Wall of Mouths

I find him a little limited in his songwriting at times, as parts of his records really seem samey to me. To listen to Michigan, Seven Swans and Illinois in close succession kind of highlights his limitations. However, when he’s on target he’s really fucking good.
I hope he manages all fifty states. Doubt he will, but still.

Lanegan’s pretty fucking cool, although Campbell is my favourite part of the album. Love her voice. Great record.

Fridge are cool, but I find Four Tet tedious as hell. A couple of his tracks are nice, but it’s mostly just really watered down IDM. Sort of the Coldplay of electronic music, really.
Saw him live, too, vastly unimpressed.

buffalo-boy wrote:

Not for the ‘artists’ involved! The sheep that constitute our glorious society have nothing better to do than rush out and buy whatever the celebs tell them too. Expect the tossers than won this year to hang around for a while yet.

I hate to state the obvious, but I don’t think the better artists would be that bothered if a hundred thousand sheep didn’t go out and buy their records.

30seconds wrote:

How lemar is more urban than dizzee rascal, I’ll never know.
And why was Arcade fire’s album beaten twice by an album released in 2004(Green Day).

Funeral was released in 2004. Before September, too. The only thing that happened in 2005 was it got a bigger distribution deal.
Anyway, the thing about the Brits is: they’re pointless.

Queenadreena - My Silent Undoing

The Killers - Mr. Brightside (Jacques Lu Cont’s Thin White Duke Remix)

Having seen the first five episodes of The IT Crowd so far, I’m enjoying it. It’s not exactly a masterpiece, but it makes a really, really refreshing change from the teams of Green Wing/Nighty Night/Hyperdrive-esque bullshitcoms we’ve had lately, where being dark and edgy is far more important than actually having any jokes.

Episode three was quite poor, the first and fifth were good, and I really, really enjoyed the second and fourth episodes. Fingers crossed for a second series.

Heh, Morning Bell/Amnesiac is the only song in my 1,500 record-strong collection that I skip every time it comes on. I haven’t listened to it throughout in years.

Hail To The Fief? :p

Y’see, I never take things on a stylistic way too much. Amnesiac certainly is Radiohead ‘trying’ to be things, from an objective view, but I love the melodies and the atmosphere, and I think it succeeds very well on both accounts.
I still think ‘worst album ever’ is a really strange thing to say.

Patrick Wolf - Don’t Say No

Also, can someone put a two paragraph limit on my posts? I’m boring a lot of people here. :p

Squall wrote:

I dont think 4 minutes of a sound constitues a pop song

( Push / Pulk revolving doors )

Or one of the other tracks which is just 3 or so minutes of random nonsense.

I still maintain that the best tracks from Kid A and Amnesiac should have been put on one cd instead of two challenging albums and then being charged full price !

I agree with whoever said that music should be there to entertain and cheer you up. You dont want to buy a cd - take it home and sit down and stare at the speakers for 50 minutes, whilst trying to figure out what on earth the booklet is supposed to mean.

No, Pulk/Pull Revolving Doors isn’t a pop song. There are most definitely no other songs which are ‘just three or so minutes of random nonsense’. It’s all properly written, structured music. Just because it’s moe abstract than music you appreciate, doesn’t mean it’s random - once again, this is why I’m throwing around phrases like ‘you need to listen to more music’, simply because you don’t seem to be able to accept that there are other forms of music that you don’t enjoy.
Kid A and Amnesiac are very different albums. The production on them is pretty different - Kid A is very shiny, cold, clinical sounding, Amnesiac is far noisier, rawer in sound. The mood of the record is very different, I find - other than Like Spinning Plates, which might have fitted Kid A, I don’t think either of them have exchangable tracks. But that’s because I appreciate the records for mood, texture and so on, rather than as a bunch of songs. You listen to music for other - perhaps less ‘challenging’ - reasons, and nobody’s trying to say that’s wrong (least of all me, believe it or not), just that you should understand that what you hear as a bunch of random sounds is actually probably pretty intricately produced and appealing for people who enjoy that kind of music. ‘Its not good’ just seem a bit narrow minded.

As for what music “should be” and how it’s “supposed to be” recorded and so on, that’s… well, I can only speak from someone who studies the subject, but that’s really not the case from the perspective of a hell of a lot of artists. Music is simply the way the musician expresses themself, and by definition has no boundaries of how it should be. Sure, a tight, catchy pop/rock record “should” exist to entertain the listener on a surface level, and is supposed to be recorded from a select batch of songs. But that’s not the only approach to music there is. Some people do enjoy listening to music on a ‘deeper’ level, appreciating all the tightly textured sounds, working out the concepts and meanings, listening to an album a hundred times to get to grips with it. That’s the sort of albums Kid A and Amnesiac are. The problem is that Radiohead weren’t known for that sort of thing, so a lot of people bought them not wanting that approach. That’s the only reason the band get so much shtick for it. As I keep saying, there are hundreds of thousands of albums out there that would make the two records seem like easy listening, it’s just that most people haven’t been introduced to them.

Anyway, I hope you can at least appreciate that. I know this is all very long winded, preachy bullshit really, but… well, maybe you can see where Kid Amnesiac fans are coming from a little better now.
On a slightly different note, I’m not really a fan of Pulk/Pull Revolving Doors, but in the opposite way to Squall - I find the song far too simple/easy, like a poor man’s attempt at IDM. So y’know, the record can be seen from a completely different perspective: I know several people who think it’s too simple and poppy and obvious. ;)

buffalo-boy wrote:

Like what O Great One? Please enlighten me with your correct opinion! Its obviously far more worthy than mine!

*shrugs* Nothing to do with opinions. But, say, Pyramid Song has no ‘droning’ sections of it, it has complex melodic and rhythmic parts, thus it is more than just ‘noise’. Not an opinion, but your definition was wrong.
Please, download Confield by Autechre, or A by Pan Sonic, or something by Merzbow, or some of John Cage’s piano sonatas or something, THEN listen to Amnesiac.

I’m not saying you have to like it, but it’s this attitude of it being completely void of any musical worth that you and Squall have which is incredibly narrow minded. I’m not getting into another slagging match, because it’s pointless, but to say it’s ‘just a droning noise’ is seriously misguided, because compared to a hell of a lot of music out there, later Radiohead isn’t particularly challenging/weird/unmusical. To be fair, Amnesiac is a bunch of pop songs with slightly unorthadox production. As I say, I’m not saying what your opinion on how good the music should be, I’m just saying you should at least understand the record in context.

And please stop taking this all so personally by asking me to tell you what your opinion is. I’ve never once said “you’re wrong for not liking Pyramid Song”, just “you’re wrong for calling Pyramid Song a droning noise”. Because… well, it’s not. There are facts and opinions when it comes to music, and I’m arguing the former.

Meh. I love the new Oasis album. And the first two. It’s that middle era that was embarrassing.

Mmm. Bit overplayed, really.

A Rush And A Push And The Land Is Ours
Frankly, Mr. Shankly
Sweet And Tender Hooligan
Barbarism Begins At Home
Still Ill

And almost everything else they’ve done.

I saw Brakes supporting Belle & Sebastian. Thought they were fucking fantastic. The short song thing was pretty entertaining.

But Pyramid Song is a pretty melodically and rhythmically complex piece of music, with an extraordinarily beautiful string section.
As I say, if you think that is a droning noise, there is a lot of music you need to listen to.

somebody who’s never heard a droning noise before wrote:

I was amazed when Pyramid Song went in at number 5 in the charts. Its just a droning noise!

It won’t, but I can’t hear anything in Amnesiac that is extreme enough to be the worst album ever. I’m sure there are several hundred thousand records around that you’d like less.
What is it about it that you dislike?

Yeah, indie is a completely redundant category these days. As I said earlier, there’s Belle & Sebastian and Pavement… ditto for Arctic Monkeys and Keane. Nothing in common at all.

Hail to the Thief is pretty fucking dire. Thom forgot how to write melodies and Nigel took the energetic live tracks and turned them into flat, uninteresting studio pieces.

Kid A is one of my favourite albums ever. Fucking beautiful.

FNYANKEZ wrote:

I’m not even sure how the Indie bands I’m into still put out stuff anymore.

Fugazi (plus Minor Threat)
Shellac (Rapeman & Big Black as well)
Girls Against Boys
Jawbox
Quicksand
Scratch Acid/Jesus Lizard

I’d mostly call those hardcore or post-hardcore, to be honest.

Squall wrote:

I think Amnesiac is the worst album by any band, ever !

Last time you said this, I suggested you should listen to more music.
And I still suggest that.

30seconds wrote:

O.K computer is probably my faviroute Britpop(if you can call it that) album, closely followed by Urban hymns.

Neither of them are really britpop, to be honest.

Anyway, Radiohead thread I haven’t seen before. In order of preference (although I’ve barely listened to anything other than the top two for a couple of years now, found it very easy to get bored of Radiohead): Kid A > Amnesiac > OK Computer > Pablo Honey > The Bends > Hail To The Thief

Red Hot Chili Peppers - If You Want Me To Stay

I quite like Franz Ferdinand, although the second album got pretty tiresome. But it’s the stomping drums and angular guitars on the Arctic Monkeys albums that remind me of them. Lots of the riffs are incredibly Franz-esque, only without the pompous charm that makes them what they are.

Average, sub-Franz Ferdinand pap with decent lyrics.

They’re both pretty dull, uninteresting bands.

Ah, my least favourite word in music. I’m still yet to understand how Belle & Sebastian and Pavement can be called the same thing.

Errrrrr. I haven’t listened to much indie stuff lately, although I have a fair amount. Of all the NME bands, the only one like is The Coral, although The Strokes’ first record is fucking great (shame about the other two), and Franz Ferdinand have their moments.

And on other indie stuff, Mercury Rev are one of my favourite bands. And I suppose The Shins, Saturday Looks Good To Me, The Flaming Lips and The Wedding Present should be mentioned.