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Listen, I don’t hate you that much. Don’t get so distraught, seriously. I’m so glad that you answered my email I’m willing to forgive you guys. Maybe.

I’ll get right to the point. Jon, Ed, Colin, Phil, Thomas (Listen, I know you spell your name Thom, but that’s an outright lie. Your parents named you Thomas and you changed it to Thom to get away from your sordid childhood in which you were ostracized from the other children in a wooden cubicle, because you would decorate the classroom in your nose pickings. A kid like that went to my school. He was hot.)

I love you guys, I really do. But I hate what you’ve become. And I don’t even know what you’ve become. Your music is so strange now I think it’s classified as: Ambient Experimental Lo Fi Hi Fi Medium Rare Rock. Lets just say that after The Bends you basically took a ferry ride with Van Gogh’s ghost and completely lost it.

Honestly I think it’s because your band meant so much to me that it hurt to watch you ride off into the pompous sunset after that awesome album. Only 20 something British men in a band; only you guys understood my thirteen-year old GAP wearing middle class angst. Then you abandoned me for artistic freedom and a stupid Grammy.

I was there for you when no one else was. When I picked up The Bends people didn’t know you from Engelbert Humperdinck.

“What’s a radio head?” my friends queried. “We thought you were going to buy the Los Del Rio album.”

I was a true fan. Not like it is now. I wasn’t some dude who listed you as his ALL TIME FAVORITE BAND EVER OF ALL TIMES on his personal ad in “The Onion”. Nor was I some girl who wore your concert tees 24/7 along with other shirts stating such revelations as “ME>you” and “don't be offended if I just turn around and walk away”.

But times have changed. As have your albums. Seriously, Thom(as) what do you do when you record songs? Are you gargling? Eating a sandwich? I can’t understand a damn word! For years I thought the first lines of “Karma Police” were, “Karma Police, arrest this man he’s tall enough, he’s Boise on the fringe, he’s like a digiton radio.” Without the help of the lyrics from your CD booklet (with that lovely pretentious typewriter font), I would never have known what that first line was about. Actually I still don’t get it. Why do you want to arrest some dude because he has a gas problem? It was better when I thought you just hated people from Boise.

And the cartoons. Please, please explain that damn drawing of that weird bear with the teeth. As a lover of bears I’m really interested in what the hell that mangy creature has to do with Radiohead. I swear I see that sticker on every beat up 88 Chevy with some unwashed fellow in a bucket seat playing dashboard drums.

But the worst sin you all have committed is turning your unwashed British backs on Pablo Honey. I can actually decipher what Thom(as) is singing on that album. I can actually relate to the lyrics without needing to be “deep” or have the ability to read. You all whine about how it wasn’t the direction you wanted to go in, how it was too “alternative”. Okay I can understand, British people whine all the time, especially about the Revolutionary War. But it’s not like Benedict Arnold held a gun to your head (not that he would…damn turncoat). You created that album, you gave BIRTH to those lyrics. And you treat it like a bastard child. Lets just be honest. It wasn’t because of artistry or musical freedom/experimentation: It was because of Thom(as)’s bad bleach job. Or was it the grainy videos that looked like they were filmed in my driveway?

Then there is the worst lie. You all have promised to make another follow up to The Bends. You never delivered. Listen, I’m a woman so I’m used to being grossly disappointed by men. But when are you going to stop making “art” and start making music again? Every time I listen to a new album of yours I feel like I just won a roundtrip to Athens—Alabama.

Do you guys just masturbate when you see a mixing board? All of your albums are way too mired in computer bleeps, distortion and strange static. Before it was guitars, some piano. Now it’s a full frontal board job. I like knobs too, but you don’t see me grabbing and twisting whatever I can get a hold of…I had to stop that when I got paroled.

So Jon, Ed, Colin, Phil, Thom(as) go back to the studio and make The Bends Part Two, or Aeroemphysema. Hell, I’ll even settle for Decompression Sickness. Just stop raping my ears, okay?

Forever yours,

Eileen

Celebrity Rebuttal

Thom, Earl of Radiohead

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From:	wemightbewrong@radiohead.com Add to Address Book
Date:	Mon, 19 Jul 2004 11:59:13 EDT
Subject:	Re:Why I Hate Radiohead
To:	eileen@defenestrationmag.net

Ellen,

You are obviously a plebian, unable to understand the growth that we, as artists, have nurtured and protected like a baby bird in the tire iron long ago in Prague. If you could only see the blindness in the deaf surround, you might have been able to keep pace with my brilliance. As it is, I am forced to ignore your critique. If someone isn't even willing to come up with a sophisticated email address based on an obscure lyric from "Airbag," then we have nothing to say to one another.

Also, what we do when we see a mixing board is NONE OF YOUR BUSINESS.

A Lark in the potato fields,

Thom