Radiohead - I just don't get it

Cafe Society
1

They keep winning Best Band awards and coming top of polls of Best Band Ever.

But I just don’t get it.

I keep listening to OK Computer and The Bends, supposedly (so I am told) their best albums and they’re ok, some decent songs on there but nothing special.

And I want to like them!

But I just don’t see what all the fuss is about. I’ve heard Kid A around on the radio (although I don’t own it yet) and that sounds quite good, I admit.

But the other stuff, its so droney and whiney. Occasionally it works but most of the time its just boring.

Anyone else feel like this or is it just me?

Can any Radiohead fans explain clearly to me what I’m missing and what I should be looking for so that I can enjoy the music as much as you do?

Really, I want to like them but I just don’t get it.

It’s not that I don’t like slow music, I like lots of “slow” bands eg Portishead.

All the Radiohead fans I know are generally sensible, well-adjusted people in other areas of their life but then they tell me, quite seriously, that Radiohead are one of the best bands that have ever existed.

When this is quite clearly nowhere near the truth. I wouldn’t have them in my top 500 even. To me, they’re ok but I don’t see anything different or special that could make them rank alongside, for example, The Beatles or Pink Floyd.

Its like people have become possessed or something and I’m the only one who’s remained normal.

They’re a good band but not the best, nowhere near.

2

I wish I knew how to explain it. But I do rank them amongst the best modern bands of all time, right up there with The Beatles and Pink Floyd.

Everyone sees different things in art, and it depends upon the context of the appreciator’s life as to what is seen or what will be meaningful. No doubt there are things that you find amazing which would be a mystery to me. Way it goes.

3

I agree completely xanakis. I know many people who feel that Radiohead is simply the greatest band ever. Top 5 all the way. When I ask why they think that, the most common response is that they are “innovative.” Give me a break. Innovative how, I ask? Well, they use different instruments. I see, says I, but when they use these innovative instruments do they add anything substantial to the musical arrangement? Um, shut up and let me like my band is the next response. I think Radiohead is one of the most overrated bands in the history of music.

On a sidenote, have you heard that insane amount of raving that the British music press have given the Strokes? Another band heading up the most overrated ever. Quite frankly, after having listened to several songs I can say that in my opinion there is nothing original, complex, or in any other way impressive about this band.

4

I think the reason I like Radiohead so much is that through their music they are articulating emotions and feelings that I don’t hear being expressed anywhere else. Before OK Computer I’d never heard music so profoundly express the sense of desperation that runs through that album.

Musically, it’s some very innovative stuff. Their use of electronics is incredible; where as other bands might hamhandedly use 30 year old synths simply to achieve a kitchy appeal (Smash Mouth, I’m looking in your direction here), in Radiohead’s music it never seems forced. It’s like all the “weird shit” they’re using was designed for how they’re using it.

Both these reasons I’ve cited are very subjective but I really don’t know how else to explain it. There are a lot of reasons I love the band. These are just a couple.

5

Listen to them before you drift to sleep (Amnesiac, Kid A), listen to them when you’re feeling angst or festering, listen to them when you want to chill. They are all things. Interpretation is the key.

They’re probably not doing anything new but they’re bringing it into the mainstream. I rather they experimented and evolved than churned out the same ‘indie sound’.

6

Neurotik, they are not innovative for the instruments they use, but for how they use them. The layers of sound in their songs are very delicately laid on top of each other. A friend of mine once noted that all the instruments in a radiohead song “each occupy their own space.” I don’t really know a better way to describe it, and you’ll either be impressed or dismiss it as wanking. Which I guess it is, after all.

As for the OP, I agree their not number one…their lyrics take care of that. I get bothered by the way Thom Yorke’s delivery is so meaningful even when his lyrics are absolute crack (which I find to be the case…well, certainly not most of the time, but enough of the time that you notice).

What’s so great about them is that the music is beautiful and haunting. I reccommend listening to it with headphones before you try to listen to it on your stereo. You’ll notice lots more neat-o arrangements. And no one can sound like a disgruntled office worker better than Thom Yorke.

If you like Portishead, I’m surprised you don’t like OK Computer…there seems to be a similar vein running through them when I think about it. WHat kind of music do you listen to otherwise?

Don’t beat yourself up over it, though. The Beatles were vastly overrated as well.

7

Aside from “Creep” and all their fame in the mid-nineties, I was first introduced to Radiohead (Kid A) by a friend who raved much like the friends you mentioned in your initial post. This friend had done a fairly large quantity of “entertainment-oriented” street drugs and prescription medication, so I can’t vouch for his adjustment to society, but for the most part he seems pretty decent. But when he popped the CD in and looked at me with head-nodding anticipation, I couldn’t quite reciprocate. Like you, I thought it was good stuff but hardly worth the kudos heaped upon it by the music press. [See also author Michael Chabon’s The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay which somehow won the PEN award AND the Pulitzer and it’s just… not that stellar.]

I have since purchased Amnesiac and Kid A, which were both recorded at the same time and released a year apart from each other, and have grown to love them immensely, though not with the messianic fervor that seems to bless their every utterance. Their appeal to me is the synthesis of electronic and acoustic sounds–the layering of vocals upon vocals upon guitars upon drum machines upon real drums upon synthesizers upon you get the picture. It’s not so much that they’ve explored entirely new aural frontiers or done something never before heard in the music world, but more that they’ve done it more successfully than most of their predecessors. In a nutshell, I love their albums and definately rank them in my top drawer, but fail to be brought to my knees when attending the church of Yorke.

8

i just wish they wouldn’t have published Amnesiac as a new sound, to me it is the B-side to Kid A. but i do think they are amazing and i was addicted to Kid A when it was released for at least four months it was all i listened to.
as for why they are one of the top bands of all time, they did create a new sound, as did the beatles and nirvana. they “revolutionized” one sect of the music industry (if you will). they were a good guitar band (OK Computer, the Bends. . .) and Thom has a distinct (if not a bit whiney) voice, but he is whiney and on key-there is charm to that. and they evolved their music with the times-from guitar to electronica. there is always the “perfect timing” element to a “revolutionary” band. granted, the big to do about their album ruined it for many who expected nothingless than divine inspiration, Radiohead got a lot of attention through their anti-marketing campaign, which is also a relation to their target audience. i commend them

9

Um, I’m not sure that I’m comfortable with Radiohead being compared to the Beatles or Pink Floyd. As far as I’m concerned, the Beatles were the Backstreet Boys of their generation. I mean, they were pleasant enough to listen to, but I would never actually purchase any of their music. The only band that I would ever put in the same category as Radiohead would be The Smiths. No one else even comes close.

10

I love Radiohead and I do think they are one of the all-time great bands. But how can I explain why, we differ in our tastes?

11

I’m perplexed that the critics keep raving about how innovative Kid A is. It’s a pretty good album, but I don’t hear anything there that I haven’t heard from various other mope-rock/prog-rock bands of the last 30 years.

What really irks me, though, is that the songwriting on Kid A is noticably inferior to that on The Bends and OK Computer, but no one seems to care. “Songs? Who needs songs when we have this cool retro electric piano and some psychedelic string arangements?” :slight_smile:

12

i dont like Radiohead. i own OK Computer but never listen to it, and i used to own The Bends but sold it.

the problem i have with Radiohead is they’re far too arty farty. some of their songs i like - Fake Plastic Trees is good.

the person who compared them to the Smiths. i disagree with you. i quite like the Smiths. they have a sense of humour for starters, and they like to have a bit of fun.

Radiohead are over-rated. i’m not saying the dont have any talent, but they are over-rated.

13

I don’t understand Radiohead either, and I suspect that I am the kind of person who should really dig them. I just find their music less than compelling. If I am not grabbed immediately or even after several listenings by their music, why should I look any deeper to find their “musical space,” or whatever?

I agree, there is no sense arguing over taste. I just want to hear more concrete reasons why people think they are so extraordinary, rather than the usual “this is the music of my soul” kind of answer.

14

Sure they have humor. I laugh my ass off every time I listen to Thom singing, with just too emotional delivery

Yesterday I woke up sucking a lemon
Yesterday I woke up sucking a lemon
Yesterday I woke up sucking a lemon
A lemon

:slight_smile:

Anyway, I have to agree with the previous posters. The dense arrangements aren’t INNOVATIVE, but they’re… well, people have done it before, but never as good. It’s taking already existing means of making music and literally achieveing PERFECTION with it. They may not be the new Beatles, but they have Pink Floyd beat by far.

15

jkbelle, please tell me how in God’s name Nirvana revolutionized anything at all. Not to be confrontational or anything…well, okay, to be very confrontaional, I guess…but I have heard this ever since Nevermind and I cannot figure out what they did that was so great, other than being the first to get signed. They were really cool, don’t get me wrong, but they were pretty sloppy and lyrically spotty. What’s the big deal?

Jackknifed Juggernaut, I’ve been thinking a lot about the Beatles lately, and while I agree they were overrated for some of their later stuff (although when they were good in those years they were really good), I think it is really their early straight-ahead rock music that put them on the map. When the Beatles came along, the radio was in the same state it is now: full of crap. They came in with a new sound and basically created a scene that wasn’t there before. And they were smart. Have you ever read an interview with the Backstreet Boys?

And I was going to agree with Niobium Knight, but Dryga_Yes set me straight. Yeah, Radiohead are all big Pixies fans, so I’m sure they are aware of how ridiculous Thom Yorke’s lyrics are sometimes. “He used to do surgery/for girls in the 80’s???” “The panic/the vomit??” Bleah.

16

Having thus defended the Beatles, I take back what I said about Nirvana halfway. But only halfway.

17

Hmm…Radiohead, no sir, I don’t like them. To me, all of their songs I have heard sound the same, annoying. That singer has that whiney voice, and does he have to make EVERY word sung five seconds long? Honestly, to me, it all sounds like he’s reading the following, real slowly:

Laaaaa-naaaaa-aaaaaahhhhhh-iiiihhhhhh-maaaaaaaahhhhhh.

18

Because nobody else has ever managed to isolate pure pain, distil it, bottle it and forcefeed it through a microphone.

The only band that can actually, on occasion, make me cry.

pan

19

Just an opinion:

Maybe analogies with people like Jackson Pollock or van Gogh might help. Whatever Radiohead might be, what they do is art so you might try considering their work using a visual art vocabulary.

20

i did - “arty farty”