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Radioheadthread
Sam
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
It's been a while since we've had one of these. Radiohead message boards tend to be pretty idiotic, and I've been wanting to talk about them- the new stuff in particular. Later, I'll post Youtube links or maybe YSI's to recordings of the new songs, which have grown on me considerably. I'm unsure about how the album will turn out though- it's definitely more accessible than anything since OK Computer, and Thom Yorke seems to be writing songs about girls and relationships to make up for staying away from the theme since Pablo Honey.
And in anticipation of all the hate and arguing about how they're pretentious and overrated, I'm just going to ask the haters to hate themselves a little and subject their ears to OK Computer and Amnesiac for a month or two and see if that changes anything.
And in anticipation of all the hate and arguing about how they're pretentious and overrated, I'm just going to ask the haters to hate themselves a little and subject their ears to OK Computer and Amnesiac for a month or two and see if that changes anything.
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Thom York is pretentious.
I miss the days when you could hear a guitar on a Radiohead album.
Yeah there's no guitar on Hail to The Thief, except on, I don't know, every single song*.
Yorke does come off as a pretentious guy at times, but he's also far more sincere than most other rock stars, and acknowledges his hypocrisy, which is far more than the likes of Bono will ever do.
*there are 3 songs without prominent guitar parts, and they all have subtle guitar effects on them
some are completely guitar driven, with solos, even.
I hope that you choke
Instead of throwing some bullshit high society party or press junket to announce The Eraser, he just an email to fan sites and wrote about it in a brief blog post.
I like their blog too. They can be annoyingly ambiguous, but they always post cool pictures.
All I Need- very catchy, really cool vocals at the end. Has single potential.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zHBJfJwFEnw
Nude- one of the best songs out of all the new material. Great performance. They've had this song written since the OK Computer days, and it's gone through pretty dramatic revisions. Sounds better than ever now, and should be even better still when they record it with strings, a choir, and Nigel Godrich's Midas Touch.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gbXrdOwDlGc
There aren't really any good quality videos of the rest of the stuff, which is a shame because there are some amazing songs- Arpeggi, which you need to listen to on the iPod for a while before you can really enjoy it (And it might be one of the best songs they've done yet) Videotape, Go Slowly, 15 Step (Makes me want to dance) 4 Minute Warning and a surf-esque instrumental called Spooks.
And who knows how much of this will be on the album, and what they still have up their sleeves.
edit- im really hoping we can get some discussion in about the new album/future of the band. The usual drivel about them being pretentious is inevitable, but it's really old at this point.
Thom Yorke doesn't seem like a dick.
I think my favourite rendition of Nude so far has been the organ-heavy version from around the OK Computer-Kid A era. The newest version is good, but not as good IMO.
Thom Yorke has an awesome stage prescence. Just check out You and Whose Army from this years V Festival in Staffordshire:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dMRoZSjFFMA
I love that man.
My impression of the mars volta's albums, by the way, has been that it's skillful, overly self-fascinated wankery with nothing genuine to say. Interesting how that maps onto the personalities of the guys making it.
The crazy shit done by Cedric in live shows could suggest that they don't or that they do, so yeah.
Radiohead.
I haven't heard all the new songs, is the new record supposed to be more electronic or guitar-y? I heard in a recent interview that Thom Yorke said he'd rather make a record with just a computer than just a guitar.
I don't know, I'm not particularly pretentious and I have an open disdain for anyone moshing at a gig I'm playing. I think it's pathetic.
Again, I respect their viewpoint. I understand why you, as a fan, might believe that you hold some importance to a band, but you should understand that most commited musicians are glad you like them but wouldn't really give a shit whether you do or not.
If you don't like moshing (I don't either), stay out of the mosh pit. It's not that hard. They way Cedric went about it was really obnoxious. He called the audience "typically white", "robots", "sheep", and then went on to say that they all "watch too much TV", and for some reason said "I have a microphone and you don't". It's just a really douche way to address your audience. At another show, he went on and on about male aggression and how it was time to reinvent the punk movement. Fuck that, punk is violent and aggressive and pissed-off, and if you're playing a punk show I think it makes you kind of a dick to say "Hey guys, no moshing or slamdancing allowed"
That's the only Radiohead CD I can listen to without skipping a track.
You mean all the way back to Hail to the Theif?
EDIT: Seems this has already been said, so I'm going to counter something else.
Well considering that you're going to THEIR show so that THEY entertain YOU, I'm pretty sure you count as a guest and you do as they say, and before each and every show ATDI went through a 3+ min speech on no slam dancing, and note how its slamdancing not moshing, you know where people get hurt because it's apparently that's what music makes them do, and they didn't want their band to be the soundtrack to violence. So when they lay down the rules and you disobey them I think they're fine in walking off and telling the crowd off. And you act like only Cedric did it, Jim did it earlier on in the same gig as well as well as many others.
But that's just what I think.
I don't think it's their best but I do think it gets overlooked too often.
It is such an awesome album though.
In a nutshell, klosterman breaks down track like so: (please note that I'm mostly just paraphrasing his analysis)
1. Everything in it's right place: the skyline of New York on 9/11 at 8:am, peaceful, serene. "sucking on lemon" refers to the average attitude of most new yorkers.
2. Kid A: "science is the answer; Technology/America is invulnerable", hoping for a futre like the presecen, but better, what Klosterman discribes as: "woozy, ephemeral normalcy." You can envision people going up elevators and drving/riding to work, sipping coffee.
3. The National Anthem: Panic, a sense of "something s wrong." The title also notes what everyone will be singing before long.
4. How to Disappear Completely: as the tile implies, people are trying to "disappear"; the line "this isn't happening" is repeated. people are "floating" (re: falling). it's a song about watching the disaster unfold.
5. Treefingers: wordless, open mouthed shock.
6. Optimistic: it has lyris about ground zero ("vultures circle the dead") and how Al Qaeda see the U.S. ("The big fish eat the little ones, the big fish eat the little ones, not my problem, give me some.")
7. In Limbo: The U.S. Has been shaken from it's fantasy, with "nowhere to hide." it finds only lies and political deciet; "trap doors that opne, "I spiral down."
8. Idioteque: survivers slowly conclude "I'm alive". it offers true acceptance, unlike the denial ridden track 4, admitting "This is really happening." We wonder "who's in a bunker", plotting to kill us all.
9. Morning bell: the shell-shocked nation becomes uncharacteristicly friendly ("everyone wants to become a friend"), but there's no way to deal with loss...
10. Motion Picture Soundtrack: ...because suddenly everyone needs to escape: "Red wine and sleeping pills, help me get back to your arms." everybody need more vicodin. everyone needs more merlot. our void is filled with "cheap sex" and "sad films." We want everything to end happily ever after, we want the whole thing to end like a hollywood motion picture, but ultimately, all we are left with is the fleeting hope in a life after this one: "I shall see you in the next life."
Now, of course, Klosterman does not imply this was intentional; far from it. As Klosterman conclude his anaysis, he notes:
"...Lyrically, there is no conscious structure to Kid A's songs at all. (his italics, not mine.) Which of course, is the only way this could have happened. A genius can be a genius by trying to be a genius; a visionary can only have vision by accident." (89) (Damn, I feel like i'm writing a paper now)
anyways, yopu know he drill.
DISCUSS!
I don't get this at all. The lyrics for Kid A are:
I slipped away
I slipped on a little white lie
We got heads on sticks
You got ventriloquists
We got heads on sticks
You got ventriloquists
Standing in the shadows at the end of my bed (x4)
Rats and children follow me out of town
Rats and children follow me out of town
Come on kids...
Morning Bell doesn't seem to fit either. It's pretty obviously about divorce.
Idiotic.
So let me get this straight: I'm relaying to you guys, a observation, made by another person, and by asking you all to discuss it's merits, I am an idiot? Curious.
I'll agree with your second point. Morning Bell is by and by far the weakest of the examples he gives to support his argument. but as for the first point, you have to keep in mind that it's not necessarily the lyrics that are the focal point of most of Radiohead's songs; their instruments and melodies frequently take prescident over the lyrics. The main instument used in the song is the Ondes Martenot- you may remeber it from the Star Trek theme song. After all, the term "Kid A" is Yorke's moniker for the first cloned human. The conciously misguided message given by the atmosphere of the song, combined with that previous piece of information, is this: (again from Klosterman)
"science is the answer. Technology solves everything because technology is invulnerable. And this what almost everyone in America thought at around 8:30 am. but something happens 3 and a half minutes into "Kid A." It suddenly doesn't feel right, and you don't know exactly why. This is followed by track three, 'The National Anthem.' " (86-87)
Now this last bit, the bit about "something suddenly not feeling right", does relate to my personal experiences. On the morning of 9/11, my father, who was drving on the highway, suddenly felt the inexplicable need to prey. he had not heard about the attacks yet, but he felt the need anyways. I'm not telling people to prey or anything, I'm just pointing out this sort of strange "disturbance in the force" sort of moment that you can feel at the end of the second track reflects what people around me have wexperienced. I can relate to this interpretation of the songs and the album, even thought I know full damn well there is absolutely no way Thom Yorke could have predicted the events of 9/11, nor gotten them down in song. But artists do not get to choose how there work is interpreted. Take the sond "Mr. Tamberine Man". It is commonly ascribed as being about drugs. Yet Bob Dylan, the man who wrote it, stated that the song was about a literal "tamberine man" , a tamberine playing singer who he looked up to. but if you eish to disagree, attack my point (and to be more accurate, honestly, the points of the man which I am bringing to the table), as opposed to simply calling me an "idiot" and then running off.
Note how I said "idiotic" as in, "that's an idiotic theory", and not "idiot" as in, "you are an idiot."
But you are slowly convincing me.
EDIT: Of the latter, not the theory.
Dear god, not the theory.
I dunno, I just never get any genuine emotion out of TMV. Their albums are a hundred good little ideas all plastered together in ways that would make a jamband blush. They like to rock, but what are they saying?
Not every disaster is 9/11.
Also, I like Radiohead.
Rock Band DLC | GW:OttW - arrcd | WLD - Thortar
set on repeat
playing on a playstation hooked up to a hotel tv
it played all night
double nerd points
thought i would share
It's spelled "Idioteque".
Rock Band DLC | GW:OttW - arrcd | WLD - Thortar
Also OK Computer is an extremely good album.
TMV have picked up on this.
MBV they are not.
You can't be serious. The big bad performer won't let you 'express yourself' ( :roll: ) at his show, leaving you with no outlet for your rage at your parents for not letting you out of the house past 11? What are you, twelve years old?
As for the new stuff, I'm pretty sure I'll like the new album. The older songs (like Nude) seem to be coming along nicely. I'll enjoy it as long as I don't build it up too much beforehand.
Also, ummm, I'm a pretty "unragey" person, and I don't mosh, but people who stand their with their arms crossed at concerts piss the hell out of me. Fucking NYU hipster trash.
As for their new stuff, my bro and I saw them over summer and are stoked about their more piano driven shit. It does seem a little more accessible than say Amnesiac but I definitely dig. The only way I would think that they have "lost it" is if they went back to sounding like they did on pablo honey and bends. Not because it would sound bad but because they popularized that "brit rock" sound paving the way for bands like Travis and Coldplay -- which are good pop bands. If Radiohead were to revisit those familiar waters, then it would be a giant step back for them musically -- see U2.