"OK Computer": Classic Or Dud?

the box set with the tape download code isn't shipping until July

I agree about Lift being just a little too slow, it would still be one of the best songs on The Bends though

the box set with the tape download code isn't shipping until July

d'oh, thanks! i was thinking all formats shipped on the 23rd.

the counter argument to this is the HTTT era, where exactly the right songs were left as b-sides (even if maybe a couple of the album tracks should also have been left off)

― a serious and fascinating fartist (Simon H.), Saturday, June 24, 2017 10:51 AM (six hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

which of these are better than songs on HTTT? i only ever heard the There There single with Paperbag Writer and Where Bluebirds Fly, the former of which I don't remember and the latter I really love but it's an instrumental - where would it go on the record?

Paperbag Writer
Where Bluebirds Fly
I Am Citizen Insane
Gaggjng Order
I Am a Wicked Child

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/06/23/arts/music/radiohead-ok-computer-influences-playlist.html

Odd that it doesn't site "Tiptoe Through The Tulips" as an additional reference point.

the nick lucas version?

Gagging Order is the only HTTT b-side i like, idk if a acoustic guitar + vocals only song would ever feel at home on a radiohead LP though

Simon H. is OTM - none of those songs would have fit on Hail to the Thief, which probably would benefit from being at least 3 or 4 songs shorter.

which ones would you cut?

I still don't understand how they made two records out of the 'Kid A' sessions, and on neither one were two of the best three or four tracks from the whole thing, 'Kinetic' and 'Worrywort,' both of which I feel like presage a lot of the best Radiohead work of later years. Both would be among the most successful of Yorke's stabs at "electronic" music.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4q906M5_Vfw

(Skip to 9:57 on that--the other b-sides were otherwise mediocre)

i'd add fog to that list, too. one of my favorite things they've ever done

still so gobsmacked that "Cuttooth" (skip to 22:45 in the video above) didn't make it on any album bcz it is def one of their strongest b-sides but also like str8 up one of their strongest songs imo??? I mean in its current form it wouldn't have fit neatly into either Kid A or Amnesiac but like just throw some crunchy glitchy electronics on it ffs

amnesiac is def the canonical "b-sides better than the album cuts" radiohead album. can't object too much with the rest of the records. yeah "talk show host" was good enough for a record but i'm not about to go out and demand they drop "sulk" to make room for "the trickster" or whatever.

i agree. but since you mention it, pulling the old switcheroo with talk show host + permanent daylight with high and dry + bulletproof would actually improve the album quite a bit imo

still so gobsmacked that "Cuttooth" (skip to 22:45 in the video above) didn't make it on any album bcz it is def one of their strongest b-sides but also like str8 up one of their strongest songs imo???

That's so funny, because seeing that compilation and hearing that track reminded me it existed, I'd hated it so much when it came out. Really presaged their sludgy thing of thinking they were riding a groove a la Can circa 'Hail to the Thief,' when really they were just plodding aimlessly. It doesn't have songcraft, it doesn't have an interesting structure, it's boringly produced, it doesn't have an interesting beat. . . Man I guess I still hate it ; )

'Fog' and 'Cuttooth' are both essential Radiohead, IMO. Sure, 'Cuttooth' is a bit rough in the recording but I love it.

There's nothing about The Bends that I would change, really... the best of the B-sides from that period would make up a very good record, though.

i ordered the box set >_<

I love Cuttooth.

bonus tape is floating around out there

Side A:
Zx sprectrum symphony
AMS Hello
True Love Tape Loop
Let Down (Thom 4Track)
I may be paranoid but not an andoroid...
Attention (Thom 4Track)
Noise sketch by Nigel
Climbing up the walls (Abbey Road Strings)
Someone help this guy..
Motion Picture Soundtrack solo piano
Was that recording
The jumbled words of climbing up the walls read by little Dan Clements
Lull (ed guitar infinite reverb)
Airbag Drums through Moog
Karma Police in space echo
Karma Police voice through telephonbe
(Talking)
Piano sketch by Jonny
Bid bird story by Stanley Donwood
No surprises (first idea from soundcheck somewhere)
Radio chaser noise
Fridge Buzz
True Love Space Loop
(Talking)
Are you Someone?

Side B:
Nigel AMS Delay
Jonnys Radio from Climbing up the walls
Climbing up the walls (Thom 4track)
A piano lies down in the middle of the road
Transposing Noise sketch by Nigel
Early paranoid android version by Jonny and Thom
Alternative Paranoid Android ending live in Pittsburg
Airbag early acoustic version
(Talking)
Paranoid Android Loud Room at St Catherines
Nigel AMS paranoid guitar sample
Nude early band version
The national anthem (Thom 4 track)
Ambient Loops
Man of WEar live in Montpellier
Nigel AMS delay again
Thoms acoustic as microphone in Climbing up the Walls
Ok Computer program

I don't understand why this wasn't made widely available. I would pay $10-20 bucks to hear this tape but instead I'm going to go find a rip of it somewhere. What's the damage? Just put a zip file up on W.A.S.T.E. and I'm there.

yeah, same

i don't understand why they even bothered with the rest of the reissue, this shit actually sounds interesting

seriously people would rather listen to "i promise" than somebody in the band farting around on a zx spectrum? what is wrong with people.

I gave up on people

it's not just bumbling around in the studio, the Let Down demo alone sounds incredible. the full tracklist above is almost too much to take in. and i still haven't found a rip

hearing all the demos is fascinating, especially the early version of The National Anthem, and Motion Picture Soundtrack and Nude are fantastic here

I would love to listen to their outtakes and experiments because their recorded output is obviously meticulously controlled and their live performances don't include much room for improv (cue someone telling me about jonnys guitar solos or thom moaninv slightly differently but come on when a Radiohead song starts, live, you pretty much know exactly how it will proceed)

Wait has this shit leaked yet?

Fuuuuck I gotta get on it

I am very curious about

Lull (ed guitar infinite reverb)

:)

"Polyethylene" is in their top 5 imo

I recall a slower standalone version of the 3rd section in "Paranoid Android" (the "rain down" part) appearing in Meeting People Is Easy and I always wanted to hear that demo on its own, but it's been tough to locate on file sharing.

My opinion on this record is that . . . . . . . . . it’s good.

You can find the whole thing on Soulseek. There's many useless and kind of creepy snippets (the isolated radio loops for Climbing Up the Walls in particular are terrifying - or at least they are to me hearing them alone in my house at night) but it's cool they're there... if we only keep the full songs, we have:

Let Down (Thom 4 Track)
Attention (Thom 4 Track)
Motion Picture Soundtrack (solo piano)
No Surprises (first idea from soundcheck somewhere)
Are You Someone?
Climbing Up The Walls (Thom 4 Track)
Airbag (early acoustic version)
Nude (early band version)
The National Anthem (Thom 4 Track)
Man Of War (live in Montpellier)

Attention and Are You Someone? are new songs. The former sounds REM inspired, the later is a weird sort of song coming from them at this era... very 90's angst like something off of Pablo Honey or The Bends... sounds like the distant cousin of Talk Show Host. It wouldn't fit at all in OKC.
Let Down and Airbag demos sounds like they come from an alternate universe where OKC was released by an indie jangle rock band. Supposedly the way the guitars sound in the album version of Let Down is actually a layer error that sent one of the guitars playing earlier and they loved the sound so they kept it that way. I don't know if it's true or not but it's cool to hear this version with that guitar missing.
MPS is perhaps the best vocal performance from Thom in here and it's better than the KID A one. I kind of want to hear an edit of this vocals with the music from Kid A.
Climbing Up The Walls demo is some sort of trip hop/rock version that wouldn't sound out of place in a Gorillaz album (or maybe a NIN one).
Nude is similar sound-wise to the version from Meeting People is Easy but it has radically different lyrics to that one and the one that ended up in IR. It's kind of weak in this form and good they saved it for later.
National Anthem is really different to the KID A version... slower bass but faster drums. The anxiety from Kid A is there but this is another one that it was so good they saved, in this form it sounds like a bad outtake off of U2's Zooropa or POP.

I always liked this better than the Kid A version. (And it has a 3rd verse.)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nmjyUce7kSU

I'll no doubt get around to hearing this stuff at some point, but I'm not exactly in any kind of rush to hear this stuff - I have a huge feeling it's all stuff that's worth hearing once and that's it.

Listening to the cassette is reminiscent of hearing the mixture of music and sound design in Meeting People is Easy.

I'm thinking the box set should hold its value pretty well so once I've had my fill of the tape I'm just gonna flip it, if I lose 20 bucks on it I'll just chalk that up as the cost of the tape

The tape has so many interesting moments that gives you a peek into their creative process. There's per example Nigel sampling a guitar from Paranoid Android which ended up being used as the background ambience in Fitter Happier. You can also hear how Paranoid Android was recorded in different rooms - loud parts where done in bigger rooms apparently and then spliced into the quier parts.

Oh there's also geeky stuff hidden in the tape! The last track "ok computer program" is an actual ZX spectrum program:

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=JDM5YBS6KMc

^^ that's exactly what i'm hoping it will be, awesome

this is really sweet, i love when bands put out the raw sludge of their creative process. listening to that first True Love Waits loop took me aback, I knew I had heard one of those bleeps before- it ended up being incorporated into Pull/Pulk.

the Let Down demo is so amazing

Big fan of the presentation of demo material in this fashion.

Yeah and the Demo/doodle of No Surprises. I too think this is a great idea. And yeah the sound design; bits floating in and out is very Meeting People Is Easy.

the Airbag demo is great, too - i just wish it had double tracked guitars & vox like the Let Down demo

also lol a bunch of Radiohead superfans came into the store the other day and they were talking about how much better the Motion Picture Soundtrack version is than the Kid A one. they repeated the party line - "it's just... it's his best vocal." I don't get that... I love the song, but the mellow/passive delivery on Kid A and all the awesome Disney-esque accouterments are so much better... first of all, the piano on this demo is low in the mix and distorted, it sounds shitty, and his vocal is so saccharine, so glad they saved that one...

I don't really like I Promise or Lift. But Man of War is really excellent.

'Man of War' is the best of the three for me, but I enjoy the other two, even if I don't see what zillions of hardcore Radiohead fans have seen in 'Lift' all these years.

yeah I didn't either, but when the studio version came out it really snuck up on me. not a red letter song, but there's something about it that's stuck with me. i like "Man O War" but don't dig the Bond theme vibe.

look i know we have two active radiohead threads right now but we should talk about the 18 hours of ok computer-era tapes that just leaked maybe?