Radiohead

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Midnight Vultures said:
It's called an opinion mate. You know, people have them. IMO, Radiohead >>>>>The coconut tree Keith Richards fell out of>>>>> The Rolling Stones. And 40 hit songs or whatever in an era dominated by rock and roll is impressive, but you can't seriously compare it with what Radiohead have done in this generation. Bit like comparing Andrew Johns to Leigh Matthews.
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The one thing that the Stones have is amazing longevity, something that Radiohead are yet to achieve. They may well do so, but until they have had a 40 year career they aren't ahead of the Stones, IMO.

I don't like Radiohead, but i appreciate how good they are to some people, i just think people are getting a bit carried away comparing them to the Beatles, Stones etc.
 
the_interloper said:
The one thing that the Stones have is amazing longevity, something that Radiohead are yet to achieve. They may well do so, but until they have had a 40 year career they aren't ahead of the Stones, IMO.

I don't like Radiohead, but i appreciate how good they are to some people, i just think people are getting a bit carried away comparing them to the Beatles, Stones etc.
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Longevity is one thing, but aside from a 3-4 stretch of albums The Rolling Stones tapered off and haven't produced a very good album since the 70's. They sit in the same category as The Smashing Pumpkins for having far more mediocre albums than they do very good-classic LP's.

Radiohead's middle tier, for arguments sake albums like Amnesiac, AMSP and HTTT are far better than The Rolling Stones next best after (however you order them) Beggar's Banquet, Let It Bleed, Sticky Fingers and Exile on Mainstream Street.
 

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Mainly came in this thread to post this:



Never been a big TKOL fan, but there's some much more depth and warmth in these tracks. They've added some additional instruments and filled in some of the sonic gaps that IMO brought that LP down.

The In Rainbows session is amazing as well, but once you've heard TKOL tracks in that format you don't really want to go back.
 
On the original thread topic, I love Radiohead, not sure if being a collective genius makes you the greatest ever - the Ramones were borderline talentless yet were a colossal and revered group (including by me).

However a work like Paranoid Android - short of MAYBE a group like Pink Floyd I simply don’t see how anyone else in music history could have written a song like that. Some bands might have been abstract enough to come up with something equally left field lyrically but having learned the music inside out, I can’t fathom how it would have first been written.

The great riff bands throughout history, while obviously I couldn’t write the riffs of a Keith Richards or Jimmy Page, I can see from a musical standpoint how they would have been written and how they could come up with them. I have no idea how a song like Paranoid Android could have been started let alone pieced together.


On the flip side of all that, I can appreciate where someone like Noel Gallagher comes from when he said ‘I reckon if Thom Yorke ******* s**t into a light bulb and started blowing it like an empty beer bottle it'd probably get 9 out of 10 in ******* Mojo.’
 
james Dean said:
Gallagher is just a knob who couldn’t handle that Standing On the Shoulders of Giants didn’t get the reception Kid A did
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Talks a lot of rubbish, but also has some reasonable opinions on other artists even if they are partly laid out with some additional interest.

I’ve always enjoyed his Damon Albarn drive bys.
 
They’ve been active on TikTok strangely enough.

I think something is in the works, possibly a Kid A re-release.

Ed mentioned earlier in the year that a new album was some time away
 
james Dean said:
They’ve been active on TikTok strangely enough.

I think something is in the works, possibly a Kid A re-release.

Ed mentioned earlier in the year that a new album was some time away
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My guess is it's Kid/Amnesiac, however if you look at how they released OKNOTOK, an announcement should happen very soon or it's been pushed forward.
Maybe a new surprise album, a slim chance.
Releasing all their live material from the archives for download.
 
I’m assuming Kid A/Amnesiac anniversary-ish reissue

Seefeel had some similarly cryptic clues a few months ago which predictably led to Succour-era anniversary reissues. Kid A has the sort of canon stature where a 20th anniversary edition will almost certainly make a belated pandemic era appearance.
 

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The Bends release paralleled my peaking alcoholism, the dumping of my wife and daughter, and a nervous breakdown. It is still an incredibly emotional experience decades later, that still exposes me to all my flaws. It's like being outed. Especially Fake Plastic. Ouch. Genius.
 
Osho said:
The Bends release paralleled my peaking alcoholism, the dumping of my wife and daughter, and a nervous breakdown. It is still an incredibly emotional experience decades later, that still exposes me to all my flaws. It's like being outed. Especially Fake Plastic. Ouch. Genius.
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I’ll never understand by it gets s**t on by a lot of Radiohead purists. It’s such a well written LP and was the perfect stepping stone to OK Computer. Very few weak tracks, although I’m not a massive fan of the rockier numbers: Just and My Iron Lung. I know plenty of people who’d consider them their best.

Shits all over AMSP and KOL, which I’ve now finally come to appreciate.

It certainly spawned a lot of sub-par imitators, but The Bends is so far ahead in complexity - thematically and musically.
 
La Dispute said:
I’ll never understand by it gets sh*t on by a lot of Radiohead purists. It’s such a well written LP and was the perfect stepping stone to OK Computer. Very few weak tracks, although I’m not a massive fan of the rockier numbers: Just and My Iron Lung. I know plenty of people who’d consider them their best.

Shits all over AMSP and KOL, which I’ve now finally come to appreciate.

It certainly spawned a lot of sub-par imitators, but The Bends is so far ahead in complexity - thematically and musically.
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Agree.
Bends has rising falling searing guitars, lyrics that cut you open. One of the most excruciating and musically wonderful albums I have.

Later albums have their place but the immediacy of Bends is still emotionally stunning.
 
I roughly rank the tracks in this order.

The bends
Bulletproof...I wish I was
Fake plastic trees
My iron lung
Street spirit (fade out)
Just
(Nice dream)
Black star
Planet telex
High and dry
Bones
Sulk

I don't think you can really be a fan if you discount the PH/Bends era, as that was obviously one of their most fondly fertile periods as a band (I used to watch the Astoria dvd over and over, collect all those physical singles and some of the first songs my younger brother learnt on bass were Blow Out and Bones). I can perfectly understand why people rank those albums towards the bottom of their discography, and there's no slight in that. I guess the issue with The Bends is that it sounded a little different to my ears in the more rockist era, and I'm glad I fell in love with it then rather than during the last decade or something, which is a different time. OKC just managed to push all that momentum into something more timeless.
 
Roobs321 said:
I roughly rank the tracks in this order.

The bends
Bulletproof...I wish I was
Fake plastic trees
My iron lung
Street spirit (fade out)
Just
(Nice dream)
Black star
Planet telex
High and dry
Bones
Sulk

I don't think you can really be a fan if you discount the PH/Bends era, as that was obviously one of their most fondly fertile periods as a band (I used to watch the Astoria dvd over and over, collect all those physical singles and some of the first songs my younger brother learnt on bass were Blow Out and Bones). I can perfectly understand why people rank those albums towards the bottom of their discography, and there's no slight in that. I guess the issue with The Bends is that it sounded a little different to my ears in the more rockist era, and I'm glad I fell in love with it then rather than during the last decade or something, which is a different time. OKC just managed to push all that momentum into something more timeless.
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It's very subjective. I like albums more than singles. Singles pulled from their context can lose their mojo.

It's fun to find and recognise a great band before they are widely known to be great. It's like talent spotting. Get it right occasionally.
 
Osho said:
It's very subjective. I like albums more than singles. Singles pulled from their context can lose their mojo.
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I mean in terms of getting the b-sides. If you are an obsessed fan of an artist from that era, you want to hunt down all the non-album stuff as well, and Radiohead's b-sides and EP tracks at that time were worth it. You aren't necessarily getting the single for the A-side itself. It is this sort of behaviour that probably helped regularly drive Metallica and Pearl Jam to high singles debuts in the 90s, that passionate cult audience hungry for exclusive content. You also see this in the early days of Oasis & Arctic Monkeys in the UK.
 
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The existence of OKC pushes The Bends into the background a fair bit too. That was their opus and the realisation and cumulation of what they’d be working up to through The Bends era and is a natural point of comparison with The Bends.

If they had of gone TB-Kid A The Bends would held in much higher esteem IMO. The same could he said of Amnesiac if they had have released that following OKC.

HTTF always felt like an outsider LP though and can’t really be tracked next to anything. Even in In Rainbows I can still hear some of the ghosts of The Bends and OKC eras.
 
Roobs321 said:
I mean in terms of getting the b-sides. If you are an obsessed fan of an artist from that era, you want to hunt down all the non-album stuff as well, and Radiohead's b-sides and EP tracks at that time were worth it. You aren't necessarily getting the single for the A-side itself. It is this sort of behaviour that probably helped regularly drive Metallica and Pearl Jam to high singles debuts in the 90s, that passionate cult audience hungry for exclusive content.
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Yeah, sure. Markets and generations change. I grew up with and never grew out of albums. I have never bought or downloaded a single. Call me fcuked in the head, you may be right.
 
Osho said:
Yeah, sure. Markets and generations change. I grew up with and never grew out of albums. I have never bought or downloaded a single. Call me fcuked in the head, you may be right.
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There's nothing wrong with that, I think most on the music board much prefer albums, including myself. Ranking the albums tracks doesn't mean I don't listen to it as an album as the artist intended (the principles of provenance and original order). I'm just explaining why someone might also collect singles stemming from albums they already own or are intending to own, because everything the band releases is of value to them. The concept of the single format nowadays is a lot blurrier, you don't even need a single to top the singles chart anymore. And in certain clubbier genres such as dance, the single is often the major format, lots of great artists who never release an album, and djs generally prefer to work with 12" and also leverage the remix/stem bonus.
 
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