A POLL IN A CAGE ON ANTIBIOTICS - ILM Artist Poll #56 - RADIOHEAD - RESULTS THREAD

does anyone recall the leaked version of HTTF? it had some pretty differently mixed versions of some songs and some sounded better than the final mixes. Wolf At The Door was one.

A bunch of stuff I voted for showed up including all of my top 3 (In Limbo, Myxomatosis, Wolf at the Door ). Unspeakably livid that In Limbo got beat out by the fucking Tourist btw!!!

http://i.imgur.com/27IfIn8.jpg

26. My Iron Lung [20 votes | 407 points]

Kid A is soooo good.

it wasn't at the top of my ballot but I think I enjoyed voting for "the tourist" more than any other track. it's almost a throwaway and then it spreads its winfs

xxxposts "high and dry" is that one that sounds like a dry run for "fake plastic trees" yes?

"my iron lung" riff is all-time greatness. glad tom lost his megaphone he made some questionable choices when it was around imo and yes i voted for this and "the bends" make of that what you will

winfs. things are coming out all weird where is autocorrect when I neeeed you?

The Bends is great! Definitely the high point of that record along with Planet Telex for me. I like it when they rock.

"Kid A" ended up being one of only a couple songs from Kid A that i voted for, it's funny to think of it being one of my top 2 songs from that album but it really is.

Well, just got back to see how this is unfolding:

'High and Dry' - Great to see this place, there seems to be a group of fans that seem to bash this track, if only because it was an obvious influence on what Coldplay (amongst others) ended up doing, but to me this is a great song that in my mind is far superior to anything that Coldplay and their ilk achieved. At the time, I derived the same kind of pleasure out of the song as I got from listening to various tracks on Automatic For The People.

'Nude' - Easily one of my highlights of In Rainbows, one thing that sticks out to me about this one is the drum sound, weirdly enough.

'I Might Be Wrong' - A nice enough guitar riff, but not much of a song, in my opinion. Live versions are far superior, I think.

'Where I End And You Begin' - Why the hell wasn't this a single? My favourite track on Hail To The Thief, and the version that they performed in Live From The Basement absolutely slays. I love the little 2/4 measure pause that they insert just before the second verse, not to mention where Thom kicks it up into a higher gear in the last verse before the outro.

'Myxomatosis' - Excellent track, fucking evil keyboard riff and again the Live From The Basement version rules.

'Black Star' - I'm really surprised to see this place. Back in '95/'96 this used to be one of the highlights of The Bends for me, but I had got the impression that it had been forgotten about or overlooked with the passing of time and the more material the band put out. I certainly know that I'm a bit guilty of overlooking this one in recent years.

'Knives Out' - This is one of those Radiohead tracks where my opinion of it changes according to the mood I'm in. In the right frame of mind, I get taken in by the gorgeous guitar playing, but when I'm not in the mood for it, it just feels like Thom is needlessly moaning while staring at his bellybutton.

'Bodysnatchers' - God, this rocks... although my favourite part of the song isn't so much the guitar riff as to when it opens out during the middle eight.

'2+2=5' - Really surprised to see that this, alongside 'Where I End And You Begin' didn't place higher. Having said that, it's definitely lost a lot of lustre for me since I heard it for the first time through overplay.

'In Limbo' - Works better as part of the suite on the second half of Kid A than in isolation, IMO.

'The Tourist' - Probably my least favourite track on OK Computer that isn't 'Fitter Happier'. It makes for a great album closer (especially that lone bell right at the end), but I'd probably skip it if it came up on a shuffle play.

'Life In A Glasshouse' - This and 'We Suck Young Blood' have their fans. I'm not one of them.

'A Wolf At The Door' - Fucking excellent! Really glad to see this place.

'Kid A' - Again, surprised to see this come so high, but I love it all the same... particularly the bit towards the end where the sustained synths fade in. Great stuff.

'My Iron Lung' - Way too high, one of those tracks from The Bends that doesn't really float my boat anymore.

Why did I let My Iron Lung fall off the bottom of my ballot?

If "High and Dry" is the template for Coldplay, then "Pearly*" (which I am guessing won't place but I love, it was in my top 5) is surely the template for Muse.

― The Velvet Fog called me a motherfucker (Sandy), Tuesday, September 9, 2014 8:22 PM (2 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

For me the template for Muse is when the drums and distorted bass kick in on 'Exit Music (For A Film)'.

Tracks I voted for today: Nude, 2+2=5, My Iron Lung

Tracks I feel bad for not having voted for: Where I End and You Begin (that baseline!), Bodysnatchers, A Wolf at the Door.

I really love the Easy Stars version of The Tourist, feel free to shout at me.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eJJIfhbd3jc

I'm happy A Wolf At the Door made it, love that song. Actually, I voted for all three of the closing tracks that placed in a row.

Surprised there wasn't more Life in a Glasshouse love. Guess it just hits me with that special type of frisson during the "Someone's listening" part.

I can barely recall "In Limbo," and I've never really loved "Kid A" the song. I really need to throw on a pair of headphones and re-listen.

chap!

had four place today, up to six now.

Iron Lung is the song I didn't vote for that immediately lodged itself in my head after I'd sent my ballot. Is it a proto Paranoid Android? The wig-out-y bits feel very similar to me in isolation, though I've not played them back-to-back.

I thought very hard about whether to vote for High & Dry, because I used to adore it, and I do still love that kick drum sound in the intro. In the end it was a toss-up between that and Fake Plastic Trees, and I decided to go for the latter, just because it feels a little more sophisticated and therefore rewarding longterm strcuturally.

A great run here.

Iron Lung is my favourite song on The Bends and the song that sold Radiohead to me as more than just a post-grunge one hit wonder. I was pretty much obsessed with it as a teenager and spent years trying to perfect the intro riff on guitar. Voted it high at #3.

Despite the much-discussed sequencing issues on more recent Radiohead albums, they certainly know how to start and finish a record and that clutch of finishing tracks that came up is brilliant.

Wolf at the Door is excellent and creepy and kind of violent and I like the arpeggiated keys.
Voted Life In a Glasshouse high too: every so often Radiohead will surrender to pastiche, but in this case they use the Louis Armstrong-esque brass blues sound to maximal effect. They could stand to do more songs a bit like this.

And how can anyone not like The Tourist? Some have said it's an anticlimax, but it's the perfect closer for OKC for me - that feeling of inertia, clinical and airtight despite Thom insisting we 'slow down'. chap - I listen to the Easy Star version of OKC almost exclusively now, partly because I've heard the R'head version so many times and partly because the songs just work so well in dub mode.

The other thing that makes me feel as though 'Knives Out' is a retread of old material, as well as recycling the guitar part from Paranoid Android, the opening line sounds like Thom's about to sing 'I waant yoou to know (tice).. when I'm... not arouuund'

'Kid A' was the first thing I heard off the album - they were playing it in Time Records in Colchester on the day of release - and although I'd come to the shop expressly so I could buy it, I couldn't help but feel a mixture of excitement and disappointment.

On one hand my reaction was 'Wow, Radiohead are making music that sounds like THIS!' on the other, it did feel very heavily indebted to the Warp Records stuff I'd been getting into at the time and coupled with the TDR-friendly packaging (remember the secret booklet behind the CD caddy?) I couldn't help feeling my favourite rock band were in danger of parroting certain electronic music tropes and doing it badly. It took me quite a while to understand just how much more there was going on on Kid A (the album) than that. I'm still a bit hot and cold on Radiohead's more overt forays into electronica - sometimes it reminds me of when metal bands attempt to 'go techno' or slightly dodgy industrial music... Well maybe not that bad but still things like Eraser, Pulk/Pull, Kid A and a lot of King Of Limbs do little for me beyond making me feel slightly embarrassed.

My issue with their overt forays into full-on electronica was always that they didn't mix and master things like the people they were aping; they mixed and mastered things like a rock band, and a lot of the really subtle synaesthetic joy I get from Warp artists, Orbital, etc etc, comes in the way things were mixed and mastered so that they sounded so different from rock music. And this was phenomenologically like rock music, even as it aesthetically moved away from that.

At least to my ears, that is.

It could be that. All I associate with TKOL is awkward clacketty twiggy rhythms that don't really propel the songs any one way or the other. The songs have a lot of potential but there's barely any oomph in the production. It ends up feeling a bit like a rock band's impression of what electronic/dance-based music is. OTOH when they get the balance right (thinking about Idioteque especially) it works really well.

Never got Idioteque. Didn't vote for it.

I like it, but even Idioteque can feel a bit like it's missing a certain essential frequency that even the most average dance/electronic acts would include by default. Makes me realise how often I find myself complaining about this problem - recent work by Animal Collective and Arcade Fire also do this - in which big art-rock bands decide they're going to adopt an electronic influence but somehow find themselves unwilling or unable to inject the same lifeblood into their productions as their influences do. These guys are all clearly listening to avant-electronica, techno, dub/bass music etc, but why their productions all too often end up sounding so thin and ricketty is anyone's guess. Maybe, as Mouthy says, it's all down to mixing/mastering habits?

I wonder if we're likely to expect any more b-sides - especially ones form the pre-Kid A era? I'm especially fond of Talk Show Host, Bishops Robes, A Reminder and Melatonin but I doubt these'll get very high at all.

I think 'Talk Show Host' is in with a chance.

Is Talk Show Host Gazza's favourite Radiohead song?

Worrywort's probably gonna make it. Lots of people talking about it in the voting thread.

Also, I voted a non-album track at number 2, so hopefully that one comes through.

As tracks in the lower echelons of this poll regularly have 1 or 2 #1 votes, I'm not so sure it will

Speaking of non-album tracks I really hope Supercollider and Staircase make it, looking less and less likely at this point.

I had 'The Tourist' as my #1 but the other two album closers in the last batch have never been favourites of mine - my own edited-down version of HTTT finishes with 'Scatterbrain' which works nicely I think, it lets a bit of light back in.

can I belatedly say "In Limbo" is a gorgeous, gorgeous song

It is, but one which doesn't really work in isolation for me.

It only just made it onto my ballot but yeah it really is lovely. Great vocal.

It's a shame we couldn't have a side projects poll
Band Aid 20 ftw

http://i.imgur.com/26BBdHY.jpg

25. 15 Step [20 votes | 1 #1 vote | 411 points]

My number 1. I adore this song.

Herky jerky rhythms; too clever for its own good reference to 2 step except, you know, smarter; not quite awkward enough not to fall apart completely; and do I detect a hint of warmth in there? Yup it's Radio head in 2007.

i believe i had 15 step at #3 in the end. compulsively listened to it when IR first came out

I don't love it, but there's something satisfying about the way the drums and guitar lock together.

http://i.imgur.com/MxUcWfL.jpg

24. Optimistic [18 votes | 1 #1 vote | 427 points]

Like many I can't really unlock In Limbo and Optimistic from each other. That second part of Kid A is just too good to split up. But I really like Optimistic. The sort of background organy sound during the 'try the best you can' part really does it for me.

"Optimistic" has one of my favorite moments on Kid A, in fact, one of my favorite moments in Radiohead's oeuvre: the slight, nervous uptick in tempo near the end.

I love Radiohead's rhythm section and 15 Step shows them off perfectly. I love the way it starts with it's electronic bait and switch, and the way the live groove then falls in. I adore the little punctum bits when the kids voices come in ever so slightly.

Can't remember if Optimistic made my ballot. I like it, but I think there are similar examples of this kind of thing - krauty, nervous, tense - that they've done which I prefer.

No, you didn't vote for it.

http://i.imgur.com/hBl7nEi.jpg

23. Talk Show Host [20 votes | 431 points]