Official RADIOHEAD thread

[modage]

that article is dumb.  is that by the same guy who wrote the really good one a week ago?  i hate him now.  did anybody expect the record industry to explode last week?  no, except for maybe this idiot.  but really its just the first step towards a bright new future the results of which cannot be determined a week later. 

[Stefen]

lol@I hate him now, but he was cool last week.

I feel the same way. That jergoff.

In retrospect, I couldn't care less what this album does, I don't care if it changes the industry since I don't support major label albums anyways. I only ever pay for indie releases and I steal major label releases from the interwebs. If you want to support an artist on a major label, do it by seeing their shows when they come to town. That helps them ALOT more than buying one of their CD's from Best Buy does.

I hope Radiohead made alot of money off the gimmick. They deserve it for making such beautiful music. I don't care that they tricked us since I didn't fall for it (I figured it out at the last second and, voila, opted out)

After IR settling in, I gotta rate it a solid 9.4. It's not perfect, but it's pretty damn close. It's so short, but I think that helps it. I can't wait for the B-sides so I can have a few more tracks to create my playlist titled OK Computer II.

[tpfkabi]

i disagree about the aging sentiment.
OK Computer and to a lesser extent, Kid A, will not age.
The Bends already did the second OKC came out, although i listened to this today and still love it.
Amnesiac and HTTT have a digital sheen/maxed out mastering curse of our current times.

[Stefen]

Kid A will most definetely age. In 20 years it's going to sound awful. It'll be like hearing that song "Loving you is easy because you're beautiful!" by PTA's babies momma, mama. It'll be all cheesy and people will laugh at all the primitive sounding bleeps and bloops like we do the strings of that song.

Depeche Mode was doing the same stuff Radiohead was doing in the late 80's and early 90's and people were like "It's so modern!" now you hear the old stuff and cringe.

Of course we'll all want to beat up the kids who bash it and make fun of it and us for being old, but we won't be able to do anything about it since we won't be able to catch them while they're riding on their hoverboards and we're still using our feet since we never bothered to get a license for a hoverboard because we assumed it was a fad that would eventually die out.

[Pubrick]

I don't care that they tricked us since I didn't fall for it (I figured it out at the last second and, voila, opted out)

is that the story now? cos you've been saying that you did fall for it like a chump and that's what kept you from calling it the GOAT.

[Stefen]

My wanting to label it the GOAT was premature so why don't you STFU?

Naw, I'm over the gimmick. Maybe it wasn't a gimmick and I was just looking for a reason to feel victimized. It wouldn't be the first or the last time I felt that way about one of my favorite bands. I'm insecure? Go fuck yourselves.

[picolas]

tour talk

http://www.billboard.com/bbcom/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003660154

[tpfkabi]

the thing with Kid A though is that it sounds very analog. Depeche Mode, though i'm not real familiar with, probably has a very 80's synthisized sound. Abbey Road has synths. Amnesiac and HTTT sound a little more sterilized or something.

i'm subscribed to about 5 Radiohead/In Rainbow threads on different messageboards - one positive thing - someone said the Airbag EP was their favorite Radiohead disc. got that out this morning. forgot how good it was. made me realize they could have had a second album pretty soon after OKC. think of all the tracks you hear on MPIE that just now are being released. i'm sure there are probably unreleased versions of True Love Waits, Big Ideas, Big Boots, Follow Me Around, I Will, Last Flowers and who knows what else from that era. i really wish they had made a soundtrack to MPIE with uncut performances of all the unreleased stuff.

[grand theft sparrow]

In Rainbows is having the same effect on Radiohead fans that 9/11 had on New Yorkers: at first, everyone was nice to each other - being extra courteous, having more positive things to say - but then after a while, shit went back to normal and we realized that we just want everyone else to go fuck themselves.  Just like always. 

Kid A will most definetely age.

Some people said the same about The White Album and Dark Side of the Moon, I bet.

My wanting to label it the GOAT was premature so why don't you STFU?

The truth of it is, there's going to be a lot of this in the coming weeks.  People got sucked up by "the gimmick" (which isn't really a gimmick), coupled with the fact that for the first time in forever, they weren't one step ahead of the band.  There were no leaks, no advance warning, no nothing besides news that they had finished the album, and it was refreshing.  There were such expectations on this album, even before we knew it was coming out, that everyone wanted so much for it to be the best thing ever.  Which it's not, nor does it have to be.  That's not to say it's not great but the thing that listening to it over and over, as well as reading this thread, has done for me is given me the impetus to start listening to Amnesiac and especially HTTT again.  This anti-HTTT talk is crazy talk. 

one of my favorite bands.

A handful of people say this and still seem to dislike more of their music than they like.  We all have songs we skip on albums but never have I come across a Radiohead song that I find truly and completely worthless.  Not even on Pablo.  So what am I missing that's so bad?

[cron]

wise words, sparrow. i salute you

[Stefen]

You sure looked really far into my tongue in cheek comments. 

It was a joke. Gimmick or not, it doesn't matter to me because I REALLY like the album. It's on my top tier.

[MacGuffin]

Radiohead Said to Shun Major Labels in Next Deal
By JEFF LEEDS; New York Times

Radiohead, the British rock band that is regarded as the pre-eminent free agent in the global music business, is close to signing a series of deals to release its next album independently and leave the major record companies behind.

The band, which stunned the industry this month when it let fans set their own price for the digital download of its new album, is close to a deal to release the CD version of the album domestically through a pact with the music complex headed by Coran Capshaw, the impresario best known for guiding the career of the Dave Matthews Band.

The band is expected to market the album internationally through the British label XL Recordings, according to people briefed on the band's plans.

The independent labels appear poised to win a bidding war for the band's album that had included suitors like Warner Brothers Records, Columbia Records and, at one point, Starbucks, whose corporate label has signed artists including Paul McCartney.

Under the proposed deal, Radiohead would license the album, "In Rainbows," for a specified period of time but retain ownership of the recording.

Side One, a fledgling label being spun off from Mr. Capshaw's management company, Red Light, would release the album domestically in concert with another of Mr. Capshaw's companies, ATO Records.

The music business had been buzzing with speculation over how the band would release its new album since it fulfilled its long-term contract with the music giant EMI Group with the delivery of its 2003 album, "Hail to the Thief."

That album has sold roughly a million copies domestically, and the band's managers have said they viewed the recent name-your-price offer, in part, as a test of whether the availability of cheap (or free) music online would reduce the band's future CD sales.

Representatives for the band and Red Light declined to comment.

[tpfkabi]

ever heard the demo of The Bends?



first i've heard it.

[MacGuffin]

Radiohead -- not just music
Now there's also a new book, "Dead Children Playing" (Verso, $15.95), devoted to the visual side of the Radiohead juggernaut.
By Randy Lewis, Los Angeles Times

The one thing that download-happy Radiohead fans didn't get when they pulled the new "In Rainbows" album off the band's website recently was any of the distinctive art work that's been an integral part of the group's aesthetic since the beginning. Anyone who wants that has to pony up roughly $80 for the actual box set, which includes the new songs on CD and LP formats plus artwork from Dr. Tchock, the nom de canvas of Radiohead front man Thom Yorke, and artist Stanley Donwood.

Now there's also a new book, "Dead Children Playing" (Verso, $15.95), devoted to the visual side of the Radiohead juggernaut. Along with reproductions of works that have appeared with every Radiohead album since "The Bends" in 1995, "Dead Children Playing" includes examples of Donwood's other pieces and commentary by the two men, offering illumination into the jagged, icy landscapes they've crafted to accompany the band's atmospheric music.
 
Their work for an expanded edition of 2001's "Amnesiac" brought them a Grammy Award for album packaging and artwork. Images titled "Avert Your Eyes" and "Trade Center" were created around the "Kid A" album in 2000, while "Hole" was something Donwood did for himself after hiking through England and observing a number of circular holes in the landscape.

Donwood also posts many of his works on his website, www.slowlydownward.com/.



Stanley Donwood's acrylic, charcoal and paper on canvas "Avert Your Eyes" (2000) can be found in "Dead Children Playing: A Picture Book" by Stanley Donwood and Dr. Tchock, the nom de canvas of Radiohead front man Thom Yorke. The new book is devoted to the visual side of the British rock group Radiohead and features reproductions of the group's album art, other works by Donwood and commentary.



Stanley Donwood's "Trade Center." The acrylic, charcoal and blackboard paint on canvas was created around the "Kid A" album in 2000.



Stanley Donwood's "War Village" is a personal painting that, Donwood says, recollects the wars in Albania, Serbia and Croatia. "Burnt fields, the ghosts of the slaughtered villagers, the trees witnessing silently all that occurs."



Stanley Donwood's "Residential Nemesis." "This was pretty much a direct response to the bombing of a block of residential flats in the former Yugoslavia," he says. "The painting was used in various ways, fairly extensively, for 'Kid A.' "



This personal work was created when Donwood thought he hadn't quite finished the "Hail to the Thief" series. "I drew a map of the USA and filled it with the names of the companies invited to tender for contracts for the 'reconstruction' of Iraq, after it had been bombed," he says. "But I got so angry I attacked the canvas with a sort of polluted ice age."



Stanley Donwood's "Hole," acrylic on canvas, 2005, was inspired by a hike in England in which he observed a number of circular holes in the landscape.



" 'The Minos Walls' are imagined panels from the subterranean labyrinth inhabited by the minotaur, a monster created by gods and men, fed live human flesh, abandoned to its fate," Donwood says. The painting was used for Radiohead's "Amnesiac" album.



"London" is part of the series of paintings Donwood did for the Radiohead album "Hail to the Thief." Donwood got maps of cities in the news and filled the real estate with words. "This was before the London bombings, but unfortunately they were kind of horribly inevitable."



"Pacific Coast" began as a painting of a hill Donwood saw one evening, but became a map of Santa Monica, filled with words he read and noted down while traveling the roads of Los Angeles. This became the cover for Radiohead's "Hail to the Thief."



Stanley Donwood's "Grozny," part of the "Hail to the Thief" series.



Cover of the book "Dead Children Playing: A Picture Book," by Stanley Donwood and Dr. Tchock.

[tpfkabi]

i wonder if this is the kind of thing you'll find at the local Barnes and Noble, or if i'd have to order online.