Radiohead - A Moon Shaped Pool

the unreleased tracks are Lift, I Promise and Man of War (aka Big Boots), wow

if they're digging in the vaults it would have been nice to hear things like the versions of Nude and True Love Waits from then as well but what we're getting is great anyway

Y'know, for a supposed "classic" album, it's incredible how utterly bored as fuck I am of it 20 years later.

I think I'm far more bored with "The Bends" but, yeah, if I want to listen to Thom Yelp it's gonna be Kid A / Amnesiac or something more recent.

I can't really say why, I mean I loved all their records on release but the staying power just isn't there for me. Or at least the desire to go back and revisit their material.

xpost: if I'm reading it correctly the cassette is not the album but demos which means True Love Waits and Nude could be in some form in there... maybe incomplete tho.

in rainbows is the one with staying power in my experience

though i still love the last 2 tracks on ok computer

i revisited ok computer when all that pfork coverage was happening. at some point i lost the ability to *hear* it bc i was so obsessed with radiohead in high school, but it's still really great

its the middle section from karma police thru no surprises that i don't really dig as much anymore

that includes "climbing up the walls" which is prob my favorite moment on the album

i still love ok computer

the guitar sound on 'the tourist' is still some sort of unattainable ideal

completely forgot that "moon shaped pool" existed

I think I listened to OKC almost daily for a year when I was 13 so I have no more use for it but whenever they play an OKC song live I still get goosebumps.

For an album I loved so much back then it's weird that I don't have it on my vinyl collection. Might buy it this time around even when I know I wont be playing it much.

The price is fair too. $30 for 3 vinyls seems like a good price in these times of insanely priced reissues. Even the deluxe version sounds fair if you're crazy about Radiohead.

and a C90 cassette mix tape compiled by us, taken from OK COMPUTER session archives and demo tapes

mmm tasty

I think I'm far more bored with "The Bends" but, yeah, if I want to listen to Thom Yelp it's gonna be Kid A / Amnesiac or something more recent.

I can't really say why, I mean I loved all their records on release but the staying power just isn't there for me. Or at least the desire to go back and revisit their material.

― Gerald McBoing-Boing, Tuesday, May 2, 2017 4:10 PM (nineteen minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Yeah, I set up a Radiohead playlist not too long ago and I pretty much found myself skipping almost every track from Pablo Honey, The Bends and OK Computer, which I found surprising because I listened to those albums a hell of a lot back in the '90s and there's a lot of music from that time that I can still listen to now. I'd love to be able to say that I can still endlessly spin The Bends and OK Computer and that I can still get the same thing out of those records as I used to, but I can't. I can still get a lot out of Kid A, Amnesiac and In Rainbows, and I'm finding The King of Limbs to be increasingly an exciting record on a sonic level, even if I don't think the songwriting is quite there. I find A Moon Shaped Pool a bit bland.

Rarely spin Bends and OKC but when I do they tend to rawk

i was in a bar recently that played pablo honey over their speakers straight through and on almost every track i was like "wow this kinda sucks"

i guess i'm expressing why i'm deeply unsurprised that anyone would skip almost every track from pablo honey

I mean, I know that The Bends and OK Computer are both great records. I know that they're stuffed to the brim with great, emotional, well-written songs that are performed and produced well and that both records are great start-to-finish experiences. Even though I've listened to both records hundreds upon hundreds of times, I still can't say that I've overplayed them as much as some other albums that I've listened to a hell of a lot. I don't know what it is, but I can't get more than a couple of tracks into either record before I want to listen to something else.

yeah I hope there's some real interesting stuff on the cassette, I'd missed that initially

Blow Out is the only track I'd keep from Pablo Honey really

Pablo Honey has never deserved half the shit that gets thrown at it. Looking at the tracklisting, the only track that I'd say was out-and-out awful was 'How Do You?' and even that's inoffensive. It's a good record, even if it is an album that doesn't seem to float my boat anymore.

i mean my last attentive listen to it was in a loud bar so i'll give you the benefit of the doubt there

It's not even a case of Radiohead making sense when you're a certain age and then growing out of it, because the age range of Radiohead's audience is quite vast.

"Blow Out" is the only salvageable bit really

Even the deluxe version sounds fair if you're crazy about Radiohead.

For an extra $100? I have clearly not been keeping up on the insanity of deluxe reissues. How many times is anyone going to page through Thom's scribblings?

I admit the cassette sounds cool. Good use of the format.

after blowing pretty much all of my teenage disposable income on radiohead, i am looking forward to downloading the shit out of the 3 new songs

wonder if they'll be demo versions or live or remixed or

damn, Lift? i haven't actively listened to Radiohead in 10 years but this is sick

tape collage cassette sounds awesome too

yeah, the cassette will be the most interesting thing, i think!

Then it just turns out to be 90 minutes of them telling dick jokes.

fuck i wish i could just buy that separately

surprised Follow Me Around isn't included in this

wasn't Follow Me Around written during the OKC tour/after recording?

not sure when it was written, but it was soundchecked on the OKC tour and was featured on meeting people is easy (a film concentrating on the OKC era) so it seems like it fits to me, certainly more than it would to a kid a deluxe edition

yeah it definitely sounds like a Bends/OKC song... almost as if it were written in the same batch as True Love Waits. i vaguely remember reading or hearing that they never actually recorded it, at least not during the OKC sessions

they definitely tried recording it in the Kid A sessions, I'm sure there's all sorts of weird arrangements of things they tried out then

would love to hear the bleep bloop version

cassette mix is also coming as an MP3 within so there'll you know be.. *copies doing the rounds* soon after release. not that i'm suggesting anyone steal from Thom lest he starve to death.

I'd certainly buy a deluxe CD version that came with a download (or better, another CD) of what's on the cassette. But have no space/need for 3LP, cassette (no player), and a large book. Bummer.

Definitely excited to hear "Lift" and "Big Boots," and would be interesting if the cassette had versions of "True Love Waits," "Motion Picture Soundtrack," "Nude," etc., though I'm very happy with the versions they finally released in later years.

Also, 'A Moon Shaped Pool' (with 'Burn the Witch' relegated to a b-side) is still the best thing they've done since 'OK Computer'.

ohhh yeah Motion Picture Soundtrack! i only heard the 1995 live version a few months ago.

'Burn the Witch' is one of the best songs on A Moon Shaped Pool.

"Burn the Witch" is good, but it's a false-start. Doesn't fit the sound or mood of the rest of the album, to my ears; and is especially odd coming at the front of the record.

If that's the case, then why would it be especially odd for it to be the opening track? It would make less sense anywhere else on the record. It transitions into the second track nicely, so I really don't get what the problem is.

Burn the Witch is so good and it really got my hopes up when it premiered. I love Daydreaming and TLW but when the album dropped it wasn't what I was expecting or what I wanted based on the first single. oh well. Feh

A year on, I like 'Burn the Witch', 'Decks Dark', 'Ful Stop' and 'Identikit', but mostly the record is a bit of an extended yawn.

I like 'Burn The Witch' quite a bit. I agree that it doesn't fit with the rest of the album. I think the 1st track is the only place to sequence it if you are going to keep it on the album.

i like moon shaped pool a lot and wouldn't be surprised if it ended up being one of my favorites down the line. still not enough distance from release time though

Follow Me Around and also a very early version of Skirting in the Surface have been around since OKC. The reason they're not here is because they can still make it to LP10 whereas Lift or Manowar are very decidedly Radiohead 90's in their lyrics and composition no matter how much you try to update them. They only make sense between Bends and OKC. Try to imagine them fitting on any album since The Bends.

SKIRTING and FOLLOW ME AROUND have that sort of loose Neil Young sound they've been attempting for the past decade here and there (they were practiced in the sessions for A Moon Shaped Pool and played live very recently)

i love Moon Shaped Pool. i'm surprised more people don't. True Love Waits might sneak in to my Top 3, or even Top 2! although i can never see Kid A's How To Disappear.. being dislodged from my top Radiohead tune slot where it's stuck fast for 17 years.