POLLD LIKE SARDINES IN A CRUSHD TIN BOX - ILM Artist Poll #56 - RADIOHEAD

Felt very audacious and cool that such a big band would release a track recalling a Brecht/Weill piece on an album in 2003.

And a Charles Mingus piece:

http://youtu.be/O9BqdhhFUsc

I got off the bus with HTTT too. It just felt so average. There was no tension in their music anymore.

No tension in There There is quite a statement.

Practically every song on HTTT is defined by tension

Sensing Ok Computer is going to take a beating here.

HTTT is definitely too long, Thom Yorke himself once made a post somewhere with his revised version that trims a great part of it. I posted this on the playing god thread and noone really cared about it but I'll repost it here either way.

PLAYING GOD: Hail to the Thief

Actually Thom Yorke himself once played god with this one and posted an alternate tracklist to it in the band's blog. Here's his version:

there there
the gloaming
sail to the moon
sit down. stand up
go to sleep
whereiendandubegin
scatterbrain
2+2=5
myxomatosis
a wolf at the door

He solves two of the album's main problems. It's length is one of them. The album really benefits from cutting a couple of songs off of it and specially if one of the songs is 'We Suck Young Blood'. That's the second one.

I have a couple problems with his alt tracklist, though: A) He rearranged the tracklist in a way that you lose the opening one-two punch of '2+2=5' and 'sit down' which is one of my favorite moments in the album. B) He removed 'Backdrifts' which is one of the few fun, light moments in the album and a personal favorite of mine. I also kind of hate 'go to sleep' except for Johnny's solo at the end of it but I'm always bored by the time it arrives. I'd much rather have the b-side 'I am a wicked child' as a substitute, it kind of has the same country-rock feel only more kraut. It's not very remarkable but it gets the job done. Also love 'the gloaming' so throwing it in there to balance some of the removals on the bottom half. You can easily take them out if you want for a 10 track album. Here's my take then:

1. 2+2=5
2. Sit Down Stand Up
3. Sail to the Moon
4. Backdrifts
5. I Am A Wicked Child
6. Where I End and You Begin
7. Gagging Order
8. The Gloaming
9. There There
10. Myxomatosis
11. Scatterbrain
12. A Wolf at the Door

― Moka, Wednesday, June 19, 2013

So, yeah, the track order feels wrong to me but I pretty much agree with Thom's 10 track HTTT.

I'd be willing to lose 'Gagging Order' from my alt tracklist for Punch Up since it seems to be a popular one among some of the album's fans. I think it meanders too much but I don't hate it.

made it through all their pre-OKC stuff and have a solid list of 9 that i feel good about, but i know what's coming and i'm getting the feeling only 1 or 2 are going to remain in the end. i'm sure it'll feel pretty ordinary cutting 'talk show host' so i hope it sneaks in.

tempted to send a ballot with just "Faust Arp"

― Euler, Sunday, August 24, 2014 5:26 PM (2 days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

He removed 'Backdrifts' which is one of the few fun, light moments in the album and a personal favorite of mine.

I love Backdrifts, but it doesn't sound fun & light to me, more stark & nervy! Go To Sleep (which I also like, but not as much) is much more jolly.

yeah i was gonna say that whole section is the dark and broody bit for me.

brooding, not broody.

and i don't like the 'double opener' on HTTT very much; just feels disjointed.

Both good songs in their own right, but they are too structurally similar to belong right next to each other imo.

wow.... just going down this list is giving me MAJOR nostalgia pangs. Really feels like I'm polling the work of two entirely different bands though. How am I supposed to compare 'Faithless the Wonder Boy' to 'Give Up the Ghost' for example?

it would have been better to open the second side of HTTT with Sit Down Stand Up.

No tension in There There is quite a statement.

― Van Horn Street, Monday, August 25, 2014 10:42 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

That might be my favorite song on the record, but not by much; that album sounds like a band doing an impression of Radiohead. In a way it reminds me of Richard Pryor's post-burn material: everything seems to be in place, and you want to like it, but there's some small element missing -- timing, maybe -- and it feels like the center is empty.

yeah it really dips in the middle for me, that album. i like many of the songs taken on their own but i never felt like it sat together so well, especially when an album like OK Computer is such a masterful example of sequencing.

I suppose HTTT is good on its own terms, roughly equal with TKOL, but for some reason it's an album I'm never able to hear except as a disappointment. I don't load TKOL with that same baggage.

I don't get the sense there's any kind of consensus, so I'm genuinely curious as to what's going to be up there

I am gonna vote for the whole of HTTT (minus We Suck Young Blood and Punchup At A Wedding because Thom OTM) and this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X5JWH3dXYis

Seriously, I do get the hate for Pablo Honey, but this probably still one of my top 10 Radiohead tracks, 21+ years later or whatever.

I don't get the sense there's any kind of consensus, so I'm genuinely curious as to what's going to be up there

― Turtleneck Work Solutions (Nasty, Brutish & Short)

Yep. Though I've a hunch either Pyramid Song or Paranoid Android will be no 1.

I love Blow Out (similar chord formation to 'house of cards'?) and am fond of a number of songs on PH. Actually looking at my long-list of selections I think a good chunk of my choices will be pre-Kid A B-sides I used to have on a bootleg called Oxford's Angels and have neglected for a long time.

I think There There is in with a good chance of being top three.

"We Suck Young Blood" was the leaked song that made me buy Hail to the Thief the day it was released and is one of my favorite songs on the album.

yeah i feel that maybe a somewhat redone 'blow out' wouldn't sound too out of place on the last couple of albums

Reckoner maybe top 5?

I've told this story a million times but I'll tell it again: I was working in a record shop when Creep came out, and the video was constantly on the video screens. And my impression of them at the time was just "oh, third wave shoegazer grunge wannabees, whatever" until I put the promo album on, and heard Blow Out for the first time. I have been a fan ever since. That really was the song that convinced me they were more than just a one-hit wonder, and I do still hear echos what they would become in those jazzy chords.

i think i'm def going to vote for that one. just thinking about it is making me want to relive the indie nights at Hatfield Forum (they were pretty awful, but still)

i'm hoping someone else will join me in my quest to get either Fog or Permanent Daylight into the results

I like 'A Reminder' - such a slight piece.

Rock poll's got me wanting 100 votes for every poll now.

i think airbag will be #1
because how could you not vote for airbag?
it's not possible.

I am not voting for Airbag.

well there goes my theory then

I'm voting for it, but it won't make my top 10.

But then, "Fitter, Happier" will make my top 10, so don't listen to me.

Literally every single one of Airbag's B-sides is better than Airbag.

I love Airbag, it was about fourth on my list.

There are not many songs more thrilling than Airbag. It pulls me in (and into the album) every single time.

I like Airbag. There are 20+ other Radiohead songs I like more though.

the rest of Airbag/How am I Driving does very little for me. the tracks are either awkwardly sitting in between the bends and okc (well apart from polyethylene which sits there quite nicely) or else they're just kinda halfbaked.

lull will probably be the only okc b-side to make my ballot.

As long as we're repping for Pablo Honey cuts, allow me to point out:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rag8gqdOBJ4

There are not many songs more thrilling than Airbag. It pulls me in (and into the album) every single time.

When I had OK Computer in heavy rotation, I started skipping "Airbag" after about two weeks and probably haven't heard it more than a handful of times since.

The jingle bells ruin Airbag in my opinion.

i often find myself doubting ok computer and am compelled to re-listen and re-evaluate. and everytime i do this, the drums kick in on airbag and i feel like a heathen for ever doubting it.

but then the album peters out with the last couple of tracks and i'm doomed to repeat this process forever

I'll often skip to SHA, which is (spoiler alert) the number one Radiohead song, and end up listening from there, but Airbag is indispensable.

The jingle bells ruin Airbag in my opinion.

― alanbatman (abanana)

Nah, I think they work.

Yeah love those bells.

9 ballots in and a few songs are showing themselves as frontrunners.

As long as we're repping for Pablo Honey cuts, allow me to point out literally the worst song on the album

Ok "You" is pretty bad too. I would say that almost every song on it has at least a faint echo of what they would go on to do, even if it's just of the "street spirit" coldplay's second cousin type rubbish. But "How Do You" just sounds like horrible splintery 90s guitars and adolescent yelping.