Radiohead are more Damien Hirst than Jackson Pollock.
Some people get the joke, some people don’t.
Niobium Knight-
Van Gough is not, and I repeat NOT, arty farty. If you are ever in Amsterdam, I recommend the Van Gogh museum. Christ, that opened my eyes.
Raaaaaaaaaaaaaaain dooooooooowwwwwwwn
::deep breath::
agaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaain
I would consider myself to be an immense Radiohead fan. I am also a great fan of classic rock. The music that was created by bands like The Who, Zeppelin, The Door, etc. can’t be topped IMHO. That music was innovative for it’s time much like Radiohead’s music is now. I would place Radiohead in my list of top bands of all time. Radiohead released two albums that were popular to their release time (Pablo Honey and The Bends). Whereas they were great albums, they weren’t what Radiohead really wanted to put out. Time and time again Thom has publicly ridiculed his own work with Creep, one of their most popular songs to date. OK Computer has been my favorite album to date. It was the first step that Radiohead took towards getting away from mainstream music and producing what they wanted to craft. I found OK Computer to be a perfect blend between traditional sounds and more experimental electronic sounds. Kid A went a bit to far IMHO and they stepped it back nicely again with Amnesiac.
Now since I have finished with that incredibly boring timely and personal reflection upon the band, onto my reasoning behind enjoying the band quite so much. By nature I am a fairly somber person. Thom’s aching voice and droning lyrics seem to effect me greatly. The blending of sounds is powerful and gripping. OK Computer is chaotic, serene, and suspenseful all at different times and together at others. I missed the opportunity to catch them in concert in NJ, but was lucky enough to catch a show in GA and I was completely moved. It is music to be depressed with.
Cliff notes: My love for Radiohead steams from how it moves me emotionally.
i never said Van Gogh was arty farty i said Radiohead was, like Damien Hurst.
it’s hard to find a definitive reason why radiohead are so respected in the music industry and adored by fans; apart from issues of personal taste, the music they’ve produced throughout their career is marked by it’s variety. but, i’ll try…
pablo honey
this is the one that had ‘creep’ on it. it’s generally considered by the band and it’s fans to be their poorest album, very patchy in places. ‘creep’ was a big hit because of it’s theme of self-loathing (very popular in the early 90’s grunge era), it’s catchy chorus and it’s striking aggresive guitar, already displaying signs of jonny greenwood’s potential. personally, i think pablo honey is good; it has some fine pop moments such as ‘anyone can play guitar’, ‘thinking about you’, etc, but it is nothing particularly special.
the bends
this is a vastly underated album - it lacked the immediate hit of pablo honey and the experimental feel of ok computer, but it more than makes up for this in it’s songwriting and emotion. was this revolutionary? - i’m not sure, but it seems to me that radiohead popularized the concept of showing humanity and emotion emmersing from, (or drowning under) a world overun by technology. this can be seen particularly in ‘fake plastic trees’ and ‘black star’.
another feature of the bends that is seen as part of radiohead’s appeal is their ability to distill emotion into musical sound. this is of course, completely objective. while some people can feel the absolutely devastating loneliness and fear in a song like ‘street spirit’, others may just hear a minor-key arpeggio guitar line and some useless whining over the top. this is partly why it is difficult to explain the appeal of radiohead; one of the things that makes them so loved by their fans is the emotional response they draw, and unfortunately, if you don’t feel it, it’s pretty hard to make yourself feel it. that’s why i was surprised to hear that you liked portishead but not radiohead. songs such as ‘roads’ and ‘numb’ also share this quality.
ok computer
this is the album where radiohead can first really be appreciated for their musical prowess. it’s probably radiohead’s best complete work to date - while moments of kid a and amnesiac are as good or better, ok computer works so well as one unified vision.
musically, it’s astounding. jonny greenwood and ed o brien’s guitar tops even their best moments on the bends - it moves from angry, distorted and aggresive to soft gentle and lulling in a single song (paranoid android is a great place to start a love of radiohead) and songs such as ‘airbag’ and ‘climbing up the walls’ are heavily influenced by electronica, containing samples, drum loops etc, but still remaining firmly rock. (and by the way… does anyone else think that climbing up the walls is one of the scariest songs ever?)
another appeal of radiohead strongly illustrated on ok computer is thom yorke’s unique peculiar phrasing, at times bordering on the ridiculous.
kid a and amnesiac
while these aren’t innovative to those who are aware of indie-electronica pioneers such as bjork and aphex twin, the sounds on these two are very new to rock’n’roll and new to a mainstream audience. while such aural experiments as
‘pulk/pull revolving doors’ and ‘like spinning plates’ can be seen as either brilliant or wank, radiohead’s desire to keep pushing the boundaries affords them a great deal of respect. as well, there are some really killer songs - try ‘life in a glasshouse’, ‘idioteque’ and ‘motion picture soundtrack’ for tracks worth hearing for their experimental brilliance and musical prowess.
there are other aspects that have afforded radiohead their elevated status. a moody, enigmatic frontman is always useful for creating thousands of obsessed fans (other bands that have benifitted from this include r.e.m. and the cure), their angsty themes (depressive music often induces a cult audience, especially when it’s expressed semi-cryptically) and even the subtle humour prevalent (the hitchhikers references in ‘paranoid android’, for instance, or the title of pablo honey. then again, they aren’t for everyone.
i think it would help me understand them more if i knew what Yorke is like as a person. it would help me understand his songs more.
Thanks to all who have responded to my OP. Ill keep listening to them and keep trying and I will bear in mind all that you have said.
I don’t dislike them, I just don’t get why they are quite so popular.
It may be that they will one day just suddenly click into place in my head. Sometimes I find that happens with bands - I listen and listen but just don’t get it then one day it clicks into place and I can suddenly understand why people like them.
I remember this happened with The Smiths. I hated them for the first year after they came on the scene, didn’t understand what all the fuss was about but then, one day, something just clicked into place and I thought they were great after that.
As regards Thom Yorke, I (briefly) went out with a girl who used to go out with him before Radiohead became famous. I remember she told me that he was very anti-drugs. She used to do loads of acid and grass but Thom wouldn’t touch anything.
Whether this makes you have more respect for him or less depends on your own perspective.
Now I think about it, deep down, this may help explain my mental block towards Radiohead. Not the drugs thing but the fact that he was an ex-boyfriend of my girlfriend. I think guys always like to think that their girl’s ex-boyfriends were all jerks. Even when its obviously not true.
Something to do with the fragile male ego perhaps.
There’s a Radiohead song in there somewhere…
that can very well be the case indeed. I can honestly say that I never really picked on on Kid A that much. It took a while for amnesiac to really grip me. After listening to the album straight through a couple time, then I was very hooked on it. Give it a shot. Not everyone can always come together to agree on one band or style of music. I could never say anything bad about another band or genre of music other than ‘that’s just not for me’
I agree with bouv on this.
Perhaps in the middle of “Laaaaa-naaaaa-aaaaaahhhhhh-iiiihhhhhh-maaaaaaaahhhhhh” is a subliminal message of sorts, that only affects the artsy-fartsy types.
I can’t remember which month it was…Maybe the one where radiodead was on the cover…But the editor of Rolling Stone wrote (Which I found surprising for artsy-fartsy RS) a fairly scathing Op-Ed on them, confirming that yes indeed…They suck.
“Radiodead” 
LOL
I didn’t mean that really. Perhaps it was a subliminal thought on my part.
i had another few listens to OK Computer and it still doesnt work for me. i cannot connect with the songs in the way i can with the Smashing Pumpkins.
To each their own really. Different music effects different people in different ways. Giving it the chance by listening to a few times, is more than most would do when they aren’t initially enthralled by music.
Wow.
Being a huge Tool fan, I can honestly say you can substitute “Radiohead” for “Tool” in this thread and it would still make perfect sense.
And yes, I would rate Tool as one of the top 10 bands of all time. They are so far ahead of their time that people still have yet to realize it :D.
Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go listen to a lot of Radiohead.
I like Pablo Honey. You’re a creep.
I like Radiohead. They’ve got a tight rhythem section, cool riffs, some nice hooks and a lead singer whose voice doesn’t clash with the music. That’s all I really need from a band.
It’s one of those things, like everything else. Either you buy into it or you don’t. It’s as simple as that.
The only reason Radiohead gets so much press is that so many people buy into it, along with so many music critics.
Who cares if you don’t “get it”. If you don’t, listen to something else. If you’re offended by the lavish praise put on them by music journalists, stop reading the articles. I’m a huge Radiohead fan, and I stringently avoid any “music journalist” article on them. They always proclaim something like “Radiohead is saving rock and roll by destroying it”. That’s music journalist’s job. They’re pretty much useless, so they have to write crap like that.
When you’re expecting hype, nothing ever delivers.
So if you’re proud of “getting” Radiohead, or proud of “not getting” Radiohead, shut the hell up. It’s always just been people’s personal taste in music. If you don’t like it, listen to something else and stop reading the hype. If you do like it, more power to you. Listen and feel happy.
I’m sorry. If you’re really considering liking something because the press and hype tells you you should, you’re lost.
I completely agree with Mofo Rising. Listen to something because it effects you or is very catchy, not because someone sai dyou should like the band for X reasons.
One reason that some people that I know of don’t get that hooked on Radiohead, is because they have trouble understanding Thom. I admit, it took me a while to get used to his voice and fully understand what he is saying.
For no other reason than wanting to do so, here are the lyrics to the Radiohead song that seem to effect me the most. I think its the final verses of this song that get to me so severely:
Fake Plastic Trees
A green plastic watering can
For a fake chinese rubber plant
In the fake plastic earth
That she bought from a rubber man
In a town full of rubber plans
To get rid of itself
It wears her out, it wears her out
It wears her out, it wears her out
She lives with a broken man
A cracked polystyrene man
Who just crumbles and burns
He used to do surgery
On girls in the eighties
But gravity always wins
And it wears him out, it wears him out
It wears him out, it wears him out
She looks like the real thing
She tastes like the real thing
My fake plastic love
But I can’t help the feeling
I could blow through the ceiling
If I just turn and run
And it wears me out, it wears me out
It wears me out, it wears me out
And if I could be who you wanted
If I could be who you wanted
All the time, all the time
Gawd. Can Thom Yorke’s lyrics really suck a fat one sometimes or what? I was listening to OK again the other night and was particularly struck by the way self-consciously alienating bit about the Yuppies Networking. Still, I don’t think he isn’t in on the joke…
Perhaps all the hype over Radiohead is due to the fact that they are really good. Not necessarily the saviors of rock, but just really good. And how often do really good bands become famous and sell a lot of records? Exactly. So when everyone else in the field sucks, it’s easy to look like the best just by being really good.