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Post by ganews on Sept 21, 2018 9:59:42 GMT -5
Hello there 90s kids. Also younger siblings and cousins of 90s kids, Gen-Xers, and everybody else too. I believe this will be the youngest band covered in a Discography Review to date, as it's been just 23 years since their debut. And only nine studio albums! (Which makes them more productive than Metallica, but still). So why do they deserve the scrutiny?
Well, Radiohead has spent more than 15 of those years as the favorite band of a whole lot of people, and a whole lot of people who take popular music appreciation very seriously to say the least. They were certainly the favorite of that guy from your college dorm, you know the one. I've even listened to a full third of Radiohead's discography intentionally and more than once, another first for my own reviews. Like most casual fans, the bulk of what I've listened to has come from the first half of their career. And that first half saw the release of very popular but very different sounds; most bands get at most one re-invention or one change-up that gives them two sounds in a whole career, while Radiohead made three right out of the gate.
My own history with the band has a very fuzzy and ill-defined beginning. Obviously "Creep" was a massive hit on alternative radio - I remember around the turn of the millennium Atlanta's 99X counted up their most-played songs of the decade, and "Creep" was 4 or 5. (#1: "Smells Like Teen Spirit", #2: "Jeremy", #3: "Under the Bridge".) So I had heard it approximately a million times before I started college in 2001 and started burning CDs, and it was a no-brainer to include it on the mixes of depressing music I was making with other gimmes like Stone Temple Pilots' "Creep" and a few things I was just learning about like the Get Up Kids' "Out of Reach". The only other Radiohead song on those mixes? "True Love Waits", which who knows how I found on the sharing platforms. But I digress from the chronology. In the fall of 2000 I went to my first big concert sans parents, 99X's Big Day Out. Radiohead was not there, but in the parking lot after someone was handing out these weird, yellow stickers of a face with round ears and sharp teeth.
Back to college, then: ah, college. I learned a bit more about the band from natural osmosis, music-sharing platforms, and even actual videos on MTV2 - I was a big fan of "Knives Out". And like all dorms at the time, mine also had that one guy you know the one. He was a couple years older though still in the dorm and was reputedly in a three-piece band that played downtown, which seemed pretty impressive in a music town like Athens, GA. They had recorded three songs that I still have on a hard drive somewhere. And this guy's favorite bands were far and away Radiohead and Björk. He would absolutely blast their music out of huge speakers, so why was this guy still living in a dorm, but he was that one guy so whattaya gonna do.
Anyway, despite burning the early albums, finding out about that Kid A bear sticker I got at the concert, and generally being surrounded in the early 2000s, I never listened to Hail to the Thief. Radiohead didn't fall off my radar or anything, but I was busy listening to Franz Ferdinand and the White Stripes and Beck (especially now that I was able to download the back catalog). And getting into the local music scene a bit. Was Radiohead mainstream now? I remember the Fairburn Royals from Athens band singing on "Be My Punk Rock Friend" the lyrics "Can we not be friends because I take my showers / Can we not be friends because I have a job / Can we not be friends because I listen / To Radiohead?"
Well, now's my chance.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Sept 21, 2018 10:17:43 GMT -5
Is I Might Be Wrong not included because it's a live album? If nothing else, it's got a gobsmacking version of "Like Spinning Plates".
Anyway, greatly looking forward to this series.
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Post by ganews on Sept 21, 2018 15:27:34 GMT -5
Is I Might Be Wrong not included because it's a live album? If nothing else, it's got a gobsmacking version of "Like Spinning Plates". Anyway, greatly looking forward to this series. Most of the tracks appear on studio albums, according to Wikipedia links. I can review any individual songs that do not, if you know of any. |
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Post by Roy Batty's Pet Dove on Sept 21, 2018 20:22:13 GMT -5
I likewise (and probably like most people born post-1980) got into Radiohead in college, albeit in my case maybe a year or so after King of Limbs came out. As you said, they were one of those Very Important bands that any pretentious college student who aspired to take music seriously needed to listen to, and I listened to quite a bit of Radiohead, and enjoyed them quite a bit, but I think my fandom was always more of an appreciation than a real enthusiastic love of their music, and with the exception of the three Radiohead albums I own (Kid A, Hail to the Thief, and In Rainbows), I haven't listened to them very much since graduating, and barely at all since A Moon Shaped Pool. So this'll be interesting revisiting their music while following your progress on this thread.
My vaguely heterodox opinion about Radiohead is that Hail to the Thief is one of their best albums, so I'll be interested to see what you, as another person who doesn't seem to have a particularly strong positive or negative opinion of Radiohead, think of it.
Also I have two questions about that one guy in your dorm I know the one. 1) Were his band's songs any good? and 2) What do you think that guy thought of Utopia?
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Post by pairesta on Sept 22, 2018 9:19:24 GMT -5
Oooh, bookmarked. This will be fun.
I'll be really edgy and novel here and say I got into Radiohead in college, when Creep was huge. I bought and really enjoyed Pablo Honey while at the same time realizing they were probably destined to one-hit-wonderdom and so after a 6 month period of listening to PH pretty regularly, I tucked it away. I even resisted the pull of The Bends when it came out, waiting until I think the third single from that album to hit the radio before I bought it and promptly got my face blown off.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Sept 22, 2018 17:04:00 GMT -5
Is I Might Be Wrong not included because it's a live album? If nothing else, it's got a gobsmacking version of "Like Spinning Plates". Anyway, greatly looking forward to this series. Most of the tracks appear on studio albums, according to Wikipedia links. I can review any individual songs that do not, if you know of any. I suppose they do, with "True Love Waits" finally appearing in studio form on Moon Shaped Pool. Anyway, just curious. |
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Post by Nudeviking on Sept 23, 2018 0:46:11 GMT -5
Much like pairesta I got into Radiohead when "Creep" was the hot new single. I actually still have a cassingle for that particular song (with the b-side "Faithless, The Wonder Boy") in a box of tapes somewhere in my house. I was super into them circa The Bends and actually cut gym class the day OK Computer came out so I could buy it. That was probably the peak to my Radiohead fandom. I bought both Kid A and Amnesiac after a several singles had been released to the radio, but their move from guitar rock to bloopy-bleepy nonsense wasn't something I was feeling at the time. I downloaded Hail to the Thief illegally off Napster or Kazaa or Limewire or whatever file sharing service people were using in 2003 but never bothered replacing it when my computer got fucked up (probably because of using Napster or Kazaa or Limewire or whatever) and I lost a bunch of files. In Rainbows I got because Radiohead released it as a pay what you want release and I paid them no money for it. I think I listened to it once in its entirety. I have not listened to any Radiohead that came after that except some song, the name of which escapes me, from their latest album that had a video of T(h)om York(e) squinting and walking around, going through a series of doors. The music video channel here used to play it at lot, but the song was so boring I never bothered to seek out the album it came from. They're probably a band that deserves some reevaluation at this point in my life so I think I'll be playing along at home this go round. |
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Post by Roy Batty's Pet Dove on Sept 23, 2018 13:42:13 GMT -5
Much like pairesta I got into Radiohead when "Creep" was the hot new single. I actually still have a cassingle for that particular song (with the b-side "Faithless, The Wonder Boy") in a box of tapes somewhere in my house. I was super into them circa The Bends and actually cut gym class the day OK Computer came out so I could buy it. That was probably the peak to my Radiohead fandom. I bought both Kid A and Amnesiac after a several singles had been released to the radio, but their move from guitar rock to bloopy-bleepy nonsense wasn't something I was feeling at the time. I downloaded Hail to the Thief illegally off Napster or Kazaa or Limewire or whatever file sharing service people were using in 2003 but never bothered replacing it when my computer got fucked up (probably because of using Napster or Kazaa or Limewire or whatever) and I lost a bunch of files. In Rainbows I got because Radiohead released it as a pay what you want release and I paid them no money for it. I think I listened to it once in its entirety. I have not listened to any Radiohead that came after that except some song, the name of which escapes me, from their latest album that had a video of T(h)om York(e) squinting and walking around, going through a series of doors. The music video channel here used to play it at lot, but the song was so boring I never bothered to seek out the album it came from. They're probably a band that deserves some reevaluation at this point in my life so I think I'll be playing along at home this go round. Is "Faithless, the Wonder Boy" a good song? I wish cassingles were still a viable medium of song release. |
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Post by Nudeviking on Sept 23, 2018 17:57:04 GMT -5
Much like pairesta I got into Radiohead when "Creep" was the hot new single. I actually still have a cassingle for that particular song (with the b-side "Faithless, The Wonder Boy") in a box of tapes somewhere in my house. I was super into them circa The Bends and actually cut gym class the day OK Computer came out so I could buy it. That was probably the peak to my Radiohead fandom. I bought both Kid A and Amnesiac after a several singles had been released to the radio, but their move from guitar rock to bloopy-bleepy nonsense wasn't something I was feeling at the time. I downloaded Hail to the Thief illegally off Napster or Kazaa or Limewire or whatever file sharing service people were using in 2003 but never bothered replacing it when my computer got fucked up (probably because of using Napster or Kazaa or Limewire or whatever) and I lost a bunch of files. In Rainbows I got because Radiohead released it as a pay what you want release and I paid them no money for it. I think I listened to it once in its entirety. I have not listened to any Radiohead that came after that except some song, the name of which escapes me, from their latest album that had a video of T(h)om York(e) squinting and walking around, going through a series of doors. The music video channel here used to play it at lot, but the song was so boring I never bothered to seek out the album it came from. They're probably a band that deserves some reevaluation at this point in my life so I think I'll be playing along at home this go round. Is "Faithless, the Wonder Boy" a good song? I wish cassingles were still a viable medium of song release. I liked it better than a lot of the bloop bleep Radiohead that came later. |
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Rainbow Rosa
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Post by Rainbow Rosa on Sept 23, 2018 20:22:08 GMT -5
Based on the Radiohead I listened to in high school (read: everything-pre In Rainbows, which was out when I was 14 but I skipped out on for some reason) I think you could pretty comfortably make an hour-long Radiohead best-of CD and then chuck the rest of their discography into the trash with no losses. Been a while since I heard anything by them in full, though, so I'll happily listen along so that I can prove this theory.
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Post by ganews on Sept 26, 2018 22:56:06 GMT -5
Pablo Honey (1993)  Pre-existing PrejudicesOkay, this is not Creep: The Album. Wikipedia says there were other singles but I sure don't remember them. Nor is this one of the albums I have ever listened to, thought I own the next couple. So let's dive in to the album no one thinks of (while thinking only of its monster single) when they think of this band. How come this album isn't properly on YouTube, I though they were into that and gave Prince shit about it? Spotify runs a buttload more commercials these days. Songs
"You" - Piano eases into a slightly heavier, grungey sound. Yep, that's Thom Yorke singing. Hey, there's a bit of chug that I wouldn't expect. Should I just resign myself to lazily calling this their grunge album? Nice wail there, Thom. Feedback, thumpy drums.
"Creep" - What can one even write about this song? Well, I'll start with an anecdote I left out of the discography review intro, because it is the most predictable thing possible. I had already heard the song a million times, but I very distinctly remember it coming on the radio when in the summer of 2001 I was driving to UGA orientation. I was about to take the stereotypical big step, and the moment was too perfect. I've always preferred the radio edit that replaces "fucking special" with "very special". I'm sure that's because I heard the latter first, but also I find the original more hard and bitter in a way that doesn't resonate as well with my 14-19-year-old self. Okay, the music. This is a pretty great construction over a little bassline, isn't it? Then that guitar eruption with just a bit of feedback, it's classic quiet-loud but Yorke keeps a cool voice throughout the verses. Such a universal theme is this need for acceptance, no wonder it was such a hit. Then the high vocal of the bridge, so excellent to sing along with. And the comedown piano and cymbal taps, what an achievement.
"How Do You?" - Punky party guitar? Driving bass? This took a hard turn into whiny fun. Nice drum fills. Plonky piano weirdness, guitar wackness. Ah, gratuitous 90s noise.
"Stop Whispering" - Smooth guitar and resonating bass over rapid drumstick taps. Oh hey, I do recognize this single after all. This is another pretty simple song with some high wails that reserves the guitar work for a short bridge, but it comes back for a longer instrumental that slowly builds energy. This Thommy fella really can wail.
"Thinking About You" - Acoustic strums. Yorke sings wistfully about relationship angst. That 3-song EP from the dorm guy did a pretty good job of copying this sound (I'm talking about personal experience but feel free to use that one).
"Anyone Can Play Guitar" - Makes me think of Pixar's Ratatouille. More gratuitous noise; that's how you know the Spotify commercials are over. Heavy come in, high tone bass bumps which I appreciate. Things feel weird, then the tempo increases suddenly, then it's a pop song suddenly. I would like to hear a live R.E.M. cover of this song. Back to off-kilter, pick-ups, a little growl, then back to pop like the theme for a TGIF show. Hard to know what to make of this.
"Ripcord" - Taps alternate with electric guitar. Fun toms. This would be trifling, fun pop rock without this sad-sounding guy on vocals. Picks up into an instrumental rocker, but it ens with some feedback before it's around long.
"Vegetable" - This is the most 90s sound yet. I could be listening to Blues Traveler here (which is fine, Blues Traveler is fine, screw you). Or one of the downtempo tracks from the Refreshments. It's another quiet-loud. There's a bit of ahhhh backing vocal. No matter what, I'm a big fan of Colin Greenwood's bass.
"Prove Yourself" - Easy singing over solo electric. The band comes in, and it's yet more quiet-loud but less stark. Feedback comes in but leaves before it gets to be a wank. I love this tom thump plus bass interlude out of nowhere. Thom holds the longest note yet.
"I Can't" - Electrics ping about the intro, the full band keep it cool. I like these subtle tempo changes. The song feels a little long. It's okay, I've been happy enough with these late-song instrumental jams.
"Lurgee" - Smooth bass and rhythm do the work while Thom and the guitars are casual on top.
"Blow Out" - I dig this dark sound. Just enough to make me uncomfortable energy in this rhythm, twang and picks. It blurs into haze mid-song, Thom wails long but not loud. Sudden slowdown, layered vocal, feedback low in the mix, drum breaks. A totally different buzzy wash over the guitar strings is just anxiety-inducing and gets higher and higher, and the song won't stop. You guys, I think I am really going to like this band.
Summary: Pretty darn good, I think this band is going places. They've got the basics down solid, the guys have no trouble playing 90s pop-rock straight, and they're mixing in just a bit of noise n' stuff. This is a real candidate for discussing what the band would be like with a different singer; that said, I like Yorke voice just fine. Things are kept interesting enough that the songs on back half of the album don't feel too same-y before "Blow Out" comes along and really knocks you down. Are things going to push farther into the weird? Seems like they should. It's hard to imagine how something as off-kilter as "Anyone Can Play Guitar" was every going to be a lead single. Colin Greenwood's bass was the instrumental hero of the album, and Phil Selway's drums were darn good too. Favorite overall song: "Creep". It's undeniable. Favorite new-to-me song: "Blow Out". Bleep-bloop scale, zero to five: 0. Back to basics, man.
Weirdness scale, zero to five: 2, rounding up. Just a bit of feedback, messing with quiet-loud, alienating vocals.
Feel free to suggest more metrics to keep track of!
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Post by pairesta on Sept 27, 2018 6:32:18 GMT -5
I have a collection called Oxford's Angels that has early demos of PH tracks, plus other songs, b-sides, etc from this first album period. It's always interesting to go back and listen to bands figuring it out, before they crystallize into who they become known as. Some of the tracks are lighter, looser.
PH is fine, particularly in the context of its contemporaries at the time, but very, well, grunge-y, as you point out. It suffers in comparison to what they become and by default becomes their least interesting album to revisit, even if it is a nice time capsule of 1993. But the band just grows explosively from album to album in this first decade, on up through Kid A, I think.
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Post by ganews on Oct 3, 2018 16:51:12 GMT -5
The Bends (1995)  Pre-existing PrejudicesI own this, by which I mean I downloaded and burned it in college, and I've listened to it plenty of times if not lately. More than any other Radiohead album, actually. Plenty of memories here, like seeing two friends in early high school perform "High and Dry" as a vocal duet with one acoustic guitar. And here's even more material I left out of my intro: I'm fairly certain I had "High and Dry" and likely also "Fake Plastic Trees" on my college mix of depressing music. I'm looking at the rest of this tracklist and thinking I'm in for a sad. Also Nigel Godrich enters the booth. Let's get into it. Songs"Planet Telex" - Start off with an easy piano and drums. I suppose these days there's a remix version that I hear on KEXP a lot more often. I like that low-mix bass rumble. It's a downer, everything is broken. Gone is the quiet-loud dynamic. This has some light atmospheric wash with hints of squall. I like the keyboard reverb.
"The Bends" - Big chords. Ah, now we're back to loud-quiet with the verse. Colin's bass is still excellent. I like these little tinged vocal breakdown, and from then on there's no more quiet until the outro. Yorke wails a bit. Lyrics about longing to belong. This sounds very 90s in a good way.
"High and Dry" - There's the cymbal crash: tap the brakes a bit, because the acoustic strikes up over drum taps. I can feel late teenage-ness washing over me, wondering where my friend has gone. It's a distinctly different feeling from "Creep", even with the similar song structure and short bridge. The corners are shaved off, more sad than bitter.
"Fake Plastic Trees" - Keep the sad rolling. Just excellent, evocative writing here. Everything is hollow and fake and it's sad. Just a bit of light funereal organ, orchestral strings, and plodding bass. Set the stage for Coldplay's career here. The music swells up and sinks down one more time and the singer swallows himself up.
"Bones" - Guitar warbles into life, the bass digs us out. Yorke kicks it out in the chorus, and it's another quiet-loud. It's nice to review these songs and read the lyrics to find out exactly what he's saying as opposed to what I make up in my head that it sounds like. This isn't really special but was necessary to ease us out of the sadness.
"(Nice Dream)" - Acoustic squeaks wind downward, Yorke slowly lifts us back with a higher register. The band moves it along, the strings peek in. Yorke gets kind of a shadow backing vocal, and the song takes a darker turn with Johnny Greenwood riding the strings...but it cools right off again and the dream is over.
"Just" - Acoustic leads, but some electrics stomp in. Great pairing with Yorke's little vocals and happy electronic-like picks, then the more bitter and dark, big chord chorus. Guitar screeches are limited as the song shifts around, stops, and stomps. High feedback over bass, drums, and acoustic. Great instrumental song closer like the debut. Then a hard stop to the most energy we've heard yet this album.
"My Iron Lung" - Steady bass while Thom Yorke and the guitar trade. It's always good when the latter punctuates the words of the former, going back to "Creep". A little breakdown freak a mid-song where Yorke sings through a speaker. Ohh it's a recurring phenomenon, but harder this time, nice.
"Bullet Proof..I Wish I Was" - Quiet, almost echoing. Brushes on the drums. Yorke holding high the "ooo" of "bulletproof" keeps it plaintive.
"Black Star" - Fading into our alternative song already in progress, Yorke sounds lonesome. Bass keeps bumping along. The album is starting to stretch a bit.
"Sulk" - Electric warble to keep it interesting, because things are getting a bit too uniform here. Simple structure inspired a whole lot of college bands here. At least there's a little more action on the bridge.
"Street Spirit (Fade Out)" - Yorke starts with a flat dirge. I think this reminds me a bit of Troubled Souls, the creepy Mac game from around this time. It's the repetition that makes it creepy, along with taps, sad strings, and undefined wailing. I don't know enough about music theory to talk about minor chords and stuff. It's unique on the album, occupying the same spot as "Blow Out" on the debut. Summary: Really solid album here. I don't know if this track lineup could have worked another way, but they did a great job not letting any mood go too far. Even the sad songs aren't just a bunch of sad songs, they strike very different moods. The record did drag a bit beyond "My Iron Lung", but once again the unnerving closer made it worthwhile. We're used to the sounds from the debut, so nothing instrumental majorly stuck out in a god or bad way. The feedback made his presence known throughout most songs not of the extra-slow variety. Skip the Coldplay and just listen to this again.
Favorite overall song: "Just". Very very difficult choice here, absolutely dependent on your mood. Fortunately I'm not too depressed these days. Favorite new-to-me song: I know them all. Bleep-bloop scale, zero to five: 0. Still very organic, if enthusiastic about feedback.
Weirdness scale, zero to five: 1. Smoother than the debut, tapping into visceral feeling without trying too hard.
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Dellarigg
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Post by Dellarigg on Oct 3, 2018 17:34:25 GMT -5
My favourite of theirs. Sulk is far and away my favourite of anything they did. I might be unique in saying that, but it's my truth.
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Post by Nudeviking on Oct 3, 2018 19:12:20 GMT -5
My favourite of theirs. Sulk is far and away my favourite of anything they did. I might be unique in saying that, but it's my truth. This is my favorite Radiohead album as well. There are individual tracks on other albums of theirs that I like better than some/all the songs on this (my all time favorite Radiohead song shows up on Amnesiac), but this is the album of theirs I revisit most often and the one that I feel has the best ratio of wheat to chaff so to speak. There are dozens of us! Dozens! |
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Post by ganews on Oct 17, 2018 22:10:09 GMT -5
OK Computer (1997)  Pre-existing PrejudicesI also own this, which again means I downloaded and burned it in college. I've heard it a good amount as well, though surely not as much as The Bends. I don't have a lot of strong memories about this record, actually. It came out the summer before high school. We didn't have cable or MTV, so I'm not even sure when I saw the weird animated video for "Paranoid Android". Honestly, the biggest consequence of this record for me personally is that it made Nigel Godrich and he went on to work on two of Beck's best albums. There's a ton of references and analyses to be made here, but I'm not the Wikipedia page and I'm only going to write about what strikes me. Songs
"Airbag" - Jinglebells and electrics, fuzzed out drums. I always appreciate a high bass. Yorke sings unintelligibly. It's fine, sort of a positive sound, with light production touches, the occasional frequency knob twiddle, and moderate feedback.
"Paranoid Android" - I have always liked the sound during the verse: shakers, acoustic picking, Brazilian crackler. Yorke is more understandable now (but what is this English robot mumbling underneath the held note?) Then the downturn after the verse, a bit of tease...Yorke leans in and gets a bit nasty. Finally electric guitars rip back, the best flourish since "Creep", and some venom comes out and spreads. Then the Gregorian comedown, from a great height. One more instrumental rip with more extra noise and frequency twiddling, something I have always been a fan of, thanks to Beck. This is such an odyssey of a song, truly Radiohead's "Bohemian Rhapsody" including being the inevitable name of the biopic years from now (the band would never agree to "Creep").
"Subterranean Homesick Alien" - I get the Dylan reference though I don't remember the joke. It is a bit of a subterranean echoing sound, the guitar and keyboard playing around while the rest of the band holds the line. The way Yorke sings "uptight!" sounds like a radio hit. I think there were a lot of bands in the late 90s copying this sound; anyone listen to any Placebo lately?
"Exit Music (For a Film)" - Solo strums. Yorke sings softly with a mic turn up and echoing. Some mixed-up samples edge their way in, then the band picks up and the amplifier buzzes as hard as it can. It's more atmosphere on the outro, specifically clouds blowing over the mic.
"Let Down" - Electric picking and synthetic xylophone. The toms bounce in like balloons, plus tambourine. Yorke double-tracks and holds no note for less than a second. There is just a lot of vocal performance here, probably more than any other song so far. Nice mission-control beeps.
"Karma Police" - Piano notes and acoustic strums say you're in for a sad, but the bass says it's serious. I like the deliberate pronunciation of the title, and really just the whole concept of the song is brilliant. Little flourishes and the high backing vocals keep it from being a downer. The bridge is excellent, slightly vibrato to accompany "for a minute there, I lost myself" with an out-of-phase experience. The slow fade-in and take over of the squall is a great closer. Terrific construction.
"Fitter Happier" - It's android time. Hope you're a fan of Stephen Hawking's computer-generated voice on top of various samples and weirdness. This is probably the first mis-step of the discography. I mean, I get what they're going for, it's even well-written. But as a skit it should go someplace else. The opener or closer might have been good.
"Electioneering" - An old-fashioned rock n' roller with more cowbell! Big snares, rolling bass, more tempo than anywhere else. Where could this have fit on the rest of the album? Maybe "Fitter Happier" was the only thing that could break us off for this song. The bridge freaks out a bit before we get to a kick-ass extended instrumental with more frequency twiddles.
"Climbing Up the Walls" - Some electronic weirdness, farty synth, oddly distorted lyrics. Feels like a weird filler track that would be between an album's worth of songs that sound like "Electioneering". The feedback only turns up.
"No Surprises" - The ding-dong is back with strums. A little bit of this sort of Nigel Godrich goes a long way with me. This really lays down what Beck's Sea Change would be, and that's not something I can just listen to all the time. Yorke sings flatly, but that's the point.
"Lucky" - Electronic buzz in the back. Everything sounds foreboding. Yorke shifts back to long, high notes asking to be pulled out. This is a fine example of the new dynamic; no longer quiet-loud like the first two albums, but down-up. Another great instrumental break here.
"The Tourist" - On the past two records the closer has been the weirdo, but this slow tempo indicates another break. The bass really does the work on these slow numbers. This is not feedback-exempt. High but faint chorus carries through. All the elements slowly melt into a pot, before the drum and bass plod to the end.
Summary: I guess I forgot how good this album is. It's very different from The Bends of course, and it feels like this is going to be the grandfather of the rest of this discography review. This just feels like such an evolution, not just the use of electronics but the vocals. The complexity of the vocals absolutely set the album apart. Yorke has previously conveyed sadness and bitterness, and now in many of these songs he does a lot by doing a little.
Favorite overall song: "Karma Police". Another extremely difficult choice here. Favorite new-to-me song: I know them all, but I want to pretend I don't so I can write in "Electioneering". Bleep-bloop scale, zero to five: 2. Some synths, some effects, but a of of these electronics are analog.
Weirdness scale, zero to five: 3, rounded up. Middle of the road really, which counts as weird on popular radio. Hardly on a pantsgoblin un-sellable (obviously) level.
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Rainbow Rosa
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Post by Rainbow Rosa on Oct 17, 2018 23:15:08 GMT -5
I don't even need to listen to this album to remember how every song goes. "Paranoid Android" and "Karma Police" are undeniably brilliant. "No Surprises" and "Subterranean Homesick Alien" are pretty aight. But after a dozen listens I think I feel safe saying the rest of OK Computer is crap. Thankfully the "filler" is pretty evenly spaced out, so I can space out myself for a few minutes and then phase back in time for the good songs on this album.
I think this is also where the "I'm so alienated by modern society, hear my wails of despair" side of Radiohead takes full force - and I find that side of Radiohead completely intolerable, because Thom Yorke is a bad lyricist and an even worse singer. The best I can say is that like his transatlantic counterpart Billy Corgan, sometimes his voice works really well with the music he's making. But I still think "Karma Police" would be a million times better sung by someone competent.
Luckily, Kid A is an improvement (IMO)!
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Post by pairesta on Oct 18, 2018 5:33:42 GMT -5
There's a handful of albums that had such an impact on me on the first listen that I remember where I was and what I was doing when I heard it. OK Computer is one. I was working a mindless data entry drone position right out of college, so the themes of the album hit just right for me. I had bought the CD the night before (the day it came out, a first for Radiohead for me), then dubbed it to cassette so I could listen to it at work on my Walkman the next day. Just the opening, soaring guitar of Airbag grabbed my attention. I remember jumping in my chair at that burst of music in the buildup during Paranoid Android. I don't think I got any work done: I just sat there listening to it, then when it finished, immediately starting it over again.
Then I became that obnoxious proselytizer for the album, going to all my coworkers and insisting they hear the album after that.
It remains my pick for Best Album of the 90s, and one of my very favorite albums, even if the last four tracks kind of bleed together for me, and I've never liked Karma Police. I've really grown to love Let Down to the point where it's one of my favorite Radiohead songs, if not my very favorite.
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Dellarigg
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Post by Dellarigg on Oct 18, 2018 5:39:34 GMT -5
Lucky was recorded earlier than the other tracks, in '95, and in one single day, for the War Child charity album, also featuring the Manics, Suede, and Paul Weller/Noel Gallagher/Paul McCartney, among others. Artists were supposed to record a cover version in 24 hours, but Radiohead did this new song. They thought it fit in with the OK Computer feel, so included it.
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Post by Deleted on Oct 18, 2018 10:52:09 GMT -5
The album that kicked off my Radiohead fandom (I was a bit too young to know of The Bends) to the point that I bought the accompanying tour documentary, Meeting People Is Easy, on VHS. The whole doc is on Youtube and its anodyne flatness is mildly interesting for its time. A few stray thoughts, as ganews covered the music quite comprehensively in his terrific review: - "Subterranean Homesick Alien"'s melody was apparently a sloppy attempt by the band to recreate a Miles Davis trumpet solo. - "Electioneering" is often held up as the one chink in this album's armor. I disagree, as I really like the big R.E.M. influence on the quasi-rocking clatter (it's basically Radiohead's "Ignoreland" from Automatic For The People). - These reviews have reminded me of how virtuosic Colin Greenwood's bass playing was on the first three albums. It's my one quibble with the band's switch into more Spartan songwriting after this record: that the bass parts don't have much personality. |
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Post by ganews on Nov 4, 2018 18:08:29 GMT -5
Kid A (2000)  Pre-existing PrejudicesIt's...possible I've heard all of this at some point? Probably At least I know some of the song titles, but that part's going to be true for all these albums at least. But I really don't have anything to go in with for this album except the modified bear sticker I got outside a concert on what very well may have been the release day. I'm hoping to up the weirdness scale, actually. Songs"Everything in Its Right Place" - Oh wait yes, I know this ripped-up and sampled electronic fade-in. It's a bit creepy and foreboding. Yorke puts strange emphasis on syllables and is breathy and otherworldly, fading in and out.
"Kid A" - Spaceship landing frequencies, off-kilter music box. Fuzzy beat, moaning robot squawk. Electric drums, sticks, bassline that might be 50% keyboard. And that's it.
"The National Anthem" - More spaceship landing. From this riff was born Kasabian's "Club Foot". I like some enthusiastic crash cymbal though while the electric spirits circle. Saxophone farts, cool. But wait, the entire undead New Orleans jazz combo is here to haunt you! I like aggressive weirdness. Something mid-century is sampled at the end.
"How to Disappear Completely" - More Nigel Godrich fuzz and electronic soars, but an actual acoustic guitar strums in. Mournful singing. This low-grade feedback has me on edge, no matter how soothing the bass is supposed to be. By the time the strings and tambourine come it things have settled down a bit. Someone is still playing around on the synth keyboard in the back. Yorke's soaring vocals are almost comfortable for what's come from the band before, but everything keeps hazing in and out.
"Treefingers" - I love this track title; I'll take Unused Tolkien Characters for $1000, Alex. It's more electronic aura like something from a futurism cathedral. Or just the Sagrada Familia, which would also fit the track title. There are analog album spits in the bottom of the mix, something familiar to me from years of listening to Beck.
"Optimistic" - I like the big toms over Yorke's ooo-ing. The best you can is good enough; this was a song for grad school. It's a good song, but once the moaning and the bass kick in I really like it. Also love the effect that swallows Yorke's vocals into an atmospheric, silenced echo. Excellent drum fills. Oooh, dig the jazzy bass n' cymbal outro.
"In Limbo" - This hits you hard against the wall of sound. Guitars and drums are all over the place and each somehow individually buried. There's still a bit of room for silly electronic warble before it all swishes down the fuzzy drain.
"Idioteque" - Big electronic pop and fizz, programmed beat. Radiohead again does brilliant a job of using evocative song titles. Lot of electronic effect to unnerving and frazzling ends. "This is really happening" also pretty accurately sums things up, in case you still think you might be dreaming this album. The atmospheric soaring does contrast well to the busy things crawling around at high tempo.
"Morning Bell" - Segue in this next track, with a steady but normal drum riff. Electric organ playing, Yorke sounding whinier than usual. The lyrics sound like you're awake but it's still weird around here. The pace is steady but the instrumentation keeps layering on top, it's a comfort to get a bit of feedback followed by a few quiet moments alone with the bass.
"Motion Picture Soundtrack" - Sounds like a bad recording of an accordion. Yorke sings softly over top. The harp with pipe organ leaning in is like breaking through the surface to air. Operatic notes far in the back of the mix push the point. The amplifier hum switches off and I can't hear the sampled dialog that apparent ends the album.
Summary: Yes, if I hadn't heard so many of these songs before I might have dreamed this album. This was released in 2000? I didn't hear any of these tracks until sometime after 2010: The Year We Make Contact. I can't imagine how this fit into the year 2000 musical landscape, everything skipped right to Amnesiac for me in college. Anyway I asked for the weird and I got it. "Everything in Its Right Place" must be one of the most appropriately tone-setting opening tracks of all time. I wouldn't put this on record on to listen to in full unless I was in a very weird (how many times can I use that word?) place, but there are many outstanding tracks I can handle in a limited dose. Even with no melody and multiple tracks of Atmosphere, nothing here feels like intolerable chaff. Also, how purple can my writing get? We're not even halfway through this thing!
Favorite overall song: "Optimistic" Favorite new-to-me song: "Treefingers". Turns out I actually have heard a lot of these many times on early-morning indie radio, so lets go with the nice instrumental. Bleep-bloop scale, zero to five: 4. It's not completely inorganic, and a lot of the electronics are analog again, but it's still a big step.
Weirdness scale, zero to five: 5. I'm uncertain to pull out a 5 this early, but it feels right. No other band this successful was presenting this level of weirdness to the world, especially at the peak of the nu-metal years.
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Post by Deleted on Nov 4, 2018 18:48:57 GMT -5
Probably the strangest, most abstract album to ever go #1 in the U.S., which it did for a week following its release. I bought it the day it came out and brought it with me to my job at a restaurant--I got so many semi-hostile questions of "what is this?" from the waiters by the time "Idioteque" came up.
Did everyone who bought the CD find the hidden booklet under the disc tray?
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Post by [Citrus] on Nov 4, 2018 21:31:39 GMT -5
My copy (from Columbia House!) did not have the secret booklet and I was shocked. And yet it remains one of my favorite albums ever.
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Post by pairesta on Nov 5, 2018 6:43:12 GMT -5
I put this on for mood music the first time I listened to it and went into the other room. When "National Anthem" queued up I remember yelling "What the fuck?!" out loud and running back into the room to listen to it. The first four tracks are killer. After "How to Disappear Completely" (the other track vying with "Let Down" for favorite Radiohead song), I only keep "Optimistic" and "Idiotecque", yet it's still absurdly high ranked in their discography for me, despite jettisoning half of the tracks.
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Post by ganews on Nov 24, 2018 17:46:13 GMT -5
Amnesiac (2001)  Pre-existing PrejudicesI started college in 2001, and I clearly remember watching the video for "Knives Out" on MTV2. That single along with the others is what prompted me to seek out the earlier albums, not that I ever got around to listening to this one. It was recorded along with Kid A, so I expect a lot of similarity. Songs
"Packt Like Sardines in a Crushd Tin Box" - Found percussion joined by a fully electric bass drum beat. The sounds added to that are the definition of bleep-bloop. Indeed, this is a dark, cut-up Casio keyboard. Yorke's singing is a flat drone, double-tracked and electrified with no high notes. Nonsensical samples mixed in add to the dark - it's all quite good.
"Pyramid Song" - Piano, a few washy orchestral strings. Oh right, I've heard this. This is the depressive whine we're more familiar with. I like to have the grounding of the acoustic drum kit; adding it to the samples gives almost a Beatle feel.
"Pulk/Pull Revolving Doors" - Static and heavily fuzzed electronic doomy drum kit. Weird android voice. Other weird sounds.
"You and Whose Army?" - Yorke sings softly over strums, standup bass plunks. We seem to be alternating between known Radiohead and aggressive electronics, but like the opener this combines flat intonation with tough words. Drums and piano, a bit of soar.
"I Might Be Wrong" - Turn up the frequency knob. Although this electric drum kit does get a cool looped guitar riff. This mixes the band elements well, plus has a cool bass rankle. This is slowly building, and I want it to eventually rock out. (Template for that Bond theme, Prole Hole?) Instead it cools off the tempo again.
"Knives Out" - Bring out the acoustics, caaaaaatch 'em out. Classic wailing plaintiveness. This really sounds more like Paranoid Android then anything else, just in every way. Again it's a mix of brutal lyrics and emotionless delivery. Love the guitar work. The limited double-tracking really makes a difference.
"Morning Bell/Amnesiac" - We seem to be breaking the alternating style cycle. It's just nice to have bass again. Triangles and other acoustics accompany Yorke's cries. It's light any airy.
"Dollars and Cents" - Ooh, a fine urgency to this drum kit, plus acoustics and very Nigel Godrich orchestra wash. The vocals get a bit frantic halfway through while the jazzy beat maintains. A very well-constructed composition.
"Hunting Bears" - Isolated twangs and string squeaks, some elbow on the electric organ tones.
"Like Spinning Plates" - Static, frequency warps, chimes, broken up and subtracted singing that isn't actually words anymore but sounds. The vocals eventually coalesce. As a conceptual track it's done well. This could go with a Kubrick movie.
"Life in a Glasshouse" - More static, than piano strikes up with a dejected jazz quintet. This is a dirge that is just okay, but I do think I would like to hear a full album of Yorke and these guest players, at least once.
Summary: Lot of very well done tracks here, but they really aren't that cohesive of an album. "Sardines" would be expected to be the usual thesis statement opener, and yet the electric/acoustic duality is only consistent for half of the album. Knowing it was recorded at the same time as Kid A, it's hard not to think these are disorganized leftovers (I somehow expected my opinions of these two albums to be reversed), and as longtime readers know I like a well-constructed album. It's a testament to Radiohead how good many of those leftover tracks are. (And "Knives Out" makes me think of food, that and the Thanksgiving leftovers I'm about to eat.) Do the aggressive electronics mesh well with acoustics? It's okay.
Favorite overall song: "Knives Out"; seems like a step backwards but it's just darned good Favorite new-to-me song: "Packt Like Sardines in a Crushd Tin Box", a bit more of a kick than "Dollars and Cents" Bleep-bloop scale, zero to five: 3. There's some of the bloopiest, some very not, so we must average to three.
Weirdness scale, zero to five: 5. It's a default to have high weirdness at this point, but the back half of the album kicks it up to at least Kid A levels.
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Post by pairesta on Nov 25, 2018 9:07:27 GMT -5
I think the volume of tracks I like here is greater than on Kid A, but as you say, there's nothing really to hang your hat on here. Kid A's highs are higher. As such this gets relegated to the lower rung of their album rankings.
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Post by ganews on Mar 2, 2019 17:39:21 GMT -5
Hail to the Thief (2003)  Pre-existing PrejudicesOddly enough I fell off the wagon with this discography review at exactly the same point as I stopped listening to Radiohead albums in real life. I'm sure this was merely coincidental, with the holidays coming in between, and then the malaise of the government shutdown. Anyway, I see that this obviously political album was released shortly after the birth of my own political awareness with the invasion of Iraq. Where is this going to go, crank both the weirdness and bleep-bloop to 5 and break off the knobs? Surely I've heard at least some of these songs. The alternative song titles are the most annoying pretentiousness, a very early 2000s sort of thing when so many bands were full of overlong titles and extraneous punctuation. Songs "2 + 2 = 5." (The Lukewarm.) - They're trying to make me think my headphones are broken with all the instrumentation in the right. 1984 references over something that sounds like OK Computer. The come-on rock is cool, I like tonal shifts in songs. And I can hear some bass which is nice. Title drop; I wonder if that's all the politics there actually is here? (No.)
"Sit down. Stand up." (Snakes & Ladders.) - Electronic sputters, chimes. Wailing and synth, and sort of a 90s, Chemical Brothers kind of throwback feel. The shift into frantic electronica is neat though, I'd rather the whole song were like this. Again I appreciate the return of audible bass even when it's repetitive like this.
"Sail to the Moon." (Brush the Cobwebs out of the Sky.) - Easy guitar and piano over a faint fuzzy electronic heartbeat. Feedback buzz in the fadeout for an intentional touch.
"Backdrifts." (Honeymoon Is Over.) - Warpy bubbles. About as heavy an electronic beat as ever comes in, Thom Yorke continues to sound like Thom Yorke. This track is truly miles from the rocker this band used to make. I think I fully understand the comparisons Muse used to get though.
"Go to Sleep." (Little Man being Erased.) - Pure acoustic guitar. Did System Of A Down rip this off for "Aerials"? I'm very reminded of the acoustic breakdowns in "Paranoid Android". Still, I'm here for the bass and light guitar flips.
"Where I End and You Begin." (The Sky Is Falling In.) - Synth effect laid over the band grooving. Colin's bass is nice. If they turn up the tempo halfway and start rocking out I will be very very pleased. Light twangy weirdness, I'm sure this is building somewhere, just blow it out. Oh it's over...goddammit!
"We suck Young Blood." (Your Time Is Up.) - Good song title, even with the parenthetical. Plodding piano. Nice claps, feels like big drama. But it plays more like a mournful dirge. Ah, now the band whips it up, with synth wobblies and piano pounding...oh damn it Yorke shifted it all down back to an even slower dirge. The band never comes back, that's it.
"The Gloaming." (Softly Open our Mouths in the Cold.) - Electric crackle, deeeep electronic bass for your trunk. Pac-Man bloops, extensively.
"There There." (The Boney King of Nowhere.) - Ringing drums. I haven't said much about the vocals in this album, because at this point it's just "Thom Yorke vocals". A little rockin' comes in late in the song, but it feels rather hollow and insubstantial.
"I Will." (No man's Land.) - Now I can comment on the vocals; Yorke make a quite good multi-tracking of himself over slow, picking around acoustic. Then it fully stops and changes to an entirely different song. Well, not entirely, it's just that a drummer shows up. Good two-parter though, some nice structure to this song.
"A Punchup at a Wedding." (No no no no no no no no.) - Bass and drum steady, piano in. This is an easygoing song, clear message, a quiet strength to it. Like those muted guitar bursts that evolve into mini squalls, little picks layered in.
"Myxomatosis." (Judge, Jury & Executioner.) - If you say this song title backwards the band goes back to 1995! No one ever made that joke before I bet. Big synth rips in the ears, keeps rolling, again I'm expecting a big breakout that never happens.
"Scatterbrain." (As Dead as Leaves.) - Uh, I forgot to write anything. It's a Radiohead song.
"A Wolf at the Door." (It Girl. Rag Doll.) - Spoken word almost, or almost like breathless Thom Yorke trying to rap over the band? Otherwise, you know the drill.
Summary: Well, this was disappointing for me. It's not a bad album by any measure, it's just a step down. I would have been happy with a album full of half-songs mashed together like I though we might get after the first two tracks, or even more OK Computer throwbacks than the couple sprinkled in. Instead a lot of these songs feel interchangeable outside of a few highlights. I guess I was hoping for a great strike back at an evil administration (recorded before we found out just how bad it could get), and instead we got a Radiohead album that feels like the what people are talking about when they say they stopped listening at X.
Favorite overall song: "A Punchup at a Wedding." (No no no no no no no no.) Pretty good. "I Will" was the only other major contender. Favorite new-to-me song: I've heard a remix of the opener at least, but let's just say all new-to-me. Bleep-bloop scale, zero to five: 4. At this point it's the acoustic tracks that feel gratuitous.
Weirdness scale, zero to five: 3, rounding down. Several songs are downright clear and intelligible.
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Dellarigg
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Post by Dellarigg on Mar 2, 2019 19:13:15 GMT -5
This album was where boredom with this band truly set in for me, following a few yawns and watch-checkings during the previous two, and to this day it hasn't lifted.
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Post by Deleted on Mar 3, 2019 9:18:42 GMT -5
Your opinions on the songs are almost a photo negative of mine. For instance, I adore "There There" and "Myxomatosis" and always felt that the album could have been significantly tightened up had they deleted the tracks between those two. Oh well, nice review regardless.
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Post by pairesta on Mar 4, 2019 7:45:28 GMT -5
I always felt like HTTF was unfairly maligned and underrated out of their discography. That's probably because I do enjoy that it was an overt middle finger to Bush and the mindset of the day. It also seems U2-influenced here and there, which I liked. However you did pick up on how the songs seem to confine themselves and refuse to let loose. Sail to the Moon, in particular, feels like it should be longer instead of abruptly cutting out the way it does. But I still love it. "There There", "Punch Up", and "Myxomatosis" are other highlights for me.
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