Date: September 16th, 2026 12:59 AM Author: slate area dog poop
Never was big on that one honestly. Obviously it has a few songs I like. But overall I'm just not that big on it. I was always a kid a/amnesiac guy myself. Also in rainbows.
Date: September 16th, 2026 1:13 AM Author: Beady-eyed Erotic Casino
Yeah it's not as good as their other top albums. A bit of an overall dip in quality. It has some moments though. I think in some ways the bizarre political message (Bush sucks?) holds it back a little and really doesn't hold up with time. 2 + 2 = 5 is a jam although it's not clear if they totally land the plane. It's still a (mostly) fun romp. The intro is so iconic and possibly the most recognizable intro of their career.
There, There wins points for being pretty, sparse, mysterious, and ethereal. The melodic high point. And I think Myxomatosis is also melodically strong. Most of the rest of the album has some glaring flaws in the songwriting. Although there's so much craft and artistry that go into it sometimes you get to the end of one of these dreary, borderline unlistenable offerings and it suddenly picks up and you go, wait, what?
They really put a mountain of effort into this, at least ten times more than your average band puts into making a record, and it's still very low energy, half baked at times. But worse of all it's just gloomy and plodding for long stretches. The 14 tracks feel 4-5 too many. It's overly long and at times you can't completely tell when the song changes. It suffers from its own monotony and inability to shake things up or try something different. When they made it they must have been really stuck on whatever idea they had and were overly committed to the shtick. Still, despite the obvious criticisms, it is objectively brilliant at times and if any other alternative band made this record it would be their masterpiece.
There's one clip where Thom accepts some British award for the album and he's teary-eyed and says the band made the record for themselves with no hope that the outside world would give a shit about it, and that the award meant a lot to him and justified their efforts. If that gives you a little window into what they were thinking.
I think it's obvious they went into making In Rainbows with the intent to right some of the wrongs they made on HttT. It really was a bonafide redemption arc. Imagine being so talented that your worst is better than most people's best. I guess it's like LeBron getting knocked out in the conference finals or something. You know he'll be back next year with a vengeance.
Date: September 16th, 2026 1:24 AM Author: slate area dog poop
Yeah I think your read is pretty close to mine, especially the sense that Hail to the Thief contains some of Radiohead’s best individual work inside one of their least disciplined albums.
The biggest thing I’d change is that I don’t really think the problem is that they were unwilling to try different things. Almost the opposite. The album has too many ideas and too many partially resolved modes. 2 + 2 = 5, Sail to the Moon, There There, Myxomatosis, The Gloaming, and A Wolf at the Door are doing substantially different things. But they’re all rendered through the same anxious, murky, midtempo HttT atmosphere, so the differences stop registering after 40 minutes.
Most of the record was initially recorded in about two weeks in Los Angeles, often at roughly a song a day, because they wanted immediacy and live interaction again. Yorke described it at the time as direct music made quickly without thinking everything to death.
Date: September 16th, 2026 1:30 AM Author: Beady-eyed Erotic Casino
I agree with this. They tried too many things within a moribund, droning, and bland context. The innovation was in the window dressing, not the meat. I think they needed to slow down and take more time to get deeper into the material and polish it. Take Nude for example that took them 20 years to write and went through a dozen major rewrites. You have to sit with the material and let it chew away at you. If they were going to rush through the recording process at least they could have done us all a favor and made it shorter and easier to digest than waste too much of our time. I think if they took the 10 best tracks and front loaded it we would have all been more into it.
Date: September 16th, 2026 1:39 AM Author: slate area dog poop
Yeah, I think the problem is that they mistook recording quickly for some kind of artistic virtue when a lot of these songs clearly needed more time. Nude is the obvious counterexample. They sat with that thing forever, rewrote it over and over, and eventually every part of it feels right. HttT often sounds like they got to the first decent version of a song and moved on.
There are tons of interesting sounds and production ideas, but the actual songwriting underneath them can be weirdly thin. The innovation is in the window dressing more than the meat. Sit Down. Stand Up is basically three minutes of setup for a great ending. We Suck Young Blood is more of an atmosphere than a song. A Punchup at a Wedding has a great groove but not enough going on melodically.
And if you're going to make an album that way, at least edit the hell out of it. Fourteen tracks and almost an hour is absurd for material this gloomy and half cooked. Take the best 9 or 10 songs, front load the strongest stuff, and suddenly the slower tracks have room to breathe instead of feeling like one more stretch of sludge.
That seems like one of the big lessons they took into In Rainbows. They had plenty of good extra songs and just left them off. Being good wasn't enough anymore. The song had to make the album better.
Date: September 16th, 2026 1:41 AM Author: frozen office
caring about not having to skip a song if you don't like it is some real faggy shit, why wouldn't you want to hear everything they can give you? It doesn't hurt you to not love every track on every album
Date: September 16th, 2026 1:44 AM Author: Beady-eyed Erotic Casino
That's like saying why would you be mad if someone spliced a 20 minute slapstick routine into the middle of The Godfather? Because the film would have been worse. The whole point of art is to strive for perfection.
Date: September 16th, 2026 1:46 AM Author: frozen office
except we don't listen to vinyl anymore, each song is its own thing and very, very rarely does an album amount to a cohesive piece of art, I honestly can't think of a single album that works front to back, I'd rather have the chance to love a song the producer didn't or skip it if I don't
Date: September 16th, 2026 1:53 AM Author: Beady-eyed Erotic Casino
He wrote a lot of real retarded music that is incredibly difficult to get through. That being said hidden within are many pearls that could change your life.
Date: September 16th, 2026 1:44 AM Author: slate area dog poop
You are treating an album like a folder of songs rather than a composed work. If you’re judging individual tracks, then sure, more material can only give you more chances to find something you like. But an album has pacing, sequencing and a sense of proportion and total cohesion. A weak or redundant track can damage the experience even if you’re technically free to skip it.
Date: September 16th, 2026 1:47 AM Author: frozen office
I am indeed treating an album like what it actually is, a series of songs that generally don't have much to do with eachother because some doods on drugs wrote them one by one and then a jew put them in order
Date: September 16th, 2026 9:33 AM Author: Fracture in the Maidenhead (gunneratttt)
You can enjoy music however you like. However many albums are essentially one cohesive piece of art rather than as assortment of songs unrelated to each other. It's like listening to one Broadway album versus the hit songs from various ones. The Broadway album has a cohesive narrative, and whether it's "perfect" doesn't matter. Not every song is a banger. But there's nothing wrong with just listening to the bangers too.
Date: September 16th, 2026 11:01 AM Author: Beady-eyed Erotic Casino
Fags who don't respect a complete album these days are missing out. It's like saying YouTube shorts are better than The Godfather. It's just uninformed.
Date: September 16th, 2026 1:42 AM Author: Beady-eyed Erotic Casino
I couldn't agree more. Very well said. Imagine how much less good In Rainbows would be if there were like 4 more songs about as good as Faust ARP. It would have been a lot worse. There's almost no filler and every track has something to say.
What album should I review next? Thinking about Sigur Rós - () but I'm open to suggestions.
Date: September 16th, 2026 1:43 AM Author: frozen office
what is there to discuss? It is the least interesting radiohead album outside of the first one and is weird for the sake of it because thom yorke is mentally ill
Date: September 16th, 2026 1:45 AM Author: Beady-eyed Erotic Casino
It's a virtual tie between OK Computer and Kid A. And The Bends is very close. They made two flawless albums. I lean Kid A but that doesn't take anything away from the greatness of OK Computer.
Date: September 16th, 2026 1:49 AM Author: frozen office
OK is probably the best but I would argue Kid A is the most influential, you have to remember how fucking long ago that was and how much music since is aping that vibe, electronic music prior to that was gay dance shit and I really think all of the dark stuff since owes a lot to it
Date: September 16th, 2026 1:49 AM Author: slate area dog poop
OK Computer and Kid A are both excellent. I think I like Kid A better, but doesn't mean OK Computer isn't great too. Amnesiac and In Rainbows are also pretty close behind for me.
Date: September 16th, 2026 1:57 AM Author: slate area dog poop
You know what's funny is that back in the 2000s noone on xo would admit to liking kid a. IRL you could definitely find people but it was more niche. Now suddenly people consider it obvious that Kid A was genius. I always put it at the top.
Date: September 16th, 2026 2:06 AM Author: Beady-eyed Erotic Casino
I liked Kid A so much the first time I heard it I thought all the other Radiohead albums were shite for like two years. I must have listened to it over and over on repeat like 9 times. I remember jogging over to the store to get it. This fag from Minnesota played a hint of Idioteque in some faggy class we were in. I was like what the hell was that. I took off sprinting. Like I literally ran several miles to the store to pick it up. I had to drop everything I was doing and go get it. I don't remember anything after that. I listened to it like 11 times in my dorm room on repeat and I wouldn't come out. I went into a deep depression that lasted for several years where all I would do was listen to Kid A. I thought it was the End of Music. I was certain it was the Last Rock Album like it was just over for good. I couldn't touch a guitar for years. I just considered the matter settled. I couldn't listen to OK Computer it made me want to puke. All I wanted to do was listen to it over and over again. I blacked out the first time I heard Idioteque in full. I just set it to repeat. I must have listened to it for hours and hours. This went on for years. Eventually I came out of the coma and could listen to other Radiohead albums again.
Date: September 16th, 2026 2:09 AM Author: frozen office
I think there is an argument that it was what really killed rock, all of the weirdos who would have picked up a guitar got on their computers and started making drone noises that would have been cooler in a band
Date: September 16th, 2026 2:12 AM Author: frozen office
never really cared for him tbh and modern art is mostly a disaster so I'd be kinder to radiohead, at least the electronic stuff is pretty cool sometimes
Date: September 16th, 2026 2:12 AM Author: slate area dog poop
This is basically the correct way to encounter Kid A. You’re supposed to hear 40 seconds of it by accident, abandon whatever life you were living, and reappear months later with completely different standards for recorded music. The first time idioteque hits properly it really does feel like somebody has shown you a machine from 30 years in the future and then casually put it on a rock album. I think I have listened to this album more than any other album. even when I listened to it too many times, I kept putting it in my car's cd player, because there was nothing else I felt like listening to. I actually first bought the cd early in high school. But I listened to it the most times in college. Haven't listened to it as much over the past decade, but I did at least once last year.
Date: September 16th, 2026 2:20 AM Author: Beady-eyed Erotic Casino
Cr
It's definitely a once a year refresher. It can really trip you out just like the first time if you wait long enough between takes. Certain movies too like Boogie Nights hit different after a few years. There are just certain tent poles you have to periodically revisit where you go damn, they kept breaking past every creative barrier with a bulldozer.
Date: September 16th, 2026 11:35 AM Author: Beady-eyed Erotic Casino
There's 4-5 songs on TDS that are not good. Atmospheric bullshit, no hooks. Doesn't take away from the greatness of the album but it's not perfect. There are parts that suck.
Date: September 16th, 2026 2:00 AM Author: slate area dog poop
You think so? I don't really see it like that. It's a fun, easy to listen to album. To me, music critic focused stuff would be more boring and pretentious and maybe forcing weird ideas at times.
Date: September 16th, 2026 2:04 AM Author: slate area dog poop
Yeah music journalism is awful. But I agree with your take that in rainbows is a better listen, but less interesting. Which IMO goes against it being something that is just what critics think music should sound like.
Date: September 16th, 2026 9:42 AM Author: bistre house
The chord progression and melody in "Creep" are similar to those of the 1972 song "The Air That I Breathe", written by Albert Hammond and Mike Hazlewood and later covered by the Hollies.[98] After Rondor Music, the publisher of "The Air That I Breathe", took legal action, Hammond and Hazlewood received cowriting credits and a percentage of the royalties. Hammond said he and Hazlewood accepted only a small percentage as Radiohead were honest about having reused their composition.[99]
Date: September 16th, 2026 6:55 PM Author: Beady-eyed Erotic Casino
I actually agree with you here. Two things can be true. Creep does borrow the chord progression from The Air That I Breathe, and it's also an entirely different song. The people who think it's some kind of big gotcha that a band interpreted some material from another band are completely off their rocker. They do this with Led Zeppelin too all the time like oh wasn't Stairway really a ripoff of Taurus or something. Like yeah it definitely reimagines one little motif (strictly improving it) and then the entire rest of the 8 minute song is completely 100% a different song. So yeah I can't stand losers who do this like if the song is great then it's a different song. Everyone knows it's not a direct cover.
And ljl at the people saying Radiohead are mostly only known for Creep just because it's the only one that is in the ballpark of total spins along with Iris and Closing Time. As if no one ever listened to the entire rest of the 9 studio albums and various EPs, singles, and live performances. They're in the top 50 most listened to acts in the ENTIRE WORLD and chart on streaming around the likes of Katy Perry and Post Malone. So ljl at anyone who thinks they only wrote one fucking song. Semisonic only wrote one song. Wheatus only wrote one song. Marcy Playground. But Radiohead? They have more spins on Weird Fishes than most bands whole careers.
Date: September 16th, 2026 9:53 AM Author: Diverse peach karate round eye
i really liked this record when it came out, it was a solid return to the guitar rock days but with more electro touches a la kid a and amnesiac. 2 and 2, backdrifts, where i end, myxomatosis, there there all bang. but it's not as good as in rainbows which does a similar thing.
Date: September 16th, 2026 9:59 AM Author: The Michigan Portly Also-Ran
i liked it but it did seem a little overly aggressive and 'obvious' in a way that OK Computer isn't
i guess it reflected the zeitgeist but it also felt like it was leaning into the most obvious parts of what people were getting from their sound (fear/alienation/aggression)
i dig "we suck young blood" for example but it's a little on the nose, no?
Date: September 16th, 2026 10:16 AM Author: The Michigan Portly Also-Ran
derivative of their own works is a great way to put it.
that said, I like all of the songs on there and it's not a bad record. This was around the peak of their mainstream popularity so I get why maybe they leaned a bit more into some of the obvious stuff.
Date: September 16th, 2026 2:23 PM Author: Orchid Rough-skinned Trailer Park
i saw them on this tour not flame. steve malkmus opened, but i missed his set completely because of lolschool orientation (and i missed the first song or two of radiohead's)