Radiohead - The King of Limbs

^^^ OTM. Nothing new here. And it's quite a dull album actually. And that's coming from someone who likes hearing it, or at least doesn't mind hearing it. It seems like a certain amount of reviews used the "It's a grower"-argument, while what they actually mean is "It's not a grower - but hey it's Radiohead, it sounds half decent, we can't just slag it off, so it must be a grower!".

This isn't a grower at all. It won't advance from what it is now to something sublime in the coming time, there's no deeper layer waiting to be unveiled. More than anything, this just is what it is.

xp to Cpt. Lorax

The only song on here I really, really value and enjoy is 'Separator'. It is the only composition that seems daring, seems a leap forward. The rest of the songs could've been b-sides to songs of the last three albums. If only they put Seperator up front and took it from there. It's the Can-like drums, the 'Tourist'-like breeziness and lush sounds, kosmische almost, that I really wished they would've elaborated on.

Lotus Flower still wins it for me, a really seductive melody. Morning Mr Magpie is growing on me as well.

any interviews worth reading about the album? i can't possibly think the band is very proud of it. not at least compared to albums in which they clearly had the right to be (kid a, mostly... i guess they kind of had that same vibe of self-importance w/ amnesiac/ httt tho)

Liam Gallagher weighs in (link):

I heard that fucking Radiohead record and I just go, 'What?!' I like to think that what we do, we do fucking well. Them writing a song about a fucking tree? Give me a fucking break! A thousand year old tree? Go fuck yourself! You’d have thought he’d have written a song about a modern tree or one that was planted last week. You know what I mean?

have they given any interviews about this album yet? i feel like if any of them talked to any reporter at length i would've heard about it by now.

does Liam read ILE?

But it couldn’t have gone on the front of the head, could it? I’d rather go grey than fucking bald and I’m not going to be dyeing it if it does go grey.

this album is good "work music"

ha, that sesame street jam is great.

i can't possibly think the band is very proud of it. not at least compared to albums in which they clearly had the right to be

oh come on

i think non-musicians tend to have a really warped and strange view of how 'proud' musicians are or should be of their own music and whether that has any actual reflection on the music

I think a band with as much quality control as Radiohead would break up before they released an album they "weren't proud of"

Relistened yesterday, still think it's great. Very easy album to love. (All their albums are easy to love, I find. I know I've gone on about it this elsewhere but I think the number one judgment about Radiohead I've never been able to get to grips with is that they make 'cold' music. It always feels very enveloping.)

not to like put myself on the level of a "real musician" or artist or whatevs

but i have recorded and released 4 albums w/2 different bands, and basically i can hardly ever listen to any of them, all i hear is flaws, etc

you get to a stage sometime during mixing where you're like god this is GREAT omg, then by time it comes out you've already got regret creeping in and it seems like it doesn't sound like how you imagined it sounds...then you blame whoever mastered it and move on w/yr life

maybe you have a lower core temperature than other people (xpost)

haha that is pretty OTM, M@tt

xpost -- Well I do try and be relaxed.

yeah lots of musicians can't stand their own stuff but i don't think that's a universal standard... i tend to actually enjoy the stuff i make when i do make music, but that's more out of me trying really hard to make stuff i'd enjoy than being totally impressed with myself or blind to its flaws or anything.

it's more that they have so much control over the critical mass that I think they'd like to experiment with themselves and see the result. radiohead is definitely a band that has receieved, no matter how drastically it changers it sounds, resounding applause.

cant believe i'm calling the whole album an experiment but for something so short it doesn't seem like they were very enthused/passionate about doing the thing really either. growing weary of your own work surely doesn't speak much.

xpost

yeah i guess stuff that's REALLY old now can kinda surprise me, like i listened to this thing from 99 that i did that i liked, because now i couldn't even play any of the parts anymore or remember the process, so it's almost this weird feeling of "who DID this?" like it seems like another person

one thing i've noticed talking to a lot of musicians is that no one really likes to stay attached to their old work, even if it's what they're best known for. for one thing, it's a pretty sad life if you don't believe that your new stuff is better than your old stuff. also being a lot more experienced, comfortable with your craft, and having worked on your weak points can translate to a "i didn't know shit back then compared to now, so it couldn't have been that great" mentality.

for me it's simply an inability to get past Yorke's voice, which is unpleasant as sound effect and conveyor of meaning.

I'd think any artist would feel similarly. Whenever I get compliments on past work I'm flattered but...it already happened. In some cases a hell of a long time back. And I'm just not there any more. (Matt's 'thing from 99' comment just makes me think of the 136 list I did.)

yeah I think a lot of the disconnect between how artists view their own work and how fans do starts with the fact that by the time they put a record out, it's in the artist's past but it kind of stays in the perpetual present for the listener. if they don't keep playing a song live regularly, it probably stops even existing in their head at some point.

sometimes I wonder if it's easier to be have a kind of internal sense of satisfaction as a musician that hasn't 'made it' than one that has because you can believe your best days are ahead of you or that what you're working on at any given moment is the most exciting thing you've done, because there's not a huge fanbase or critical community constantly talking about how your best work was 5 or 10 years ago and they don't like the direction you've been going in the last couple albums.

you get to a stage sometime during mixing where you're like god this is GREAT omg, then by time it comes out you've already got regret creeping in and it seems like it doesn't sound like how you imagined it sounds...then you blame whoever mastered it and move on w/yr life

this is exactly how i feel about almost everything i write except without the mastering excuse, so i believe you.

reminds me this dfw quote from the lipsky interview book, talking about being a grad student looking at writers who have "made it":

You suffer from a delusion that, for all the pain of your envy, there's this inverse, satisfied feeling...there's no keen, exquisite pleasure that corresponds with the keen exquisite pain of envying somebody older. Who's written something, or won some tournament, that you particularly admire.

ha yeah there's a bunch of stuff in IJ about that, about the lower-ranked tennis players assuming that the higher-ranked tennis players are as happy as the lower-ranked ones are unhappy.

Favorite lotus mashup so far:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m0VPPJscIL4&feature=player_embedded

OMG fuckin' a

bullet proof (he wishes he was)

lol I'm stealing that one

baw someone already used it on youtube

yup, i stole it myself !

http://radioheadthekingoflimbs.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/thom-yorke-dance-guide.jpg

in gif form

http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lhbagzv4zO1qa9wbfo1_500.gif

omg he's shooting justin bieber!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

god the future is great.

Okay, excuse my format-illiteracy, but I was born in the post-tape/pre-CD era.... how much _____ does a 10" vinyl contain? Kinda overlooked the fact that there'll be two of them w/ the newspaper album.

It will probably be similar to Kid A... 2 to 3 songs per side... a waste of vinyl but looks sweet:

http://t1.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcS74iB6cP4pPCguhu9qc8TlGPqryJRgPHlqubFCn3ccBhRK-DO2&t=1

Thanks. So with all these rumors regarding Separator's last line ("It's not over yet" or something like that) (and it's obvious implication via song title).... maybe the idea of a continuation of the album doesn't have a whole lot of ground?

iono, i'm just hearing lots elsewhere that lotta peepz are hopeful considering the album as we have it now is so short

There's apparently a hidden cover on the digital version of tkol that nulls the theory that there's more than 8 tracks on the physical release:
http://radioheadthekingoflimbs.com/hidden-tkol-cd-cover/

In a recent interview Johnny said they were still recording so I'm not sure anymore that they have a definitive upcoming release anytime soon.

^they seem to avoid using the word "album" tho, and instead "CD version". I'm slightly, slightly hopeful; but it's not something that'll keep me up at night.

If it hasn't been posted already, somebody digitized the album artwork into.... a song (I'm kinda O_o as well)
http://soundcloud.com/zersto/radiohead-the-king-of-limbs-1/s-FQ8Os

and there's just this website's existence in general:
http://www.thekingoflimbspart2.com/

Woah. I think the Jacob is the Smoke Monster and the island is all in Hurley's imagination.

lol @ radiohead fans getting to the end of the album and going "that's it? that's all? van damme!" and convincing themselves there's another record in the pipeline

Here's another clue for you all: the walrus was Paul.

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lol @ radiohead fans getting to the end of the album and going "that's it? that's all? van damme!" and convincing themselves there's another record in the pipeline

― Rovi Wade (some dude), Saturday, March 5, 2011 2:08 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark

I WANT TO BELIEVE

& this partially supports the aforementioned theory
http://www.nme.com/news/radiohead/55292

I'm not sure if that statement says anything other than "I'm a musician and I'm in a band and we make music"