Radiohead - The King of Limbs

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.

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.

― the joke should be over once the kid is eaten. (chap), Friday, 6 May 2016 10:16 (6 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Yeah those are some of the best songs. Iron Lung is all time too. Don't get me wrong, compared to what came later it sounds like Travis, but there's enough other stuff going on to make it well, not Travis.

"scatterbrain" -> "wolf at the door" is prob my favorite section of music on any radiohead record. album is still wayyyy too long and unfocused

The Gloaming is the true crap HTTT song.

Agree that the first half of HTTT is a major bummer. Go To Sleep has to be one of my least favourite post-Bends RH songs.

I love We Suck Young Blood and I think things pick up from there but on the whole I don't think it measures up to either Kid A/Amnesiac or In Rainbows.

the first 4 tracks are, like, so good

Don't get me wrong, compared to what came later it sounds like Travis, but there's enough other stuff going on to make it well, not Travis.

Oh I definitely enjoyed hearing The Bends and Fake Plastic Trees, they're cleverly put together songs, but if that kind of thing was the extent of their ambitions they wouldn't be a band I would particularly call myself a fan of.

the album version of the gloaming is unfinished, live with the extra bass & drums it's much better

i never used to like punch up at a wedding, but it's grown on me more recently, the groove's got a nice quiet menace to it. i wouldn't mind a 9 minute version of it really. i'd be interested in them doing some longer tracks, it's one direction they've hinted at but never really explored.

the weak point on the bends is bones, but it's a pretty good album if sometimes overrated. black star especially is fantastic

The Confield-ish textures on the Gloaming really do it for me, there's a bit that sounds like the beat has been chopped up into tiny pieces and is just sloshing around that I didn't really hear again until the Holly Herndon album last year.

xp Bones is crap. I'm not a fan of the title track either.

Another new video on Instagram, Thom appears to have lost his car this time.

Where'd he park the car? Where'd he park the car?

Another video this afternoon?

This'll be the PTA directed one I'd wager.

album out may 8th

Source?

https://youtu.be/TTAU7lLDZYU

and another song

seems like this album is going to focus on Jonny's orchestrations