RAdiohead

Here we go again.

I like Radiohead -- Amnesiac was my favorite release of last year, and Kid A was high up on my 2000 list -- but I'm not really the kind of person who hunts down mp3s of unreleased tracks. I'd rather wait for the record and hear the songs in their finished versions. (Yeah, I know... "Aren't you special?")

To listen to a new song live, to experience it, to watch it unfold, to hear it change as it is reworked is a magical, wonderful thing. It's one of the joys of following unsigned bands is that they lack the fear and/or resources so they are more likely to do it in public.

But to record a live song, distribute it and critique it before the artist has had the chance to stand back from the painting and go "There, OK, that's done" seems kind of unfair. Both to the artist, who is being interrupted, and to the song, which may or may not take a completely different shape eventually.

Listening to works in progress is wonderful, but trying to pin them down and dissect them seems, well ... I'm not going to say disrespectful, but it does seem kind of ... pointless? Self defeating? What's the word I'm looking for?

That said, no I've not seen Radiohead on this tour, nor heard any of the tunes.

I would hope so I really do.

you couldn't resist it could you melissa.

''Scatterbrain: Sounds like the physical act of crying. A dischordant ballad with no way out. The aftermath of a storm.''

this is such a cliched description I don't even know where to begin. Get your head checked melissa.

''Up On The Ladder: Starts poorly, Radiohead try the whole "rocking out" thing again. Fail. But the ending is beautiful, desperate, his voice over mournful synth chords. A song about immense disappointment.''

Pushing the 'sad chords' triggers again. Mournful, desperation, dissapointment. sob, sob, sob...all the way to the bank we go.

''Where I End and You Begin: The day the earth stood still. The Ondes-Martenot keens its unearthly cry. The song is a sentinel, a prison.''

''Wolf at the Door: Each word is a knife. An impossibly hurt, fearful song.''

er...more crying then. I'm beginning to think Thom Yorke wasn't breast fed when he was a baby.

''A Punch Up At A Wedding: The most seethingly angry song I've ever heard. On the surface, it's all insistent beat, slightly rollicking piano, and bass. But it's coming apart at the seams. It's ready to rip your throat out.''

yes but angry at what. Is it like an adolescent who is just angry for no reason or is it actually anger at something specific. This is all bullshit.

''Go to Sleep: Eastern-inflected roots rock song. Dull, really.''

b-but why is it dull? don't just leave it at that.

and on it fucking goes...I avoided the golden jubilee but there's too many institutions and you can't avoid it all.

There, There - bit of a homage to Adam and the Ants circa Kings of the Wild Frontier featuring Ed and Jonny on JAMC Bobby Gillespie style stand up drums with a top acending climax - a fitting opener

Scatterbrain - needs a lot of work and doesn't really go anywhere.

Up on the ladder - pretty rocky with thom doing his 'you and whose army' unfocused anti blair schtick

We suck young blood - slow and swinging with harmonies from phil and ed (phil was wearing an amusing madonna style headset during his backing vox)

I will - an old song, briefly featured in the 'Meeting people is easy' doc with lovely harmonies from Thom and Ed

Myxamotosis - fairly fast rocky number with Ed playing a les paul (surely a first).

going for some lunch now, will post my thoughts on the rest later

melissa, thank you putting up your descriptions.

Melissa couldn't resisit it and nor could I.

''(This is why I don't post on ILM.)''

ILM isn't a radiohead list. Or a keiji haino list. Or improv or free jazz, etc. fans and non-fans of everything to do with [x] are here and when a thread is opened by soemone and I feel the need to comment I will do so.

I'm not 'pissing', I'm just adding my thoughts on your descriptions. Sorry about the 'checking your head' line though.

when you describe a song as ''The most seethingly angry song I've ever heard'' then I want to know at what as well.

irony = julio's stance as radiohead hata being JUST as cliched and as ho hum as he wants (hopes?) the new songs to be. he HASN'T EVEN HEARD THEM and yet he took time out to bash the fecking DESCRIPTIONS. and why?

its one thing to be convinced that radiohead are inauthentic or overrated; its another entirely to pounce like a wolf on anybody else who sees something in them, especially when the crux of that fan-music connection is one borne out of vulnerability.

he (or anyone else) can take the sadness, confusion, anger, fear and deride it, mock it, HATE it all he wants. me, i'll take it (as well as the songs) and celebrate it all. not because i'm a sad moany bastard (really, i'm not) but because the alternative, to deny all of that, is too ugly and dark and boring to bear.

Jules: "Get your head checked melissa" constitutes personal attack with intent. But what's this claptrap about banning the guy??? Tell me that's a fucking joke. I thought what he said was valid ranting.

And right-on Mark P - you are on the money.

yeah. I've heard everything they've done up to this and when I saw the descriptions it just reminded of the past. Irony indeed.

''its one thing to be convinced that radiohead are inauthentic or overrated; its another entirely to pounce like a wolf on anybody else who sees something in them, especially when the crux of that fan-music connection is one borne out of vulnerability.''

i did not intend to 'pounce'. I didn't know it was borne out of some 'vulnerability'.

''he (or anyone else) can take the sadness, confusion, anger, fear and deride it, mock it, HATE it all he wants.''

I love or hate a lot of music with nothing in between, which is unfortunate sometimes.

melissa- hope you accept my apologies.

''"Get your head checked melissa" constitutes personal attack with intent.''

yeah, and I apologised for that.

So yeah, deleting ILM would probably be a much more satisfactory solution than baring people. Don't tempt me.

Hell even for TKOL!

Separator (and Staircase) are some of their best tracks of all time.

But yeah not remembering even a single song of In Rainbows sounds to me like there has to be some minerals missing in your diet.

lol moka,

Not to pile on, but in rainbows main deficit imo is how bloody stock-standard and by the numbers everything is! You don’t get the surprises in it that the previous albums had, for better and for worse. Everything is weaved together with such polish, there’s no “wtf, that’s a bit of a change of pace ain’t it Radiohead?” Moments like how the first two tracks of kid A + nearly all of amnesiac/httt hit you with on their first listen. Part of that can be attributed to career trajectory creating expectations that of course 15 steps child choir will be followed by body snatches classic-rock number followed by nudes bassy spacey mood, all finished with videotapes doomy-gloomy-tech-march. But most of it is down to the fact that there’s not a single wasted moment on in rainbows. Amplified by coming from httt, all the tracks on in rainbows are extremely economical in communicating their theme, sound, world.

That might all mean nothing, so to condense: every song on in rainbows is masterfully weaved into a compelling product, almost too polished to be consumed without feeling sick, unless you’re willing to abandon the shame of eating a variety pack of 10 macarons.

in rainbows is polished, concise, and coherent sure, but that doesn't mean anything on it is 'stock-standard and by the numbers' and it definitely doesn't mean there isn't any stylistic variety.

Oh I can totally understand not liking their music or feeling it’s less challenging or impactful than what came before it..Yeah, they mellowed out, and why not? They earned it… they’re almost in their 60s now… I’d argue they kept doing some pretty good music all things considered -but saying you can’t remember a single song HTTT onwards is wild to me.

Of course I’m biased, I remember even their most non-descript b-sides… hey, I’m not big on In Rainbows myself, but it’s filled with some of their “hook-iest” songs. I’ll meet halfways and concede TKOL or AMSP being mostly formless and “vibe-y”…

have to agree; "weird fishes" was instantly memorable for me. on first listen, i couldn't wait to finish the album and go straight back to it. maybe their best song?

It’s Radiohead being Radiohead in their most stock-standard, by the numbers form. As differentiated from Radiohead being a stock-standard by the numbers band on in rainbows (this is not what I’m saying). Not a value-judgement, sometimes that’s exactly what wets my appetite

There’s better descriptive terms for in rainbows though. Stock-standard Radiohead by no means explains the whole album, and yeah maybe it’s a bit too reductive to put it like that.

most of in rainbows is still covering new ground for them so i'm really not sure where the idea that it's 'by numbers' comes from. it's not like they're just rehashing ok computer or something

to me it felt like streamlining everything they had gotten right up until then.

to some extent, but there's this warm, tasteful, soul-influenced vibe throughout the album that was then new for them. like, what sounds like "reckoner" or "house of cards", or "nude" on previous albums?

Yeah Austin putting it more succinctly. It’s by no means a rehash of their previous stuff, but Reckoner and House of Cards are in There There imo, Nude is in a mix of How To Disappear Completely and The Tourist. I just think In rainbows they polished everything up to that point into a beautiful product, without rehashing, and also without losing their identity.

To clarify, I don’t think reckoner is just a redo of There There with a fresh coat of paint, but I do think the elements on in rainbows can be found in their previous discography in a way you couldn’t say of their previous albums. Except maybe hail to the thief, but that has no way near the polish nor quality that in rainbows has

I generally think of Radiohead’s oeuvre as a bunch of dudes leaning back further and further into their relaxing chaise chairs and taking it easier and easier, me

in rainbows is probably their chillest album though, there's definitely elements of that to tkol and amsp but parts of them are denser and murkier idk

i talk about the soul influence on in rainbows but "reckoner" was actually yorke trying to imitate rhcp iirc

remembering that completely explains how the final "reckoner" somehow emerged out of the early "reckoner" that eventually became "feeling pulled apart by horses"

Yup Teleharmonic rules

FGTI OTM, and this is why so much of their output from IR onwards doesn't move me much. There's a lack of tension across so much of it. I think this is partially due to their desire to abandon "traditional" song structures in favor of vibier, more hypnotic approaches. But a lot of those jammier, vibier (sorry for using that word twice) tracks feel like they don't go anywhere, and they were *so good* at song structure, using it to build tension and release, and IMO it was the balance between that and their experimentalism that made them magic to my ears.

yep

I mean sure, I maintain that their best songs (#1 “Paranoid Android” with a bullet) are from their ambitious prog era, but my own quotidian listening needs have been better met by post-IR material.

I generally think of Radiohead’s oeuvre as a bunch of dudes leaning back further and further into their relaxing chaise chairs and taking it easier and easier, me

― flamboyant goon tie included

Just some chill dudes. At ease. Eating well.

Irony aside, it's become more and more of a fascinating spectacle as I've gotten older. The comfortable artist. Not all cishet white men are comfortable artists, but pretty much all comfortable artists are cishet white men.

The thing that clicks most with me about Radiohead's earlier work is the panic. Just this intense anxiety and panic. I think there's still that impulse present in their work... it's just been channeled in more socially acceptable ways. Like being concerned about Gender Ideology. That's not irrational, blind panic. That's _just asking questions_.

These days I relate better to Angel Marcloid's work.

yeah agree about the panic, the anxiety. That’s what made Ok Computer stand out so much at the time to me.

26 years of panic and vomit

Panic & Vomit: The Curse of the Where's Chorus?

You don't remember

There’s still some of the OKC and Kid A/Amnesiac anxiety and panic though?

Like per example “Burn the Witch” (which I think was sketched back on the Kid A sessions) could comfortably be added to Amnesiac and wouldn’t sound out of place and it would actually be one of the highlights.

Weird Fishes/Arpeggi wouldn’t also feel out of place on Kid A… feels similar to “In Limbo” to me.

“Morning mr magpie” is also from those sessions and “little by little” sounds very paranoid.. those two wouldn’t sound out of place on something like HTTT.

I mean the bite is still definitely there for my ears, but yeah it’s valid criticism since they seem to prefer to do mellow, textural things or stick to a groove and vibe with it.

This new one is much better than I expected

Yeah, I was a little worried after reading people online who listened to the leak describing the album as boring but I kind of love it. Sure, more vibe-y than structured but the vibe is exactly what I want from Radiohead in 2024

does this mean Radiohead is basically kaputt? would imagine so

it means Phil was sacked iirc

After seeing the couple "boring" posts on here I went in with tempered expectations and I really enjoyed it on first listen! Almost more immediate for me than the first.

whenever any of them are asked about radiohead's future in interviews they say they haven't broken up and intend to do something eventually but there aren't any plans yet. i figure it'll happen once thom & jonny run out of momentum with the smile, but that might take a little while, it wouldn't really surprise me if they just jump back in and make the smile lp3 once they're done touring wall of eyes.

Other than Bending Hectic, wasn’t really feeling the prerelease tracks. And yet…LOVING the album.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WhivN4GJQCQ

^ this is very pretty! there's some British prog thing going on the bass that I can't seem to nail...

Top youtube comment;

“Kids in the crowd “PLAY CREEP!””

there's some British prog thing going on the bass that I can't seem to nail...

The sound is very Van der Graaf Generator/Atomic Rooster.

This might be my favourite Radiohead-related album since King of Limbs.

I guess I quite enjoyed what I've heard of this. Yes it is "boring", or at least lacking in high energy flash-bangs, but not unpleasantly so. I can imagine myself putting this on quite a bit when I just need music to listen to and can't decide what.

Still can't quite work out what projects like this are about, as in, where the two most prominent members of a band decide to do a side project that doesn't sound especially different in style and scope to the main project.

I mean, I'd understand if Thom and Jonny had this real urge to explore a specific sound away from Radiohead - post-punk or hip hop or something. But A lot of this really does sound like A Moon Shaped Pool to me.

I understand if this were released as the next Radiohead album there'd probably be a backlash, but what then is The Smile other than a platform for Radiohead "B-songs" done in a slightly more stripped back style?

It sounds less fussed-over, more "first thought, best thought" to my ears, liberated from the expectations surrounding "the next entry in the Radiohead canon", just musicians doing what comes most-naturally to them, and I like that. The same way I don't think I'd claim that any Beak> album is superior to any Portishead album, and yet I listen to more Beak> than Portishead because it feels like less investment, less emotional weight, but a similar set of sonic rewards

Wasn't The Smile *supposed* to be more of a post-punk thing? I recall reading that somewhere before hearing any music...in any case I never got that vibe from the finished product.

i don't think they were supposed to be more of a post-punk thing explicitly or anything, maybe people just said that's what they sounded like after the first few songs they premiered or something

the reason the smile exists is just that thom & jonny wanted to make music during the pandemic but the others were unavailable. that seems to have been a very creatively productive time for them - they said they still have more smile material they're working on, mostly dating back to back to that big creative burst during the pandemic, but they've been writing more on tour too. they're just feeling creatively energised at the moment

there are a number of reasons i do not really want to listen to radiohead or associated projects anymore, but i really like this new record. i mean, i knew i would from the moment everyone decided it was boring and lacked compelling songs. the mistier and harder-to-pin-down the compositions are in the better imo, the main reason moon shaped pool and king of limbs are my fave radiohead releases these days

Lol yeah I actually liked this more than I thought I would. I really like the production too… I feel like Godrich is good but sometimes a slight change is good.

TKOL is easily a top 3 RH album for me - probably top 2 if Staircase and Supercollider were part of it - idk why so many Radiohead fans seem to rank it next to Pablo Honey.

The new issue of The Wire is out, so here's my full review of the Smile album:

The Smile
Wall Of Eyes
XL CD/DL/LP
Why do The Smile exist? Jonny Greenwood has done brilliant work as a composer for films. Thom Yorke has his solo work and Atoms For Peace. Is it just a way to play concerts without being asked to sing “Karma Police”?

The group’s previous studio album and its accompanying live document offer songs that feel as half-sketched as those on the last two (or three, or four) Radiohead albums. Occasional post-punk outbursts tease the prospect of excitement, but middle aged ennui always wins out, and Tom Skinner, one of the most exciting drummers on the London jazz scene, is reduced to delivering somnambulistic half-remembered Ethio-jazz, like a library music version of Sault.

The title track lays a gentle Brazilian guitar strum over booming tympani. In the back, electronics crackle like distant firecrackers, and eventually strings come in. The music is gentle but ominous, and it’s hard to be sure which impression they want to linger. “Read The Room” and “Teleharmonic” are more conventional rock songs; the former in particular could have come off any 21st century Radiohead album. “Under Our Pillows” has a math rock feel to start, guitars sliding into place like the gears of a watch; in the song’s second half, a motorik bassline materialises, pumping the energy level up somewhat. “Friend Of A Friend” pulls from multiple early 1970s sources. Yorke’s near falsetto vocals bring to mind Elton John at his most mawkish and the orchestral arrangements amplify that tendency, but there’s some Bowie-ish theatricality and King Crimson-esque buzz around the edges.

In the final moments of the inexplicably eight minute “Bending Hectic” someone plugs in an electric guitar, an almost bafflingly aggressive gesture compared with everything before. And/but the minute all these songs end, they vanish from your mind’s ear as if they’d never existed. Again, why?

Home visiting my folks and going through boxes of stuff from youth, found my copies of the 'Drill' EP 12", the 'Pop Is Dead' 12", original UK 2LP of 'OK Computer' and 2x10" of 'Amnesiac' all in a closet unplayed (and upright) the last 23 years...

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/GGIJLFIWQAA8EOP?format=jpg&name=large

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/GGIJT-wXMAAW9Uq?format=jpg&name=large

Should probably sell them, right?

always valuable to learn who an obscure young vocalist like this Yorke fellow "brings to mind"

Again, why?