The Album Review Club - Christmas Break Until 8th January

RobMCFC said:
The Album Review Club

The moment that many have dreamed of.

The current round of albums is due to conclude with a couple of new nominators. The person scheduled for this week’s nomination has asked for another week to put a write-up together. I then put out a call to the last nominator on the list but have so far not received a reply.

This creates a problem because I don’t want to have an end-of-round playlist with just two weeks of the current round to go. Neither do I want to kick off a new round (because I’m not quite ready!)

But then the perfect solution occurred to me. What would be a good way to make a great thread even better? Here are some relevant comments from a few of the music threads:-

“I'm sorry if I inadvertently helped derail the thread but if it does get nominated by someone I look forward to discussing it.” – threespires

"Man, if this thread has a "norm" I'm not sure what it is! And that's what makes it great. And if you choose to select the hands-down most overrated record ever made, that would be fine :)." – FogBlueInSanFran

“I cannot think of another group that I have liked and then went downhill so fast.” – bennyboy

“It’s all subjective anyway but the ultimate arbiter will be the Bluemoon vote.” – journolud

"Radiohead for me as a young teen was just a great rock/indie band that stood outside the mix of Britpop" – BlueHammer85

Middle-aged gentlemen and slightly older gentlemen, without further ado, I give you:-

OK Computer by Radiohead.


Editor’s Note

Please note that this is a bonus selection, and not my selection. I look forward to listening and reviewing because I’ve never heard it.

In some ways, this subverts the normal process: we take it in turns to put forward a record that means a lot to us, we bare our souls and try to explain how our lives are intertwined with the songs, and we wait for our fellow forumites to agree with us or point out how we have been wrong all these years.

However, Radiohead, and OK Computer in particular, have come up so often in the various discussions that it somehow feels wrong not to listen to this album as a collective. A little sluggishness on the part of some new nominators, plus some intense discussion ahead of the eagerly awaited return of the Bluemoon Cup, have conspired to produce a glorious window of opportunity.

I was too good an opportunity to turn down, like a beautifully arcing Kevin De Bruyne pass that lands invitingly at the feet of a certain goal-hungry Viking.

OK Computer may have regularly featured in the Champions League places of many a post-year-2000 poll, but how will it fare in the harsh crucible of the Album Review Club league table? As @journolud says, “It’s all subjective anyway but the ultimate arbiter will be the Bluemoon vote.”

So, I look forward to applying a bit of science and cool, calm perspective to prove or disprove @FogBlueInSanFran ’s assertion that this is the most overrated album ever made.

I trust that everybody will take their duty seriously and play nice. Having said that, let battle commence.
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Oh dear....will have to prepare the house....music to slit my wrists to....would probably choose that over 3 listens too ;(
 
RobMCFC said:
Definitely not. This is a bonus selection due to a lack of other nominations.

I'll still be having my proper turn in a few weeks.
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In fairness, I think it is a great idea. I was half tempted to nominate it myself, last round. Never listened to it, so I would have been a bit loose with the 'must mean something to you' rule, but I would have argued that reading about them in some way every week for the last however many years, should now mean something to me. This way though, we all get to go through it, and nobody wastes a turn. Well played.
 
This was where Radiohead finally clicked together for me.
Pablo Honey was, bar a couple of songs, rubbish. The Bends had more good, if not even great songs, but still would’ve been better as an EP. OK Computer was their first album that I could listen to all the way through. ‘Lucky’ is a great song and clearly stands out sonically as being recorded at a different session, but apart from that, everything (including even the artwork) works perfectly as a whole. They’ve done very little that interests me since, the magnificent ‘Pyramid Song’ notwithstanding.
9/10.
 
My favourite of theirs.

Takes Bruce Springsteen's whole "There's a better life at the end of the highway for the blue-collar worker" ethos and dissolves it in a vat of dismal post-Thatcher British acid. There is no better life and no future of freedom for the average person, just a prescribed existence of punching numbers in an office somewhere, watching the idiot box, eating shit, voting for politicians who think you're filth, and necking tablets for an array of conditions brought on by all of the above. Then you'll either slip away of old age with no alarms and no surprises or die in some tragic accident before you can be pulled out of the crash.

The album we should have all paid attention to in the mid-90s instead of playing Morning Glory for the 100th time.

Only complaint - it's not really a complaint, to be honest - is that it wasn't 14 tracks with 'I Promise' and 'Polyethelene 1 & 2' on there as well.



 
youngbob said:
My favourite of theirs.

Takes Bruce Springsteen's whole "There's a better life at the end of the highway for the blue-collar worker" ethos and dissolves it in a vat of dismal post-Thatcher British acid. There is no better life and no future of freedom for the average person, just a prescribed existence of punching numbers in an office somewhere, watching the idiot box, eating shit, voting for politicians who think you're filth, and necking tablets for an array of conditions brought on by all of the above. Then you'll either slip away of old age with no alarms and no surprises or die in some tragic accident before you can be pulled out of the crash.

The album we should have all paid attention to in the mid-90s instead of playing Morning Glory for the 100th time.

Only complaint - it's not really a complaint, to be honest - is that it wasn't 14 tracks with 'I Promise' and 'Polyethelene 1 & 2' on there as well.



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It's on my version, what's the score young shaver me lad?
 
like others I only have this and ‘The Bends’ in my collection, also gave up on them after ‘Kid A’.
Not listened to them since, it’ll be interesting my feelings towards it now especially after the last nomination.
 
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