Radiohead - A Moon Shaped Pool

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.

I love this album. Just as Radiohead clearly never want to have another 'The Bends', if I hear one more Thom Yorke insular up his butt IDM inert composition I might be put off of them for years again.

"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.

It's because all the songs are in alphabetical order, right?

They clearly reversed engineered the titles to get a good sequence.

Burn the Witch fits the mood of the album just fine, and I don't really know what people are talking about when they say it doesn't. I also think Identikit is madly overrated.

"Burn the Witch" just doesn't fit musically--everything else has this dreamy, gauzy feeling and "Burn the Witch" is too clear and staccato. But it's more that it's sort of a lyrical/thematic throwback to the (to my liking) lame "Hail to the Thief" blunt-instrument politics that, while well-intended, were never Yorke's strong suit. ("The Numbers" might be subject to the same criticism, but it fits in better musically). The combination just leaves it feeling like a false start. To unfurl into the album via the slow dream/nightmare build of 'Daydreaming' feels more accurate in suggesting what is to come.

Maybe it hasn't stuck with other folks, but I find any time I revisit earlier Radiohead--and I was a b-sides collecting superfan since age 14 circa 'The Bends' through 'In Rainbows,' minus 'Hail to the Thief' which I strongly disliked--instead I find myself wanting to listen to 'A Moon Shaped Pool'. So sequence it alphabetically starting with 'Daydreaming' and dropping in 'Ill Wind' and I'd argue it's Radiohead's best work in a 25-year career.

Cons about AMSP: it's homogenic and Thom nowadays seems less challenging. His voice, compositions and lyrics stilm have potential to be mindblowing but he seems to have settled and it feels like he's on a plateau now... maybe he has already said all that he needed to say.

Pros: while Thom might be on a comfort zone, Johnny is still growing as a composer and his arrangements might be the best in any radiohead record.

HTTT is also my least favorite record by them but I don't agree with Burn the Witch being of that subpar quality. Maybe without Johnny's string arrangements but HTTT wishes it had a song like this one.

I don't think "Burn the Witch" is subpar (well, maybe lyrically, not musically) just. . . not cut from the same cloth. Would've been a very good non-album single.

Of your cons, I think what you're experiencing as homogeneity means that for me the album feels coherent, with common production approaches and musical/thematic consistency. And I guess the almost unguarded emotionality of a lot of the lyrics feels almost new for Yorke (like "Glass House" or "Present Tense"), whereas the general Big Brother/paranoia/evil corporations-cum-government stuff was the "settled in" Yorke autopilot that I really disliked about 'HTTT' and some after.

Plus I feel like 'AMSP' has more real melodies than any album in many years--not that they need melodies per se to be successful, but whenever they tried to be a groove band instead it became plodding and Yorke fell into aimless tunelessness (i.e. "There There"). Even on his latest solo electronic record, I'd be hard pressed to remember a single melody. But listening last night to some of those pre-The Bends songs from the 'My Iron Lung' period that I always loved and thought of as peak old-fashioned tunesmithery from Yorke, I was impressed to realize how while Yorke used to engage some high-note pyrotechnics and really belting it out, I don't know if he's ever been more purely tuneful than on 'AMSP'. So I agree he was on a comfort zone plateau for a while, but I think he's launched off it again with this album.

whenever they tried to be a groove band instead it became plodding and Yorke fell into aimless tunelessness (i.e. "There There")

I agree with this point, but this is a very strange example to pick

yea wtf "There There" is their best song

It's a jam

Are you sure you understand what the terms "melody" and "tune" mean?

whenever they tried to be a groove band instead it became plodding and Yorke fell into aimless tunelessness (i.e. "There There")

Once a critic described a large chunk of their music as "inert" which is probably the best adjective you could use. Or another favorite (paraphrasing): "I never thought I'd ever say this but, this record could use a lot more Flea."

(BTW I agree that AMSP is among their best works and would be even better if it didn't include and begin with "Burn the Witch" - I always skip it and go right to "Daydreaming"!)

No I don't mean homogenic in the production. It's probably my favorte Radiohead record in that regard. It's more in the compositions, most of these could qualify as ballads and the "rockers" or "groovers" - or whatever you want to call them - that are present in every Radiohead album are probably some of the weakest songs imho this time around (burn the witch, identikit, ful stop).

Even HTTT had Myxomatosis (and There There which I don't agree to be an aimless song) to compensate.

There There is blates their best song. HTTT is an okay album.

Are you sure you understand what the terms "melody" and "tune" mean?

― Matt DC, Monday, June 5, 2017 5:24 AM (six hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

yeah There There is very hummable

'Burn The Witch' is easily one of the best songs on the record (alongside 'Identikit' and 'Ful Stop') and the fact that it's the first track on the album and therefore could be treated as a "trailer before the main feature" by those who think this album should be a one-paced, meandering snoozefest (really, this LP could do with more moments where it wakes the fuck up a bit) means pretty much that its inclusion is a non-issue to begin with.

'There There' isn't a favourite of mine, but to say that it lacks melody or hooks is just batshit - then again, it's equally batshit to claim it's their best song. Mid-tier Radiohead, if that.

you will pay, whoever suggested that 'there there' has no melody or hooks. by now it's impractical to scroll back up and see who said it because the rebuttals extend back for several millennia, some say even back to the time when members of radiohead were still living, long before the great annihilation, back when electronic music was still possible.

'Cuttooth' and 'Supercollider' ... both "groove" songs, both excellent.

re sequencing and Burn the Witch as an awkward opener, the tour setlists agree, all starting with:

1. Daydreaming
2. Desert Island Disk
3. Ful Stop

(that's ofc also leaving out Decks Dark which in a concert setting is perhaps a good idea and I would maybe also place it later on the album)

and I am seeing them sunday and I am so PUMPED!

I mean just look at this stuff:
http://www.setlist.fm/setlist/radiohead/2017/oslo-spektrum-oslo-norway-6be7726e.html

a+

'Cuttooth' and 'Supercollider' ... both "groove" songs, both excellent.

― The Anti-Climax Blues Band (Turrican), lunes 5 de junio de 2017 18:40 (four days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Oh I get so mad that "Supercollider" and "Staircase" were left off King of Limbs. I don't care about the other songs which do feel like b-sides (daily mail, butcher) but KOL would be so much better with those two in them as a 10 track album, probably in my top three songs from the era next to Separator.

This is how I actually have the album arranged in my itunes library. I refuse to listen to my real album anymore after listening to this version:

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

My alternative version of KoL:

1. Bloom (from the basement)
2. The Daily Mail
3. Staircase
4. Supercollider
5. Morning Mr. Magpie (from the basement)
6. Lotus Flower
7. Codex
8. Separator

My sequenced KoL is similar. I subbed in the two 2011-era singles smack in the middle. Makes a solid 12-track album like the Radiohead of yore.

1. Bloom
2. Morning Mr. Magpie
3. Little by Little
4. Feral
5. Supercollider
6. The Butcher
7. The Daily Mail
8. Staircase
9. Lotus Flower
10. Codex
11. Give up the Ghost
12. Separator

(Also, comment/screen-name synergy.)

the TKOL material has aged well imo

I think the daily mail is one of my least favorite songs of the era surprised to see its well loved. Might have to give it a chance.

re sequencing and Burn the Witch as an awkward opener, the tour setlists agree, all starting with:

1. Daydreaming
2. Desert Island Disk

Christ, what a boring way to open a gig.

Oh I get so mad that "Supercollider" and "Staircase" were left off King of Limbs. I don't care about the other songs which do feel like b-sides (daily mail, butcher) but KOL would be so much better with those two in them as a 10 track album, probably in my top three songs from the era next to Separator.

I like 'Supercollider', 'Staircase' and 'The Daily Mail' undoubtedly more than anything on The King of Limbs itself. At this stage, I can quite comfortably say that 'Codex' and 'Feral' are my highlights of The King of Limbs, and that I still find 'Lotus Flower' a bit of a nothing song that has never grown on me and probably never will.

ha! i loved 'Daydreaming' but the rest of this album is still a snooze for me. have they ditched playing 'Burn the Witch'? I know they opened with that a lot at the beginning of their 2016 tour

xp

the TKOL material has aged well imo

I struggle to separate TKOL from Atoms for Peace and Thom solo. AFP might be my favourite.

The Eraser is incredible but none of the other solo/side stuff has done anything for me

The Eraser > The King of Limbs > Amok, which I thought was quite bland aside from a couple of tracks.

I can't remember much, if anything about Tomorrow's Modern Boxes.

they've gotten increasingly awkward as an arena band as time has gone on, particularly post-HTTT. the bits I've seen online of them from this tour have looked pretty dull tbh but maybe it's coming across better in person. I absolutely adored those PTA-directed videos of Thom and Jonny playing "Numbers" and "Present Tense" outdoors, I'd love to see the full album performed that way.

Eraser and Amok were both great but damn I'd forgotten TMB even existed, I probably listened to it no more than twice.

Grooves in TKOL are miles better than those on AMSP imho.

AMSP is all about the arrangements for me which are slme of the prettiest they've done. Hopefully they take this approach and add the more interesting grooves of TKOL for the next one.

They seem to get mellower each passing year so I suppose it's probably a far shot.

The record doesn't seem "mellow" to me, just not "rocking". And they were most successful "rocking" when they had dynamic arrangements (i.e. 'Paranoid Android' and the like), not when they applied a guitar/drums emphasis to more repetitive (rarely "grooving") material. Their best work from 'Kid A' on has been, to me, about the sounds themselves, the production and the arrangements, when married with a song form and not a groove form. "Idioteque' seemed the high point of that attemt, or maybe Yorke's stuff with Atoms For Peace. 'In Rainbows' had some strong songs, but boring arrangements. 'The King of Limbs' had some interesting ideas, but no great songs and not terribly memorable arrangements.

'A Moon Shaped Pool' stands above, for me, because the songs are melodically and lyrically as strong as anything York has done (and mostly avoid "Hail to the Thief" overt politics) *and* has their best arrangement and production work in at least a decade and a half.

But even with its cohesion, and it's frequent beauty, I don't find it to be "mellow" in the sense of just chilling out and not trying too hard and "aging gracefully" or whatever. Which for a group starting from a "rock," and therefore "youthfulness," "angst," etc. basis, is pretty remarkable--to mature, but not to become nostalgic retread or mellow chill.

the thing that kills In Rainbows for me is the dry, barebones production. it sounds like a radio session. complete opposite of AMSP, and... pretty much every other Radiohead record. i hate the way those songs sound but i love a lot of them. probably didn't help that I listened to the 2006 bootlegs for a year and a half before the record came out. same thing happened with AC's Strawberry Jam just weeks before that, too.

Yeah for all the talk about Nigel Godrich being the sixth member of Radiohead and all his fame as a producer he fails for me more often than not. IR is very dry sounding, the From The Basement live versions are probably better sounding than most of the album.