Radiohead - A Moon Shaped Pool

Excellent post by Soundslike upthread, my thoughts exactly

Radiohead have been consistently terrible about putting songs that don't fit properly and stick out like sore thumbs on their albums

KM I don't follow what you're saying about Nigel but perhaps you're not being serious

"i do wonder if it is true, as the rumors say, that phil, colin, and ed have all been sacked"

is this a rumor? I hadn't heard it.

I'm not holding my breath for a new RH album myself.

OKC, Kid A, The King of Limbs and In Rainbows all sound to me like every song fits - or at least don’t have songs that stick out too much for me. The Bends, Amnesiac, Hail to the Thief and AMSP do have songs that don’t fit. I agree that AMSP is very consistent though if you remove BTW and place Ill Wind instead.

oh, i was joking about all that akm, sorry! i don't know why i do these things. the "sacked" rumor is one that i'm trying to start myself. it originated when the Smile had a different (much better, imo) drummer and stripped down the band to just the genius members (imo), jonny and thom

that Smile performance was very promising, i thought, particularly as the first performance of a new configuration of members with completely new songs. it sounded "raw" in a way that most modern radiohead recordings/concerts do not

Justice for CR78

i wouldn't expect a new rh album until maybe 2024 at earliest, since they haven't even starting recording yet

i imagine it would have happened sooner if it weren't for the pandemic - that seems the most likely reason the smile is even happening

it would be so appropriate with the general overtone of the band if "radiohead" as we know it is another casualty, in a roundabout way, of covid.

don't say such things pls

Also, man how has it been FIVE YEARS since this came out? I cant cope

Radiohead have been consistently terrible about putting songs that don't fit properly and stick out like sore thumbs on their albums

OKC, Kid A, The King of Limbs and In Rainbows all sound to me like every song fits

My theory about Radiohead's seeming unimpeachability is rooted in the fact that they always include a bum track, or two, or three. It makes their records appear stronger overall when they have a "Fitter Happier"/"Treefingers"/"Hunting Bears"/"Faust Arp" etc. etc. on there.

And going even further than "a duff track", to take songs-that-are-basic-as-shit-in-their-original-incarnation like Pulk/Pull and Like Spinning Plates and Kid A and essentially destroy them by turning them backwards or mixing them badly or having a Macintosh sing them... the resultant fartsongs make everything else sound better

the resultant fartsongs

― flamboyant goon tie included, Sunday, November 7, 2021 3:35 PM

disregard my previous post; i have it on good authority that this will be the title of the band's next album.

like, basically confirmed. inform twitter.

I actually love fitter happier and treefingers in the context of their respective albums.

Agree on hunting bears and faust arp being duds, but they’re short enough that I don’t mind them. There’s more songs in amnesiac which I find to be extremely skippable - but I tend to think very unkindly in general of that album tbh and it’s probably my least favorite next to HTTT.

I absolutely love the song “kid a” and wont hear this nonsense of it being a fartsong. You can throw the other two you mention to the dogs though, I don’t really care about them.

agree, title track from kid a has always been a keeper.

Ennh “fartsong” wasn’t meant to be a diss, what they did with “Spinning Plates” was an inspired use of an otherwise kinda-insipid song I think. I lived with a potter who intentionally put leaks in the bases of her vases. She said, “when the work is less functional, it becomes more artistic.” I dunno whether I agreed with her. Then, Hideo Kohima famously said, “games can never be art because they require functionality”— paraphrased. I think about this stuff wrt Radiohead’s “top of every list” track record, that by shooting holes in their Coldplayest moments they’re making “art”, or at least the semblance of art. “Fitter Happier” is dumb, “like a pig / in a cage / on antibiotics” is actual Pink Floyd, but it strengthens my resolve that “Paranoid Android” is one of the greatest songs ever recorded— like “Fitter Happier” kinda de-stinks the stink of “the crackle of pig skin / the yuppies networking” and let’s the song slip into my personal canon

That was some post, thank you

love this convo

i loved fitter happier for a long time. then i got a bit bored and started skipping it. then i realized that either way, it makes for the perfect lead-in to karma police and it's iconic. pretty good for the least-listened to song on the album (according to spotify at least)!

I absolutely love the song “kid a” and wont hear this nonsense of it being a fartsong.

otm. did i already mention my experience of first hearing john mayer via his cover of it, sent to me by the only guy in the dorm with long hair, over the vaunted "T1" connection that was apparently the fucking shit in 2001? he had interesting taste, and would have been a great ilxor! anyway, until i heard his version i thought of the radiohead version as kind of impenetrable or something. but mayer makes it sounds like...all his other music. so strange to go back to the original after that and suddenly hear all these soaring choruses. even today (before reading these posts), for some reason i found myself humming "we've got heads on sticks, you've got ventriloquists" in this really sweet way, like it was the most normal thing to say

treefingers has raised a bit in my estimation over the years. it used to sound like flat tones to me, now I hear all the variations and different voices added and subtracted all the time. i feel like a common HS radiohead moment is when everybody's listening in the car and then it gets to treefingers. and it's like, is anyone going to make us skip this tonight.

i also have to say that i got lit 420 earlier today thought that the transition at the end of Optimistic into In Limbo is maybe underrated. when In Limbo kicks in it suddenly sounds like the lyrics in a way that is sickening and awesome

It's a double transition - there's the brief "funk" rendition of "Optimistic", and then the even briefer intro to "In Limbo" before the triplet guitar arpeggi start. It's perfectly timed to lead into the second song: "Not this... and not this either... but this!"

yeah, i love it! that little fake-out transition is 23 seconds long.

the exact number of years he was together with rachel. but how would he know that in 2000??

also jordan's number think abt it
two GOATs acknowledging each other

(jordan retired the season ok computer was released, returns following the release of amnesiac, i just think its an underdiscussed series of events)

anyway "kid a (the song)" is great, "fitter happier" is the "providence" of ok computer (this is Good), "treefingers" is good ambient, "hunting bears" more like "hunting for a point (and starving to death)"

i like the idea of fucking around so you know that the good shit really is the good shit

"fitter happier" is the "providence" of ok computer

yes

also WTF, WOWOWOWOW at the michael jordan connection, makes sense

other important dates
93 - mj retires for the first time, same year as the release of pablo honey
95 - mj returns once the bends comes out
03 - retires for the final time when httt comes out

9-3 = 6

colin and phil sacked for mj and phil (jackson) confirmed

paranoid android's 3-songs-in-1 vibe = a reference to the triangle offense

9-3 = 6

― just staying (Karl Malone), Sunday, November 7, 2021 9:49 PM (five minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

this is true but no one wants to talk about it bc they think they're too good for early elementary math facts

2+2 = 5
2 + 2 - nigel = 5
2 + 2 -(-1) = 5

again, nigel is a negative presence

the transition at the end of Optimistic into In Limbo

co-sign, one of my favorite moments on any radiohead album.

Ennh “fartsong” wasn’t meant to be a diss,

― flamboyant goon tie included, Sunday, November 7, 2021 6:45 PM

no, i knew exactly what you meant and i liked it! thank you for expounding, just confirmed what i got from it initially but also very well articulated! i also like that you compare THEM to coldplay and not vice versa. not being snarky, i find that genuinely funny and it makes sense to phrase it that way because at this point . . . it's kind of true.

he is "a negative one" to be around

I like the fartsongs flamboyant tie goon mentions upthread. It's the tracks like Burn The Witch, Bodysnatchers and a few strange sequencing choices on HTTT which I was meaning upthread about certain (otherwise good) songs sticking out on otherwise consistent albums

The biggest (and worst) fartsong is 'Feral'

"bodysnatchers" doesn't really stick out at all, they make it work in the sequence very well somehow

amnesiac and httt are the albums where the sequencing is noticeably a problem & amnesiac is a real 'what could have been' because there was a lot of strong material left off the album

In Rainbows has always felt like an excellent mini album with a strong double A-side tacked on the front of it. For me, it's 'Nude' that really kicks off that album's blissy, languid vibe whereas 15 Step and Bodysnatachers are spikey and/or blustering

in fact I'd say those two songs sound much more like they'd fit on HTTT, so maybe I could look at them like they're transitioning from 2003 Radiohead to 2007.

Speaking of “In Limbo”: yes the transition into it is brilliant but also the sort of “digital collapse” or what feels like waves of sound washing the song away at the end is one of my favorite Radiohead outros of all time. The song just disintegrates.

faust arp is lovely, sorry all

Yes

If I'm working and have a Fender Rhodes dialed up on ProTools, I'll add a bit of delay and play the little two-note riff from In Limbo over and over.

more like fart arp

mares, that's a fun thing and something semi-related that i think about a lot is how kid a, for me, is one of the definitive *FENDER RHODES* albums. it's not all over every song, but when it is used, it's just so perfectly realized and placed within everything else. really playing to the instrument's strength.

yeah that opening riff = instant calm

also Faust Arp is filler? wtf it's insanely good and a perfect breather, the strings are magical

i haven't listened to kid a in years but don't remember the rhodes being featured on it much. there's the little riff from in limbo, the chords in morning bell, and... i think that's it?

I probably associate it more with okc because of the bitches brew-style rhodes clutter on 'subterranean homesick alien', but i don't think it's on a ton of okc songs either

there's the live version of "everything in its right place" too (& the studio version's synth is a pretty good imitation of one)