A RROSE IN A PROSE REVIVAL!

I saw There Will Be Blood two nights ago, and while I disagree with my girlfriend about how good the movie was (she thought it was better than No Country For Old Men, and I found it not nearly as good), I had to agree that the music was pretty fucking rad.  There were little strings and things punching out at me and plucking at my eardrums, reminding me of several of my favorite composers but without being replicas of any of them (e.g. in the way John Williams often “writes” for film).

Turns out, to my horror of horrors, that the score I loved so much, done got writ by none other than Jonny Greenwood.  Recognize the name?  He’s the faggot guitarist for poncy asshole band Radiohead–you may remember them from such etherial echoey uber-yelps as “Every Song We’ve Ever Done” and Another Breakthrough Album That Sounds Just Like Achtung Baby on 16 RPM.  I saw these horrors at Coachella a few godforsaken years back, and walking from the main stage to get away from them, I felt like an amoeba was crawling through my brain.

Well, maybe it was just Jonny’s choice of musical instrument that was Radiohead’s downfall, or maybe (probably) there are some chunks of quality music in amongst the drivel I keep hearing from the iPod of seemingly every person who ever went to college in the last decade.  This soundtrack (he name-checked Penderecki in an interview, so apparently it wasn’t just a divine accident) probably should be nominated for an Academy Award.  Jonny be good!

P.S. Early early Radiohead, e.g. “Creep,” was okay even if their current shit is a giant mass deception.  Ditto for the Flaming Lips.