On the Shelf 172: Radiohead
Sep. 8th, 2016 08:20 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
bedsitter23Another review that is old-ish, but I am a big Radiohead fan, so I need to get it out there.
Radiohead's ninth album A Moon Shaped Pool was an odd release and this was heavily commented on. For starters, the band removed all social media presence. Then when they did release the album, the tracks were presented in alphabetical order. Was this the end of the road for Radiohead?
Not helping was that the mix of songs revealed a clearinghouse of ideas. Obviously, even the casualest of Radiohead knew closing track "True Love Waits" was a staple - released 15 years ago on the live Radiohead album I Might Be Wrong. Diehardest of fans knew stuff that i did not- such as the lyrics for "Burn the Witch" had been circulated over the internet for a decade, and its origin as well as some of the other songs went back as far as the Kid A era.
So, was this the end?
That conversation quickly ended as indie critics embraced AMSP like few other albums. The Album of the Year.org website which tracks multiple reviews listed AMSP for most of the year as the #1 rated album of the album (it now shows as #3), beating out such heavyweights as Blackstar and The Life of Pablo.
The universal consensus was AMSP was a masterpiece.
Which makes this review awkward, but it's not the first time I disagreed with the critics.
To rip off a line of the Doobies, AMSP is just alright.
I like the album as would be expected from any thing from the band. I just don't think it's the band's best work. To me, the "old songs' are kind of a distraction, and I think it feels like 'odds and sods' collection.
"TLW" is a great song, but it also sounds like it did when it first got its live version release, where it fit better with the Kid A songs, not far removed from OK Computer. Whereas say, "Daydreaming' fits in with the most recent releases.
A lot of critics have made the comparison to Yorke's (and Greenwood's) solo work. It's probably not the best comparison of the music, but it is worth bringing up. The songs to me at least feel like Yorke's solo work in that I feel the aural soundscape is the most important thing and the vocals/lyrics fall into the background. But there's no doubt on songs like "The Numbers" flower into full orchestration over their six minutes. These certainly are Radiohead songs.
My issue may indeed be that there's no great single. "TLW" is a wonderful song and "Burn the Witch" is another keeper, but there's no real beacon like "15Step" or "Knives Out" or "Everything in its right place". With a strong single or two, I wonder if I would elevate my opinion.
The truth though is that I don't mean to slight it. I think it is still a solid album. The two singles - "Burn the Witch" and "Daydreaming" are strong additions, and at worst, there are no bad tracks, and at best there are songs like "Desert Island Disk" which show what the band does best.
Radiohead's ninth album A Moon Shaped Pool was an odd release and this was heavily commented on. For starters, the band removed all social media presence. Then when they did release the album, the tracks were presented in alphabetical order. Was this the end of the road for Radiohead?
Not helping was that the mix of songs revealed a clearinghouse of ideas. Obviously, even the casualest of Radiohead knew closing track "True Love Waits" was a staple - released 15 years ago on the live Radiohead album I Might Be Wrong. Diehardest of fans knew stuff that i did not- such as the lyrics for "Burn the Witch" had been circulated over the internet for a decade, and its origin as well as some of the other songs went back as far as the Kid A era.
So, was this the end?
That conversation quickly ended as indie critics embraced AMSP like few other albums. The Album of the Year.org website which tracks multiple reviews listed AMSP for most of the year as the #1 rated album of the album (it now shows as #3), beating out such heavyweights as Blackstar and The Life of Pablo.
The universal consensus was AMSP was a masterpiece.
Which makes this review awkward, but it's not the first time I disagreed with the critics.
To rip off a line of the Doobies, AMSP is just alright.
I like the album as would be expected from any thing from the band. I just don't think it's the band's best work. To me, the "old songs' are kind of a distraction, and I think it feels like 'odds and sods' collection.
"TLW" is a great song, but it also sounds like it did when it first got its live version release, where it fit better with the Kid A songs, not far removed from OK Computer. Whereas say, "Daydreaming' fits in with the most recent releases.
A lot of critics have made the comparison to Yorke's (and Greenwood's) solo work. It's probably not the best comparison of the music, but it is worth bringing up. The songs to me at least feel like Yorke's solo work in that I feel the aural soundscape is the most important thing and the vocals/lyrics fall into the background. But there's no doubt on songs like "The Numbers" flower into full orchestration over their six minutes. These certainly are Radiohead songs.
My issue may indeed be that there's no great single. "TLW" is a wonderful song and "Burn the Witch" is another keeper, but there's no real beacon like "15Step" or "Knives Out" or "Everything in its right place". With a strong single or two, I wonder if I would elevate my opinion.
The truth though is that I don't mean to slight it. I think it is still a solid album. The two singles - "Burn the Witch" and "Daydreaming" are strong additions, and at worst, there are no bad tracks, and at best there are songs like "Desert Island Disk" which show what the band does best.
