RAdiohead

yesss this album absolutely rules

Loving this

"free in the knowledge" is so albarn-esque it's uncanny

This album is really lovely

i haven't listened to albarn in ages - which track(s) are you thinking of?

ballads like "sweet song", it's just an extremely albarn-esque melody

This is my second favorite radiohead-related, non-radiohead album tho

don't leave us hanging moka! what's ur favorite?

"A Hairdryer" is a great jam (with a silly title) and according to Spotify play counts I'm listener number... 2709? That's not a lot of plays for a release like this!
https://i.imgur.com/CvEpn5x.png

Spotify is weird about counting plays in the first few days after release, not sure why but it's not really accurate. On the artist side they don't even show you stats until 3-4 days in.

god what a dope album

can't stop listening to it

It gets stronger the more I listen.

this is the most obvious comment i could make but the drumming is fucking bonkers

yeah, he really brings it on Thin Thing. you can almost see him just laying that down and the other two joining in and knowing exactly what energy to bring. his playing is controlled lightning all over it, so good.

my favorite lil moment on the album is on the The Same at 2:16. i can only call it "haunting". credit to nigel because the production on just that single line is almost frightening - it sounds like someone moving through walls.

Somebody's hearing voices
(Somebody's going down, down, down)

I found that strummy track ("Free In The Knowledge" I guess?) quite annoying, but a lot of the rest is really great. I will need to settle into it with a few more spins soon.

Now listening for that, KM

Agree with the praise, "Open The Floodgates" is my early fave. I hear a ton of cosmic music flourishes throughout. Is this a side project or has Radiohead disbanded?

I love “free in the knowledge” but the production is a saturared mess tbh

it's a side project that exists because the others weren't available to make music during the height of the pandemic

(Arranger) Hugh Brunt the MVP of this album. Greenwood is amazing but it’s so interesting to hear another approach

Also considering how ambivalent I am about Yorke’s lyrics and singing on Radiohead albums (more a comment on my own fatigue than his craft) I am adoring his voice on this

His voice sounds younger somewhat in this. In modern Radiohead albums he uses the falsetto more discreetly and it sounds a bit whiny. In here he almost sounds as good as he sounded in The Bends.

Maybe not stressing his voice on tour helped.

also lot of meandering grooves in weird time signatures

Okay, I'm sold!

Meandering grooves in weird time signatures is how I’d describe most of Radiohead post OKC tbh

In Rainbows would like a word

Yeah In Rainbows is them proving they can still nail “normal rock song structures” if they want to. It’s still the most accesible album they’ve released in 20 years as a band.

I’d argue there’s still plenty of meandering in weird time signatures even there.

Not a bad thing in my book, it’s what makes them one of the few active rock bands I care about.

it's only really this & httt that emphasise weird time signatures, there's only the occasional track elsewhere

both otm

there was that hidden weird time signature in Videotape even...

syncopation is a different thing

You’re really going to make me check this… let’s go.

HTTT has 4 out of 14 songs with weird (non 4/4) time signatures: 2+2=5, Sail to the Moon and Wolf at the Door, Go to Sleep.
28%

Kid A: 4 out of 10. EIIRP, HTDC, In Limbo, Morning Bell.
40%

Amnesiac: 0%

In Rainbows: 3 out of 10. 15 Step, Nude, Faust Arp
30%

TKOL: 1 out of 8. Codex
12.5%

AMSP: 5 out of 14. Daydreaming, Decks Dark, Desert Island Disk, Ful Stop, Present Tense.
35%

Source: https://pastebin.com/Hf04Q6Ym

Curiously Amnesiac and TKOL are usually considered their most experimental/inaccesible albums and they’re the ones without weird time signatures.

HTTT is a record that would be much improved by being 2-4 songs shorter, though I’m not sure which songs.

my definition of 'weird' definitely does not include things like 3/4 or 6/8 etc., those are pretty standard. i was thinking more specifically of complex time signatures that arise when you throw a 5 or 7 or some higher prime than 3 into the mix, or anything that's heavily shifting between time signatures

so what i was thinking of was just:
the one bit of "paranoid android" that has bars in 7/8
"everything in its right place", "morning bell"
"2+2=5", "sail to the moon", "go to sleep" (which starts off alternating between two bars of 6/8 and one of 4/4 which could be mashed into one bar of 10/4 if you wanted to make it ugly)
"15 step", "faust arp"

had forgotten that "desert island disk" was in 7/4, and that "codex" has two bars of 5/4 in its bridge - that one's a little marginal

"present tense" definitely does not count just for having a stray beat at the very start of the song, it's entirely in 4/4 beyond that.

also had not paid enough attention to realise "decks dark" slips in a bar of 2/4 occasionally - unusual but not complex. 6/4 on "ful stop" and the "in limbo" verse i'd also classify the same way

on the smile album i have:
"the same" - this feels like it has some weird shifts but i don't feel like counting it out
"you will never work in television again" - 5/4
"pana-vision" - verse is 7/4, chorus is 7/8
"thin thing" - mostly 6/8 or 12/8? but i think there's some shifts?
"waving a white flag" - this feels like it's 7/8 or something similarly odd but again i don't feel like counting
"skrting on the surface" - 11/8

"the opposite" is just a heavily syncopated 4/4 or maybe 12/8?

pretty heavily their proggiest album in that sense

I know it's technically 4/4 but NOT citing Pyramid Song as having a weird time signature feels bogus somehow.

it's just heavily syncopated & full of triplets, so you could write it as 12/8 instead

White Flag is 11/8

The whole album is really interesting rhythmically. I guess having an actual jazz drummer opened a new level of complexity for them.

syncopation is a different thing
right you are, was just thinking there was also something funny going on rhythmically on Rainbows

the most intricate drumming (apart from the new one) is prob to be found on TKOL even though per Moka's research only 1 jam is out of 4/4? I guess I'm more interested in fun drumming than weird time signatures

Thin Thing is definitely weird. Drums are 6/4 for the most part but go into 6/8 at the final section, but gets disorienting because Jonny is playing mostly in 3/4 and 5/8 in the bridge.

At least that how I’m hearing it.

Xpost: was surprised about that too! TKOL feels like a very groovy and rhythmic album for the most part, but it’s not complex it’s mostly them doing syncopation (like the handclaps on Lotus Flower) that fool you into thinking the songs are not actually in 4/4.

On "The Opposite" Tom does a very tasty Tony Allen type thing, that's the standout for me so far.

yeah I keep thinking of Tony Allen listening to this

heh, listening to “The Hairdryer” I was thinking “well I guess this is one of the complex time sigs” but nope, it’s in four

"Hairdryer" is interesting, it's like Skinner is emulating exactly the sort of skittery beat Thom likes to program on drum machines. I think "Open the Floodgates" is my favorite thing here so far but there's lots to like.

I'll give this new one a listen but I'm not holding out much hope because I'm one of those boring rockists who is of the opinion that Radiohead never bettered OKC and is patiently waiting for them to make another album in that vein even though I know it's never going to happen. The way I see it, it was OKC, not Kid A, that was Radiohead's big creative leap forward. Every album since OKC has betokened a fatal shrivelling of Radiohead's worldview. Can someone please make a playlist of the most OKC-like tracks from Kid A thru AMSP so that I don't have to wade through the dross.

in rainbows was their another album in that vein though

it even has some songs they wrote back in the okc era like nude and reckoner

thanks, I wasn't too aware of that, I'll listen to that one again.

In Rainbows is most definitely their "back 2 roots" sort of album.

xpost: this isn't the same "Reckoner" that was around the OKC era. They used the same title but this was a new song. The other Reckoner from OKC ended up with the title "feeling pulled apart by horses" and was released as a solo track by Thom.