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Ok, so I've been listening to TKoL for several days now....during the first day I only listened to it like twice and it seemed like an interesting album but honestly I just couldn't wrap my head around it. On subsequent listens during the 2 following days everything seemed clearer, and honestly I think it's an amazing album already. Some ppl have noted that it doesn't cohesive, I'm not really sure what you're all referring to? I think musically it is cohesive, and it relies mostly on textures, repetition, and well placed vocal effects. From a songwriting perspective it does appear like there's a part missing, and I think ppl who have speculated that there will be a part 2 may be correct. Others have already mentioned the title of the last track "separator," and I think one of the final lines in that song is something like "if you think this is over, then you're wrong." I guess we'll just have to wait and find out.

 

PS I'm sure many of you know this already, but the album title refers to an ancient oak tree in Wiltshire so that may or may not help w/ understanding the lyrics.

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Interesting little tidbit...

I just looked up the word "codex" because I had never heard it before.

 

Origin:

1575–85; < Latin cōdex, caudex tree-trunk

 

EDIT: Oh, and the current definition is "a quire of manuscript pages held together by stitching: the earliest form of book, replacing the scrolls and wax tablets of earlier times."

That's also interesting, considering the page-flipping sounds at the end of GUTG.

 

I know I'm probably reading way too much into this stuff. But maybe not. There's just lots of stuff going on here.

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]Weren't people saying exactly the same thing about Kid A back when it was released? "Where is Jonny' date=' where is Ed?" And yet the band worked out a way to include all members for live versions of the songs[/b']. Jonny and Ed's role in TKOL might not be as pronounced as in other albums, but I definitely hear Ed's effects in some tracks. Basically, we don't know much about the making of the songs, but it might well be Jonny or Ed who came up with a chord progression/rhythm.

 

That actually makes sense, and makes me think about this again.

It's funny cos like you said, it also applies to Kid A, and Kid A happens to be my 2nd favorite RH album.

I'm interested in how this will sound live, and like I've said before I'm pleased with the album, but I guess it's just an Amnesiac for me, good, but not one of my favorites.

 

At least it isn't like Pablo :')

 

And can I just lol at howyousawtheworld? We know you don't like Radiohead and will never like it. I don't even know why you even tried listening to music a lot more complex than the likes of Coldplay and U2.

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Let me put it in this way... does the album fit together and feel as an album (in terms of the songs working one after another) as much as OK Computer, Kid A, or any other album?

 

Of course there are songs that break the streak on albums (Electioneering, Faust Arp), but for me the album just doesn't feel consistent at all throughout, except maybe with it being somewhat electronic, but then by Codex that's all over.

 

Yeah okay I think I see what you're saying now. I guess I basically agree.

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Guest howyousawtheworld
That actually makes sense, and makes me think about this again.

It's funny cos like you said, it also applies to Kid A, and Kid A happens to be my 2nd favorite RH album.

I'm interested in how this will sound live, and like I've said before I'm pleased with the album, but I guess it's just an Amnesiac for me, good, but not one of my favorites.

 

At least it isn't like Pablo :')

 

And can I just lol at howyousawtheworld? We know you don't like Radiohead and will never like it. I don't even know why you even tried listening to music a lot more complex than the likes of Coldplay and U2.

 

Ahh yes Coldplaying's biggest music snob. Looks like I've bugged you real bad. You know not everyone who dislikes Radiohead are thick you know! It's not complex. Music isn't. They're just trying to be deliberately difficult...a bit like you then!

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It's not complex. Music isn't.

 

I don't even mean to troll you, but what?! Music has always been complex, at least some of it. I mean the point isn't usually to be complex for the sake of it... but music is complex, especially the stuff considered good or cutting-edge or whatever. I mean the emotions may be simple and pure, and what have you, but the actual notes are complex. It's been like that since the Baroque movement basically, whatever's the most current is considered overly cerebral or complex or whatever.

 

I mean I don't think people make complex music with the specific point of being hard to grasp, I just think they want to explore new creative directions. It's basically either take that position or think that basically every composer/performer in history who's written innovative music is just trying to be a pretentious asshole. And I'm not even saying TKOL is especially innovative, because it isn't extremely so, I'm just making a point.

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Guest howyousawtheworld
I don't even mean to troll you, but what?! Music has always been complex, at least some of it. I mean the point isn't usually to be complex for the sake of it... but music is complex, especially the stuff considered good or cutting-edge or whatever. I mean the emotions may be simple and pure, and what have you, but the actual notes are complex. It's been like that since the Baroque movement basically, whatever's the most current is considered overly cerebral or complex or whatever.

 

I mean I don't think people make complex music with the specific point of being hard to grasp, I just think they want to explore new creative directions. It's basically either take that position or think that basically every composer/performer in history who's written innovative music is just trying to be a pretentious asshole. And I'm not even saying TKOL is especially innovative, because it isn't extremely so, I'm just making a point.

 

What you say is bang on correct. But music is a universal language and some forms of music isn't exclusive to anyone of a certain intelligence. I mean what sort of cheap simple world do people live in to think that if you don't like Radiohead then your standards are not as intellectual as that? So I like many on this forum listen to a lot of classical music. Vaughan Williams in particular for me - I guess he's alongside U2 and Coldplay for being simple shite then for simpletons like myself. People like i'maveryneatmonster need to get real. Incredibly narrow minded.

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^Not sure what you're saying, I agree that some forms of music are basically universal, but some of it just isn't to everyone's taste, not everyone is going to like a piece of music or "get" it and that's that. I think it's a little unfair to assume that Radiohead just made TKOL to be inaccessible on purpose.

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Ahh yes Coldplaying's biggest music snob. Looks like I've bugged you real bad. You know not everyone who dislikes Radiohead are thick you know! It's not complex. Music isn't. They're just trying to be deliberately difficult...a bit like you then!

 

And I have never denied that. My point was simple to understand, why listen to a band you dislike so much? That was my question.

And yeah, I feel comfortable saying that Radiohead makes music that is difficult to get into if you're used to listening to music that doesn't sound as "weird".

So yes, we get it, you dislike them, why do you bother? It can't be about discovering music, cos if that was the case you wouldn't spend that much time criticizing them, which doesn't bother me the way you think, it confuses me a lot.

And yes, music is complex. Radiohead makes complex music. Compare "The Gloaming" to "With or without you" and tell me which one is easier to get into. Not that I like that U2 song, but it was just the only example I could come up with.

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Guest howyousawtheworld
And I have never denied that. My point was simple to understand, why listen to a band you dislike so much? That was my question.

And yeah, I feel comfortable saying that Radiohead makes music that is difficult to get into if you're used to listening to music that doesn't sound as "weird".

So yes, we get it, you dislike them, why do you bother? It can't be about discovering music, cos if that was the case you wouldn't spend that much time criticizing them, which doesn't bother me the way you think, it confuses me a lot.

And yes, music is complex. Radiohead makes complex music. Compare "The Gloaming" to "With or without you" and tell me which one is easier to get into. Not that I like that U2 song, but it was just the only example I could come up with.

 

For a band that created two of the great records of our time (The Bends, OK Computer) why shouldn't I give them a listen yearning and hoping desperately for them to go back to that? You know I did think they were a great band. You say music is complex but you fail to grasp yet again that it's a subjective view point. What may be complex to you may not be complex to others. As I said earlier I just find some to be needlessly difficult. Not complex.

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Radiohead's moved way past their Bends/OKC stage, that was more of a juvenile sort of phase they went through than a reflection of their real musical style, in my opinion at least. There's a pretty sharp schism between people who like The Bends/OKC and the fans who like most if not all of their work, cuz there's such an aural divide between the 90s and 00s for them.

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That's just cos you're stuck in the regular "alternative" sound. You can't see more. That's why you stick to those two albums, that IMO, are not that amazing compared to other RH albums, and U2/Oasis related stuff.

To me, you don't seem to have a diverse taste in music, which makes you fail at seeing the complexity of some albums.

 

Also, I wanna kill myself everytime people only mention OKC.

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Guest howyousawtheworld
That's just cos you're stuck in the regular "alternative" sound. You can't see more. That's why you stick to those two albums, that IMO, are not that amazing compared to other RH albums, and U2/Oasis related stuff.

To me, you don't seem to have a diverse taste in music, which makes you fail at seeing the complexity of some albums.

 

Also, I wanna kill myself everytime people only mention OKC.

 

That's because it's their one true great album. And loving the assumptions from yourself. I don't have a diverse music taste because I don't like Radiohead's new stuff. Wow. Can you actually accept that some people who don't like recent Radiohead will never like it? What sort of music fascist are you in thinking everyone should learn to like Radiohead post 2000 and that those who don't are labelled as not having a diverse music taste? Desperation or what?

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Desperation my balls. I see in which threads you post in and what kind of bands you promote here, and you seem to like a pretty small diversity of music.

It's not cos you don't like post OKC albums, and no, OKC isn't their greatest, it's just had a bit impact in music, but that's about it. Greatness is personal. I personally don't have that album in my favorites, so in the end, your opinion is invalid, you don't see anything else beyond that album, you seem to stick to the same formula of music.

You like the regular alternative rock scene, which to me, just shows how small your music taste is.

That's is different from saying your taste is shit.

Diversity is not the same as good/bad taste in music.

Get a dictionary.

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Guest howyousawtheworld

Oh I see! You can mentally gaze onto my iTunes library and see what I listen to because of the threads I post in!! Wow your logic and reasoning has no end to it does it! Well quite frankly I'm not going to dignify that bizarre laughable post by telling you what is on my iPod that isn't considered alternative. Your sheer narrow mindedness and ludicrous perceptions don't deserve so. Also may I add that I find it comically ironic coming from someone who only ever posts in the Radiohead thread. If I was using your logic I'd call you pretty uniform and rather stale in your music taste but then again only idiots think that way eh.

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three days of listening to the same album, and I still have trouble evaluating my opinion of it. Like usual the band makes it nearly impossible to compare with previous albums (amnesiac comparisons are the most valid, but it still feels like a different animal).

 

Individually I can easily rave about each songs. Bloom, for instance, is an absolute masterpiece. I think what's unsettling is the disconnect between the first and second half of the album. The first four/five tracks all seem to share a cohesiveness that Mike was describing, and I feel like I would be more satisfied if the rest kind of complemented that vibe (not that they all sounded the same, but in the same sense that songs on in rainbows fit well together while still being unique).

By the time you get to codex, its like a different band has taken charge. Its like Give up the ghost and Separator were taken from different albums and tacked on. You have half an album, and then a bunch of singles. So maybe I rather the whole album been built around either the first or second halves.

Now I feel like I'm splitting hairs. All I can say is that, as a whole its not the transcendent, completely fulfilling, cathartic experience I had dreamed of...but fuck it, its some freaking great music, much of which is as beautiful and more unique than anything I've heard from the band before. There are only a few bands that would cause me to lift my expectations so ridiculously high, and had I never heard of the band before this album, I would be blown away and raving about it to everyone I know. And I'll keep listening to this album this week, not because I'm hoping for it to magically improve, but because I really like what I'm hearing.

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For me I kind of see continuity in the album in the way that it seems to kind of be disorganized electro experimental mess that keeps building up until Lotus Flower. Than during that song it is kind of a fusion of electro and a more acoustic/melodic sound which the last few tracks seem to have.

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Oh I see! You can mentally gaze onto my iTunes library and see what I listen to because of the threads I post in!! Wow your logic and reasoning has no end to it does it! Well quite frankly I'm not going to dignify that bizarre laughable post by telling you what is on my iPod that isn't considered alternative. Your sheer narrow mindedness and ludicrous perceptions don't deserve so. Also may I add that I find it comically ironic coming from someone who only ever posts in the Radiohead thread. If I was using your logic I'd call you pretty uniform and rather stale in your music taste but then again only idiots think that way eh.

 

Only post here? I hardly ever post in WoM (or any section actually) you idiot. If I started posting here is because of the obvious.

I don't like the whole "share" with other fans, cos I tend to enjoy music alone, I have my reasons.

So tell me, whatever your name is, are you butthurt cos you feel insulted cos I said you have no actual taste? You're being ridiculous, since you can't actually prove me wrong about what I said, then I'll just conclude that I nailed it. Also, concerning what you said about them going back to the OKC style, I doubt they'll make it.

You just did what you and Mark et al. mock about us non CP fans, listen to something you dislike/post in a thread of a band you hate, so lol you.

 

Seriously, your behaviour does not make sense. I hate Radiohead, bash them everytime I can or anytime a Radiohead fan offends my favorite band lead by a troll I insult them, then listen to their newest release after I've been hating their work after their most amazing, fuck me in the ass album, then come post in the thread of said band after I've caused many problems around because I hate the band.

Yeah, makes perfect sense man.

 

I'll wait desperately for LP5!

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For me I kind of see continuity in the album in the way that it seems to kind of be disorganized electro experimental mess that keeps building up until Lotus Flower. Than during that song it is kind of a fusion of electro and a more acoustic/melodic sound which the last few tracks seem to have.

Funny enough, after that last post I took my headphones (by no means high quality) out and listened to the album while strolling around campus. 3/4 of the way through I wanted to erase my post as I realized that there really is no stark contrast. Apart from a more accessible chord structure, the arrangements and instrumentation are consistent with the sound of the first few songs. the band just ordered the songs in the most sensible way possible which involves a crescendo with the more emotional, slower songs, and then drop down to the dry, groovyness of the closer. It's a beautiful album, and I'm done complaining.

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