Aesthetic experience & Radiohead

Having a profound artistic or aesthetic experience is the closest I come to spirituality, and so, like most humans do with religion, I seek out these experiences and depend on them for intellectual sustenance. For many, this would seem an overtly verbose way to say I enjoy experiencing art, but I intend for this rave to convey a little more than that. I mean to say that certain pieces that are defined by popular culture as “art” are less profound and aesthetically meaningful than others. Please to continue.

The foremost example is music, and my idealization of the perfect artist is, of course, Radiohead. Now a ton of people are just as obsessed with this band as I am, and probably for very similar reasons, but I’ll try to explain my infatuation with their art. Other musicians have music that, while enjoyable, catchy, and testaments to the vocal or instrumental prowess of its creators, is not art. For years I felt certain bands and certain albums were profound; that they contained a sort of spiritual artistic or aesthetic experience. Having listened to Radiohead and a score of other artists, I realize now how hollow these works have always been. They pale in comparison to the genius produced by Thom Yorke and his posse.

This article, concerning a book called Radiohead and Philosophy, contains a closing sentence that illustrates my point perfectly: 

“Fans and critics know that Radiohead is ‘the only band that matters’ on the scene today. But Radiohead and Philosophy uses philosophy to show why it is the only band that matters.”

My theory is this: that once one has heard something spiritually or aesthetically profound, that once one has enjoyed a band like Radiohead or a painter like Rene Magritte or any other artist or creator whose work transports the viewer to a separate and transcendental plane, everything else just doesn’t cut it. I find myself searching for an audio experience on par with Amnesiac and everything seems to fall short. There is a pinnacle of artistic achievement, and if it isn’t Radiohead, then they’re the closest I’ve seemed to have found as yet.