RAdiohead

I'm seeing the Smile next weekend at one of the Denver shows. Will do my best to report back.

RAdiohead seemed to be having a great time on their last tour in 2018. I caught the Peru show.

Agree with this article about it being ok if there's no more Radiohead,for,er,now. Though since I can't catch a show I'm not listening to the brand new stuff at all.

https://www.stereogum.com/2207252/the-smile-concert-review/reviews/concert-review/

blatherskite, did you go? worth the $5?

Wasn't there a good essay from several months ago positing that Radiohead had *already* broken up and just not announced it yet? Yes:

https://www.sfgate.com/sf-culture/article/radiohead-never-coming-back-17274731.php

I thought it was agreed upon on ilm a while back?

Maybe you're thinking of the ILM consensus that "Surfin' Bird" is better than the entire Radiohead catalog.

who knows who cares god bless em is how it's broken down to an extent

I got the impression Radiohead was never going to "break up" in the conventional sense. Like instead of trying to stay together as a unit continuously, they just lead their own lives/careers and come together whenever they feel like doing an album and accompanying tour?

i'd still expect they'll make a new album in a few years once thom & jonny are ready to take a break from the smile

I wouldn't be surprised if they never came out with another album of new material, although I could see them touring behind something else (maybe some sort of anniversary collection or recording different versions of old material).

But then again, I also wouldn't be surprised if they did. They know better than to "retire" and act like the door is closed.

it just seems like the main reason we haven't gotten a new album yet is that they weren't all able to meet up to write & record during the pandemic so thom & jonny formed the smile which has taken up their time & energy since then. they were planning to tour in 2021 before the pandemic happened, they haven't all lost interest in the band or anything, just the usual schedule was disrupted by the pandemic.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F2M3oaGJb48

It’s a weird take to say that the last track (true love waits) sounds like a closer to their career because pretty much every Radiohead closing track from The Bends onwards could serve this purpose.

Well, there is also the symbolic weight of it being an old song that long struggled for a place on an album and then finally got it, (literally) at last.

Ridiculously good Smile show last night here in SF. Glad I caught that -- still haven't seen the actual band since 2003 for all kinds of weird timing reasons but both this show and Thom Yorke solo three years back (almost to the day, same venue) were excellent.

I was there, too. I wasn't a huge fan of many of the "new" songs they played, but maybe they just need more time to grow. Skinner was amazing throughout. I don't know a lot about drums, but his internal metronome seems absolutely perfect. At times it was hard to reconcile what I saw the man doing vs what my ears were hearing. Like he had hidden invisible limbs.

Yeah I was nearest to Skinner -- on the floor standing to the side and very close to the stage -- and dude's a beast. The new songs sounded solid enough in context; I remain convinced that while I do enjoy studio work from Thom et al there is a specific next level they can only reach in live performance and that was on offer again.

Here's a bit of my video footage from the Denver show:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lkf_79w106E

i was at the SF show and IMO this easily matched the last two RAdiohead shows I saw (which was at Outside Lands and a show in san jose, can't remember when that was) as far as intensity. Fantastic all the way through.

Saw them in Portland last week. Amazing show.

Do they throw in the odd Radiohead B side or whatever?

No, the closest they get is ending the show with Feeling Pulled Apart by Horses which Radiohead played live at least once about 20 years ago as Reckoner (and was eventually recorded by Yorke solo)

I was at that show (gorge in Washington) where they played pulled apart by horses in 01 ;)

https://on4word.bandcamp.com/album/in-rainbow-roads

"In Rainbows by Radiohead recreated using N64 sounds. Mostly sounds from Super Mario 64."

well done

Nude slaps in this

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sBtJ9_zTqdE

new smile single, apparently not from the next album. i like it more than most of the last album

this is my favourite thing Yorke and company have done in like 20 years

after a few more listens i'll happily say it's my favourite since in rainbows

unfortunately i listened to the rest of the new songs and they're much more in line with the last album which i did not really care for

unrelated, but i'm starting to think HTTT is their Neil Young Tonight's the Night vibe equivalent. "A Punch Up at a Wedding" is just a groovy, loose jam with their usual flourishes.

Anyone else revisit In Rainbows after a long break and be disappointed by the limited dynamic range, so typical of the era it was recorded in? A band that crafts such intricate tunes, only for them to be so wearying on the ear. Imagine a Radiohead album with the production of a 1970s prog band instead.

It is a bit congested. I’ve not listened to the vinyl, is it the same?

New The Smile song is not produced by Neil Godrich and it’s noticeable because it sounds better than usual.

I agree with Melomane on that one, Nigel’s production sounded on point on albums like Kid A / Amnesiac but hasn’t quite worked for me ever since.

and yet Sea Change is massively dynamic in the “unmastered” version

Oh I mostly meant when working with Radiohead

This rips!

https://thesmile.bandcamp.com/album/wall-of-eyes

these two preview tracks have both been my favourite radiohead song in 20 years, the last minute of the title-track is astonishing, i had no idea they had something like that in them

i don't like "wall of eyes" as much as "bending hectic" but both of them have me optimistic about the album

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iFiIW-RKxQI

i really like this new one they were playing live but it doesn't seem to be on the album unless it's been renamed.

lol i much prefer the new song to that one i think, that one sounds like arpeggio practice

it's just a stronger tune than most of the smile stuff. it started off as a live jam at the end of talk show host

ah okay! I agree the songwriting instincts seem way stronger this time around, like they have more conviction now

"talk show host" is absolutely one of my favorite radiohead deep cuts... glad they're still playing it, they clearly love playing it

i checked out the smile, who i've never heard before... i didn't know jonny greenwood is in it. jonny and thom have been really close artistic collaborators... most of their lives. they've done some amazing stuff together, and while i don't think the new stuff is necessarily any _better_ than the last radiohead album, i don't think it's appreciably _worse_ either. i _loved_ the last radiohead album, and not just because the tracklist was in alphabetical order, which is OBJECTIVELY CORRECT. (sorry. 'tism.)

at the same time, uh, thom in particular has always been deeply political. i don't know, is he not political anymore? is that possible, for him to just _not talk about_ politics? and it's fall of 2023 and he's in a band with jonny greenwood... it's a ticking time bomb, isn't it? i'm not talking about the trans thing. that's _a_ time bomb, but i don't feel like it's the one that's more likely to go off.

is it rude for me to bring this up? it's all i think about when people talk about radiohead these days (and in this case, i _am_ talking bout the trans thing). it completely overshadows their music, which has been... really important to me for a long time.

uh, not sure what you want from them here. IMO Radiohead have not been overtly political in their music since Hail to the Thief era, certainly Moon Shaped Pool did not strike me as a very political album.

this is a great song, and a great video.

Hyped for this record

uh, not sure what you want from them here. IMO Radiohead have not been overtly political in their music since Hail to the Thief era, certainly Moon Shaped Pool did not strike me as a very political album.

this is a great song, and a great video.

― I? not I! He! He! HIM! (akm)

i mean i'd like to be able to trust that jonny greenwood isn't a transphobe, is what i'd like. right now i don't. at the same time i don't want to, like, argue whether jonny greenwood is a transphobe or not? i'm not saying it because i want to argue about it. i'm not going to mention the other thing because i _really_ don't want to argue about it. i remember - and my memory is unreliable - i remember people arguing about jonny greenwood's stance on the other thing as far back as 2016.

i did think of _a moon shaped pool_ as being a deeply political record. "burn the witch", to me, that's a political song as much as "2+2=5" is, "the numbers", that's a deeply political song to me.

We call upon the people
People have this power
The numbers don't decide
Your system is a lie
...
We'll take back what is ours
Take back what is ours
One day at a time

i mean, uh. i don't know how else to read those lyrics, you know? and i mean yeah, the personal is political. those lyrics resonate with me, that song resonates with me. and if jonny greenwood doesn't think i belong as part of the "we" yorke sings about, that's personally painful to me. it's not going to ruin my life or anything, but it's painful.

These two songs are more thrilling to me than the entire first album, which I couldn’t fully get into. Trying not to get my hopes up too high here

Excited that Nigel Godrich is not involved. Not that I don’t like his work but a gear switch could help.

xposts re the other thing: I'm assuming you mean their stance on Israel (or lack of). not excusing them at all, and in fact it's just one more thing that I find deeply disappointing in these current times, but there are long-standing reasons for it and it doesn't apply only to Jonny: https://www.vulture.com/2017/07/radioheads-relationship-with-israel-goes-way-back.html

the transphobia... yeah, it's one of those things where him or thom talking about it might make it worse? though not talking about it isn't great either. it mostly just sucks. :/

i'm not sure radiohead have ever been very specific when it comes to their politics anyway. they're good on broad themes like climate change or late-stage capitalism, but rarely direct their ire towards any state or actor, or get involved directly in activism or protest.

thom's politics are just pretty generic left-liberal stuff except with a gigantic blindspot on israel/palestine. he's been a big supporter of the english greens for a while, especially caroline lucas, but also backed corbyn when he was labour leader. he's backed various protests over the years, mostly anti-war or climate stuff, and has been pretty critical of the uk & us government over the years. pretty unobjectionable stuff with the major exception of israel

jonny's politics seem to be worse than thom's - he follows a bunch of terrible reactionary observer columnists & got caught liking a transphobic tweet by suzanne moore last year but said it was an accident and he doesn't intend to comment on issues he's ignorant about. i figure he very likely really does have transphobic sympathies but is smart enough not to become publicly obsessive about it like so many others. i can certainly understand if some want to draw the 'never listen to anything he's been involved with ever again' line there but i don't personally. his wife is a very right-wing israeli who got into all sorts of antivax conspiracy shit in the last few years and her politics are likely something to do with the band's uncharacteristically shit stance re: israel.

the others all seem pretty similar to thom just less active about it - pretty generic progressives.

Jonny Greenwood has been married to an israeli since 1995 which is an extra point that might explain why they ignore thar conflict.