Amy Britton interpreted the artwork as an allusion to the Bush administration's "road map for peace" plan for the Israeli–Palestinian conflict.[53] Joseph Tate likened it to the paintings of the artist Jean Dubuffet and saw it as a portrayal of "capitalism's glaring visual presence: an oppressive sameness of style and colour that mirrors globalisation's reduction of difference".[54]
Internet leak[edit]
On 30 March 2003, ten weeks before release, an unfinished version of Hail to the Thief was leaked online.[55] The leak comprised rough edits and unmixed songs from January that year.[56] On Radiohead's forum, Jonny Greenwood wrote that the band were "pissed off", not with downloaders but because of the "sloppy" release of unfinished work.[57] Colin Greenwood said the leak was "like being photographed with one sock on when you get out of bed in the morning". However, he expressed dismay at the cease-and-desist orders sent by label EMI to radio stations and fan sites playing the leaked tracks, saying: "Don't record companies usually pay thousands of dollars to get stations to play their records? Now they're paying money to stations not to play them."[58]
EMI decided against moving the release date earlier to combat the leak. The EMI executive Ted Mico said the leak had generated media coverage, and that EMI was confident that Hail to the Thief would sell.[59] The leak partly influenced Radiohead's decision to self-release their next album, In Rainbows (2007), online, terming it "their leak date".[60]
Release[edit]
Hail to the Thief was released on 9 June 2003 by Parlophone Records in the UK and a day later by Capitol Records in the US.[2] The CD was printed with copy protection in some regions; the Belgian consumer group Test-Achats received complaints that it would not play on some CD players.[61] A compilation of Hail to the Thief B-sides, remixes and live performances, Com Lag (2plus2isfive), was released in April 2004.[62]
Hail to the Thief reached number one in the UK Albums Chart and stayed on the chart for 14 weeks,[63] selling 114,320 copies in its first week.[64] In the US, it entered at number three on the Billboard 200, selling 300,000 copies in its first week,[65][66] more than any previous Radiohead album.[67] By 2008, it had sold over a million copies in the US.[68] It is certified platinum in the UK[69] and Canada.[70]
Promotion[edit]
According to the Guardian critic Alexis Petridis, Hail to the Thief's marketing campaign was "by [Radiohead] standards ... a promotional blitzkrieg".[71] In April 2003, promotional posters spoofing talent recruitment posters appeared in Los Angeles and London with slogans taken from the lyrics of "We Suck Young Blood". The posters included a phone number spelling the phoneword "to thief", which connected callers to a recording welcoming them to the "Hail to the Thief customer care hotline".[72] In May, planes trailing Hail to the Thief banners flew over the California Coachella Festival.[71]
"There There" was released as the lead single on 21 May.[73] Yorke asked the Bagpuss creator, Oliver Postgate, to create its music video, but he declined as he was retired.[4] Instead, a stop-motion animated video was created by Chris Hopewell.[74] The video debuted on the Times Square Jumbotron in New York on 20 May, and received hourly play that day on MTV2.[59] "Go to Sleep" and "2 + 2 = 5" were released as singles on 18 August and 17 November.
In June, Radiohead relaunched their website, featuring digital animations on the themes of mass-media culture and 24-hour cities.[75] They also launched radiohead.tv, where they streamed short films, music videos and live webcasts from their studio at scheduled times. Visitors late for streams were shown a test card with "1970s-style" intermission music.[75] Yorke said Radiohead had planned to broadcast the material on their own television channel, but it was cancelled due to "money, cutbacks, too weird, might scare the children, staff layoffs, shareholders".[76] The material was released on the 2004 DVD The Most Gigantic Lying Mouth of All Time.[77]
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