Official RADIOHEAD thread

Started by Duck Sauce, January 11, 2003, 05:54:58 PM

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cron

these last pages of the thread are a soap opera.
context, context, context.

Pubrick

mexican telenovela
mexican telly savalas
mix sick and tel aviv alice.
under the paving stones.

picolas

non-perfect review

Radiohead, for a new age
Instead of the hard edits and mysterious electronics of former days, the band moves closer to the indie-rock norm with its new pay-what-you-want, downloadable album
ROBERT EVERETT-GREEN
October 11, 2007
IN RAINBOWS

***(/****)

If the medium is the message, this collection of 10 new songs may have had its biggest effect even before I and millions of others began downloading it from the album website yesterday morning. For its first original release in four years, Radiohead stepped clear around the usual retail delivery options, opting to let fans have the digital tracks for any price they chose.

The experiment may show the recording industry as we know it to be a House of Cards, though the track bearing that title on In Rainbows is a love song. (The band has, in fact, retained some control over product and pricing: A "discbox" set, including the music on CD and vinyl, with lyrics, artwork and additional songs goes for a set price of about $80.) In Rainbows reveals the English band entering its middle age, in method as well as in attitude. The sense of standing apart, both from others and from the sounds other bands make, is still there. So is the pervasive feeling that you must move into shadow to show yourself fully, and that even the most glittering and beautiful reality can be seen only against darkness.

But there is less unease, and fewer surprises, on this disc than on any previous Radiohead album. The band's five members have 11 kids between them, and have said the pressure-cooker methods that produced Hail to the Thief four years ago could not be sustained. There's a more relaxed approach here, with fewer instances of sounds being edited beyond recognition and more of a live-from-the-floor feeling.

Instead of the hard edits and mysterious electronics of former days, the band has moved closer to the indie-rock norm of riding the groove and building on it. There's more plain-vanilla guitar and less audio magic (in other words, less Jonny Greenwood), though the band's taste for subtly archaic melodies and destabilizing rhythms has not weakened.

Parts of Weird Fishes Arpeggi sound like studies for a Steve Reich exercise in pattern shifting, though the song is really one long sunrise, as Thom Yorke sings "I'd be crazy not to follow where you lead" (try to imagine that line on OK Computer). 15 Step builds itself up from a five-count beat, before veering close to a Latin jazz feeling when the guitar joins in.

Nude, a track familiar from the band's last concert tour, sounds a familiar Radiohead theme of losses not regained ("now that you've found it, it's gone"), and Videotape, which might plausibly have fit on Yorke's solo debut last year, is a memento mori, complete with devil.

But there are several songs of love and attachment here, even if the lazy, wary beat of All I Need gives the devotion a mournful flavour. The prominent strings that soften several tracks may appeal to those who have found Radiohead too prickly for their taste.

That's both the plus and the minus of this album. In Rainbows is less demanding and may have a wider reach than discs such as Kid A and Amnesiac, but it also takes the world's most interesting band a step closer to the indie mainstream from which it has rigorously stayed away.

In case you're wondering, I paid about $10 (reckoned in British pounds) for my digital version of In Rainbows. That's less that some new CDs, but quite a bit more than Radiohead would normally get from an album saleafter the record label took its cut.

tpfkabi

i still say no gimmick.
i buy cd's and vinyl, not iTunes or mp3's.
all i care is that i heard some new Radiohead songs.
i gladly await my discbox.
I am Torgo. I take care of the place while the Master is away.

Gamblour.

Quote from: Pubrick on October 11, 2007, 11:02:21 PM
Quote from: bigideas on October 11, 2007, 08:31:40 PM
any idea what the little W is in the bottom left corner?

waste products?
It's a hail to the thief, dubya, of course.
WWPTAD?

Pedro

Quote from: Pubrick on October 12, 2007, 12:55:37 AM
this is almost as bad as when the unmastered HTTT leaked. remember how they were mad about that? yeah, now they just did it to themselves. and that's what really hurts.

This is not even close to the abominable sound of the unmastered HTTT!  But I understand your apprehension about downloading the record, considering your more audiophilistic tendencies.  (I made up a word)  There's some noticeable compression on a few tracks, but the album still sounds great.  I've listened to it on a good pair of headphones many times and I still have enjoyed the familiar experience of noticing a new part of the mix with every listen.  Just download it already!  I'm saddened that you haven't experienced it yet.  I might be totally understating the degredation of the audio track from the master tapes to the mp3, but to me it just seems trivial to let it stop you from diving into the music.  It's not like the compression changed the chord progressions.  I'm just curious as to what you think of the album.

Where's Jeremy Blackman?

Stefen

Yeah, the quality isn't bad enough to not download it, it's just that in the day of oink, where quality is assured, it has made us all spoiled.

The album is EXCELLENT. I'm surprised it isn't very political (it doesn't seem to be AT ALL) it's just a collection of 8 really beautiful songs, and 2 rocking tracks. It's definetely my favorite of the year so far.
Falling in love is the greatest joy in life. Followed closely by sneaking into a gated community late at night and firing a gun into the air.

tpfkabi

i haven't listened to the early HTTT leak in awhile. i do remember liking the bits that were cut out in the final version - Myxomatosis had some great extra drum fills i think. i loved the ad libs in Punch Up that ended up cut. i think the Gloaming was longer too.

anywho, the sound of IR seemed really abrasive to me, but after listening through it probably at least 6 times completely i quite like it now.

it may go to number 2 behind OKC for me.
then again, i have not listened to The Bends in quite some time.

i'm thinking it will definitely be up there with the holy trinity (OKC, bends, Kid A), above the very good, but poorly sequenced or too long (Amnesiac, HTTT) and then a 1,000 years later, poor pablo...
I am Torgo. I take care of the place while the Master is away.

Stefen

Pablo Honey isn't as bad of an album if you don't look at it as a Radiohead album. It's got some good songs on it and some really good b-sides.
Falling in love is the greatest joy in life. Followed closely by sneaking into a gated community late at night and firing a gun into the air.

Sigur Rós

Quote from: Stefen on October 12, 2007, 10:53:38 PM
Pablo Honey isn't as bad of an album if you don't look at it as a Radiohead album. 

Haha what a stupid thing to say....


Stefen

Quote from: thooor on October 13, 2007, 12:13:01 AM
Quote from: Stefen on October 12, 2007, 10:53:38 PM
Pablo Honey isn't as bad of an album if you don't look at it as a Radiohead album. 

Haha what a stupid thing to say....

Shup. It's a FUN album by one of the greatest bands in history. It's the Money Talks of albums.
Falling in love is the greatest joy in life. Followed closely by sneaking into a gated community late at night and firing a gun into the air.

Pubrick

Quote from: Pedro the Alpaca on October 12, 2007, 05:40:29 PM
I'm just curious as to what you think of the album.

heard it now. once track by track and another time straight through without breaks. hadn't heard any of the tracks prior to this.

ten tracks isn't enuff. 4mins per track isn't enuff. perfection isn't enuff. a review isn't enuff. i owe them 42 minutes of unparalleled aural pleasure. Jigsaw Falling Into Place is the birth of consciousness itself.

this is the year xixax was made for.
under the paving stones.

MacGuffin

Spellbound in a Radiohead prism
'In Rainbows' captures the wide spectrum of pop and a digital format provokes the ultimate listening experience.
By Ann Powers, Los Angeles Times

The first time I listened to Radiohead's "In Rainbows," I loved it, no holds barred. Joy warmed my ears as the album's 10 songs poured forth from a freshly unzipped download; this music was as intricate and challenging as one would expect from rock's most risk-taking band, but it had soul and a kind of sweetness that made its complexities accessible. That last quality made me grateful too. Like all those other online scribes who apologized for only listening once or twice before jumping into this unprecedented moment of collective listener response, I had an easier time because Radiohead had gone pop this time.

When I listened again, it was just for myself. The urge to begin fitting "In Rainbows" into my personal pantheon had me making connections to U2, Prince and Elliott Smith. One track (the explosive "Bodysnatchers") even made me shout, "Pearl Jam!" The third time, I was taking a walk, and my feet focused on drummer Phil Selway's skittish rhythms, interlacing programmed beats.
 
Next, I started pondering singer Thom Yorke's lyrics, feeling gossipy about the references to sex, a topic he hasn't often explored. Fifth and sixth listens had me back at my computer, checking out what others were starting to say. That bummed me out. I started second-guessing myself. So I put my headphones on, lay on the floor, and listened again.

A day and a half into my life with "In Rainbows," I offer this self-absorbed account to make a point about what else Radiohead gave its fans by distributing the album in a mass download. I'm still processing this album, and I'm not alone. Instead of being able to present a solidified opinion before the album became widely available, critics like myself have had to show our doubts, our impulsive judgments and our willingness to admit that we might change our minds.

And that's not the only way the communal reception of "In Rainbows" challenges the way popular assessments form around pop albums. With no videos, personality-driven magazine spreads or even sanctioned cover art available to help determine this album's meaning, "In Rainbows" has turned listeners back toward merely listening -- a skill that's fairly imperiled in this age of multimedia super-hype.

Devotees did know, in part, what "In Rainbows" would bring. A track listing surfaced when the band announced the album, and it was full of titles familiar from recent bootleg live recordings. It may be more correct to call "In Rainbows" an edition, rather than a definitive album; these studio versions sometimes differ significantly from their earlier counterparts, and it's possible that Radiohead will redraw these maps another time. There's really no guarantee, in fact, that the album won't change by the time it becomes a physical CD release next year.

Whether we hear a different "In Rainbows in the future, the one available now occupies an important spot in Radiohead's development. It heals a rift, that may not have needed mending, between the band's emotive rock pronouncement and its heady art-music experiments. There's no reason Radiohead couldn't have continued straddling both paths, alternative soaring ballads with electronics-heavy sonic abstractions. Instead, the songs on "In Rainbows" incorporate both approaches: they're tuneful, with satisfying hooks, but the instrumentation is very deep and subtle, with each listen revealing new layers of sound and implied meaning.

It's possible to view "In Rainbows" as an album that's actually about listening: about what stories we buy into when we give in to the allure of a pop song. The music's welcoming quality, the pleasure its thick beauty provides, becomes more enigmatic once Yorke's lyrics start revealing themselves. Evoking the moment of death or the moment of seduction, his drifting narratives lead down dangerous paths. Guitarist-effects man Jonny Greenwood's trademark sonic tweaks, along with Selway's dynamic percussion, complicate the arrangements; "In Rainbows" is almost always pretty, but it's never vacant.

Yorke uses the music's come-hither qualities to get more personal than usual. He's always been fascinated with the loneliness of the alienated soul; now that soul has a human body, and it's often in trouble.

The easy groove that carries forward "House of Cards" imitates the drift into sexual betrayal that the lyrics describe; the song that follows, "Jigsaw Falling Into Place," captures a more frenetic flirtation -- the experience of taking Ecstasy, maybe, or just giving in to the bright pull of a risky night on the town. "Reckoner," which is a new version of an older, more violent song, turns mortality itself into a siren, as Yorke's disco-soul falsetto draws listeners into "the ripples on a black shore."

And then there's "Videotape," a live favorite in which Yorke, at the piano, gently describes his own death and the personal legacy he hopes his loved ones can preserve. On "In Rainbows," the song unfolds without elaboration, until a clattering rhythm begins to invade it, as if to suggest that every elegy is a fiction, fighting off the noisy, ugly facts of a normal life.

These songs aren't epics; they don't aim for the sky. They engage with the beats, grooves and hooks of conventional rock and soul, gently expanding or complicating these building blocks until they become prismatic. (Thus the title -- hate to be obvious, but the metaphor works.) By making pop that seems to shift its meaning with every playing, Radiohead asks that we take listening in general more seriously. It's a cause worth taking up.
"Don't think about making art, just get it done. Let everyone else decide if it's good or bad, whether they love it or hate it. While they are deciding, make even more art." - Andy Warhol


Skeleton FilmWorks

MacGuffin

Radiohead giveaway unsettles an industry in flux

Radiohead shocked the music industry last week when they gave away their new album for whatever price fans wanted to pay, the latest in a series of radical experiments by leading artists.

The hit British art-rockers offered their seventh studio album, In Rainbows, for download from their website with fans obliged to pay no more than a small administration fee for the 10 tracks.

In so doing, they followed in the footsteps of US pop idol Prince, who distributed his album free with a British newspaper earlier this year, and the event foreshadows a similar giveaway by 1990s British rockers The Charlatans.

The decision by Radiohead, one of the biggest and most critically-acclaimed bands in the world, has ignited a debate about the pricing of albums and the future of record labels.

"If an established act was going to do something like this, it was going to be somebody like Radiohead because they have a reputation of not playing by the rules and setting their own agenda," said Martin Williams, acting editor of British music magazine Music Week.

Radiohead's contract with major record label EMI has expired, giving the band complete freedom over their artistic direction and commercial strategy.

The name-your-price strategy "does bring the question of whether it will have any implications for other artists," added Williams.

"If Radiohead is able to allow the fan to set the price, does it impact the way a consumer views the perceived value of other, less well-known artists?" he added.

The biggest losers if the idea catches on would be record companies, which are already struggling to cope with a fall in revenues caused by illegal downloading.

Worldwide sales of recorded music have fallen about 20 percent since 2000, according to figures from the industry organisation IFPI, and the collapse of CD sales has scrambled relationships between talent, labels and concert promoters.

The manager of The Charlatans, Alan McGee, best known as the man who discovered global stars Oasis, appeared on BBC radio recently advocating "killing the record companies."

The Charlatans have signed a deal with British music radio station Xfm allowing fans to download their new single on October 22 and then their album from the website of the station.

One of the reactions of record companies to declining sales of music has been to negotiate contracts with artists that include revenues from merchanising and live performances.

These new contracts, dubbed "360 degree" deals, include all aspects of a musicians' careers.

"We try our best to get a share of non-record revenues when we sign a new artist," said the head of Vivendi, Jean-Bernard Levy, last month.

Vivendi is the parent group of the biggest record company in the world, Universal.

He estimated that hardcopy records could soon represent less than 50 percent of Universal sales.

But there is no guarantee that new 360-degree deals are a panacea for record companies, with new competitors looking to steal some of their traditional business.

According to the Wall Street Journal, global megastar Madonna is to leave her long-time record company Warner in favour of a 360-degree contract with her concert organiser Live Nation, worth 120 million dollars (85 million euros) over 10 years.

What is clear is that the music industry is in flux, with digitial technology profoundly changing the way in which artists distribute their music and manage their careers.

For Radiohead, behind the experiment there perhaps lies a shrewd commercial strategy.

As well as the download, fans were offered a more orthodoxly priced hard copy version of the new album, which includes CD and vinyl versions of the album plus photos and other material.

It was available for 40 pounds (57 euros, 81 dollars).

"I think they will have a ball with the box set at 40 pounds," one industry insider told AFP. "It's a very interesting experiment that might tell us that the physical premium product still makes sense. How ironic."
"Don't think about making art, just get it done. Let everyone else decide if it's good or bad, whether they love it or hate it. While they are deciding, make even more art." - Andy Warhol


Skeleton FilmWorks