Radiohead - The King of Limbs

I see all that and raise you the fact that I now think their arranging / production skills are almost on a par with their influences / electronic peers, and that I, for one, am ore interested in that side of things than their songwriting.

I'm not arguing that all that stuff isn't beautifully done on the record, it's just that I come to a Radiohead album expecting something more song-based. That's not necessarily the album's problem, it's mine. To me they're at their best when they combine these two aspects of their craft (such as on Kid A and In Rainbows).

All of which is why, that while there's absolutely nothing wrong with the album, I strongly suspect I will never count it among my favourites.

still kinda sounds to me like bitching about "no guitars"

Not at all, anyone who's paid the slightest attention to what I post knows I'm no indie stan at all. Some of my favourites of theirs don't have any guitars at all (Everything in Right Place, Backdrifts, Pyramid Song). This is a different point.

Bloom actually kind of reminds me of Everything in its Right Place...I don't understand in what way that song is "well-written" and Bloom is not...

i don't think it's a slight to say that 'everything in its right place' is catchier, if only because the main keyboard riff is very precise and gets repeated throughout pretty much the whole song.

I think I know why it was hyped for pre-order.

Because they are a pretty well known band? Because the last one was too?

n1ts\/h article was rad

I've only listened to this once, but my initial impression was that everything sounded disappointingly familiar.

Hasn't everything post-Amnesiac?

Where's Nitsuh's article?

http://nymag.com/daily/entertainment/2011/02/radioheads_king_of_limbs_revie.html

That's a typically great piece.

I see all that and raise you the fact that I now think their arranging / production skills are almost on a par with their influences / electronic peers

Bloom aside, I still think the exact opposite of this.

I'm not saying they sound 'new', in fact far from it. But I think there's a litheness and flexibility that was missing before from their more overtly electronic / rhythm based stuff.

I'd agree with that.

More on the production: The marvellously detailed sounds and arrangements they've assembled here are a treat, but every time I'm drawn into the record, I feel let down by the flat, immutable percussion on some songs. Interesting rhythms, but nothing grooves (wrong word, perhaps) like their supposed influences do. I'm curious what drove that particular stylistic choice.

but nothing grooves (wrong word, perhaps) like their supposed influences do

Apart from Lotus Flower, you're right.

Is that partly just Radiohead's perpetually hermetically sealed, disinfected aesthetic? Their sexlessness?

i think popmatters called this album "sexy" fwiw

maybe sensuous. sex has climaxes, this has none. at all.

so, they're saying that pop doesn't matter all that much, then?

It's like a Caribou album minus the banger that gets played on the radio.

This album is an instant classic. I love every second of it. It is way WAY out there.

really startling how many musicians have come out to explicitly mention how much they love/are enthralled by this, as opposed to radiohead fans. certainly seems to work on one level at least.

who is?

flying lotus, for one

he works with thom yorke directly. on music.

not saying that lots of musicians love it, just saying. i mean, haven't checked, but assuming bjork/pj harvey/unkle/neil finn love it too

i think other songs have grooves in them... flying lotus is the most obv. but i think the first half of the record has some pretty subtle ones. i thought this album was pretty flat until i started listening to it on my headphones. all of a sudden i was like "oh there you are, colin." for most of the record they're this tightly wound, frenetic group, up until about give up the ghost and separator, where everything kind of comes apart. so i would call that a sort of climax. i also see feral as a great centrepiece because it's just so tense. like when you have something on the tip of your tongue but can quite express it.

whoops, and by flying lotus i meant lotus flower.

I like this album but it's nothing huge to me...I think Codex slows the album down way too much for its own good and it never really recovers...Codex is probably a good song, but in context it just takes me out of the album entirely--the album up to this point is a bit too frail to be able to handle a drastic change of pace--and as a result I kind of don't have real opinions about the last two tracks...

people are really concerned about phil selway huh

he's a helluva guy

nabisco rilly nails it in that piece

Colin is totally the hero of this record. Whenever the bass enters the mix it is exquisite.

♥
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lQfP2b8ZB9I

Okay, officially sick of the meme, good job internet.

not star wars enuff huh

no just way too many of them

wasn't a great meme, but this one i did literally lol at, mostly b/c the guy actually took a bother to edit it
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MsS4PQ2wHmc

but they're never funny enough to listen to from beginning to end

i listened to this once through
thought some songs had cool things going on
i'll probably never listen to it
thanks
k bye

i'll probably never listen to it again

best one~~~

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fzYERyX7XIA

the yackety sax one is the only one that's made me actually lol: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vnjOUKXqm9Q

rly starting to like king of limbs

It's growing on me, but I keep falling asleep after the first 3 songs, so the latter half is still a mystery to me.

Separator is well worth listening to in isolation.

^ yeah. I like "Separator" at a very high volume. There's a lot of little things going on in that song.

The funniest thing about the Thom Yorke dancing meme is that I can't imagine the band/Yorke made that video without realizing how silly it was, and yet I can completely imagine they never considered it would be repurposed, let alone so quickly. One of those forest for the trees situations.