The Album Review Club - Christmas Break Until 8th January

RobMCFC said:
Yeah, I have written 3 books and regularly post videos that get plenty of views and comments. On the whole, the feedback is positive but you do get occasional barbs that you have to learn to live with. You can’t please all of the people all of the time, so if you please most people most of the time, you’re doing well.
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Wonder if it is anything I would have read, or seen! Don't tell me, prefer the mystery.

People regularly comment on my work, it is just a part of it, I am used to it. Including a few bluemooners over the years. There have been instances where a couple posters have, in discussion, unknowingly cited or referred me to my own stuff. I was at least once half tempted to poke more out of them as they went on to explain it to me, but didn't want to be a dobber.

When I come across it, don't mind reading it when I have the time, if there isn't too much. I don't dwell on it or look for it. Sometimes it is good, sometimes rough, sometimes I think it meaningless or misplaced. Sometines folk nail it, and the interesting ones surprise me, or pick up things I, at least consciously didn't intend or notice. I generally never engage though. I'm in the 'you don't need to lnow how to cook to comment on a dish' camp, but it helps and is evident when people do know a little bit.

There was one particular somewhat redefining event that made me rethink things. One of mine was a finalist for an award. The other in it, was very different, and I felt neither was was better or worse as such, just different. Whoever ended up winning it would be based on what, more than how good, and I mostly felt the other had a better chance. Before announcing it, they went on to read a 'what the judges had to say' bit. And as they started, I felt, hang on, I'm in here. With every line I was more convinced it was about mine, to the point I subconsciously shifted to the edge of my seat ready to go up collect the award. Of course, it wasn't, lol. But it genuinely blew my mind. Not the not winning bit, but how people, qualifed an informed, could see such similarities in two, to me, very different things. Since then my view on people's opinions has never been the same.

I did end up feeling some level of validation later that night, when speaking to the winner, she said that as they read it out she was convinced it was about mine and she was out, so that made me feel better. Maybe they just got the wrong envelope, who knows ;).

Anyway, people see/hear different things in stuff, that's just the way of it. And people comment on stuff by others too, berate it or eulogise about it.
 
Coatigan said:
Wonder if it is anything I would have read, or seen! Don't tell me, prefer the mystery.

People regularly comment on my work, it is just a part of it, I am used to it. Including a few bluemooners over the years. There have been instances where a couple posters have, in discussion, unknowingly cited or referred me to my own stuff. I was at least once half tempted to poke more out of them as they went on to explain it to me, but didn't want to be a dobber.

When I come across it, don't mind reading it when I have the time, if there isn't too much. I don't dwell on it or look for it. Sometimes it is good, sometimes rough, sometimes I think it meaningless or misplaced. Sometines folk nail it, and the interesting ones surprise me, or pick up things I, at least consciously didn't intend or notice. I generally never engage though. I'm in the 'you don't need to lnow how to cook to comment on a dish' camp, but it helps and is evident when people do know a little bit.

There was one particular somewhat redefining event that made me rethink things. One of mine was a finalist for an award. The other in it, was very different, and I felt neither was was better or worse as such, just different. Whoever ended up winning it would be based on what, more than how good, and I mostly felt the other had a better chance. Before announcing it, they went on to read a 'what the judges had to say' bit. And as they started, I felt, hang on, I'm in here. With every line I was more convinced it was about mine, to the point I subconsciously shifted to the edge of my seat ready to go up collect the award. Of course, it wasn't, lol. But it genuinely blew my mind. Not the not winning bit, but how people, qualifed an informed, could see such similarities in two, to me, very different things. Since then my view on people's opinions has never been the same.

I did end up feeling some level of validation later that night, when speaking to the winner, she said that as they read it out she was convinced it was about mine and she was out, so that made me feel better. Maybe they just got the wrong envelope, who knows ;).

Anyway, people see/hear different things in stuff, that's just the way of it. And people comment on stuff by others too, berate it or eulogise about it.
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C'mon you can't tell us half the tale! Books too? Visual arts? Artisanal master baker? Prize marrows? Cool if you're an artist but cooler still if bread and cake are involved!

Hang on, you're not fucking Limmy are you!?
 
threespires said:
C'mon you can't tell us half the tale! Books too? Visual arts? Artisanal master baker? Prize marrows? Cool if you're an artist but cooler still if bread and cake are involved!

Hang on, you're not fucking Limmy are you!?
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Ha. Like your many endeavours and roles you have had over the years (which always intrigue and impress me) the point is the lesson learned more than the context. The journey rather than the vehicle, or something like that.
 
Coatigan said:
Tried this album in a few different ways. Currently listening to it in what is probably its most appropriate relative setting. A Peter Howson exhibition.

Not planned it, juat happened to have my earphones on me and thought worth trying it. If that doesn't work, nothing will.
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Go to a Stephen Howson exhibition and bring along “Clown Time: Greatest Hits of the Circus”.
 
journolud said:
This album is being held up as an extreme cynical exercise, the disconnect between the apparent message it delivers and the people delivering.
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I know that Radiohead can be a polarizing band (groundbreakers, or art-school wankers?), but a lot of the commentary on this thread about the question of the message and its authenticity is deeply revisionist. When it came out, it was simply lauded as good music. For sure, there’s a theme running though it all, but that’s not new and popular music since it’s very inception has been about a very limited palette of lyrical themes, ‘the man’ being one of them. Falling in/ out of love, being downtrodden/ the blues and, more recently, being empowered and getting ahead, being pretty much all of the others.
 
City is on the precipice of doing something no other team in the EPL has ever done. For the sake of "peace in the valley" and all of that, I'm taking at least a 24 hour break from listening to and thinking about Radiohead and this album selection and am now ready to unite with all Blues to win this tomorrow.

I realize I'm a (now southern) "Yank" with no chance of experiencing the euphoria of what those of you attending or suffering through Sky coverage will experience tomorrow, but if you're here and you got a story, I'm all in to hear it. I will not speak of Radiohead for the next 24 hours, only City Blues. Sorry, @RobMCFC, but it is truly time to "Come Together" (The Beatles were Everton fans, I might add).

@FogBlueInSanFran , keep a keen eye on Tim Howard tomorrow in the coverage if the Arse goes up early. He will be giddy. Just saying. I was feet away from him as I was on national TV in Nashville and I kept my composure under your advisement. 6:30am CDT helped...

@LGWIO , I wish a happy final game for your squad tomorrow too. Kudos to your team and coach on a legacy he has left. All respect.
 
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roman totale said:
I know that Radiohead can be a polarizing band (groundbreakers, or art-school wankers?), but a lot of the commentary on this thread about the question of the message and its authenticity is deeply revisionist. When it came out, it was simply lauded as good music. For sure, there’s a theme running though it all, but that’s not new and popular music since it’s very inception has been about a very limited palette of lyrical themes, ‘the man’ being one of them. Falling in/ out of love, being downtrodden/ the blues and, more recently, being empowered and getting ahead, being pretty much all of the others.
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And I would say the evidence points to those that laud it for its message as the actual revisionists (compare the reviews to what the band members themselves said about it), though I suppose all criticism is revisionist to a certain degree. I’d also note some of the records I like best of all aren’t limited in theme palette (ever listened to London Calling, mate?).
 
All music is derivative of some other music and OK Computer is. I hear elements of certain records from the past cleverly melded into their songs. I must admit to jealousy, as a part time musician and wannabe songwriter (who has sold 400...YES 400 :)) albums. I wish I'd come up with the songs, musical ideas and the harmonically expansive big sellers they did.
I've always thought there is something about Radiohead is extremely British, you can almost hear the Britishness, a sense of gloomy foreboding, an unease of societal issues, the everlasting misery of the climate is inherent, :) and it extols that cold, forever cloudy greyness one grows up with in the long winters. Ray Davies was always very good at this in some of his British flavoured songs like "Dead End Street" & "Shangri-La"
I can tell you first hand ....It's hard to be this miserable in a sunshiny blue sky country !

I see OK Computer as an important album, a much more musically sophisticated album that say, anything by other popular bands of the time, like Oasis for example. Surely there would be no Muse if there hadn't been Radiohead?
Unusual chord sequences and time signatures. The albums longest track "Paranoid Android" seems to me to owe it's formula to The Beatles "Happiness Is A Warm Gun". Not in a sense of melody or even chord structure but more in a sense of 3 (even 4) differing passages that feel as if they belong together. Not many bands seem to be able to fit this many completely disparate components into 1 song. I remember buying The Beatles White Album and thinking that.
Another big nod to The White Album (Specifically the track "Sexy Sadie") comes in the copied chord sequence and direct feel in the track "Karma Police" "This is what you'll get" refrain, melodically slightly different but harmonically exactly the same. I must admit I copped that first time I heard it :)
An inordinate amount of care was taken over the recording of this album, any fool can tell that! Delay & reverb were carefully selected, and I believe natural reverb was used largely in some manor house that probably one of their parents owned :)
I've worked out the harmony structures for all this album and can confirm there are many what I call "deep dives" where the music is kinda tootling along then suddenly - Wham! another atonal heavy guitar laden onslaught down the the minor 3rd chord from the more optimistic major root key. Like in "Sexy Sadie" G-F# (happyish) then Bminor, (hang on, something serious is happening) also plenty of 9th and diminished chord tones .....They do this quite a bit and I must admit it's very effective.
Anyway, I hear a lot of Miles Davis "Bitches Brew" period with the thick sonic layering and unusual appearance of instruments, like the sudden appearance of a tasteful Bass guitar halfway through the verse of "Airbag" and then it suddenly disappears, then re-appears later. Nice touch.
That heavy guitar in "Airbag" is very King Crimsonesque especially their song "Fallen Angel" in fact I think Crimson are a big influence RH, you can hear at the beginning of "Airbag" the distorted guitar doubled up with a cello (an old Crimson thing).
What RH achieved though was similar to Pink Floyd, commercial sales with music that has unusual disparate elements (especially time signatures), Crimson never achieved mainstream popularity like Floyd (and RH) did.

It's an important album though and I really like it. They do borrow but the sound of Radiohead is pretty unique and their sound is their own, this sound was something fresh in the 90's. I personally think "Paranoid Android" is the most inventive and interesting single since "Strawberry Fields Forever" but that's just my opinion and I don't expect anybody to agree with me :)
There are some albums that I think of as representative of that decade (for me) "Dark Side Of The Moon" 70's, Sgt Pepper 60's. "Thriller" 80's..... OK Computer imo is the album of the 90s and a fine phsyc/art rock album it is.
Well done Radiohead, a genuine classic, I'll go for 8/10
 
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