HorseRenoir posted:

Their last concert should just be "Treefingers" for two hours

Ballz posted:

What is with the Feral hate

turnip kid posted:

"Too many strings" is such a strange criticism. I love bombastic string arrangements. I wish there were more strings, to be honest. Give me strings.

I've been extremely indifferent to Radiohead since 2003, when Hail to the Thief landed with a resounding thud with me, so this is an extremely pleasant surprise. I love the album and am now trying to make amends with the band and give HTTT-King of Limbs another shot.

Probably Magic posted:

I'm not going to lie and say that I listen to every single Hail to the Thief song (though it's Scatterbrain and Wolf at the Door that I do skip, which people love, while stuff people dismiss like Backdrifts, I really adore), and that might be what keeps it from being one of my favorite "albums" like In Rainbow was, but Hail to the Thief is definitely my favorite Radiohead album. It's so creepy and yet whimsical in its own strange way, with all the fairy tale allusions, and I'd listen to it regularly walking through wild forests because it captures the paranoia that goes with it so well. Really a fantastic album for me.

Ballz posted:

The King of Limbs is a Colin and Phil tour de force and I loving love it.

Princeps32 posted:

Real talk TKOL is flawed but Bloom alone was worth the price of admission, even the first time, because of that rhythm section.

Probably Magic posted:

I've yet to meet anyone who hasn't absolutely raved about Scatterbrain and Wolf at the Door, while I would've been fine with the album ending with Myxomatosis, but I figure I'm the only one who feels that way. That's okay. We can all agree that There There is amazing, so it's all good.

stuart scott posted:

I like that opinions on all the albums vary. I think it's a testament to the quality of the band that everyone can get something out of every album. I really like Hail to the Thief, and I think it probably holds a particularly special place for people about my age, who were just entering college in 2003 and maybe becoming newly politically aware and angry about the direction that discourse and human interaction were heading. As with all of their albums the temporal context is super important.

CaptainYesterday posted:

Almost like a jigsaw...falling into place.

kalensc posted:

In Rainbows contends for best Radiohead album for me, but I've never ever understood the love for House of Cards. There needed to be a "breather" between Reckoner and Jigsaw for sure so it's a fine track within the album, but I do not get the praise people give it as a stand-alone song.

Can someone who really likes the song share why they dig it so much? I'd be curious to listen to it again with a different perspective on it.

Steve2911 posted:

For as long as I've loved True Love Waits, I've been certain he said 'To have your babies', rather than 'To have you be at peace'.

It sounds exactly like that in both versions. I can't hear 'be at peace' no matter how hard I try. They have such different connotations.

thomas pynchon posted:

The review for the new one (as y'all have said) is t r a s h.

Paperback Writer posted:

this loving Pitchfork guy

Sir Lemming posted:

For reference: http://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/6656-kid-a/


edit: Just realized that whole stupid paragraph is about a song that isn't even on the freaking album he's reviewing, haha

Ballz posted:

Popcorn posted:

Am I the only one who hears thunder on Identikit? It might just be bassy drum hits EQd to sound like thundercracks.

Anyway. Dig this, you cats. I seem to have been born with reverse Radiohead genes, because I loved TKOL, but I merely like AMSP. I've listened to it a few times, and I still find it kind of blurry and smudgy and difficult to get a clear view of. That's obviously the point, but still... several of the tracks just run together for me. I can never remember, for example, which song is Desert Island Disk and and which is The Numbers; they are both "folky Neil Young acoustic guitar things with strings". Likewise there are several dreamy piano ballads: Daydreaming, Glass Eyes and True Love Waits. The songs seem to use the same arrangements, with all those strings and the improvised overdubbed twinkling pianos in the left and right channels, and the lack of rhythm. (As I wrote before, the lack of rhythm is one of the things I really miss, and maybe that's why I love TKOL so much.) Only Burn the Witch, Ful Stop and Identikit really stand out in clear definition to me.

True Love Waits leaves me cold. I'm not sure why. It's a song I used to strum on acoustic guitar myself, many years ago, but I'd long made my peace with it and would have been happy to never see it resuscitated. I suppose it would never have worked as anything other than a minimal ballad, but I just find the album version... bland, flat. It's a song that should feel like a relief, a relaxing of tension, but it just sucks all the energy out of the room for me.

I do love Ful Stop though. Why? It's got a driving syncopated Radiohead rhythm section. I suppose that might be all I ever wanted. How disappointing of me.

Princeps32 posted:

I disagree with but understand most of your previous points but this one. 11 tracks of satisfying length, the total time about the same as OK Computer, were much appreciated this run following a short album that could have used some more meat.

BEAR GRYLLZ posted:

On the one hand this opinion is so blatantly wrong that I want to laugh at you and call you an idiot.

On the other (correct) hand I know I'd be the idiot if I did that and just think it's cool that a band can create songs which result in such completely different viewpoints. The Tourist is awesome and one of the best tracks on OK Computer IMO but yeah, that's just my opinion.

Steve2911 posted:

Unlike films, individual songs or books, albums can't be too long. If there are tracks you don't want to listen to then don't.

Steve2911 posted:

They can certainly be too short.

olin posted:

No no no no no.

You couldn't be more wrong. This is the most Godrichy album Radiohead has ever put out and that's a huge part of why it sounds so great. That Godrich sound on Sea Change and HWGM's Different Ship is distinctively present here. And it's loving beautiful. Nothing sounds flat or muddy. I listened to the album on high end studio monitors and the album is perfectly crisp and lush.

Godrich is probably the greatest producer who has ever lived.

Seaniqua posted:

I'll bite... which album?

Ballz posted:

Kind of wondering this too. Serge Gainsbourg's Historie de Melody Nelson, maybe? But that was mostly just Paper Tiger ripping off paying homage to it, not the entire album.

I think my earlier comment about The Numbers sounding incredibly familiar may just be how at home that song would feel on Beck's Sea Change. Really, both this album and Sea Change go really well together, both stylistically and thematically. Nothing like a breakup to make a musician bust out the orchestral strings.

Princeps32 posted:

http://consequenceofsound.net/2016/05/ranking-every-radiohead-song-from-worst-to-best/

tired of ranking albums? let's rank every loving song including b-sides motherfucker

A list that ranks Thinking About You over Dollars and Cents, a shameful list

Probably Magic posted:

Electioneering is my favorite song off the album.

triple sulk posted:

If AMSP gets its Amnesiac almost immediately, I'm gonna lose my poo poo

Answers Me posted:

http://pitchfork.com/features/article/9890-internet-explorers-the-curious-case-of-radioheads-online-fandom/?mbid=social_twitter

Interesting read. The way they've built up a mythology over the years through the weird stuff they've done with their website kinda blows my mind. Are there any other bands that are this good at cultivating their mystique and getting people to obsess over every little detail? Maybe Boards of Canada, but not quite to the same extent.

trem_two posted:

A bit late to Brent DiCrescenzo chat, but this was his towering achievement, Pitchfork even wiped it from their site.

http://web.archive.org/web/20000816191450/www.pitchforkmedia.com/record-reviews/s/supergrass/supergrass.shtml

Seaniqua posted:

Thanks for sharing this, I've never heard of this guy. This album sounds incredible, gonna take me a few more listens to soak it up. Pretty clear that Nigel has borrowed a lot from it - especially the string sound and arrangement.

Hedrigall posted:

Pyramid Song being the most perfect song Radiohead has ever recorded, and probably my favourite song of all time.

Edit: oops that was meant to be an edit of my post not quoting it

Blast Fantasto posted:

Yeah but on the other hand; kicking and squealing gucci little piggy

IceAgeComing posted:

I'm not a huge fan; but I'd dig seeing it live since they do it so rarely. Especially if they perform it like they did last night, Thom actually tried which he sometimes doesn't for older songs

Corvo posted:

And then we found out there was a bunch of great b-sides that didn't make it onto the album

HD DAD posted:

Little by Little is one of my favorites off of TKOL, but can anyone actually hear the syncopation in the studio version? My brain absolutely refuses.

Jewmanji posted:

So is everyone in agreement that The Numbers basically sounds like an unused song from Sea Change? There's nothing wrong with it per se, but once I noticed that I couldn't stop being bothered by it.

Ballz posted:

We've had a month to digest AMSP so I think it's long overdue that we... rank Radiohead albums.

For me, it's gotten to the point where I have trouble individually placing albums. What is my all-time favorite Radiohead album? I could argue at length that it's Kid A, or In Rainbows... or even The King of Limbs.

With nine albums to go through I feel like I can only rate them in tiers of three. I have a top 3 favorite albums and any one of them can really be interchangeable, a solid middle three that can also be in any order, and then the bottom three that... ok, those bottom 3 are pretty much set in stone.

So with that in mind:

Tier 1:
-In Rainbows
-The King of Limbs
-Kid A

Tier 2:
-Amnesiac
-OK Computer
-A Moon Shaped Pool

Tier 3:
-The Bends
-Hail to the Thief
-Pablo Honey

BeanpolePeckerwood posted:

Ranking is a very important part of Radiohead threads.

T1:
-Amnesiac
-Hail to the Thief
-Ok Computer

T2:
-The King of Limbs
-In Rainbows
-A Moon Shaped Pool

T3:
-The Bends
-Kid A
-Pablo Honey

BigFactory posted:

Nah it's the bends because high and dry makes its way on to lots of sunset mixes if youre hanging with babes by the shore.

Sand Monster posted:

Please include a gym tier breakdown, as well.

Louisgod posted:

Will the physical release have additional unreleased tracks?

The REAL Goobusters posted:

I know one of you goons bought the collectors edition so upload the tracks for me tia

Popcorn posted:

Right. It’s been a month, or two months, or something, and I think my opinion on the new album is pretty much settled. Which is to say, it hasn’t really changed since release. Which is to say, I like it, but not as much as I liked the previous, erm, seven Radiohead albums. Which is a mild bummer.

I liked Burn the Witch from the start, but man, it really is a fine piece of work, some dodgy lyrics aside (see my earlier complaining)… I love the cheery electronic percussion, I love the gliding strings in the second verse, and most of all I love the chorus melody. The jubilant feeling of the music and the creepy fairy tale lyrics put it well in HTTT territory, but with modern Radiohead’s high-production-value orchestral gloss. I still think it needs a proper outro but we'll keep quiet about that.

The other track that really grew on me is Tinker Tailor. It reminds me a lot of Amnesiac, with its eerie synths, retro percussion and jazzy drumming, but the outro is pure Portishead. It's the one track on AMSP that really opened up to me on repeated listening, which is what traditionally happens with Radiohead songs; everything else on the album seemed to arrive disappointingly fully-formed to me, no further secrets to unpick, no riddles to solve…

I like Identikit, particularly the brittle guitar tone - but I still say it’s overstuffed, like they suddenly had a crisis of confidence. The simpler 2012 arrangement brought out the song in better detail. Ful Stop is also good, especially in the rhythm section, yet somehow never quite ramps up to the extent I want it to.

The new acoustic emphasis is where the album is weakest, I think. I still confuse Desert Island Disk with The Numbers; they are both blandly pleasant hippie songs, without strong identities of their own. I’m honestly surprised to hear this kind of thing coming from Radiohead at this point. The Present Tense almost falls into the same trap (I really think the percussion is particularly lame) but it’s rescued by a lovely, flowing melody.

I don’t get True Love Waits. I just don’t get it. It’s boring. Wishy-washy. It has no effect on me. I always liked the song but I’d long since made my peace with it. Don’t need it here. Playing it on piano feels like a lazy shorthand for “sad emotional song” that doesn’t pay off.

For me the biggest failing is the lack of focus. A lot of these songs just feel so fuzzy-edged to me, out of focus. And that’s what TKOL was so good at avoiding.

Pirate Jet posted:

yes... finally a venue where i can shove my opinion of TKOL>AMSP onto others

Louisgod posted:

Rankings don't include B-Sides, list is poo poo