THESE FORUMS NOW CLOSED (read only)
Fun Stuff => BAND => Topic started by: geffyb on 24 Sep 2008, 13:14
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Thought this could be a general Radiohead discussion thread, with a vote at the top.
Personally I think OK Computer is the best because of the great lyrics and the style that hinted at the Experimental work to come yet still showed them as a rocking band.
That and Paranoid Android.
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I think at this stage I can say In Rainbows.
No experiments. No wigging out. No weirdness. Just comfortable guys trying to make good songs, for the first time in 14 years.
It'd be a lie though, as much as I love that album I know I like Ok Computer more.
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Who is this... Radiohead?
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Aren't they that band that sounds like Coldplay or something.
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Aren't they that band that sounds like Coldplay or something.
*sigh* it was inevitable.
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I absolutely love Pablo Honey. It's got this nineties underground feel and I feel it a lot more than their other stuff. Second place goes to The Bends and OK Computer.
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I like that one song by them, Creep.
Though the cover version by Northern Kings is far superior.
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Regarding favorite albums, I can never make up my mind with these fellows.
"A Reminder" is totally their best song, though. They have so many absolutely fantastic B-sides, it is ridiculous.
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Kid, Talk Show Host
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OKC is probably my favorite. I voted for Kid A though. :P
And true that about the b-sides. I'm particularly fond of The Amazing Sounds of Orgy. Funny how the Amnesiac b-sides are better than Amnesiac.
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OKC is probably my favorite. I voted for Kid A though. :P
And true that about the b-sides. I'm particularly fond of The Amazing Sounds of Orgy. Funny how the Amnesiac b-sides are better than Amnesiac.
Even more ironic is how Amnesiac is pretty much a B-side collection of Kid-A :P
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Aren't they that band that sounds like Coldplay or something.
*sigh* it was inevitable.
Man, I think you missed it.
The joke, that is.
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I can't really listen to any pre-Kid A Radiohead, I don't know why. First cut is the deepest, I guess. They all have their strengths, but I'd go with Amnesiac. Pyramid Song + Pulk/Pull Revolving Doors is just perfect. I think I'm the only person who likes the latter.
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Someone once old me that if you like Pulk/Pull Revolving Doors, you're capable of liking everything Radiohead have ever done.
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What's the shortest one?
Because that would be my favourite.
Because Radiohead are fucking awful.
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That would be Pablo Honey, might wanna reconsider.
Someone once old me that if you like Pulk/Pull Revolving Doors, you're capable of liking everything Radiohead have ever done.
Replace Pulk/Pull Revolving Doors with Hunting Bears and you may have something. Pulk/Pull is fucking awesome. And you know what else is fucking awesome? Hail to the Thief. That album needs more love.
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Hunting Bears is incredibly cool. I love that song. In fact, I love every track on Amnesiac.
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What's the shortest one?
I know that it was a retorical question, and you were just being an ass,
but it's Pablo honey at 42:11 beating In Rainbows by 23 seconds
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Hail to the Thief. That album needs more love.
I love the song "I Will". I should start listening to Radiohead again, maybe.
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Pretty much every song except for Scatterbrain is quality. Sit Down Stand Up and Where I End And You Begin especially.
ps: i am ecstatic with the news that radiohead may be nearly finished with their next album :OOOO
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OK Computer borders on being a masterpiece and was one of the best albums of the 90s. I love Kid A too, but sometimes on that album it seems like they're trying too hard to be experimental and unique. In Rainbows took me a long time to get into, actually. The first 3 times I listened to the album, I just thought it was crap. It was actually when I was on a 5 hour train ride through the countryside of Tuscany that I first really started to enjoy it, and it now rivals OK Computer for my favorite album among them.
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What's the shortest one?
Because that would be my favourite.
Because Radiohead are fucking awful.
My hero.
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I guess I don't see the point in coming in here if you hate the band.
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Khar should not be anyone's hero. Underneath that sleek, everything-that's-not-metal-hating exterior is a dirty transvestite hobo Lord. Khar is just Khar and we'd best leave it at that.
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I guess I don't see the point in coming in here if you hate the band.
He probably doesn't see the point of 20 Radiohead fans talking about how much they like Radiohead either, I personally don't see the point in you saying you don't see the point in him coming in here if he hates the band. Quite frankly I'm only saying this because NOBODY SEES THE POINT IN ANYTHING.
PS I voted for The Bends because despite the fact that it is probably the most adolescently themed album, lyrically, it is also the album that has held up for me the best through to my mid 20s. I grew tired of most of the songs on the other albums. Each album has a few gems. OK Computer has Electioneering and Lucky, Kid A has The National Anthem and Idioteque, Amnesiac has Packt Like Sardines in a Crushd Tin Box and Hail to the Thief has There There, Go To Sleep, and Mixamatosis, but if you asked me to listen to any of these albums I would probably skip at least half the tracks. Hail to the Thief probably fares the best out of them but its a more recent album and I never really played it to death and obsessed over it the way I did their earlier stuff so its fresher and less worn out in my mind. By this standard in another five years I am probably going to love In Rainbows because I have had trouble giving a shit about that album at all despite the fact that it was a reasonably solid effort, but The Bends is the only album I can really just sit down and play like a record, even though I'd class the songs I listed here from other albums as being better than any individual track on The Bends.
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Khar should not be anyone's hero. Underneath that sleek, everything-that's-not-metal-hating exterior is a dirty transvestite hobo Lord. Khar is just Khar and we'd best leave it at that.
underneath?
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I don't get The Bends. I had a girlfriend in college who introduced me via Black Star. I mean, its a good album, but its ... traditional or something. Kid A, man, that shit like, perfectly describes a certain mood I get into.
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For most of their career, Radiohead has been unsuccessfully trying to recapture the magic and brilliance of Pablo Honey. Sorry Thom & Co., but lightning won't strike twice. They should just admit that they'll never again reach the artistic heights of "Creep," maybe take a break from music to sort things out.
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Creep is a pretty mediocre song. Nothing really sets it apart from most other early 90's alternative music.
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Yeah, was that sarcasm? Pablo Honey is really very boring on the whole. There are some OK elements but it's mostly redundant and uninterestingly basic alternative 90s rock. Even Creep is very standard and honestly not a very good song.
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Most Radiohead fans (that I've met anyway) kind of disown Pablo Honey. It's not like the rest of their catalog..and maybe that's what you're getting at? You like that record and not their others? Pablo Honey is their weakest album, IMO.
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Not only is it unlike the rest of their catalog (which abstractly is totally fine) and their worst release, it's just an uninteresting and completely non-compelling release all on its own. Without even considering the context or the artists, the album as it stands alone has nothing special about it.
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Come on now, Radiohead doesn't even like Pablo Honey. They didn't like Creep before they even recorded it, which is ironic, because the way they voiced their displeasure through the song (the pre-chorus guitar crunch) made it all the more popular.
If there's anything that's "best" about Pablo Honey, it's Thom Yorke's look.
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was that sarcasm?
I was going more for complete absurdity, but yes. That post was not true.
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Oh, phew!
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I'd have to say In Rainbows is my favorite album, just because i can sit down and just love every song. The other albums may have some better songs, but not all of them are that good. OKC and Kid A come in second....and Pablo Honey last.
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Is it some kind of perverted hipster irony that In Rainbows is getting so much love in this thread because I would jack off onto a picture of Johnny Greenwood and yet that album has been the single most forgettable piece of shit they have ever released.
I guess it is significantly less angsty or pretentious than the rest of their output but if you do not want to listen to pretentious angsty bullshit then why are you listening to Radiohead in the first place for fucks sake
Or do you guys just hate the record industry that much that you would actually fetishize the method of distribution above the actual product itself
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I agree...
OK Computer is their best and everyone knows it, a very well balanced album all the way through and not too much wankery/annoying vocals. Minus Thom's annoying vocals, "In Rainbows" has some decent songs on it, though with some really boring parts too.
OK Computer is in fact the only album of theirs I would still listen too. (Yes I was joking when I said I only liked Creep)
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MY VAGINA HURTS
In Rainbows is the work of a band who is comfortable, and just wants to record. Nobody puts a note out of place on that album, whereas OK Computer has the steaming pile of shit that is 'Fitter, Happier.' It's restrained, and it's relaxed. Sure, it's easier to listen to - and I like that. It's a warm album, by Radiohead standards at least. OKC is the better album, yes, as far as how it hangs together as a piece, the unification of the album as a whole; but as far as simple song-by-song strength, consistence, I'd say IR edges it out.
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Seriously. You can't tell me "15 Step" isn't one of their best songs. I mean ever.
AND IF YOU TRY I WILL FIGHT YOU, SIR
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Actually, that's one of my least favourites from the album. Although I love how it's not so much a 15 step as it is a mis-step, because it opens with the electro beat and it's more or less the only Kid A-like moment on the record.
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15 Step is also one of my least favorites on the album too... Bodysnatchers is the best
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that's it, you're both in for some FIGHTIN'
But really, I can understand not adoring "15 Step" as much as I do. But liking "Bodysnatchers" over it? I mean, they're the same song musically, one's just noisier and less catchy.
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Weird Fishes is the best song on In Rainbows, in my opinion. I'm voting for Kid A because it was my first Radiohead album and it has a special place in my heart. I was used to more or less standard pop music, like nothing more offbeat than R.E.M., and Kid A was kind of a revelation.
Amnesiac is a very underrated album. John Darnielle agrees with me, and he is never wrong. Here are ten short essays he wrote about it, (almost) one per track:
1 (http://lastplanetojakarta.com/articles/head1.html) 2 (http://www.lastplanetojakarta.com/articles/pyramid.html) 3 (http://www.lastplanetojakarta.com/articles/pull2.html) 4 (http://www.lastplanetojakarta.com/articles/army.html) 5 (http://www.lastplanetojakarta.com/articles/wrong.html) 6 (http://www.lastplanetojakarta.com/articles/knives.html) 7 (http://www.lastplanetojakarta.com/articles/bell.html) 8/9 (http://www.lastplanetojakarta.com/articles/dollars.html) 10 (http://www.lastplanetojakarta.com/articles/spin.html) 11 (http://www.lastplanetojakarta.com/articles/glass.html)
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MY VAGINA HURTS
In Rainbows is the work of a band who is comfortable, and just wants to record. Nobody puts a note out of place on that album, whereas OK Computer has the steaming pile of shit that is 'Fitter, Happier.'
Because god forbid a band would want to write an album that builds thematic continuity and write a track that splits an album between conventional LP sides with a transitional track that fits the theme of the album fucking perfectly no way, that would be ridiculous and lame and not edgy enough.
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Hahahah your criteria for a band writing good songs is to completely forsake experimentation and just rock out
If this was the 80's you'd be listening to Bon Jovi and you'd still like their shit albums
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To be fair if you are going to listen to mediocre rock bands you might as well champion their mediocre albums because that is kind of performance art in a way
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Any of those posts individually might've been credible, even the last one. But putting it in three separate posts kinda subtracts any of the wit of the situation.
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While I enjoyed IR, I agree that it doesn't come close to being their best. However, if they had done a better job of song selection (add in four songs from the bonus disc, maybe get rid of Jigsaw), it could have been up there with Kid A. Same situation with Amnesiac. Morning Bell/Amnesiac is their worst song post-PH.
And whoever said Fitter Happier is shit is sorely mistaken. Fitter Happier is THE shit, man.
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now, I'm not saying that i like bodysnatchers significantly more than 15 step, all the songs on the album are near even on the goodness scale
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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.
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Uggg this topic reminds me why I hate hipster snobs. They seem so completely unselfaware it pains me. That is all.
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And you mean what by that?
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He means that if you're a Radiohead fan, you're automatically a hipster snob. As far as I can tell.
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No, it means your opinions arent necessarily based on personal preference but mob mentality.
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Who's done that in this thread so far and if they have can you satisfactorily prove your point?
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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.
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No, it means your opinions arent necessarily based on personal preference but mob mentality.
[citation needed]
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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.
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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.
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[citation needed]
See also: Sheeple
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No, it means your opinions arent necessarily based on personal preference but mob mentality.
Wow. Pompous much?
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Radiohead are terribly formulaic.
Kid A had its moments, but most else is simply boring and predictable. Especially In Rainbows.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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I think we have a fatster.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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Radiohead are just like that, I guess. Their fans love them.
How dare their fans love the band. How decadent.
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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.
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Actually, I think the last part was sarcastic.
But, hey, what do I know.
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I'm aware of that, but the sarcasm doesn't make sense.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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OK computer was great, but I dunno I have never gotten through in rainbows without falling asleep.
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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
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i hate necroposters
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I hate Radiohead
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There's thread for that...
Edit: I see you found it :~)
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I voted for Kid A since I really dig Idioteque.
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Fuck you all.
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I hate Radiohead
man aren't you so edgy
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Fuck you all.
That's just like... your opinion man!
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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.