Radiohead - The King of Limbs

Nonsense! Although if you take some of the b-sides and use them instead some of the actual songs on Amnesiac the record is much better! Here's a tracklist choice for Amnesiac + B-sides best of:

1. Packt Like Sardines in a Crushed Tin Box
2. Pyramid Song
3. You and Whose Army
4. I Might Be Wrong
5. Fog
6. Cutooth
7. Worrywort
8. The Amazing Sounds of Orgy
9. Kinetic
10. Life in a Glasshouse

Takes a three star album up to four stars.

There's a case about adding a studio version of the live piano version of Like Spinning Plates.

'Dollars and Cents' was a huge grower for me. The first time I heard it, I thought it was a bit of an aimless jam, but I've come to appreciate it more and more over the years... the echoing percussion and the overall moody vibe of it. 'Knives Out' is a favourite of mine too, and I've always been curious as to what the zillion different ways they supposedly attempted it sounded like. It was notoriously the one song during the entire sessions that they spend ages on trying to find an approach.

Oh yeah, 'Like Spinning Plates' piano version > the studio version.

But the piano version wouldn't exist without the studio version, and the studio version wouldn't exist without... 'I Will', which to me is the inferior song!

If you play the studio version of 'Like Spinning Plates' backwards, you get one of the ways they originally attempted 'I Will', the "dodgy Kraftwerk" version as Thom called it.

*spent

Yes I know that! But they released the process of getting there when they should've released the final piano version. The backwards one and I Will would have been better saved for rarities or b-sides as a cool fact of how the piano version came to be.

OTM. Couldn't possibly disagree with that!

Amnesiac was my favorite for a long time, but the electronics sound way more confident and well-integrated on HttT, and I just love the sound of the record as a whole. It's not as concise but there's just so much good material.

I don't know if I agree with that. The electronic elements on Hail To The Thief sound diluted to me.

Gloaming is good tho

I also rearranged HTTT on my digital collection because it's a chore to listen to the original one in one sitting. Here's what I posted in other thread:

Actually Thom Yorke himself once played god with this one and posted an alternate tracklist to it in the band's blog. Here's his version:

there there
the gloaming
sail to the moon
sit down. stand up
go to sleep
whereiendandubegin
scatterbrain
2+2=5
myxomatosis
a wolf at the door

He solves two of the album's main problems. It's length is one of them. The album really benefits from cutting a couple of songs off of it and specially if one of the songs is 'We Suck Young Blood'. That's the second one.

I have a couple problems with his alt tracklist, though: A) He rearranged the tracklist in a way that you lose the opening one-two punch of '2+2=5' and 'sit down' which is one of my favorite moments in the album. B) He removed 'Backdrifts' which is one of the few fun, light moments in the album and a personal favorite of mine. I also kind of hate 'go to sleep' except for Johnny's solo at the end of it but I'm always bored by the time it arrives. I'd much rather have the b-side 'I am a wicked child' as a substitute, it kind of has the same country-rock feel only more kraut. It's not very remarkable but it gets the job done. Also love 'the gloaming' so throwing it in there to balance some of the removals on the bottom half. You can easily take them out if you want for a 10 track album. Here's my take then:

1. 2+2=5
2. Sit Down Stand Up
3. Sail to the Moon
4. Backdrifts
5. I Am A Wicked Child
6. Where I End and You Begin
7. Gagging Order
8. The Gloaming
9. There There
10. Myxomatosis
11. Scatterbrain
12. A Wolf at the Door

― Moka

I meant that I added Gagging Order not the Gloaming and that you can remove that and Wicked Child for a 10 track album which imho makes for a more enjoyable and concise album.

hail to the thief is singular in the radiohead catalog for all of its b-sides being horrible except "gagging order"

Curious that Thom pretty much agrees with some of you that the weaker songs are I Will, Punchup, Backdrifts and We suck young blood. I like Backdrifts but I guess I wouldn't mind having it as a b-side or a solo Thom joint.

Yeah HTTT is definitely the album with the worst b-sides. Even Pablo Honey had decent leftovers.

And in the KOL era they were toying with the idea of releasing the whole sessions as 6 separate 7" throughout the year but it was more or less a bad idea. Radiohead are not really a single dosage band. It kind of frustrates me how better that album could have been with the addition of supercollider and staircase. I think the ratings for the album would have been better too... Listen to this and tell me if it doesn't improve it:

1. Lotus Flower
2. Feral
3. Staircase
4. Little by Little
5. Codex
6. Give Up the Ghost
7. Supercollider
8. Morning Mr Magpie
9. Bloom
10. Separator

But nooo they had to release them as separate singles.

Hope Burn the Witch and Daydreaming are actually on the next album, I fear they might be left out if the idea of separate singles is still there.

'Gagging Order' weirdly was another Kid A/Amnesiac reject, as was 'Feeling Pulled Apart By Horses' ...

I've never understood the intense dislike for Pablo Honey - the way some bang on about it, you'd think it was some kind of colossally awful record. In reality, it isn't - it's quite a good record for what it is, taken on its own terms.

I can't find it... It was an interview where they said music consumptiom has changed and noone is really listening to full albums anymore and the medium would be better with the artists releasing anything they have fresh from the studio instead of waiting to have a full album.

I mean I get what they were hinting at but Radiohead is one of the few existing rock bands who still make people buy full albums.

I mean, in terms of "first albums that weren't as ambitious as what came later", Pablo Honey absolutely wipes the floor with, say, Blur's Leisure, which is actually legit terrible in places yet fans of Blur defend it in a way Radiohead's fans don't with Pablo Honey.

I have to say, though, it does make me smile when I see people who weren't even a twinkle in their dad's scrotums slagging off 'Creep' because they read that Thom hated it many years ago.

*when it first came out.

xxpost:

As great as the individual tracks are, Radiohead are very much an albums band for me.

I don't hate it but it's the only album of theirs I don't own. I see it as a pretty decent 90s brit-pop-rock album but as a Radiohead album it's not really interesting, it also spawned the 'Pop is dead' b-side which probably still makes Thom embarrassed and it should.

They made a huge leap from PH to the Bends and then they took a
more significant one with OKC. When Kid A first came out some people were freaking out on how different they sounded but they had reinvented themselves twice before that and in a frankly more challenging way.

Hmm. I'm not quite sure that The Bends came out of nowhere, or even that Pablo Honey was/is an uninteresting record. The opening track has a shifting time signature which flips between 12/8 and 11/8! There's some stunning guitar moments on it. Only 'How Do You?' and 'Lurgee' disappoint, for me at least.

'You', 'Stop Whispering', 'Ripcord', 'Prove Yourself', 'I Can't', 'Blow Out' and, yes, 'Creep' are all long-time favourites of mine.

'Pop Is Dead' is fucking crap, though. That I will agree with... and the video! Jesus, that video!

"Blow Out" is great

Pablo Honey has very few bad songs.

Why would you make a version of HTTT and leave I Will off it ffs?

Eh, 'I Will' really isn't that essential.

'Where I End and You Begin' on the other hand: all-time!

I mean, Thm himself removed it from the tracklist. I think it's a lovely song and it sounded great on meeting people is easy but it needs more work. It feels undercooked and transforming it into a creepy children ditty doesn't work for me.

we suck young blood is one of the best songs they've ever done. perfect example of a "double album song"...

'We Suck Young Blood' is absolute garbage and I can't take anyone who thinks it's one of the best things this band have ever done seriously. It's like they read all the criticisms about them being whiny and said "okay, let's do a track that actually lives up to that, then" ... Absolute drivel.

"Pop is dead", the one with the guitar riff REM would kill for?

I kind of hate how 2+2=5 is followed right by Sit Down, Stand Up. Both are good songs, but they have really similar structures: start small and build up, up, up until an explosion at the end. Kind of tiring for me to hear it twice in a row

I included Gagging Order on my revised HTTT tracklist but hearing this live rendition today... it sounds so out of place:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WJznVEh6Dyg

It's a beautiful song but it doesn't really fit in any of their albums from the past 20+ years. It was a song that was supposedly around since the Kid A sessions but it sounds straight from The Bends or even Pablo Honey, are we sure it's not older? It has that early 90's Radiohead vibes.

Heard Pablo Honey again today inspired by this thread and I thought only Blow Out is worth a damn.

Just bunged this on to see if maybe it might have grown on me, and no.

There's something incredibly unpleasant about the production on this album that really puts me off. Take for example the opening track, Bloom - that indistinct, skittering drumming that sounds like it was recorded on a phone; Thom's voice sliding indistinctly all over it. Also a distinct lack of low-end which is something I specifically associate with avant-rock music of that era. There's little to latch on to, it's all meatless, unfocused, and not in a dreamy ambient or shoegazey way - it just doesn't hold together, it's missing a certain glue.

The worst for this is 'Feral' which is maybe my least favourite Radiohead song. Just this horrible, clippy, thin drum loop that doesn't seem to quite lock into itself. Thom sounds like he's just got a new loop pedal and is testing it out by mumbling a few breathy syllables into it. There's a bassline which comes in during certain points but it's airless and boring; it does nothing and then fades out. The track is barely worthy of a B-side, just sounds like a 3-minute outtake of the band jamming. I'm not sure what it's doing on this short 8-track album other than taking up space.

Too many of the songs sound like this: Not really songs, but indistinct improvisations over busy but timid and unadventurous rhythms. It really does remind me of the kind of thing my band would have done during jam sessions where we were trying to find ways into writing more fully-formed songs. It's hard to imagine the band themselves being actually satisfied with these, and I'm surprised they put this out.

The two tracks I will give credit to are Little By Little and Give Up The Ghost. LBL is a distant cousin of Knives Out and Karma Police, but again, less immediate and still featuring that clickety clackety drum sound* Thom seems to love and I hate.

Give Up The Ghost is a lovely ballad which puts the busker-with-a-loop-pedal style to good use. That said, it still sounds like the kind of thing Radiohead would previously have put on a B-side (see "How I Made My Millions").

I nearly gave up on them around this time but I'm glad they bounced back with the stronger and more fully-formed A Moon Shaped Pool, which is one of their very best albums.

*no doubt influenced by the AFX/Squarepusher track Freeman Hardy Willis Acid which he is a fan of

ok but what about the From the Basement versions

they are a lot better sounding from what i recall

Bloom from the basement is a revelation - it makes you realise it's a fantastic composition let down by the flat production as you say. I'm totally with you on Feral, what a piece of crap. No love for Lotus Flower though? One of Thom's slinkiest melodies actually very well served my the oblique production imo.

There are three songs released as singles around the same time which are much better than most things on the album - Staircase, Supercollider and The Daily Mail, all of which have nice full production jobs. Another of the era's bizarre decisions to leave them off.

I also recommend Good Morning Mr Magpie from the basement. Proper slaps where the studio version snoozes.

"feral" at least kinda works live where the bass shines through but still very far from their best work

iirc the thing was that "the butcher" & "supercollider" weren't quite finished by the time they put out the album, and they never came up with studio versions of "staircase" or "the daily mail" that they liked which is why the released versions were just the basement live versions.

the released versions were just the basement live versions.

didn't realise this!

I only ever listen to the FtB versions tbh

The weirdly bad production on KoL is one of the great mysteries of their discography. Has Nigel Godrich ever talked about it?

I assume the rawer/off-the-cuff approach is just what they were after. They seem to alternate between "fussy" and "not-fussed-over" albums for the last little bit. (If the pattern holds, the next one'll be a little rougher around the edges too.)

this is the album that put me off of Radiohead

This is also when they added a drummer (this was before Phil was sacked a few weeks ago), and also near the dissolution of at least one marriage. I just kind of assume they were all extremely cranky

KoL tracks "Had our Phil" and "Bad Drum Phil" were probably hints in retrospect

Codex, lotus, and magpie are all great