Radiohead - The King of Limbs

the ending to Burn the Witch doesn't sound like a single edit at all to me. it sounds like the really predictable "build up and suddenly cut off" move that is used in many songs and pretty much every single movie trailer from the last 10 years

vacuum cleaner whooshing noise slowly overwhelming, swelling strings rising, sudden cutoff of everything followed by a soft bass tone and/or a muted explosive sound effect, sounds of heavy breathing, close-up of film star whispering "burn the witch", blackout, all caps "radiohead", blackout, "May 2016", brief credits, followed by instructions to put on your 3D glasses

yeah isn't it weird that Paranoid Android is their longest song at only six and a half minutes? Do they have a longer song?

Supercollider is longer I think

'Supercollider' is their longest song, it's over 7 minutes long.

Anyway, I'd rather bands packed in as many ideas as possible into a three minute long track than stretched them out over 20 minutes. Credit to Radiohead for realising how long their songs need to be.

Who here hasn't fantasised about a 15-minute Radiothon

Credit to Radiohead for realising how long their songs need to be.

Not like me, I know, but I will forgo the obvious zinger here.

Hahahaha!

And yet...

the chorus is kinda nice-ish
radiohead aren't making interesting music now
― And the cry rang out all o'er the town / Good Heavens! Tay is down (imago), Tuesday, 3 May 2016 15:39 (2 days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

What chorus?

I'm sure if they wrote a song that felt like it should be 15 minutes long, then it would be 15 minutes long. I don't particularly see the point in taking 3-4 minutes worth of ideas an overinflating it for the sake of it.

*and

ok this song rules, i'm interested in radiohead again after almost 10 years. makes me want to listen to the old stuff. w/r/t thom yorke's lyrics sounding dated or stale - well, the song is from 2005...

I wish this song had a bridge or something more than just verse/chorus/verse/chorus because it ends before it really goes anywhere, making it feel slight.

Radiohead songs are short and loud because they're a pop band.

Yeah I mean Imago is the only poster who actively correlates track length with quality, he drops this one every time Radiohead release an album.

Maybe not quality but, y'know, 'ambition' or whatever.

It's because he thinks long = 'not pop' and he thinks pop is for kids.

do I have to show you the pop tracks in my EOY lists over the last 5 years

also I clearly don't correlate length with quality (these days), it'd just be interesting to see Radiohead attempt something long-form, challenge their own parameters

The pop wars were fought in 2003, kid.

At their core, as interesting and 'progressive' as they may seem to some, Radiohead are shrewd businessmen and pop musicians first and foremost, and radical art experimentalists somewhere much further down the line.

Which is to say that I can't see them ever doing anything longform and weird or fully abstracted.

I'm using none of these terms pejoratively, either. I'm delighted that they're shrewd businessmen and pop musicians.

TBH I think they'd be terrible at it, it would be license to unleash all their worst instincts.

The problem with TKoL in particular wasn't anything to do with length it was that it felt unfinished - both the album and several of the songs. Virtually all of them sounded way better live but then that's been true of most Radiohead from Kid A onwards.

It's possible to overemphasise the 'pop' side as well as the 'art' side fwiw. Putting both in scare quotes because I'm not sure Radiohead are either really.

Yeah, that's fair.

I go back to the tracks around TKoL far more than I do the album itself. Staircase, Daily Mail, etc etc. They;'re all really good. They feel more lithe than the album tracks.

I love Staircase but The Daily Mail is probably the worst song they've released since Punchup At A Wedding. That kind of weary piano plod is the worst of all Radioheads.

Punchup At A Wedding is in my all-time Radiohead top 5 lol

it should be 9 minutes long

I didn't like Daily Mail initially but it's really grown on me over the years, and now feels like the apotheosis of that kind of song by them.

Punchup is fucking horrible.

that little blip beat at the end of punchup rules

They're both terrible Radiohead songs.

Yeah Radiohead have always straddled that pop/art line and it's made them very successful. I know it's been said before, but it's amazing to think that something like Pyramid Song could chart so high in the UK. They must be doing something right.

Only guy who can do the pathetic singer singing about pathetic people still sound cool is Tom Waits. Everytime Thom picks a piano without a backing band it's terrible.

Punch-Up was one of the first songs on HTTT that grabbed me when I first got it. Never understood the hate.

although a 'Worst Radiohead Songs' poll could be an interesting w.a.s.t.e of time

high and dry would presumably win by 10000000 points, given that we all have functioning ears

I'm very lukewarm on HTTT generally but Punch-Up is great.

what's wrong with High and Dry? Perfectly fine song, if over-proliferated over the years.

my top 5 worst radiohead songs would p much all be off the bends tho so i'm v much not the party line

I like both Punch Up and The Daily Mail. High and Dry is shit.

The Gloaming is the true crap HTTT song. Is it fair to say that's a really backloaded album? I've got little time for anything up until There There comes in, and then I pretty much love everything after and including that point.

The Bends is a fantastic record. I never listen to it today. It gets written-off as meat'n'potatoes acoustic rock but it's miles from that, especially given the context of when it came out. Planet Telex alone is testament to that.

m8 the opening stretch of httt is second only to ok computer's, it is wonderful

not even sure it's second given that ok computer has exit music where httt has backdrifts (challop sure but w/e)

planet telex is the best thing on the bends imo by a long, long way

I listened to The Bends in full the other day, and a number of songs do sound quite meat n potatoes to me. A couple of pleasant surprises on it which I'd forgotten about though, namely Nice Dream and Bulletproof.

not even sure it's second given that ok computer has exit music where httt has backdrifts (challop sure but w/e)

― And the cry rang out all o'er the town / Good Heavens! Tay is down (imago)

Backdrifts is incredible, one of their most overlooked tracks.

yeah zackly

not even sure it's second given that ok computer has exit music where httt has backdrifts (challop sure but w/e)

― And the cry rang out all o'er the town / Good Heavens! Tay is down (imago), Friday, 6 May 2016 10:14 (6 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Case in point. Backdrifts is awful.

Yeah Backdrifts is one of those awkwardly grafted electronic songs that still appear on Yorke solo records (also Where I End And You Begin and The Gloaming are so much better). The whole album could stand to lose four or five songs (especially in the second half) but we've done this to death over the years and I think it's now pretty underrated.