"OK Computer": Classic Or Dud?

^^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.

Yes, it is, but it's still more like Coldplay than it is like Scott Walker or Robert Wyatt.

See, I couldn't possibly care less about Scott Walker, Robert Wyatt or Coldplay.

(I also can't think of any Coldplay tunes that are in 5/4 or actually feature a decent rhythm section.)

the way the field recordings comes out of the acoustic guitar is really nice, and the choir bits just don't fit in a really good way, also the vocal performance is really subtle and I like how elements get grouped together, such as how the guitar swells under his voice towards the end.

Yes, it is, but it's still more like Coldplay than it is like Scott Walker or Robert Wyatt.

more like a band than a solo artist, you might say

If we're going to talk specifically about the way their music sounds, I think "Idioteque" is probably my favorite thing of theirs by a huge margin; those harsh metallic gated drum machine noises paired with those warm-sounding sine wave synths mixed in with Thom's escalating-in-intensity vocal performance... just fantastic.

Which is entirely fair enough. I'm not that bothered about any of them particularly, but Scott Walker's last two records, sonically, in terms of the phenomenology of listening to them, are absolutely fucking extraordinary and outlandish and weird and freaky and confusing; whereas Radiohead's are not, to me, but could be if they sounded different. It's the difference between how New Grass sounds and how Reckoner sounds; Reckoner definitely, defiantly comes from the same stalk as New Grass, but its beefed up, polished, EQ'd and made palatable for a big, half-listening audience, in the car or on the radio or via the iPod; it's made to sound like a record, like any common or garden major-label big modern rock record, rather than a piece of music, and that really negatively effects it for me.

XXXPOST - it's NOT ABOUT 5/4 time or a decent rhythm section!

I'm not talking about band vs solo artist, maybe it was wrong of me to choose them. I don't feel as if anyone is understanding what I'm saying.

I feel your pain

XXXPOST - it's NOT ABOUT 5/4 time or a decent rhythm section!

Yes it is! That is about 70% of what makes "Morning Bell" exciting to listen to, the rest being the way the vocal line lies over more super-warm synth sounds. The main reason I think Coldplay sucks ass is because I don't think they can mix their drums or bass for shit; half of their songs would actually be fun to listen to if they had some type of foundation that didn't make them feel like plodding trials. Radiohead had this problem a lot on Pablo Honey but figured out what they were doing on The Bends and never looked back.

I think he means, that's not what he's objecting to.

I think I mean "this is the biggest distinguishing factor I see between Radiohead and Coldplay".

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

^^^^^ I agree with this.

So do I

"I'll take the quiet life/ A handshake of carbon monoxide"

I think this is a really good example of a Radiohead lyric in that it is really really good and really beautiful and so abstract and yet really so abstract, like what does it actually mean? This is how I feel a lot of the time about Radiohead in general, I can see why they're supposed to be good, but it feels so remote.

Also, complaining that Radiohead are boring because they sound like all the bands that have tried to sound like Radiohead seems like a terribly unfair critique. (That re: Colplay and the modern rock sound.)

What happens if I suggest that the recent Scott Walker records might owe something to Radiohead? <ducks>

I think I lie closer to Dan than Nick on this issue.

i dont have a problem with MOR records at all. "Some of my best friends are MOR." But a lot of the talk around this record, whatever Mel W wants to pretend, is about how forward thinking and exceptional and sui generis it is, which imo is pretty bullshit

xxp, I thought this when Drift came out

I don't subscribe to deej's viewpoint at all.

Although I'd like to make it plain that I believe these guys NEVER stopped catering for a popular rock audience, and didn't perhaps do anything that elevated them to the position of revelatory sonic pioneers. They're great songwriters above everything else.

I'm not talking about things that distinguish Radiohead from Coldplay; I'm talking about things that make them sound similar.

Scott Walker, when asked around the time of The Drift, if he liked Radiohead, said "they're alright, but they use too much compression on their records, they sound like everyone else".

re: music being "remote": this is not an insult imo

I really can't get as worked up about that as you

xp

OK Computer was a giant curveball after The Bends, which I would say still stands as their most "traditional" album (followed closely by In Rainbows). No one was expecting the budding darlings of modern rock radio to prog out.

I'm not saying RADIOHEAD are boring; I'm saying "they records sound like records, which is a sound I do not like".

yeah but like, remote from my imagination too, remote from being excited about it, it just feels like it has nothing to do with me.

I'm not talking about things that distinguish Radiohead from Coldplay; I'm talking about things that make them sound similar

And you can see why, logically speaking, someone who likes one band but not the other would bring up where they feel the similarity breaks down, yes?

Several of my friends' first reaction on hearing Paranoid Android's debut radio play in 1997 - "it's alright, it sounds just lie Radiohead though". ======== PEOPLE ARE MENTAL BUT IT ILLUSTRATES MY POINT.

X-posts - yes, Dan, of course, but I don't disagree that thet similarity breaks down there, I agree it does - I think Radiohead are MASSIVELY better than Coldplay, in a different universe of talent and ability and ideas, BUT they're still, at the same time, just another big modern rock band.

i dont have a problem with MOR records at all... But a lot of the talk around this record ... is about how forward thinking and exceptional and sui generis it is...

-- deej

I'm not going to argue that they aren't a big modern rock band! That would be ludicrous. I feel like you're being overly reductive here.

Nick, speaking of big modern rock bands, you prefer Elbow to Radiohead, dontcha? Although Radiohead might be more ingenious innovators and songwriters, Elbow have a certain feel for sound and ambience that you kinda dig.

Me, I love both.

But it's my point, Dan, I have to be reductive towards it because it's the thing that bothers me - Louis' kind of got it there. I prefer Elbow to Radiohead on a sensual sonic level, the songs to me are about the same (maybe Elbow's more emotive to me personally but that's a subjective thing).

i feel more or less the same about this album as i do Dark Side Of The Moon, maybe a bit more supportive just thru being able to identify with it more directly. bear in mind i appreciate both OKC and DSOTM now more than i ever have before.

Actually Exit Music is probably the most Elbow-ey song radiohead have, on Ok Computer at least.

hmm maybe I should pay attention to Elbow

Can't something be forward thinking, exceptional and (to some extent) sui generis while also being catchy, radio-friendly, anthemic, family-pleasing? If not, why not? I think you can fairly compare O.K. computer to Dark Side of the Moon and Sgt. Pepper's without denying the MOR qualities they all share, and also without faulting them for those qualities.

-- contenderizer, Tuesday, August 19, 2008 12:20 PM (1 minute ago) Bookmark Link
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i think saying that ok computer is a 'bit of a curveball after the bends' is fine, but the sort of omg album of a generation changed the way i listen to music in the halls of valhalla with the beatles and pink floyd-type shit is very unfair to pretty much every non-rock album that was even more radically changing the face of pop music around this time, never mind unfair to radiohead themselves

its a little bit of a twist on a long rock tradition, but its really not that much of one. i dont see it being that much more 'radical' than dr dre switching styles from the chronic to the chronic 2001, for example

radiohead >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> pink floyd

btw

pretty much every non-rock album that was even more radically changing the face of pop music around this time

Do we have to talk about Oval? Oh, go on then.

The problem, deej, is that regardless of the actual quantitative difference of OK Computer to the music around it, enough people reacted to it as if it was a full-on sea change to the music scene (a reaction that was magnified with Kid A) that that became the historical context. You can't divorce the music from the context in which it appeared and "get" why people say what they say about it; it would be like hearing Nevermind for the first time in 1998.

this is why people shouldn't listen to the press bullshit because really, ok computer is just a really excellent example of a particular type of album and and might only be groundbreaking to the band themselves and not music overall. music writers like to make grandiose statements about albums and exaggerate all of these interesting qualities into something not just interesting, but universe-changing. i don't think that ok computer is much different in terms of pushing boundaries than U2's music in the '90s, but then again U2 was moving in a dance/rock direction at this time and radiohead was going proggy and one of them is more critic and core audience-friendly. i always liked both moves just about the same.

whoa

was this album any more important or effective an attempt to bridge gaps between the cutting edge and stadium rock as U2's 3 90s albums?

U2 were going in a really shitty, obvious direction, and radiohead were incorporating subtle uses of electronic instrumentation and post-production into a genuinely explorative new means of producing popular rock, the two aren't even comparable IMO

hey louis what does what you just posted actually mean in concrete terms

What U2 was doing was perfectly fine, IMO. The only album of theirs that I understand people disliking is Rattle And Hum, and that's because they make a horrible blues band.

omar beat me to u2 comparison

there was nothing particularly obvious about 'Numb' at the time. it was probably as big a curveball as they could throw while still maintaining some semblance of their established aesthetic.