In Rainbows

[PUT THAT DICK IN MY MOUTH! 0]

So bands other than Coldplay have used "melodic, chiming guitar chords" in their music before. Okay. But "Arpeggio" and "All I Need" don't sound like those other bands, they sound like Coldplay.

 

Also, this whole thing caused me to go back and listen to Hail to the Thief for the first time in like 2 years. I'd forgotten how good the back-end of that album actually is. The run from "There There" to the "A Wolf at the Door" is easily as good as anything else they've done. Too bad the first half had to be so full of stinkers.

[snuffbox 0]

No, they don't. At all. Just stop while you're this far behind.

[Guest Gym Class Fallout]

Hail to the Thief has the best art direction, if nothing else. I've always liked maps. The run you mentioned is good, but I always liked "Sail to the Moon" and "We Suck Young Blood," too. There are a few duds, like "I Will" and "The Gloaming," but I'd rather have too much than not enough, I guess, and I can always sub out the HTTT version for the COM LAG version and pretend they ran with the better take. On a related note, I also spliced the trumpet solo back into "Life in a Glass House."

 

I'm looking forward to the second half of the album. The piano version of "Down Is The New Up" sounds promising, and I thought "Up On The Ladder" was decent enough to have made it on COM LAG.

[snuffbox 0]

I don't mind 'The Gloaming'. It sounded really good at Bonnaroo last year, too.

[Guest Gym Class Fallout]

It's cool in a live setting with more emphasis on the bass line, but I find the studio version kind of tedious.

 

I have to wonder if Radiohead will ever make a return to releasing fully musical albums.

'Fully musical album'?

As opposed to electronic.

huh? Electronic music isn't music?

[PUT THAT DICK IN MY MOUTH! 0]

Hail to the Thief has the best art direction, if nothing else. I've always liked maps. The run you mentioned is good, but I always liked "Sail to the Moon" and "We Suck Young Blood," too. There are a few duds, like "I Will" and "The Gloaming," but I'd rather have too much than not enough, I guess, and I can always sub out the HTTT version for the COM LAG version and pretend they ran with the better take. On a related note, I also spliced the trumpet solo back into "Life in a Glass House."

 

I really like "I Will." Granted, it's not much of a song on its own, but it's pretty and it works nicely as a quiet breather between "There There" and "A Punch Up at a Wedding." The transition into the latter is one of my favorite moments on the album. "The Gloaming" seems to serve a similar structural purpose, in that it effectively separates the first and second halves of the album. It's sort of like "Treefingers," except more irritating.

[Guest Gym Class Fallout]

In the unlikely event that you don't have the original Arpeggi that I can't shut up about, it's attached.

Arpeggi.mp3

[PLAGIARISM! 0]

On first listen at my friend's house I liked the slower numbers, and not the fast ones. More detail to come, I'm currently downloading it.

[Guest Gym Class Fallout]

Of course you did, because THAT DRUMMING IS ANNOYING. Turns every song into "How Do You?" or something.

[PLAGIARISM! 0]

I think it was the second track, the garage-rocky one? Feh and double-feh.

[PLAGIARISM! 0]

First full listen and it hasn't made an impression on me at all. Solid and unspectacular from start to finish. 'Reckoner' and 'Jigsaw Falling Into Place' appear to be the highlights but again there's no flow to the album. At this stage in their careers you'd really expect their ideas to gel more assuredly, and they have done elsewhere. A bit disappointing, but most seem to say it's a grower.

[Matt Young 0]

I don't really care for Radiohead much, but since it doesn't cost anything (I set the price to $0.00), I am downloading it now.

[Guest Gym Class Fallout]

There was a sendspace link in the thread, you knob.

 

EDIT: lol I swear I meant to write "you know" up there. Oh well. I acknowledged it, now I'm keeping it.

[Matt Young 0]

So why does it make a difference where I downloaded it from? Besides, I'm giving your favorite band a 5th chance to show me some talent.

[The Man in Blak 0]

I almost want to say Blind Cave Salamander made a better Radiohead album than Radiohead did. I can imagine Thom's vocals fitting in there quite well on a few of those. "Time Piece" most of all, probably.

So, if you nearly associate Radiohead with electronic-tinged post rock dirges, how do you feel about The Bends and OK Computer?

[Guest Gym Class Fallout]

I like them a lot! However, to do the whole "this is our rock and roll album" thing and regress to fast-paced guitar rock (which predates even The Bends) wasn't something I was particularly pleased with at this juncture, as we all know by now.

 

Pitchfork was pleased, though! They gave it a 9.3 and did a darling little tribute to the pricing mechanism.

 

Also, Matt, I don't care where you get it, I just thought it'd be faster to get it from sendspace than their site, which may be kind of slow. Just lookin' out for ya! (Points and does little click-click mouth thing!)

[PLAGIARISM! 0]

Pitchfork outdid themselves on this one.

 

I will also say that whilst the band's shift from great to ok is fairly easy to pinpoint, the transition from guitars to electronics being the cause is a bit of a myth and a certain oversimplification. Not directing that at anyone in particular here, but I've been saying it a lot to people in the past week. Sigh.

[snuffbox 0]

http://www.jambase.com/Articles/Story.aspx?StoryID=11782

[Guest Gym Class Fallout]

Edge went on to explain that Radiohead frontman Thom Yorke really isn't looking forward to the tour, saying, "He likes to do shows, but the whole business of schlepping round the world is not top of his favorite things to do."

 

Only Radiohead can get away with publicizing a concert tour by saying that the band isn't looking forward to doing it.

[Matt Young 0]

I'll have to give it another listen, but I sat through the entire album (getting progressively more drunk) the other night and I thought it was really good. That's the first time I have ever enjoyed Radiohead.

[snuffbox 0]

http://jambase.com/Articles/Story.aspx?StoryID=11884

[BX 0]

Why are you people linking to Jambase?

[snuffbox 0]

It has the article.

[Guest Pizza Hut's Game Face]

Dumb ranking crap. I'm including The Eraser in here, but not Bodysong, since that's too much of a departure, structurally.

 

Leadoffs

1. Everything In Its Right Place

2. Airbag

3. Planet Telex

4. The Eraser

5. You

6. Packt Like Sardines in a Crushd Tin Box

7. 2+2=5

8. 15 Step

 

Closers

1. Motion Picture Soundtrack

2. Life in a Glass House

3. Street Spirit

4. A Wolf at the Door

5. Videotape

6. Blow Out

7. Cymbal Rush

8. The Tourist

 

Penultimates

1. Morning Bell

2. Lucky

3. Harrowdown Hill

4. Lurgee

5. Like Spinning Plates

6. Scatterbrain

7. Sulk

8. Jigsaw Falling Into Place

 

Antepenultimates

1. Idioteque

2. No Surprises

3. Black Star

4. And It Rained All Night

5. Myxomatosis

6. I Can't

7. Dollars and Cents ("Hunting Bears" is too insubstantial to consider it a "song," so it's in with the palate-cleansers)

8. House of Cards

 

Totally Subjectively Designated as the "Ballads" Which Are Usually Track 3 or 4

1. Fake Plastic Trees

2. How To Disappear Completely

3. Sail to the Moon

4. Pyramid Song

5. Exit Music

6. Nude

7. Thinking About You (the other six are better but it's really not a bad song at all)

*The Eraser doesn't really have a ballad to rank but I suppose "Analyse" is closest to one.

 

Palate-Cleaners & Interludes

1. Fitter Happier

2. Treefingers

3. Faust Arp

4. Hunting Bears

5. I Will

The rest don't have one.

[snuffbox 0]

You should probably just disregard In Rainbows altogether at this point, Czech.

[Guest Pizza Hut's Game Face]

Don't talk down to me like that.

[snuffbox 0]

You obviously dont like it. Why listen? It is like an awful relationship being dragged on for reasons unknown even to the participants.

[Guest Pizza Hut's Game Face]

I like it, but I'll never be convinced that it's better than anything they've done bar Pablo Honey. "Reckoner" and "Arpeggi" are great, but I couldn't find a way to compare them to other stuff. Not my fault tracks 8 and 9 are some real stinkers.

[Edwin MacPhisto 0]

Now that we've hit the end of daylight savings time, it's perfect OK Computer and Kid A weather. I'm happy about this.

[snuffbox 0]

The last three songs on are the best on the entire album.

 

See, when Neil Young makes an album I find terrible (Are You Passionate), I just try to ignore it entirely & focus on the next release/earlier music I enjoy. I don't see where it would benefit me to compare songs I dont care for to stuff I already really like. All that would do is reiterate the bad songs & would add nothing to the good with the comparison.

 

This is definitly not worth an argument, though.