There seems to be a current trend of established artists making complacent albums, have-done-before-but-better-albums, or even albums that feel like self-parody to an extent. As much as I like the albums, I feel that Tokyo Jihen, Björk, Tori Amos, The White Stripes and Nightwish have all done that this year. It is an infrequent occurrence that this doesn't happen—Radiohead, arguably, made one such album with Hail to the Thief. It's possibly my second favourite Radiohead album, but even I agree that it often sounds weary and done. This year, with In Rainbows, they refined and expanded old sounds, but made it fresh and wonderful, so it's deservedly been getting high praise. Another lauded album this year is PJ Harvey's White Chalk in which she completely reinvented herself as a ghostly Victorian falsetto-singing piano-player type (having never played the instrument before).
I'm excited to see what the next great SR/TJ album will be—an expansion and refinement resulting in an excellent work, or another complete revolution? While SR, in her "holy 3," seemed to continually expand and refine, TJ seems to take the revolutionary route from album to album. But I get the feeling that they'll be staying with this general sound for a while, because they seem comfortable with it now. They just had to veer into almost-complacent almost-self-parody first.
Variety's still deeply enjoyable, at least.
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