*Long sigh*
So I was off work and drinking on my own last week and decided to review all of Radiohead’s albums. I’m not not drunk, but I am going to bloody mindedly complete the project, although it probably won’t be one a day because it will make the blog look boring, and it doesn’t seem as fun sober. I may do the last few drunk, I think that there are 5 more after this one and I may have to be drunk to listen to Lotus Flower because I hated that one.
So Kid A was one of those albums that all of stuff they say about it now was true. OK, Computer was one of the biggest rock albums of the decade and an instant classic, they toured it twice around the world and had all kinds of nervous breakdowns and so on. Of course, being Radiohead they didn’t die or anything, but it was a ‘created a monster’ thing, and then they had time off and then came back in the year 2000 with a new album that was not much rock.
The thing that sounds like exagerration but wasn’t was how people really were arguing a lot about it. Some people absolutely hated it at the time, half of the songs were trying to sound like Board of Canada and stuff. Most people have come around to it I think, but yeah. Ok, let’s get this over with.
Everything in it’s Right Place
This is one of the 4 or so songs I can kind of play on the piano. It’s in my top few Radiohead songs, it’s got the simplicity that I love about them, but also the very clever building up of sounds. I still haven’t worked out how to do the surround stuff that they do on this, when you listen to it on headphones everything is moving all over the place, when I do it it sounds silly, it works.
I like the version with the beat better. This really influenced my production. I don’t like the bit where he’s doing ‘scratch mixing’ with his voice, that’s doesn’t work for me
Kid A
This is one that has been used on loads of things and you wouldn’t know that it’s Radiohead. I also love this, so far I’m surprised how much I have been influenced by this album with my own relaxing music, I have it on in the background a lot but never listen to it propely. It actually makes me think about stuff that I don’t like about my music, like there are new ideas coming in at the end, which is fine if you are Radiohead I guess, but nowadays people will just switch off after a minute if I made this.
One rule for Radiohead, and one for the rest of us.
The National Anthem
Oh yeah, I can play this on guitar lol. This one is sounds a bit like an OK Computer demo, it’s not really my cup of tea, I like the singing part, but the sound effects are way over done, and I’m just at the beginning of the song, but I always hated that trumpet bit. I bet if they did it now they would do it much better, this album does sound a bit like they didn’t have everything done perfectly.
This is a lot less fun sober and it wasn’t that enjoyable drunk. The horn bit is really stupid, I bet there are some people who love it and there’s a reason why it’s really clever beause it’s a discordant pentatonic. It’s shit mate
Massive Attack did a song called The National Anthem a couple of years later which was better, but still not great.
How to Disappear Completely
This is definitely one of my favourite Radiohead songs, I used to walk around listening to this on my own on a walkman a lot. I had just moved to Portsmouth to study at university and was pretty lonely, it’s a great town to be lonely in, all decayed Victorian beachfronts and that low level unfriendliness of the provincial parts of the South East.
I like this song so much that I watched a video on YouTube explaining why it’s good, the whole song slowly fills up, it sounds like just special effects like on the last song, but then by the end of the song the whole ‘soundscape’ is full. It rocks cocks.
I think that one of the big issues with this album is that it’s a real headphones album. Like even OK Computer was a rock album so you could play it with people around, this is just meant for sitting quietly
Treefingers
This one is ambient drone. Come on lads, let’s be honest, most people can’t tell if this music is good or not. Like you can tell if it’s bad, but with a beautiful pad sound you can just play some 4 key chords and it’s very hard to tell.
I do like this, but at the same time, when you are the biggest band in the world, you should leave this off.
What I liked that was popular at the time in electronic music was that a lot of the big guys had about 5 aliases, so like if Thom Yorke wanted to put out this ambient song that he had spent a week on, instead of putting it on the Radiohead album, just release it under another name.
Optimistic
A ‘proper’ Radiohead song. This is one of those ones like ‘ah, yeah! I remember this’. This whole album is like this to be honest, like it is Radiohead, but was it from which album?
I guess when you have done so much stuff that’s pretty normal.
Nice normal folky guitar song, one thing of note, the drums have a really nice tribal sound. I really want to make a song with a crazy drum pattern called ‘Tribes’ but I have never managed it.
Sorry. It’s quite hard work to sit and write about an album live, pretty dumb idea really.
This is on Frank Ocean’s first album. I should have done Frank Ocean, he only has 3 albums
In Limbo
Another one. I’d forgotten about this, I love this song. The album is really picking up, I just looked at the tracklist and I’m in the home stretch lol.
‘You’re living in a fantasy’
I don’t remember if he still does it in the later stuff, but that thing of just getting some common phrase and putting it out of context by him singing it was a great technique. A good way to seem clever if you can pull it off, jus think of something that everyone says all of the time, and then say it ironically out of context and people will go ‘heh, very clever’ even if it barely makes sense.
Idioteque
A great song this is. Very nice beats and bleeps, I might sample that beat, it’s very simple, I just like the distortion. Although it’s really not that kind of song, I used to get drunk and sing along to this, on my own while I was writing essays for university, so kind of on brand.
I think what is good at about listening to this carefully is that the beats have a live element. Like it’s a drum machine, but they are putting bits in, while resisting the urge to just go overboard. Guaranteed when they played this live in 2001 they would make this bit go on for 10 minutes with all kinds of weird sounds, and people would think it was brilliant, but it actually wasn’t. Trust me, I was well into my experimental stuff, it’s never as good when you listen back.
Morning Bell
An ok song. It’s nice, it’s ok. Ok to be honest, although I was always a defender of the album, I also remember when OK Computer came out and the B sides were brilliant. This song and some of the others feel a bit like B sides. And then the next album is apparently the B sides. What is going on.
Maybe it’s me being grumpy, but I don’t like this song. It’s fine, if I could be bothered I would go through the remixes, this album could be great if they got someone to remix it.
Motion Pitcure Soundtrack
Yay! Last song! See I love the harmonium sound, it sounds like a sea song. This song is great. I wonder if it is me being grumpy, I liked most of the songs, I just don’t feel that charitable and it doesn’t all hang together.
It’s more a collection of songs than an album lol. This really makes me think of when I was married and I would go and visit my parents who were living in France. My wife didn’t come and I’d usually spend about a month just hanging out with my parents and going on long walks a lot of the time. It’s very nice in countryside you don’t know. I wouldn’t miss my wife for a couple of weeks to be honest, I’d just be happy to drink wine and eat French food and call her on Skype every couple of days. Then one day….
Ok. That’s that. A decent album, can definitely see why people were annoyed, it is a weird one. The thing was as well, they were getting into electronica because it was a much better field than rock at the time, but the people who were just doing electronica were doing stuff that was way better, so there’s sounded a bit like they were learning while the genre was just coming into it’s own.
A better mix of Idioteque as if you haven’t had enough
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