RAdiohead

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.

Time signatures are not the sole or even most telling measure of how proggy an album is imo. That would be modularity - progressions themselves. How much verse-chorus and how much...not. HTTT is averse to simple verse-chorus - will be interesting to see if this is too

Myself I kinda associate "progginess" (Genesis, Henry Cow, King Crimson, Rush, Queen's "Bohemian Rhapsody", Dirty Projectors) with a particular thing when bands make decisions to complicate things to confuse the ears of the listeners. It's a different thing entirely when complicating decisions are made to challenge the band as performers and composers but the results are not-especially-confusing to a listener (This Heat, Radiohead, Talk Talk, things like Led Zeppelin's "The Ocean" I guess). I don't really associate "a weird time signature made to sound natural" (or its cousin, "a standard time signature made to sound weird") with "progginess", for some reason

How are listeners more confused by Queen and Rush than by This Heat? Not sure I follow.

yeah i dont see how e.g. "Limelight" isnt the same situation as "The Ocean" its just a normal rock song that happens to change meter between verse and chorus. most of Rush's 'progginess' stops there

or mid-verse rather but it still sounds natural

Is there a term that would refer to a tendency (whether in progressive rock, jazz, electronic music, or elsewhere) where you can practically hear the players counting off the unusual signature in their heads, oriented around "chops" and feeling thus totally choppy?

As opposed to the innumerable performances also in "unusual" time signatures where it flows and lives, and the players (and yourself as the listener) don't seem hung up on it, and the signature just adds a certain feeling (emotional or musical) you wouldn't get as readily without it?

Radiohead feels about 50/50 on those, when engaging weird time signatures.

That said, I haven't been able to get through more than a few tracks of this at a go, so far. Feels like it's mostly good, if a bit grab-bag, but just doesn't sustain interest so far.

I say that as someone who was an obsessive Radiohead listener circa 1995-2001 (as a teenager/early 20s), then hated 'Hail To the Thief' and felt like I'd rather listen to what Radiohead were listening to than their interpretations of it for the next few albums. But who then really loved 'A Moon Shaped Pool,' probably my favorite album of theirs.

At least a couple tracks on this make me think Yorke et al have been listening to Sault, and some Total Refreshnent Centre groups. Not a bad thing...

Yeah Soundslike that's exactly what I mean!

@ Sund4r when I said Rush I meant like... 2112 more than Moving Pictures I guess. As for This Heat, I guess I was thinking about the bizarre chord choices and time signatures that function more like Can grooves than like Yes cartwheels... second part of "Paper Hats" for example is in 11/8 and sounds exactly like Radiohead at their chilliest. It's not that This Heat aren't confusing, it's just not chops chops chops like their Canterburian older brothers

I see, maybe it's something to do with choppiness vs groove? Math rock exemplifies the former, perhaps?

I would say HTTT is the post OKC album most similar to OKC

yep

In Rainbows is absolutely nothing like OKC, its colours are so muted in comparison

Yeah, it's wild to compare OKC to IR. OKC is the career-defining guitar epic. IR is the "we're gonna start to mellow with age" album and marks the start of the arc that continued with TKOL and AMSP.

Zach's Taxonomy of Radiohead Eras:

Pablo Honey - OK Computer: "We're a rock band. Scratch that--we're the MOST IMPORTANT ROCK BAND OF OUR TIME."

Kid A - HTTT: "We have reinvented ourselves! But we're still kind of a rock band."

In Rainbows - AMSP: "Starting to feel old. What if we just kinda...chilled out and jammed?"

this album, which i have now heard, is a continuation of chilling out and jamming, except with a more boring drummer

calling it as one of the two best RH-related projects ever feels absolutely unhinged to me

i’m sorry, a more boring drummer

what must it be like to post when you have no idea what you’re talking about. am i the one imprisoned and is lj the really free one, able to hear awesome drumming and call it boring

yep, a more boring drummer. the same one who also turns sons of kemet into a stodgy one-paced jam outfit i believe. 'a hairdryer' would be a great song if he wasn't hellbent on tippy tapping that hi-hat in the same way for its entire duration

Pablo Honey - OK Computer: "We're a rock band. Scratch that--we're the MOST IMPORTANT ROCK BAND OF OUR TIME."

The problem with this is that OKC feels like a giant leap forward from The Bends. The Bends was basically a meat-and-potatoes indie rock record. OKC is a vast, troubling avant-prog masterpiece.

IDK. Each album builds vastly on the one before it, but there's a clear through line of progression to my ears. This may be the bias of hindsight. I was not listening to these records as they came out; I came on the bandwagon during the Kid A/Amnesiac era. Also, if you think The Bends is a "meat-and-potatoes" indie rock record, I wanna know where you're getting your indie meat and potatoes from!

its a meat and potatoes britpop record

I don't really listen to any britpop so I will take your word for it. Makes more sense to me than comparing it to like, The Breeders or something. My Americanness re: what constitutes "indie" is likely showing here.

i mean it's a very good britpop record but it's firmly within the style and sound palette of other stuff in that subgenre, unlike okc

I wasn’t comparing OKC to IR in terms of tone or vibe or whatever. I was saying it’s sort of a return of a more traditional rock album in song structures and instrumentation that a certain kind of fan (namely those who only like The Bends and OKC) would probably enjoy.

HTTT is probably the most similar one to OKC, but where OKC is oddly digestible and fun to listen to all the way through, HTTT makes for an exhausting listen and is way too morose in comparison.

What I’m saying is The Bends, OKC and In Rainbows are the three albums I’d recommend to a certain listener who is not too keen on “weird” Radiohead. Those 3 are by a margin their most accesible material.

HTTT...morose?!

it is filled with energy, electricity and invention

would love to try to get someone who is not already a radiohead fan to sit through "we suck young blood"

yeah and then it gets to the fast bit and they're like 'ohhhhh'

Yeah there’s energy but idk

I get a melancholic / space post-rock vibe from OKC, HTTT gives me more art rock / horror movie vibes.

hence why it owns!!!!

That said both albums are really good at defining the sound of their times. Late 90s were alienating, early to mid 00’s it felt hopeless.

Not saying HTTT is a bad album btw, just saying it feels like a very different beast to me

I was saying it’s sort of a return of a more traditional rock album in song structures and instrumentation that a certain kind of fan (namely those who only like The Bends and OKC) would probably enjoy

OKC is by no stretch a traditional rock album. And I love OKC but don't care for The Bends so

not sure what kind of an RH fan I am

Trying in my head to rank the albums by moroseness--this is an impossible task

I'm a fan of Radiohead when Thom isn't singing in his head voice w/ horribly smeared diction. Sadly that's been a lot since before HTTT.

What We Talk About When We Talk About Radiohead

Thom is best when his singing only implies his hair might be bunned. When you can plainly hear it's bunned, i'm not interested.

I totally agree with fgti re: 'progginess'. Maybe a reductive way to look at it is flow vs jaggedness -- 'Everything in its Right Place' is in 5 (or really 10, or phrases of 4/4 + 6/4, however you like) but in a way that doesn't draw attention to itself, and it's not the main distinguishing feature of the song.

And on the "weird 4/4" flip side, the only thing that makes 'Pyramid Song' is odd or elusive is the chord movement, and putting a chord on the downbeat that doesn't sound like a resolution or the beginning of a loop. But you don't get the sense that they're doing it specifically to wrongfoot the listener, they're just the chords that Thom wrote and played.

'15 Step' for me is one of their rare missteps into odd times for their own sake, even though I like the song. It feels more like an exercise of writing in 5/4, and in a sort of cliched way.

On the new record, 'You Will Never Work in Television Again' is a fantastic 5/4. It doesn't sound cliched and I didn't even notice it was in 5 on my first listen.

'Pana-vision' is right on the line for me. It's very obviously 7/4 and feels like it, but commits to the bit and feels like it comes pretty naturally out of that first piano line (whereas a more proggy/math-y version could more like a 4/4 phrase that was arbitrarily cut off to make it in 7 for its own sake, if that makes sense).

yep, a more boring drummer. the same one who also turns sons of kemet into a stodgy one-paced jam outfit i believe. 'a hairdryer' would be a great song if he wasn't hellbent on tippy tapping that hi-hat in the same way for its entire duration

― imago, Tuesday, May 17, 2022 9:38 AM (two hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

Lol ok. Actually I don't think he's served very well by the mix on this album, the drums are pretty far back in the mix and Nigel's drum sounds have been very bland on almost everything post-HttT. I wonder why.

hellbent on tippy tapping that hi-hat

reminds me of the classic thread What's with that constant cymbal tapping in jazz drumming?

beyond that, i find the criticism of skinner's playing as 'boring' (especially in the context of a pair of musicians who most frequently play with phil selway, who, to be clear, i like and has, for better or worse, always been an essential radiohead "sound", whatever that means) kinda so beyond absurd that it is funny and good, i commend you

nothing to add, but just once i want to see a really serious and respected critic put something in their writing about "tappy whappy ploddy toddy" things they don't like in the music.

i haven't listened to a light for attracting attention yet. am i boycotting it? idk. (shrug)

the hi-hat is one of the most expressive parts of the kit, it can go clickety clack but it can also go whiiish

always been a big fan of the shickety-shoo myself.

well yeah but additionally it also can go ka-chunk into a sizrunk without needing to program it, in a good drummer's hands

i am just joshing with all that, of course. like i said, phil was fine, he fit their sound, and he helped them sound like they did, which was rock gods, for quite a while

I like it when it goes

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