Hail to the Thief

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Hail to the Thief
Image:Radiohead.hailtothetheif.albumart.jpg
Album by Radiohead
Released	June 9 2003
Recorded	Sept 2002 - Feb 2003 at Ocean Way, Hollywood
Genre	Experimental Rock
Length	56 min 31 s
Label	Parlophone
Producer(s)	Nigel Godrich Radiohead
Professional reviews
All Music Guide Image:4 out of 5.png link Guardian Unlimited Image:3 out of 5.png 06/06/03 musicOMH.com (Positive) link Kludge (9/10) link The Onion (Favourable) link New Musical Express (7/10) link Pitchfork Media (9.3/10) 06/10/03 Robert Christgau () link Slant Magazine* Image:3 out of 5.png link
Radiohead chronology
I Might Be Wrong: Live Recordings (2001)	6th Hail to the Thief (2003)	COM LAG (2plus2isfive) (2004)

Hail to the Thief, or "The Gloaming" as it is subtitled, is the sixth studio album by British rock band Radiohead, released on June 9 2003 in the United Kingdom and June 10 in the United States and Canada. After two albums that mined a distinctive groove, with heavily processed vocals and few guitars, Hail to the Thief draws its ideas from every era of the band's existence, coupled with a new-found confidence and live energy — the bulk of the record was recorded in two weeks in Los Angeles. The album was released on Parlophone and produced by Nigel Godrich (who has worked with Radiohead on four previous releases).

Given the controversial nature of Radiohead's post-OK Computer work, fan and critical reaction was typically mixed but tended towards the ecstatic: Neil McCormick, writing in the Daily Telegraph, called it "Radiohead firing on all cylinders, a major work by major artists at the height of their powers" and the record performed typically well in magazine's end-of-year polls. Unswayed, the NME's James Oldham saw it as "a good rather than great record" and Alexis Petridis of The Guardian called it "neither startlingly different and fresh nor packed with the sort of anthemic songs that once made them the world's biggest band".

The title of the album is considerered by some to be a play on "Hail to the Chief," a march played to announce the arrival of the President of the United States and a reference to the controversy surrounding the 2000 U.S. presidential election. The pun was first used by the band during their Christmas 2002 webcast but in the June 2003 issue of Spin Magazine Yorke was quoted as saying "If the motivation for naming our album had been based solely on the U.S. election, I'd find that to be pretty shallow."

An interesting bit of trivia about this album is that an unfinished version of it was apparently stolen, presumably from the recording studio where they were working, and uploaded to the Internet several weeks before it was officially released (later on a finished version made it on to the Internet approximately a week before the release). It was by no means the first album that suffered this fate, but it was one of the first by a major artist. Another was Amnesiac in 2001, also by Radiohead.

The album is dedicated to "Patrick and Tamir and a future worth having." Patrick and Tamir are sons of Phil Selway and Jonny Greenwood, respectively, born since the release of Amnesiac.

As of August 2005, Hail To The Thief has sold 932,000 units in the US.

Note: Image:Copy control logo.png This album has been released with the Copy control protection system in some regions.

1 Track listing
2 Band
3 Release
4 External link

Track listing

All tracks written by Radiohead

"2 + 2 = 5 (The Lukewarm.)" - 3:19
"Sit down. Stand up. (Snakes & Ladders.)" - 4:19
"Sail to the Moon. (Brush the Cobwebs out of the Sky.)" - 4:18
"Backdrifts. (Honeymoon is Over.)" - 5:22
"Go to Sleep. (Little Man being Erased.)" - 3:21
"Where I End and You Begin. (The Sky is Falling in.)" - 4:29
"We suck Young Blood. (Your Time is up.)" - 4:56
"The Gloaming. (Softly Open our Mouths in the Cold.)" - 3:32
"There there. (The Boney King of Nowhere.)" - 5:23
"I will. (No man's Land.)" - 1:59
"A Punch Up at a Wedding. (No no no no no no no no.)" - 4:57
"Myxomatosis. (Judge, Jury & Executioner.)" - 3:52
"Scatterbrain. (As Dead as Leaves.)" - 3:21
"A Wolf at the Door. (It Girl. Rag Doll.)" - 3:23

Note: the periods are officially part of the titles. Just like the album's title, each track receives a parenthetical subtitle. The lyrics in the booklet use only the parenthetical subtitles, as if they were the only real ones.

Band

The credits in the liner notes for Hail to the Thief indicate:

Thom Yorke - vocals, guitar, piano, laptop
Jonny Greenwood - guitar, analogue systems, ondes martenot, laptop, toy piano, glockenspiel
Ed O'Brien - guitar, vocals, effects
Colin Greenwood - bass, string synth, sampler
Phil Selway - drums, percussion

Release

The album was released in various countries in June 2003.

Country	Date	Label	Format	Catalog
Japan	June 2 2003	Toshiba-EMI	CD	TOCP 66185
United Kingdom	June 9 2003	Parlophone	LP	5845431
			CD	5845432
Australia	June 9 2003	EMI	CD	5845442
United States	June 10 2003	Capitol	CD	CDP 7243 5 84543 2 1
Canada	June 10 2003	Parlophone	CD	7243 5 84544 2 0