The only Radiohead CD I own is The Bends. I absolutely love this album because its so gloomy and beautiful sounding. My favorite songs are High&Dry and Fake Plastic Trees. I also like the others but I listen to those two songs the most.
Now I’ve been thinking about going and getting OK Computer and Kid A. But I wanted to know…do you think I’d like it? I don’t want to dish out some cash for CDs that are crap. But I keep hearing raves about how great those CDs are.
I have been listening to Karma Police alot these past few days. I really like that song. Is this a peek at what the OK computer is like?
(I’m so behind in the times, I always buy my CDs late…heh)
Personally, I’d recommed Kid A if you like gloomy music.Hell, It’s filled with great music. Go to a barnes and noble type store where you can hear snippets to satisfy your own curiosity.
OK Computer is a masterpiece, one of the 10 best albums of the 1990s. Kid A and Amnesiac are also excellent ( catch me in the right mood and I’ll tell you Amnesiac is their best album so far) but are very different from the previous two albums. Kid A can be compared with In Utero, the attempt of a band that had scored great commercial success to scare away fair-weather fans.
Their latest album Hail to theThief has just been released, so you’ll have to give me a few weeks to decide whether or not I want to recommend it.
…And don’t forget their earlier Pablo Honey which is closest in sound to The Bends. Personally, I loved Pablo, Bends, and OK Computer but never got into the later albums.
Hail to the Thief seems much more aligned to Kid A than OK Computer. I was hoping for Thief to be a much less minimalist album than Kid A, and it is, but only slightly less so. I was hoping for a return to the lush orchestral sounds of OK Computer, but alas, still a lot of blips and beeps like we got in Kid A/Amnesiac. With each succeeding album from Radiohead, OK Computer seems to become a grander and grander achievement.
OK Computer is an amazing work of art. It goes a step beyond The Bends in production values, complex song structures and thematic sophistication, yet it still remains a recognizable rock album with musical influences ranging from The Beatles to Led Zeppelin to Pink Floyd.
Kid A, on the other hand, is a complete and total sea change in direction from Radiohead’s previous albums. The album is distant, abstract electronica in which song structure is often abanoned altogether in favour of jittery soundscapes and washes of noise. The passion that was evident in their earlier recordings is subsumed within the artifice of Kid A but the shear balls-out spirit of experimentation makes up for it. Afterall, National Anthem kicks just as much butt as Paranoid Android, just in a different way.
All in all, I think The Bends, OK Computer, and Kid A are each fantastic albums and I don’t think I could choose a favourite but I’d definitely recommend getting OK Computer, first. BTW, I just picked up Hail To The Thief this evening but I haven’t had an opportunity to break the shrink-wrap yet.
Amnesiac , Kid A , and OK Computer are all great in their own way but it depends what you are looking for. If what you like about The Bends is that there are songs you can sing along with, I would reccomend getting **OK Computer ** first but once again, all of their albums are AMAZING.
*OK Computer *and Kid A are equally brilliant in my view. I also just picked up Hail to the Thief, and I think I may have to knock The Bends out of third place now… while HTTT lacks the perfect sequencing of the three studio albums before it, the individual songs are some of the best work Radiohead have ever done. It sounds like the Radiohead of old, but suffused with an energy and confidence that they were rarely willing to unleash previously.
You should definitely get OK Computer and Kid A. OK Computer is Radiohead’s best album, and if you like The Bends you will almost certainly like OK Computer. Kid A is just awesome. I can never just listen to one song on it. I get pulled all the way through. Amnesiac, on the other hand, you might want to avoid. I never listen all the way through it, I just skip to the few songs I want to hear.
In my mind, nothing beats the sheer emotion that some of the songs on that album convey. In fact, in an odd way one song on that album almost cost me my life…
My beloved cat was run over by a car five days before Christmas last year, and I drove up to the cottage to bury her. It was a bleak grey day, and I foolishly put this album on while driving. When I listened to “Black Star”, particularly these lines:
"i try to stay awake but its 58hrs since that i last slept with
you.
what are we coming to?
i just don’t know anymore.
i get on the train and I just stand about now that i don’t think
of you.
i keep falling over i keep passing out
when i see a face like you.
what am i coming to?
im gonna melt down."
They matched my mood of grief and pain so well, my eyes filled with tears and I came very, very close to swerving off the road because I couldn’t see.
Black Star blows me away, too; it was the first song on The Bends that caught my ear and ran with it.
I think it’s about time I rediscovered OK Computer - I do think it’s the best, but it’s been a while since I’ve listened to it. I’d recommend you get OK next, arachnidlove: go through the albums in order and you’re most likely to understand the changes and evolution of the band’s sound.
There’s not a weak song on the record. They’re not all like Karma Police in terms of instrumentation, but I’d say they’re all about that good. (Karma Police is actually my favorite, but I enjoy most of the others nearly as much. I DARE you not to be haunted by No Surprises, for one.)
I actually prefer Amnesiac to Kid A. I think there are more top-notch songs - National Anthem and How to Disappear Completely are the only Kid A tunes I’d consider great, though I like In Limbo a lot and really dig Treefingers. Amnesiac’s Life in a Glasshouse, You and Whose Army?, I Might Be Wrong, Like Spinning Plates, Packt Like Sardines, and Pyramid Song… sweet jeez, Pyramid Song… really do it for me. Anyway-
The two albums are from the same recording period, but Amnesiac is a little less far out into techo - there are more actual songs, and at times you can hear Thom’s voice.
I don’t think anything so far matches OK Computer, but my first listen to Hail to the Thief tells me it’s a mix of what’s come before (because Computerdoes have a little bit of the techno thing going on). I like it that they’re continuing to evolve and using Thom’s voice more, and occasionally allow themselves to ROCK - more about the album I cannot say, as many listens are still forthcoming.
I bought the Bends on a stretch and the first time I heard it I was so bored.
A few months later I gave it another try, and strangely enough I thought it was fantastic.
Truthfully, I’ve never loved a radiohead song the first time I heard it.
Buy an album, give it time. And you will see what the band is trying to really make you hear.
Anyone with further comments about Hail to the Thief? I thought there was another thread more specifically about it, but I can’t find it… I must’ve listened to it half a dozen times today, and I find I really enjoy dissecting Radiohead’s stuff.
Buy both Kid A and OK Computer immediately. They are amazing albums, exquisitely perfect and it is impossible to say one is better than the other.
Or,
Buy OK Computer if you listened to Radiohead and thought At last! A rock band who matters, and I can sing along to in a stdium like they’re a contemporary Pink Floyd
Buy both if you listened to Radiohead and thought They’re doing really amazing stuff with sound and emotion and music in general.
What I’m saying is, both albums will appeal to you if you’re looking for a band that thinks and makes good music. If you’re just looking for a band that thinks and has loud guitars (not that there’s anything wrong with that) then get OK Computer.
