Every week, Consequence’s Songs of the Week column spotlights great new songs from the previous seven days and takes a look at notable releases. Find our new favorites and more on our Top Songs playlist, and for other great songs from emerging artists, check out our New Sounds playlist. This week, Thom Yorke and Mark Pritchard are back in the game on, well, “Back in the Game.”
So, like, things are bad, right? Like, between downright silly proposals like “Red, White, and Blueland” and genuinely distressing changes like the CDC quietly removing LGBTQ terminology from their webpages and datasets in the wake of Trump’s day-one executive order, it’s feeling bleak out here. Thom Yorke and Mark Pritchard certainly seem to think so, as their new collaborative track “Back in the Game” embodies the darkly absurd, sinister feelings of today.
The tone is set from the onset, with the icy synths and thumping drum tracks starkly contrasting the airy, ethereal vibes of Yorke and Pritchard’s previous collaboration, “Beautiful People.” As the tune develops, it becomes something of a nightmarish march, which has been wonderfully translated into a wild music video by Jonathan Zawada. (At the risk of making too niche of a reference, the video looks like it’s trying to warn us that Floop is a madman — and it doesn’t take a spy kid to figure out who the Floop of 2025 is.)
Yorke, not one opposed to injecting his songs with a political edge, then supplements the menacing instrumental with lines that reflect societal backsliding. Hell, there’s even a reference to “Everything in Its Right Place,” seemingly hinting that in 25 years, the issues of 2000 have only worsened. All the while, Yorke leans on his lower register, with Pritchard distorting his vocals via an H910 Harmonizer.
The result is an eerie, ominous electronic banger, one that concert-goers in New Zealand, Australia, Singapore, and Japan got to hear before its official release during Yorke’s solo tour at the end of last year. That run, notably, included one particularly contentious show where the artist faced off with a pro-Palestinian activist who disrupted the concert.
Despite a history of supporting progressive policies and penning his fair share of politically charged songs, many fans have taken issue with the artist’s view on the conflict in Palestine. Yorke’s projects have continued to perform in Israel despite cultural boycotts, with his Radiohead and The Smile bandmate Jonny Greenwood posting a lengthy defense to mixed reception. Yorke and company’s relative passivity toward the matter struck some as surprising and disappointing, especially given Radiohead’s history of strongly supporting Tibet. While Yorke fans are likely to be sympathetic to his feelings of political distress on “Back in the Game,” it also may serve as an opportunity to re-examine his stances.
To strip the track of its thematic context, though, it is a genuinely compelling composition. It doesn’t hurt that it comes accompanied by one of the best music videos of the year thus far, too.
— Jonah Krueger
Editorial Coordinator
