Radiohead - A Moon Shaped Pool

what is the difference between an 'arrangement' and a 'song' xxxxxxxp

The song is the chords, melody and lyrics. The arrangement is the cellos and wooshing noises etc.

wooshing noises probably better ascribed to "production" as opposed to "arrangement" if we're going to be pedants

I'm working through the Radio head albums this week. my god King of Limbs is a terrible album. what the heck is Feral all about? Why those drums on In Bloom? How was Codex even considered to be anything other than a b-side? I'll keep Give Up the Ghost and Little by Little. The rest is just bad

this makes in bloom make a lot more sense. this album is sort of radiohead trying to be 'remain in light' era talking heads i think

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D2084nQbmvk

in fact this video is about 10x better than the album track

That version of Bloom is phenomenal. It sounds like the universe being born. The studio cut is a damp fart in comparison.

what the heck is Feral all about?

At last me a DL agree on something Radiohead related. It's maybe the most nothingy thing they've ever done. I think it's maybe supposed to be their take on dubstep?

Lotus Flower is great though. Such a seductive little melody on the verses.

Problem with Radiohead is that when they try and 'be' people (like Talking Heads or Aphex Twin) they usually end up sounding like they missed the point. In Bloom sounds like something off Byrne's Catherine Wheel album but with all the funky low end stripped out. Similarly, Radiohead's IDM and dubstep moments felt like copycatting, with none of the charm left in.

I certainly trust it more than the judgement of someone that can't comprehend that wet =/= dry, anyway.

― The Anti-Climax Blues Band (Turrican), Monday, June 12, 2017 2:26 AM (ten hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

yeah i understand that there is reverb on All I Need. it still sounds airless and artificial and like a ProTools preset. i.e. amateurish, home recording, radio session, whatever. it's not the reverb on Exit Music, for example.

Similarly, Radiohead's IDM and dubstep moments felt like copycatting

I think this is unfair on the IDM front. You don't like Everything in its Right Place or Idioteque?

yeah I was gonna say I feel like "Idioteque" was a huge gamble that paid off. But reading criticism from the time and even posts from here, people that were already super familiar with Warp and BoC and RDJ were rolling their eyes at Kid A. makes sense to me, but as a kid, those records where they go off in all these different directions (even the jazzy song at the end of Amnesiac) were a great gateway.

the criticism of kid a for supposedly trying and failing to rip off can, autechre, alice coltrane remains the dumbest fucking thing i've ever heard in my life. it was a common critical trope back then and it still bubbles up today like a piece of shit squeezing up out of the back of toddler underwear

the only common early 2000s pop criticism that is at the same level of wrongness is the thing where everyone said interpol was a joy division ripoff band, and i don't even like interpol

"turn down the protools preset knob on the reverb. yes. now max out the 'air' dial. precisely. now please do flip the toggle switch from amateurish to professional."

I was one of the eye-rollers but I always liked EIIRP and Idioteque. When I say IDM/post-dubstep, I mean songs like Pull-Pulk Revolving Doors, Kid A, the Eraser album, lots of TKOL and whatnot. It's not terrible, just not very convincing or satisfying or better than the music it's being influenced by.
Radiohead are definitely 'record-collection rock' and sometimes it works great (AMSP has lots of little tribute moments filtering throughout) but I do think they're at their best when they're trying to 'be Radiohead'

the only common early 2000s pop criticism that is at the same level of wrongness is the thing where everyone said interpol was a joy division ripoff band, and i don't even like interpol

― Karl Malone, Monday, June 12, 2017 1:27 PM (twenty-two minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

otm i never understood this

"turn down the protools preset knob on the reverb. yes. now max out the 'air' dial. precisely. now please do flip the toggle switch from amateurish to professional."

― Gaspard de la Nuit: III. ScarJost (Sufjan Grafton), Monday, June 12, 2017 1:44 PM (seven minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

"Can you make the snare sound more yellow?" - Julian Casablancas

I am a King of Limbs defender and even I will concede that the Basement version of 'Bloom' makes a sick joke of the album version.

tbf the drums on KoL sound much, much worse than on In Rainbows

I was one of the eye-rollers but I always liked EIIRP and Idioteque. When I say IDM/post-dubstep, I mean songs like Pull-Pulk Revolving Doors, Kid A, the Eraser album, lots of TKOL and whatnot.

So basically, you don't like Radiohead doing IDM except when you do.

The textures and sounds they were using may have been borrowed fairly closely from various Warp artists, but they were the first artists that I'm aware of that convincingly combined those things with traditional pop/rock song structures, which is not to be sniffed at.

the "new" songs sound amazing on this current tour

Surprisingly few MSP songs performed when I saw them in Manchester last year - I think only Daydreamer and Ful Stop.

Was a pretty OKC heavy set, actually. Let Down and Lucky as first two songs.

I guess I’m never going to see Radiohead. What do you think the chances are that they make another record or tour again?

...why wouldn't they?

very high

Vaguely recall talk of scaling back touring when AMSP came out, they didn’t do many shows in America in 2016 iirc but they have hit the road since then more than they let on. Also you just never know - they’re all 50 or approaching, and the gaps between albums get longer and longer.

I think that every time they say it might be their last album, but that's just what they need to tell themselves in order to do it.

flappy you will see them

revisited this the other day and it's def my favorite radiohead album after in rainbows. the subduedness of it allows them to breach a different atmosphere than their records usually occupy, especially the way their interplay sometimes takes on the tremble and glow of a campfire on "desert island disk" and "present tense," instruments flickering gently against an enormous darkness. i love that they lined up all the most intense songs in the middle, and the sequencing overall is p outstanding, it makes each song feel like a doorway to the next

Definitely in my Top 5 Radiohead albums.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6hgVihWjK2c

this was the best thing to come out of it imo

I love Thom's little pre-song stances there

and yes the sequencing is really something; normally putting a droning ballad like "Daydreaming" as your second track would be a pacing disaster, but it's a necessary readjustment following "Burn the Witch", which is such an outlier that it only makes sense as the opener. I bet that was a tough call!

Album gets so much better after the first track

It's aged well (so far) imo

I still like it, but at this stage it's my second least favourite after The King of Limbs.

It's my fifth favourite in a ranking I just did in my head.

this album is so good that i can't even rate it.

it's like, ya i love amnesiac and kid a so much and those records changed my life so much in so many different ways. and in rainbows! that album!

but it's like, even with all that. . . i still consider moon shaped pool to be something else entirely.

its still my #2 after kid a

It came out right as my 20 year marriage / 25 year relationship was breaking down so as you can imagine it hits pretty hard at times. I almost never play Burn the Witch - it's a fine song but it's not what I want when I cue up AMSP.

I said it back then (probably said it up-thread) but "Burn The Witch" sounds like it's from another album entirely, and even though I don't dislike it, it's a total misstep as a first track.

Give this a try: start the album with 'Daydreaming,' and slot in 'Ill Wind' where it fits in alphabetically between 'Identikit' and 'The Numbers'. (Relegate 'Burn The Witch' to a bonus track, with 'Spectre'.). It makes a really fantastic record almost perfect, at least in terms of coherence and flow.

That version of 'A Moon Shaped Pool' is my second favorite Radiohead album (as a nerd who bought 'The Bends' on day-of-release and made b-side mix tapes for my friends through high-school). Heck, might be my #1 favorite...

There should be more albums with the tracks sequenced in alphabetical order, IMO.

tbh I like "Burn the Witch" as opener and I feel like they drew straws to see whether "Ill Wind" or "Identikit" would make the proper tracklist cause I find them quite similar

I said it back then (probably said it up-thread) but "Burn The Witch" sounds like it's from another album entirely, and even though I don't dislike it, it's a total misstep as a first track.

May or may not be musically related, they are known recyclers of titles (e.g. Reckoner). That is neat though!

ooh wonder what became of "fela kuti thing"

I bet it ended up as "Feral"

or actually "Bloom" feels a bit more Fela to me

"burn the witch" had been floating around since at least httt, there was an early draft of the lyrics on their website at the time. thom also mentioned it on the radiohead blog a bunch of times from 2005-2007, including posting parts of the lyrics and mentioning that jonny was writing orchestration for it. there were even a few times on the in rainbows tour where thom played the opening chords to tease it in response to audience shouts for it, only to joke that they'll play it when they have an orchestra with them.