"OK Computer": Classic Or Dud?

To my mind, and Dan can back me up here I'm sure, their music often at that stage felt like Depeche Mode's after 1988 or so when it came to being 'stadium-friendly' -- in that while Depeche more obviously rely on anthemic singles, both bands in their calmer, quieter modes recorded and released songs that seem like the total antithesis of mass-audience rabble rousers, quite literally in terms of sound as much as anything else. Close, 'across the room,' intimate -- consider "Dream On" in Depeche's case, and that was a lead single! That many of these songs were then performed in concert in cavernous stadiums is, as Dan notes, a measure of the bands' popularity rather than some sort of specific sonic intent.

I love to read but the last week's discussion is too long even for me. Anyway, someone upthread said they saw Radiohead this week and it was the best of their life - I have to say that their Toronto show was fantastic as well. I have never been further away from a band (except for SARStock) in my life but I enjoyed the show immensely. Even their few recent albums which I never got into really came to life in the outdoor arena setting. I've seen them 4 times before and they never disappoint, but my boyfriend never had and he was absolutely mesmerized. Yaydiohead!

I think Dan's line about "Creep" kind of nails my point, only from the opposite direction, I suspect. R'head probably never did sit down and say "let's make a stadium rock album" because they didn't need to. They also (I assume) never sat down and said "let's make a genuinely freaky experimental album that alienates our fanbase", ergo the material from Kid A through HTTT kind of IS stadium rock in funny clothes' stadium-rock isn't just Bryan Adams and Foreigner, it's also Led Zep, Pink Floyd, Depeche Mode (as Ned illustrates).

My objection to the stadium rock point wasn't because I really don't think that Radiohead can be considered stadium rock; it was because that was then followed up by comparing them to Jeff Beck and Joy Division! It's a little bit like "uh pick a rhetorical line or at least flesh out what you're trying to say a bit more". If the point was "Radiohead is the Joy Division of stadium rock", I can see that as a coherent, cogent argument.

Are New Order stadium rock? Had JD continued, NO never existed, JD done two more albums and then split, would they be able to reunite now and sell-out arenas?

I think that hints at what I was originally trying to get at. I never said I wanted to knock radiohead down, (although I do resent them being pushed in my face so much as a "great band") I just cannot relate to them at all because I feel like their world view is always filtered through a very self concious way of how a "great band" is supposed to behave (by behave I don't mean their demeanour or publicity I mean behave through music and following up OKC with KidA).

I just don't feel like they live in my world, I feel like they live in a very constructed world made of all the "right" touchstones.

i mean xp

I feel like they live in a very constructed world made of all the "right" touchstones

What, and we don't?

I don't want to anyway

I think I pretty much agree; I don't 'get' R'head like many do, and that causes problems because they're a very useful shorthand for a lot of people, a very assumed like. If you're 'into music' without a caveat of opera or country or something very specific and genre-focused, i.e. 'rock' 'indie' 'pop' whatever mainstream, the you MUST think R'head are THE BEST at what they do, and that what they do is also THE BEST thing TO do.

It's not exciting, even their keraazyness seems so obvious

Thanks for making Radiohead sound like Coldplay, guys.

I feel like their world view is always filtered through a very self concious way of how a "great band" is supposed to behave (by behave I don't mean their demeanour or publicity I mean behave through music and following up OKC with KidA).

This, btw, is kind of a classic example of hating a band because of its fans.

It so isn't btw

Yes it is. That is the critical and fan reaction to Kid A parrotted back almost to a T.

I think the problem I have with Radiohead somehow has to do with ... tastefulness... The pain in their music is ... heavy, humourless boy pain. ...<T>heir pathos feels so abstracted and heavy... It never winks at its own histrionics.

-- i know, right?

I just cannot relate to them at all because I feel like their world view is always filtered through a very self concious way of how a "great band" is supposed to behave... I just don't feel like they live in my world, I feel like they live in a very constructed world made of all the "right" touchstones.

-- I know, right?

I feel like their world view

I was just trying to put voice on the haters perspective

ie me

And even I'm not a complete hater and have enjoyed a small amount of their music (see above)

Yes it is. That is the critical and fan reaction to Kid A parrotted back almost to a T.

^ this.

I'd enjoy their (2000s) music more if it was constructed and delivered less for a mainstream radio / tv / internet audience.

Yes it is. That is the critical and fan reaction to Kid A parrotted back almost to a T.

someone please elaborate on this because I don't understand what you mean by this at all.

x-post -- "Nigel, can you record us throwing a bunch of rocks down a stairwell and then loop our farts over it?"

that's a horrible way of disagreeing with what he said (which I also do)

I love Radiohead and don't mean to endorse the above complaints. But I can see where the self-important claim comes from. Lots of big alt-y bands in the 90s (e.g. REM, Pearl Jam, Nirvana) complained about being famous, and also complained about social and political ills. So the complaints end up getting conflated (I'd say by unsympathetic listeners/critics), but the bands don't help when they make documentaries like Meeting People Is Easy, and interviewing like "this record almost destroyed the band/my sanity". The reason I mention the 90s is because this kind of attitude was common then but isn't now; but Radiohead is one of the few bands to be huge during the whole span.

I'd enjoy their (2000s) music more if it was constructed and delivered less for a mainstream radio / tv / internet audience.

-- Scik Mouthy

I wouldn't rope in the bands external behaviour (by which I mean interviews unless they very specifically referred to the music) because it's a bit of a strawman argument so I hope nobody thinks that's what I'm basing what I'm saying on (although I admit to being possibly subconciously influenced by this)

wrt condenderizer

I think, of all bands, I always feel like Radiohead are a very self conscious band.

They feel like their sound is very much an idea of what a modern rock band should sound like. The whole thing is just so servicable to me. They don't feel like a band that are going to surprise you in any way.

someone please elaborate on this because I don't understand what you mean by this at all.

The statement you made ("they were doing what they think great bands should do") is almost word-for-word what critics said about Kid A when it came out ("this is what great bands do; follow up their most ambitious album to date with something that is a stylistic detour and also a total masterpiece omg spooge"). You are taking the hype that enveloped the album after it came out and attributing it back to the band.

They don't feel like a band that are going to surprise you in any way.

wau you are young

I'd say In Rainbows is the first album they've released since Pablo Honey that I found unsurprising.

Might just be me but I kinda find it hard to believe they all sat down together one day and said, "Let's gear our music predominantly towards a mainstream stadium audience."

-- Ned Raggett, Tuesday, 19 August 2008 13:52 (2 hours ago) Link

It's not as cut-and-dried as a "let's go stadium rock" band meeting. It's subtler. Once a band does a stadium tour, there's a tendency to consider that venue while writing their new songs.

except I don't think Kid A is stylistically that different from Ok Computer

In fact I'd agree with you on the hype around Kid A being entirely critiic constructed, because I really don't think the music bears it out. It is just a be bleepy compared to the other one.

Once a band does a stadium tour, there's a tendency to consider that venue while writing their new songs.

Which leads to roffles when the next album bombs and they're back to playing smaller places. (As I've seen happen plenty of times.)

Thinking on Depeche again, I remember one time Dave Gahan talking about how he would use a rehearsal studio set up to simulate a massively packed stadium or arena -- thousands of cheering voices, etc. -- so he could figure out how best to sing songs in that kind of environment, and how the folks at the studio who didn't know who he was thought he was kinda insane. I thought that too when I first heard the story, then I thought, "Well, wait, that's actually a GOOD idea if you're where you're at." And Depeche have regularly played that level since 1988/1990, so there you go.

They feel like their sound is very much an idea of what a modern rock band should sound like. The whole thing is just so servicable to me. They don't feel like a band that are going to surprise you in any way.

-- I know, right?

Yes it is. That is the critical and fan reaction to Kid A parrotted back almost to a T.

-- HI DERE

Also, for comparison's sake, what bands are likely to surprise you?

FWIW, critical and fan reactions aren't necessarily wrong, and one can share them without parroting them.

This is true, but when you enter an argument by saying "I came to them after the fact and I never saw them as blah blah blah; they just seem like they're trying to be <whatever everyone who was there initially said about them>" it is going to be very difficult to shake the impression that your opinion has been formed by the environment surrounding the band.

Or, as James Murphy would say, "I WAS THERE"

I think that this is a bit of a cul de sac anyway because it's not like I'm sitting around waiting for all music to surprise me.

xp, I've said that this is a contributor several times

Also, for comparison's sake, what bands are likely to surprise you?

I don't know if answering this is such a good idea

It'll destabilize the conversation, but maybe that's what's required.

No it just becomes some lame way of showing how my taste is so shit so what do I know, which I know is not why you're asking, but that's what this shit turns into.

^^surprisingly defensive

this album has some joints. i liked 'let down' a lot. airbag. never got why ppl hated 'electioneering'. i never 'got' paranoid android. too proggy or something.

obv the praise for a pretty MOR rock album is out of hand.

Been coming home since my last post, so many man XXXXXs - Ned, i don't mean the music, the melodies, the lyrics, the arrangements (well, maybe the lyrics, a little); I mean the sonic presentation, the recording, the mixing, the mastering. I don't like the way Radiohead's records SOUND on a physical level; I think it's a very targeted, stadium-audience sound.

^^this is partially why I like Exit Music so much, I think it's genuinely interesting sounding.

Like, lots of the 00s Radiohead music IS radical and weird and shocking BUT it comes at you in a way that feels, physically, like Coldplay, like Stereophonics, like whoever - "Morning Bell (Amnesiac)" for instance is a lovely tune but it just fucking sounds HORRIBLE, his vocals are nasty and corrupted and spread too thin like butter on too much bread.

Well, the Kid A version of "Morning Bell" is way way way better.