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Pablo Honey

5 (5.5%)

The Bends

10 (11%)

Ok Computer

26 (28.6%)

Kid A

24 (26.4%)

Amnesiac

9 (9.9%)

Hail To The Thief

2 (2.2%)

In Rainbows

15 (16.5%)

Total Members Voted: 74

[rynne]

I'm in the "In Rainbows, meh" category.  Heck, if I'm being completely honest, I've gradually been losing interest in the band post-Amnesiac.  The run of albums from The Bends though Amnesiac are genuine classics, IMO.  Hail to the Thief had its moments, but a good swath in the middle of the album never seemed to work quite right. 

In Rainbows really continued that latter trend for me.  It's undeniably the sound of a band that's self-assured and comfortable making music together, but at the same time, it just doesn't connect with me in the same way as their earlier albums.  It feels comparable to U2's 21st-century output: they can write really good songs that sound pretty much like you expect the band to sound.  The quality remains high, but there's (no alarms and) no surprises.

[Chesire Cat]

Uggg this topic reminds me why I hate hipster snobs.  They seem so completely unselfaware it pains me.  That is all.

[RedLion]

And you mean what by that?

[theoryC]

He means that if you're a Radiohead fan, you're automatically a hipster snob.  As far as I can tell.

[Chesire Cat]

No, it means your opinions arent necessarily based on personal preference but mob mentality.

[Tom]

Who's done that in this thread so far and if they have can you satisfactorily prove your point?

[Thrillho]

No, it means your opinions arent necessarily based on personal preference but mob mentality.

Referring to who exactly? It seems pretty centrally split to me.

[rynne]

No, it means your opinions arent necessarily based on personal preference but mob mentality.

[citation needed]

[Jackie Blue]

I'm with rynne on this.  OK Computer and Amnesiac are absolute masterpieces; the last two albums, I've listened to them and immediately gone "Well, it's not actively BAD, per se."

Part of it is that I don't think Thom has written any very good lyrics on those albums, and in fact has written some truly horrible lines: "What's up, buttercup? / Down is the new up"?  Oh, come on.  I think even Jason Mraz would toss that in the wastebin.

[Alex C]

Yeah, this is kind of silly. I don't think it's really any huge mystery why OK Computer is doing so well on the poll. It's got a great balance of the atmospherics to come and their 3 guitar sound. The amplifier worshipping knuckleheads like me out there can find a lot to like about it while people who are interested in the the more experimental side of Radiohead might end up preferring anything from OK Computer onwards.

[KharBevNor]

[citation needed]

See also: Sheeple

[RedLion]

No, it means your opinions arent necessarily based on personal preference but mob mentality.

Wow. Pompous much?

[Andrew Fleming]

Radiohead are terribly formulaic.
Kid A had its moments, but most else is simply boring and predictable. Especially In Rainbows.

[WriterofAllWrongs]

Honestly, I enjoy In Rainbows.  It's a very clever album that basically sounds as DynamiteKid says.  Comfortable people making really pretty and warm songs.  It sounds like after all of the experimentation and poking around with strange textures and timbres and distortion and guitar pedals, they've come to the conclusion that it would be a bit predictable to do something bleak and busy like their other albums.  It actively shows that they have the capability to make an album beautiful and romantic without the outlandish use of surprising sounds.  I'm not knocking these experimentations at all, though.  Kid A is probably my favorite album by Radiohead, and that's how I've voted.  This album is more classical than any of their past efforts, and that's what I think sets it apart from Kid A and OK Computer.  The songs sound like compositions less than songs, in no small part thanks to Jonny Greenwood's musical influences (Gorecki, especially) and tendencies towards the compositional. 

[theoryC]

Radiohead are terribly formulaic.
Kid A had its moments, but most else is simply boring and predictable. Especially In Rainbows.

Not sure were you're getting this from.  Kid A is obviously very unpredictable (it's not until the second to last song that they come close to repeating themselves).  Amnesiac is very unlike Kid A, HTTT is all over the place to the point of being too scattered, and In Rainbows maintains a pretty decent variety of sounds as well (the first three tracks are so different that they really shouldn't be grouped together like that, imo).  They all sound like Radiohead, but pretty much every band makes music that sounds similar to their past work.

[Thrillho]

Radiohead are terribly formulaic.
Kid A had its moments, but most else is simply boring and predictable. Especially In Rainbows.

How the hell do you figure that? I can understand saying IR is predictable or formulaic, but Radiohead in general? That's ridiculous.

[Andrew Fleming]

hey, you guys play some repetitive major-chord guitar riffs while i try to stretch slow, high, occasionally falsetto singing over as much time as possible.
nah, don't worry about it, we'll edit in the electronic squiggles/ambient-or-orchestral effects/indulgently-strange digital editing later.
the fans will love this shit.

[Dimmukane]

I think we have a fatster.

[Thrillho]

hey, you guys play some repetitive major-chord guitar riffs while i try to stretch slow, high, occasionally falsetto singing over as much time as possible.
nah, don't worry about it, we'll edit in the electronic squiggles/ambient-or-orchestral effects/indulgently-strange digital editing later.
the fans will love this shit.

So 'Treefingers,' 'Like Hunting Bears,' 'Fog,' and 'Motion Picture Soundtrack' are examples of this, are they?

Repetitive major chords? Have you ever actually paid attention to the chords Radiohead play? The first progression in 'Paranoid Android' alone is fucking wacko.

Jesus, have you even listened to Kid A all the way through? Most of the songs don't even have guitar on them at all.

[Andrew Fleming]

hey, you guys play some repetitive major-chord guitar riffs while i try to stretch slow, high, occasionally falsetto singing over as much time as possible.
nah, don't worry about it, we'll edit in the electronic squiggles/ambient-or-orchestral effects/indulgently-strange digital editing later.
the fans will love this shit.

So 'Treefingers,' 'Like Hunting Bears,' 'Fog,' and 'Motion Picture Soundtrack' are examples of this, are they?

Repetitive major chords? Have you ever actually paid attention to the chords Radiohead play? The first progression in 'Paranoid Android' alone is fucking wacko.

Jesus, have you even listened to Kid A all the way through? Most of the songs don't even have guitar on them at all.

Yes, that's true. Kid A was a nice exception the general Radiohead style, and I think it is definitely their best work. And yeah, that is a very oversimplified analysis of their music. But their fast songs are even worse, because when you speed Yorke's melodies up, it becomes much more obvious that they're not really all that interesting and just sound like most late-90s pop melodies - boring.

Radiohead are not that bad song-by-song, especially on albums like Kid A and OK Computer. But whenever I listen to these records as a whole, Yorke's style becomes so monotonous and boring by the third or fourth track that I find myself already wishing the album was over. I think what I really don't like about Radiohead is that even though they often get pegged as "experimental," they're actually frustratingly unwilling to experiment, trying to force everything into a cohesive pop-song structure, and always layering Yorke's stylistically suffocated vocals on top.

I know that nobody will agree with me though, because Radiohead are just like that, I guess. Their fans love them.

EDIT: Also, you have convinced me to work my way through some of Radiohead's material again, which I'm slowly doing.

[Andrew Fleming]

they're actually frustratingly unwilling to experiment

At the very height of their popularity they released two albums which were only occasionally reminiscent of their earlier music and which could only vaguely be considered to be of the same genre as previous efforts.

I can handle someone calling Radiohead shit because I'm not the biggest fan of their music but frankly, your argument is not very compelling.

I suppose you're talking about Kid A and Amnesiac?
OK Computer is a fairly straightforward album, and as Dynamite pointed out, the chord progressions (which yeah, I was wrong about, after I listened to it I realized there was more going on than I heard) are not exactly simple, but the songs themselves are generally not too experimental in regards to alternative rock at the time. Kid A was, yes, a really interesting album. But even so, most of the songs got held back by the pop-song structure that got forced on them. My favorite Radiohead song is "Everything in Its Right Place," because I think that song suits Yorke's songwriting style much better than the more structured songs (ie most of them) that they've done - it takes his aesthetic and uses it to create something more ambient and organic. Kid A is another of my favorites, because it's basically an IDM song - the vocals are so simple and so distorted that they act more as an instrument than anything. Most of the other songs, though, are still strictly pop structured. How to Disappear Completely is such an irritating song I can barely stand it - slow, very little dynamic, plodding vocals, an attempt at emotion but no real catharsis or discovery or any of that - and I find that from there on out, the record generally stays that way - potentially interesting music covered up with Yorke's boring melodies, which do nothing but make the songs appear much blander than they really are.

So I shouldn't have said that they're unwilling to experiment. That's obviously not true. It's more that they're not willing to give into their experimentation to the point where it becomes really substantial, and realyl changes the aesthetic of their music, which is generally governed and ultimatley buried by the vocals. And that's why I don't like Radiohead - they're too reliant on Yorke's less-than-spectacular vocals.
Oh, I haven't heard Amnesiac by the way, so I can't really comment on that.

But I've already conceded that I won't convert anyone either.

[Hat]

Radiohead are just like that, I guess. Their fans love them.

How dare their fans love the band. How decadent.

[theoryC]

Kid A was, yes, a really interesting album. But even so, most of the songs got held back by the pop-song structure that got forced on them. My favorite Radiohead song is "Everything in Its Right Place," because I think that song suits Yorke's songwriting style much better than the more structured songs (ie most of them) that they've done - it takes his aesthetic and uses it to create something more ambient and organic.

EIIRP is one of the most "structured" songs on the disc.  But in any case, I don't know why you're criticizing this aspect of the band.  I'll agree that a lot of their songs follow a fairly normal pop/rock song structure (with plenty of exceptions), but nearly every rock band alive does that.  There are lots of other ways to be experimental besides using weird song structures.

As for Yorke's vocals being "less-than-spectacular," are you saying that from a talent perspective or a fitting with the music perspective?  I can see the former, but I think his voice goes with the music very well.  He's a bit angsty, but never obnoxiously so (post-Bends, that is), and I'd say he does a good job of getting emotions across to the listeners without being over the top.

Radiohead are just like that, I guess. Their fans love them.

How dare their fans love the band. How decadent.

I think he was saying that Radiohead fans love the band to the point of blinding themselves to the music's faults, which is very true.

[Scarychips]

Actually, I think the last part was sarcastic.

But, hey, what do I know.

[theoryC]

I'm aware of that, but the sarcasm doesn't make sense.

[Hat]

I think he was saying that Radiohead fans love the band to the point of blinding themselves to the music's faults, which is very true.

If they noticed any of the musics faults they probably wouldn't be a fan! People who are a big fan of a bands music are likely to like the music. The bigger fan they are, the more they will like the music. People who like music aren't likely to be able to find fault with it This is not a complicated causal chain

If I heard Johnny C say "now I love Sloan but sometimes they are just a little too upbeat and lack texture!" I would probably lose my shit and start weeping because something is wrong with the world.

[Thrillho]

I don't think that being a fan means you can't see the faults in something. I mean, I think it's a good life philosophy to not take everything deadly seriously. Most of my favourite bands I can see why people would hate them, and being able to find jokes about your favourite bands funny I think is a good quality. Like Pink Floyd, they can sound pretentious as fuck (though I don't think they actually are, honestly), and Roger Waters does tend to disappear up his nose when he's singing (but then I like that, becuase I think he's got an extremely honest vocal style).

I think what I really don't like about Radiohead is that even though they often get pegged as "experimental," they're actually frustratingly unwilling to experiment, trying to force everything into a cohesive pop-song structure, and always layering Yorke's stylistically suffocated vocals on top.

Actually, I can see your point here. I disagree about Yorke's vocals, but I can see your point about them forcing their styles mostly into a pop song structure. However I still think that, as you said, Kid A and Amnesiac are predominantly exceptions to this rule as they generally lack any kind of structure for the most part. 'Everything In Its Right Place' for example just kind of ebbs and flows.

[Andrew Fleming]

It's not so much the rock song structure that sticks to their music, but the Radiohead song structure - Everything in it's Right Place really just ebbs and flows - it actually reminds me of an ambient drone song, compressed to, what was it, four minutes? Yorke's vocals don't dominate nearly as much and flow WITH the music rather than directing it.
I didn't really mean anything by saying that Radiohead's fans love them, either, except that I think they're a bit of a polarizing band. Definitely not that it's BAD to like them, just that they're the kind of band whose fans will never give up on them on them and whose detractors hate them that much more for it. Which I guess is me.

Oh, I think your comment about the nasally vocals of Roger Waters is cool, too. I also like singers like this, which is why I don't like Thom Yorke very much. His vocals and his vocal parts are always far too polished and never really seem to communicate the desperate emotions that they sound like they're trying to - in fact, they never seem very emotional at all to me - they sound like something that has been rehearsed and refined so much that now it is just a creation, some kind of carefully blueprinted architecture rather than a house of cards, which is weak but amazing because it has been accomplished.

I admit completely that this entire thing is just a little stylistic irk of mine, but it's one that completely ruins their music for me.
Actually, there was a long thread about this on 4chan just recently, and people mostly said the same thing: It's boring.

[Moist Cowboy]

OK computer was great, but I dunno I have never gotten through in rainbows without falling asleep.

[short5913]

i cant belive pablo honey has more votes than hail to the thief. Im not saying PH is bad its actually really good and i really like a few of the songs off it but HTTT is better
2 + 2 = 5, myxamatosis, sit down stand up, wolf at the door and where I end and u begin are awesome songs

p.s i voted for Kid A lol

[Gridgm]

i hate necroposters

[Chesire Cat]

I hate Radiohead

[pwhodges]

There's thread for that...

Edit: I see you found it :~)

[Retrospectre]

I voted for Kid A since I really dig Idioteque.

[Dimmukane]

Fuck you all.

[Cernunnos]

I hate Radiohead

man aren't you so edgy

[el_loco_avs]

Fuck you all.

That's just like... your opinion man!

[Chesire Cat]

man aren't you so edgy

Maybe I forgot the sarcasm tags, maybe I thought they weren't needed.

Im rather ambivalent towards Radiohead, they have a lot of good songs, they are very good at music from a compositional standpoint, but some of the music I just don't think is as good as their contemporaries. 

On the other hand, my opinion of this thread isn't in question, I have already stated it.