Radiohead v Coldplay

[The Adversary]

A comparison that has no meaning. Coldplay have always been pop, Radiohead a rock band. CP made great music until 2010, Radiohead did also great music, but different.

 

It's like comparing Bach and Avicii. It has no sense because artistically they're different

 

I don't see it like that at all. Two very successful British rock bands that have a similar output and emerged around the same time, with one group significantly influencing the other. You may not agree with the comparison (don't get me wrong, I don't agree with it either. As a fan of Coldplay and an admirer of RH. I like, you, can see their individual uniqueness, but must listeners would think them very similar I would think) but it's a natural comparison, nonetheless.

[Christa42]

Oh Lord

 

https://www.inverse.com/article/7850-is-coldplay-better-than-radiohead-just-ask-noel-gallagher

[h=1]Is Coldplay Better Than Radiohead? Just Ask Noel Gallagher[/h][h=2]Getting inside the head of the Oasis and High Flying Birds frontman.[/h]Oasis guitarist and songwriter Noel Gallagher is the kind of incendiary, unfiltered opinion machine that not only predates the term “troll,” but transcends it. In [a new *Esquire* cover story promoting his recent solo album,] he continues his career-long hot streak for spewing contrarian vitriol. He drags the current music scene — not to mention his normal treasure trove of pop stars (One Direction, Ellie Goulding, Adele and so on) — calls people “****s” and says rock’n’roll needs more people with “fucking drug habit who aren’t Pete Doherty.”

 

The most thought-provoking and hilarious assertion he makes is a criticism of his fellow ‘90s-emergent art-rockers Radiohead. Though at this point that band has ascended into its own amorphous, ultra-auteur category in the public imagination, Radiohead remains just another Britrock band to Gallagher.

“Look, as soon as Thom Yorke writes a song as good as fucking ‘Mony Mony,’ give us a fucking shout. Me and my missus, we were at the Coachella festival a couple of years ago and Radiohead were headlining. We were like, “Right, let’s give them one more chance. Let’s go and see them.”… They were playing this post-techno: “de-de de de.” We were a bit pissed… And then he started singing. No. Not for us. We’re party people.”

Critics love them, but when, even, was their last hit? Gallagher questions. Radiohead can get a unique, Radiohead-y mood going on a track, with some weird “textures” and drum programming, but can they even put a tune together?

 

 

It’s easy to just laugh at this willful bull-headedness. But Gallagher has his own kind of slightly demented point. Does Radiohead really create alluring, zeitgeist-capturing music these days? After 2011’s just-decent King of Limbs and a few relatively anonymous Yorke solo projects (his 2013 Atoms for Peace album, Amok, in particular), one wonders if the model is sustainable. Is their music suffering as they, more and more, force people to come to them, retreating into the clouds where Can and Autechre is the only music that matters? Is “serious” really better?

“When do people listen to [Radiohead]?” Gallagher asked. “Is it when they go out, or is it when they come in? Because I’m struggling to think.”

Gallagher is forgetting about hot boxing your buddy’s Volvo in college, but I find the question compelling, as someone who never finds occasion to put on Radiohead records these days. You need to be in a Radiohead kind of mood, for sure. And what, exactly, is that? Where does “Radiohead-y” falls on the spectrum of human emotion?

 

 

Gallagher offers a point of comparison, someone who’s doing more for the proverbial “people” than Yorke outside of Oasis.

“[Coldplay's] Chris Martin is a friend of mine. That fucking guy can write a tune.”

The locus of rock music is not just be “hits” for everyone. But the “great album” model isn’t the only way of looking at things. It feels hard to dispute Gallagher’s point about Martin’s command of melody versus Yorke’s, however you judge the music qualitatively. Pick the right lens, and Coldplay, as a resilient pop phenomenon, is logically just as great — or greater — a band than Radiohead is.

If you want to peep longer through this looking glass, read Gallagher’s interview here., and put on [video=dailymotion;xpge50]

[beastwars]

I don't see it like that at all. Two very successful British rock bands that have a similar output and emerged around the same time, with one group significantly influencing the other. You may not agree with the comparison (don't get me wrong, I don't agree with it either. As a fan of Coldplay and an admirer of RH. I like, you, can see their individual uniqueness, but must listeners would think them very similar I would think) but it's a natural comparison, nonetheless.

Ok, let's put it in this way. I used to hate Radiohead, then I listened to the whole discography some years ago and I realised that they're a very important band, but they seem to have a specific identity: elitist, quite megalomaniac, self-righteous.

The problem is not that the band might be this way, they're not the only great band who act like this, it is that the RH's fanbase usually tends to feel like that and I can't stand it.

If you talk to a random RH hardcore fan you often have to deal with a fundamentalist, you can't just talk about music in a peaceful way.

The other fact I hate is that critics tend to overrate their outputs, even if they are not so good, and I hate when critics are not neutral and overreact only because they're talking about a big band. Just to clarify, I like them and I love a lot of their catalogue, even b-sides or unreleased material.