The everyone LOVES radiohead thread!

[VinylGuy]

OK Computer and In Rainbows, I agree, are the twin pillars. Complimenting TKOL while bad-mouthing The Bends, however, makes me want to throw up.

Agree with everything.

[Norah]

I think Street Spirit and Talk Show Host are easily the best Bends era songs.

And The Bends and Fake Plastic Trees the most overrated.

Fake Plastic Trees is properly rated.

[VinylGuy]

fuck, fake plastic trees is so goddamn good.

[epilogue]

Just is my personal favorite song on The Bends. I love the holy hell out of that song.

[Birds in Hell]

I agree with KD that The Bends is tough to sit through. Though for me it's less about Yorke's voice and more just the general nature and quality of the songwriting, which I think is leagues below what came after.

I just don't think Radiohead were particularly great as a straight-ahead grunge/brit-pop outfit. And while there's definitely some forward-thinking stuff on that album ("Planet Telex"), songs like "Just" and "Bones" just strike me as painfully middle of the road '90's rockers, not much better than the stuff on Pablo Honey. I think it's an uneven record, at best.

I'm inclined to agree that the b-sides are superior, too. I think "Talk Show Host" is easily their best song pre-OK Computer.

Hard agree on all of this.

[VinylGuy]

I dont know guys, The Bends sound so good to me.

[digster]

The thing about The Bends for me (and this mirrors something Blaine said), is that it's a pretty inconsistent listen to me. The stuff I love (Telex, Fake Plastic Trees, Street Spirit, a few others) I really love, but there's quite a few songs on that record that I haven't listened to in ages. It's not that I remember them being bad, they were just kind of average for me compared to a lot of what came next.

[Strat]

Talk Show Host is so good.

The Bend is fantastic for what it is. Nothing wrong with being a regular grunge/brit pop record. If nothing came after it i think most would still consider it a great album.

Unfortunately for The Bends, a far higher brilliance was upon the horizon.

[epilogue]

I do think all of the b-sides/outtakes from The Bends era are outstanding.

[Kevin Davis]

OK Computer and In Rainbows, I agree, are the twin pillars. Complimenting TKOL while bad-mouthing The Bends, however, makes me want to throw up.

I hope you didn't -- throwing up sucks. At least let me explain myself.

Neither of these albums registers with me emotionally, but "The King of Limbs" very much engages me intellectually and aesthetically -- there are structures, arrangements, musical concepts, etc. on that album that really perk my ears up (the out-of-focus main motif to "Bloom," and its relationship to the rhythm; the amazing harmony in the chorus of "Lotus Flower"; the sense of rhythm-as-main-riff, similar to Miles Davis's "On the Corner" album, in "Separator"), and the whole thing flows with a certain consistent but kinetic internal logic that never overstays its welcome in any one place. The individual songs aren't quite strong enough in a nuts-and-bolts, you-could-remove-all-the-instruments-and-play-these-songs-on-just-a-piano-and-they'd-still-be-amazing sense to crack the upper tier of their catalog, but they're also propped up by each other in a way that makes them, to me, more satisfying than some of their other albums comprised perhaps of stronger individual tracks.

"The Bends" just feels like an average alternative rock album to me, with a few pretty good songs and a lot of mid-range junk, the kind of album that was basically the industry standard in 1995. Unlike many such albums, though, it bears the distinction of being a sort of last stop on an ascent toward one of the highest universally lauded artistic peaks in recent music history, as opposed to just another okay album that produced a couple modest hits in a musical world where modest hits came and went every couple weeks. Wilco's "Being There," an album I personally like more, but at least half of which is painfully average, occupies a similar place in the pantheon -- a not-bad but generally unremarkable work that benefits from the retroactive glow of its successors. None of which is to diminish anyone's personal connection to the album -- I certainly have my share of kind-of-okay '90's favorites -- but I think the album's reputation is unduly inflated as a result of this, and I would be surprised if people just hearing both of these albums ("The Bends" and "KOL") for the first time today perceived their discrepancies the same way as someone who has been following Radiohead since the '90's perceives them. Personally, I would enjoy "The Bends" a lot more if Yorke's vocal mannerisms, which were undisciplined and undernuanced at this time -- again, not unlike EV's in the early days -- weren't so prevalent in some of its key tracks, and if there wasn't such an abundance of non-key tracks. I will agree with you on one thing though: "Just" is probably my favorite song on it.

[Blaine Ryan]

KD, sometimes your ability to articulate my thoughts exactly in a more intelligent and thoughtful way than I could possibly muster just bowls me over. Props to you, sir.

[Kevin Davis]

Aw, thanks Blaine -- you're not so bad yourself.

Listening to the "From the Basement" version of "Bloom" from Ridley's comp now -- at one point there are three different rhythms fighting with each other, the fact that something so tangible rises from so much complexity and eventually coheres into something so lovely (and the fact that they're able to so effectively perform it live!) is a thing of wonder. One of their flat-out best songs as far as I'm concerned.

[ridleybradout]

KD, sometimes your ability to articulate my thoughts exactly in a more intelligent and thoughtful way than I could possibly muster just bowls me over. Props to you, sir.

Blaine Ryan, sometimes your ability to articulate the way KD articulates my thoughts exactly in a more intelligent and thoughtful way than I could possibly muster just bowls me over. Props to you, sir.

[Blaine Ryan]

KD, sometimes your ability to articulate my thoughts exactly in a more intelligent and thoughtful way than I could possibly muster just bowls me over. Props to you, sir.

Blaine Ryan, sometimes your ability to articulate the way KD articulates my thoughts exactly in a more intelligent and thoughtful way than I could possibly muster just bowls me over. Props to you, sir.

[epilogue]

KD is smart and articulate. He's a genuine treasure and I always value his input.

I think, however, what he calls strengths of TKOL are mostly weaknesses to me.

For me, the album lacks cohesion and stick as a result.

[epilogue]

But KD totes has me questioning myself on this.

[ridleybradout]

Having said I agree with KD’s thoughts on TKOL, I do find that I respect Bloom more than I actually enjoy it.

[gardenparty]

I love many things about King of Limbs and rank it somewhere in the middle of the catalog. Mr. Magpie is definitely the low point

[Chris_H_2]

i just realized that a moon shaped pool was released in 2016. that album does not feel 3 years old already.

[bodysnatcher]

i just realized that a moon shaped pool was released in 2016. that album does not feel 3 years old already.

yeah that's crazy




**reevaluates the last 3 years of my life**