thoughts on hail to the thief?

1. 2+2=5 [3:24]
2. Sit Down Stand Up [4:15]
3. Sail To The moon [4:28]
4. Backdrifts [5:32] *there's a definite fake that is 4:01*
5. Go To Sleep [3:31]
6. Where You End... [4:34]
7. We Suck Young Blood [4:59]
8. The Gloaming [4:23] *there's a definite fake that is 5+ minutes*
9. There There [5:25]
10.I Will [2:25]
11.Punchup at a Wedding [4:55]
12.Myxomatosis [3:58]
13.Scatterbrain [3:24]
14.Wolf At The Door [3:25]

This album is so much better than their last two that it's not even funny.

Which, erm, is not to say that I've downloaded them or anything...

Now that it's been leaked they should change the title again.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

And now for some undercooked and hastily judgmental musings on Hail to the Thief, the upcoming Radiohead album which appeared today on your favorite p2p network.

"2+2=5," an incredibly uninteresting title rather fits this equally uninteresting rock n' roll opener. Last time they did this, it was called "Electioneering" and they had the decency to bury it mid-album. Things get slightly better with the second track, "Sit Down Stand Up." The first half of this track wouldn't have sounded out of place at all on Coldplay's latest album. Fortunately, the crazy synths come in, building the song to an eventual ejaculation of repeated phrases and tribal-style drumming. "Sail to the Moon" once again reveals Yorke's self-indulgent enjoyment of sitting behind a piano and slurring his vocals into the ether; but it's been done much better on past efforts. Matthew is convinced "Backdrifts" is one of the best things Radiohead have ever recorded. Hmmm, really? It sounds like a lazy version of "Everything in its Right Place" from Kid A, a song which really is one of the best things Radiohead have ever recorded. Next, we have "Go to Sleep." I'm as happy as any of you that the band have rediscovered a use for their guitars, but this song is neither here nor there (although, it's in a vein similar to "Paranoid Android" without the epic length).

Ahhh, here's a good one. "Where I End and You Begin" doesn't really resemble any other Radiohead track I've ever heard. A shuffling, dancy beat and some Eno-esque ambience in the background, combined with a lack of vocal theatrics from Mr. Yorke make for a wonderful song indeed. Following it with "We Suck Young Blood" was a bad idea. Kill me now, before I have to listen to this whole song...oh wait, it just went into a different and possibly interesting directi...oh, never mind. "The Gloaming" is little more than one or two of the band's members dicking around with some beat software while Yorke does his thing...next!

"There There." The inclusion of this song makes a strong case for the redemption of this album. Sure, it's just a basic guitar/bass/drums midtempo rock song, but the mood created with this one is really comfortable, whereas some of the more experimental things they're trying sound forced and lifeless. "I Will" -- nothing to see here, so let's move on. "Punch Up at a Wedding," for some reason, reminds me of the Bee Gees on Xanax...go figure. "Myxamatosis," while not particularly brilliant, does serve to break up the monotony created by the overall melancholy of the album with some punchy fuzz bass and funky drum work. However, "Scatterbrain" once again brings the mood down with a tenth-generation bastardization of "Street Spirit (Fade Out)" that's neither well done nor memorable.

Closing out the album is "A Wolf at the Door;" a song which may or may not be a good way to sum up all that's happened during our travel with the band through the course of Hail to the Thief. It's not flashy, it's not terribly pretentious, but it's not as beautifully constructed as songs they've written in the past, either. It just sits there, daring you to form an opinion one way or another about its absolute mediocrity. What a drag.

Hoping. Not expecting.

anyway I think the above review is way off base, but I'll let the more fanatical supporters here have at it.

Here's hoping it will repay more listens like Amnesiac did, and not aggravate me the more I hear it like Kid A. Melissa, please write more - I need to muster your level of enthusiasm!

I might write a review for my site at some point.

"2+2=5": the way Thom does the "gonna hail to the thief, hail to the thief" line justifies titling the album after it.

"We Suck Young Blood" is so incredibly slow and painful that I can't picture anyone putting themselves through the torture of recording it. I mean all this in the best way possible of course.

Thom's vocals are much more dynamic and vivid than on the last two, although I would've preferred a more vicious take on "Myxomatosis" than the somewhat sterilized version on the album (subject to change, of course...).

But the main feeling I have overall is that there is going to be an irritating number of critics calling this a "return to form", which it isn't, becuase they were never OUT of form. There's just no stopping these guys...

on the album: it's not a masterpiece, but i can't get over how fucking uneasy it is

when they have ideas, radiohead are still pretty unassailable

Potential Grateful Dead/Radiohead/"Apache" mashup: Aoxomyaxamichealangomatosis

good one mark. really.

julio, as someone who's been saying the exact same thing in the exact same way for like forever, i don't know if you're in a particularly good position to be self-appointing yourself as marshall of the kangaroo court on crimes of unoriginality

I still haven't formulated any real thoughts on it.

So far, there is only the happy dance.

At any rate, it gives a little insight into the mastering process to hear both versions...

WTF are you talking abt? I'm just having my fun.

but yr comment was funny bcz it was, you know, rubbish!

i just don't see the gigantic leaps OK Computer and Kid A took. and that's what made me really like Radiohead.

you're like my quantizer

"Its the rough mixes ....
some tracks not even finished.
aint that a bitch?
Not really what I'd want the world to hear, frankly.
boo."

For those who haven't heard it, they've got back to the
guitars. It doesn't feel much like _Kid A_ or _Amnesiac_;
it hies back to OK Computer, but sparser (at least
in this form) and more twisted. It's as if the band has
finally realized the spirit of _Kid A_'s hidden booklet
or "chikken voices" line.

I can't work out whether Thom's voice is starting to go, or whether he's deliberately abusing his voice throughout much of the record. There's something really uncomfortable about his voice at the beginning of Backdrafts.

Then there are the bits - oh look, here comes track 12 now to illustrate my point - that are caught a little awkwardly between poles, trying to placate the arena with one hand and triggering samples on a laptop with t'other. That's where it falls down.

Please forgive my shit metaphors and what have you, I'm writing this off the bat.

ha! look who's talking?

That is all.

it's pretty bland innit, this radiohead thing? like the events of the past 18 months sucked all of the range they had developed over the last three-four years right out of them leaving gloopy piano dirges and poly-rhythmic idm skingrafts that didn't quite take.

the end!

I like the rest very much. Especially the gloopy piano dirges and polyrhythmic IDM skingrafts that I reckon are their best forays into electronic so far...

"Hey listen...

Its not that it's not mastered........

It's not mixed!

Some of it isn't even finished.

comprendez?"

Matt is OTM - Myxomatosis is now officially my least favourite Radiohead song ever - even worse than Idioteque. Fortunately, when I buy the CD I will program it out and enjoy the other thirteen. And even unfinished I enjoy them and am hugely excited about what the already-great "Wolf at the door", "Sit down stand up" and "Backdrifts" will sound like fully completed.

!!!

that sounds incredible.

Another thing I love about this record - the harmonies... apart from Paranoid Android, Radiohead never really did harmonies, but some of the two or three part stuff on this album is gorgeous. I Will is amazing...

One of the big strengths of "Idioteque" is the vocal arrangement on the chorus.

"So it turns out the leaked music is a stolen copy of early, unmixed edits and roughs - so we're kind of pissed off about it, to be honest.

I see it like this (this is just me): there's napster-style file sharing of released music, then there's early internet distribution of what we at least consider to be a finished body of work. Then there's this - work we've not finished, being released in this sloppy way, ten weeks before the real version is even available. It doesn't even exist as a record yet.....

So yes, we're annoyed - the songs are good on the recordings, which you can hear. But we worked on them after this point until we were happy with them. This is why we're pissed off - we didn't give up on them in February (which is what you're hearing) and it's just a shame that, to your ears, we did.

So of course people will still download them and hear them, I can understand the temptation. It's not you lot I'm pissed off about, it's just the situation I guess. It's stolen work, fer fuck's sake.

What do you all think ? I know it'll come out for real eventually, and it'll all be fine, but I though you all might as well know what's in my head....

That's all. I thankew.

prissy artiste whinge over.

Are we all well though ? "

Things just got interesting again.

Radiohead to bundle new album with reworked Pablo Honey

Radiohead is set to release its new album Hail To The Thief on 06.10, and will include a reworked and rerecorded version of its Pablo Honey album with the collection, according to a news post on the band's website. Radiohead's publicist was not available to comment on the post.

The highlight of the reworked tracks is a new version of the band's first hit "Creep," complete with a clarinet/tuba/mouth harp track. Vocalist Thom Yorke allegedly sang the vocals backwards, then in the studio it was reversed, and then reversed again for a "stunning" version of the tune.

The band is working once again with producer Nigel Godrich, who co-produced 2001's Amnesiac.

The Zone thicker than I thought.

But 94.7 is called "The Zone", sorry.

I'm gonna wear it out.

But if you're a fan, is your fanhood so content-specific that said guitarist's preference, i.e. that you not listen to these things nor pass them around, is of no interest to you? What I'm asking is, when you're a Great Big Fan of an artist, does your strong feeling for the band's music not spill over into hoping that the band's work be received as they would prefer to have it received, and do you not have some responsibility in that regard?

(NB I am all in favor of filesharing, this quesiton does not equal "I wish people wouldn't leak my songs")

I understand why he wouldn't want people to hear them, but I already have and adore them, and I can't exactly take it back. And even if I knew that this was his mindset before I had downloaded the album, I think I would have gone ahead anyway. I'm a big enough fan that this is actually really cool to me, to be able to hear the songs at an earlier stage in the process than is usually afforded to mere fans.

I think his frustration lies in the fact that sites are already posting reviews of the album, or that fans are saying, "God, they screwed this song up big time," when the album is really obviously not done and that sort of judgment should be reserved.

Pretty much my take. And I still think that if they are rough cuts then they're extremely well done ones.

If the band were EMBARRASSED by these songs, they shouldn't have even recorded them in the first place (or erased then once they had recorded them) -

So Jonny has the right idea. Fanboys will be fanboys. That said, I'd consider myslef more a 'casual fan' and i've downloaded a lot of it and really like it a lot. And I can't wait to hear the finished version, though I doubt I will be quite Comic-Book-Guy enough to meticulously compare the two versions, unless I have to review it.

"oh, you know, those were just sketches, I'd rather you didn't look in my notebook, I'll show it to you when it's done"

"screw you mr artist man! i'll tell you what your art is all about!"

aspect of it that gives me the creepie crawlies

But yeah, you're right, as an artist, I know I'd hunt down and kill anyone who leaked any of my own private recordings. But I'd still expect that anyone who was interested could / would / should head over to ebay and get a copy, by any means necessary, ya know?

Just in general mood, somehow.

i don't see this, really. nobody is telling radiohead what their art is all about (or at least, i'm not - you will find no 'hail to the thief' reviews on my blog until it's released), nor are we presuming that we have a right to see this material. it was out there, so we downloaded it. if i were radiohead, i'd say they have much more ground to feel slighted by whoever leaked it; obviously they were no friend of the band, since they denied the band control over the presentation of their art. once 'hail to the thief' pops up on soulseek, the art has been presented - the question is, do we run out of the room with our fingers in our ears screaming "thom did not want it this waaay", or do we just behave like adults and agree to listen out of curiosity, while maintaining an open mind to the possibility that the final version will be different?

on the "rough material" issue: i surely hope that the final product doesn't screw up the overall feel of the alb. i have now. (although some songs do need some extra work on the sound)
i always like to hear the evolution of material (songs), so i'll definately keep this "rough mixes"-ablum next to the final album, for comparison. [just like wilco's YHF + the YHF-demos are also great together]

[oh, and just imagining a live performance of "2+2=5" gives me the chills already...]

Of course this is more of a record label marketing whatevah which doesn't work that well anyway, coz the record will just get bootlegged AFTER it is released anyway.

not downloading the stuff isn't equivalent to plugging your ears any more than declining a bite of a sandwich which you know was stolen right out of somebody's hands is equivalent to not eating a sandwich you found in your fridge

again, this isn't a filesharing issue! not arguing about peer-to-peers, only about the questionable ethics of listening to stuff that bands didn't want you to hear and never consented, anywhwere ever, to the hearing thereof

Devendra/Iron & Wine totally unrelated issue -- I'm not the man to say that unfinished recordings are bad! ;)

This record, or at least these rough mixes, have reminded me of the other thing about Radiohead that sometimes puts me off: outside of their rock-pop mode, their music-for-apocalypse impulse is completely hamstrung by the fact that they no longer have any interest in dynamics, in the creation and release of tension, or shape or resolution or anything else. A song starts; it sounds really, really nice. Yorke comes in mumbling eerily. Sweet: everything feels loose, like it's going to go somewhere. It never does. It just wallows there. There's a bit where Greenwood makes some cool guitar noises, then toward the end Yorke starts wailing more than mumbling. Thanks. At their worst they really sound to me like someone picked up a pretty nicely-produced ambient record, cued it up, and then sat down with a lyric sheet and improvised some singing over it. And then had Greenwood come in with a guitar and do the same for forty-five seconds.

It's like they've become so taken with sound that they've forgotten the issue of shape -- the issue most of the people working in much more abstracted areas have to be sort of obsessed with, because it's the only thing that gives their music any concrete grounding. That said, on the sound front this record is excellent, and the first twenty or so seconds of each song would really send me if I didn't know in the back of my mind that I was going to be disappointed in a minute or so. "We Suck Young Blood" -- the handclap in particular -- is amazing. "Myxablahblahblahtosis," which I assume will be much stronger in the final mix, sounds ridiculously good, too, up until you realize that sounding really good is all it will ever be up to. It's this cathedral-building thing in action again: it's like they want to write these songs that will sound godlike and transcendent, so they start with these ominous immersive intros -- but that's it! They completely bail when it comes to the part where the song is actually supposed to get godlike and transcendent! Almost everything they've done on their last three albums seems like the warm-up to some shattering life-changing resolution that never actually comes, one long drum roll with nothing at the end!

Which is why, tragically, I always wind up liking their most trad-rock songs the best, because at least in that context they have some sense of how to make the damn things move. I still remember listening to Kid A for the first time and being completely on my toes through "Everything in its Right Place," all that tension building, the sense of something amazing coming up ... and then it never came, and a year later I was just contenting myself with something like "Knives Out" being pretty good. Another album and still, "Everything in its Right Place" hasn't been completed.

re: cathedral-building, there is definitely a sense that this is 'epic' pop somehow, that they are not just knocking out widdle rock choons, but 'hail to the thief' seems much less aware of this than their last two records. look at 'there there', for example. their songs are loaded with tension, but tension and release don't have to be a 1:1 equation - you can get more of one than the other and still have a good song. 'everything in its right place' worked for me because in the context of the album (and they are definitely thinking about songs' places in the album), it faked you out. instead of a big explosion, it went for a quiet interlude with 'kid a' and THEN gave you a big explosion with 'the national anthem', which i would argue is one of the best examples of tension and release in recent years - when the bottom drops out and all that's left is the horns, i am killed every time.

DUDE! That song is all about chord progression resolution! U R all mad.

You know, I think this is what _did_ it for me. Not that this grand impulse
hasn't been misused and caricatured by many artists over the years.
But a sense of grandness and pomposity is good thing when combined
with other virtues - I've always trusted Radiohead to do it _right_.

As for your comments about "one long drumroll" - I agree, sorta.
It tooks weeks for me to warm up to _Kid A_. As I first listened to "Everything," I remember thinking - "man, when is the rhythm gonna
kick in? This song is gonna be great."
I soon came to love the album completely - taken as a whole.
Individually, the tracks are humble indeed, but processed in context,
"How To Dissapear" and "Motion Picture Soundtrack" fit my bill
for life-changing resolutions.

My initial response to _Amnesiac_ was completely different.
I immediately love it on the basis of how great the rock songs
were. But now I never listen to the whole album - I find
the electronic songs quite lacking, in the same way you
describe.

I have my doubts about HTTT, but I will give them the benefit
of the doubt. It doesn't sound finished, does it? Kind of
lifeless. I think the vocals will be tightened up, too. There's
probably no way to save "Myxamatosis," it's built around a
riff that I find annoying. I could also do without "Sit Down" and
"A Punch-Up," which just seem rambling and pointless in their
current incarnations.

as for individual songs, i'm definitely not a fan of 'sit down' or '2+2', whereas the ones i love are quite different from rhead's usual modus operandi. 'punch up' sounds almost 70s soul-influenced to me which is a welcome change, and 'there there' could almost be a track from 'bone machine' played on normal instruments.

I guess I don't really have a set notion of what I want their songs to DO...some of them are successful at being rock songs, some of them are more ideas based on a sound or rhythmic pattern, some just sit there and look pretty, etc. I like their sound and ideas enough that most of their approaches work me.

one wonders when advance press is going to stop insisting
that 'the next one will be a return to more
straightforward guitar rock' when clearly this isn't
the case this time and wasn't last time either.

The difference between the two version is (usually) not huge, but it's definitely audible, esp. on "Go to Sleep", "A Wolf at the Door", "Myxomatosis" and "I Will".

www.ateaseweb.com/forums

on the minus side - i found "there there" to be a little drab.

it's just another 21st century dilemma i s'pose.

I think Sit Down... sounds better on the mixed version.

Then again, it took me several weeks to truly warm up to KidA and Amnesiac (which is my favorite of theirs now; OK Comp, besides "Karma Police," struck me as disposable). So who knows.

http://www.nme.com/news/105281.htm

yuk.

re: the defones there is a track on that new album, [the slowed down mellow one] that totally rips off Radiohead !

All we need know is ILM's resident Radiohead expert, [Melissa] to find out if Radiohead are indeed Killing Joke fans!

Remember: it's a grower.

i do enjoy a few of the tracks quite a bit though - "the gloaming", "backdrifts", "wolf at the door", the first song. it could have been a thing of beauty...

That said, I think it is a good but not a great album now -- having heard the 'original' version enough times and now the real one, it's an album of exquisite moments and not-quite-there attempts. But (unsurprisingly, I think) it's those songs where the electronics aren't used/emphasized as much that don't quite work for me, and I think the existence of the final mix now draws a sharper line between them. I want things to be even more of a "You're not getting The Bends back ever, either in quiet or loud modes, so stop whining" move, I think...but that said, let me give it another listen yet and it could all once again connect.

I can hear that a bit, yeah....a bit of "Sanity," maybe.

With Treefingers as a hidden track, I have no need for the original albums and this tracklisting works a lot better. Hail to the Thief is excellent though. Gone are the sub Autechre electro jams of Kid A and the grunge-y teenage moaning of The Bends to reveal an album that sounds like Radiohead are the daddys again. The whole thing feels like they are once again ready to take over the world - they've learnt to use the new equipment and techniques without trying to pull a fast one (Dollars and Cents, Spinning Plates, the title track on Kid A etc).

I really would like it a lot better then.

I really don't understand how anyone could prefer the monumentally patchy Amnesiac to Hail To The Thief... the former just seems like an inferior version of the latter to me.

I'm still not very keen on Punch Up... it plods too much.

On first listen, I really like about half of it. The other half may grow on me, as Radiohead albums often do. I wish there were more electronic wibble and less Straight-Ahead Mope-Rock. I thought they'd done with the mope-rock for good. :-(

I mean, all those thousands of pounds of electronic and processing equipment, and the best drone-sound they can come up with is a dead boring piano? I have a little trouble with that.

From the recording session:

http://www.addamsfamily.com/addams/lurch&thing.jpg

"Thing, I'm wondering about if it needs more reverb."

I changed my mind again. It's fucking fantastic. Thank you, drive through.

http://www.radiohead.sk/biografia/images/thomyorke.gif

It's interesting, Sean, I was initially thinking that not everything was sparking for a while on the album, that there were a lot of moments that could be timekillers, but last night's show really brought a lot of the implicit dynamics in the songs into sharper focus -- hearing them now the morning after, it's never seemed more lively.

This is as good a place as any to put my latest quality analogy

OK Computer = Significant Other
Kid A = Chocolate Starfish And The Hot Dog Flavored Water
Amnesiac = Old New Songs
Hail To The Thief = Results May Vary

Hail To The Thief = Results May Vary

Oh, you didn't need to italicize the second half of that equation.

I don't even know if I have the retail version of HTTT now. I guess it's past time to actually buy it.

I fucking adore "Myxomatosis" again.

This album hits everything I love aobut Radiohead directly on the mark for song after song after song. It may also be their best-sequenced album, rivalled only by OK Computer.

im so pleased there is a musical issue upon which me n dan agree unconditionally

in my iTunes collection the tracks are all listed under their alternative title

All the songs from this album are their best live songs, pretty much. Every song seems pretty much *designed* for maximum impact in a live setting.

This is very true.

This album is great besides "Go To Sleep". Prob my second fave after Amnesiac.

first album of theirs I heard so it has sentimental value

I really really like A Punch Up At a Wedding, but no one else seems to. The way the boogie-woogieish piano crawls in over an electro pulse is astonishing.

That song is fucking incredible.

My favourite is Backdrifts, though.

my fave is "where i end and you begin"

Hmmm, I haven't started a poll for a while...

I really really like A Punch Up At a Wedding, but no one else seems to. The way the boogie-woogieish piano crawls in over an electro pulse is astonishing.

Agreed, though There There is the standout track by a country mile.

HAIL TO THE POLL

That song is fucking incredible.

-- HI DERE, Wednesday, 4 June 2008 21:47 (Yesterday) Bookmark Link

All the songs from this album are their best live songs, pretty much. Every song seems pretty much *designed* for maximum impact in a live setting.

this ^^

the three songs they played on the 2008 tour (which i saw a couple weeks ago) -- The Gloaming, Where I End and You Begin, There There -- were three of the absolute highlights of the main set.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xbyu3hNpHG0

what the hell

You're on crack.
― Melissa W (Melissa W), Sunday, June 15, 2003 8:02 AM (12 years ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

this such a quintessential early/mid-aughts thing to say

It’s been a decade, probably more, since I listened to this one without skipping any song and I’m still 50/50 on it. I don’t think it has aged better in any way and it might be my least favorite Radiohead album after Pablo Honey - which doesn’t have any replay value for me.

I don’t know... it didn’t excite me 17 years ago and it probably never will. Every review that gives this one a score better than 7 is a byproduct of accumulated goodwill. Personally I’d say it’s a 6 for me. If this wasn’t a Radiohead album I don’t think I’d ever give it the time.

Imho: Only Backdrifts, WIEAYB, Gloaming, Myxomatosis and There There are worth the replay and they’re still low-tier Radiohead songs.

I listened to it all the way through a little while ago and I maintain:

- two big intro-style tracks already sets this on an awkward trajectory from the off
- the rest of the first half is a bit sleepy and my skip finger gets itchy
- second half is much more rewarding
- really quite like the jazzy groove on Punch Up
- There There is one of their best songs, if not their best
- Scatterbrain and Wolf are both brilliant
- It's at least two songs too long.
- The Gloaming and Sail To The Moon are the ones I'd cut

There There won the radiohead ballot poll, right? Mystifying, I'm with Moka on this one.

doglatin: you’d keep “we suck young blood” and “i will” over the gloaming and sail to the moon?

The Gloaming wasn’t a favorite of mine either but it’s one of their most accomplished electronic productions - at least in that point of their career - and I’d keep it for the same reason as “there there”: they are fun live.

Thom himself acknowledged that the album could lose some songs and posted this alternate tracklist on deadairspace

there there
the gloaming
sail to the moon
sit down. stand up
go to sleep
whereiendandubegin
scatterbrain
2+2=5
myxomatosis
a wolf at the door

He gets rid of Backdrifts, Punchup, We Suck Young Blood and I Will. Backdrifts is one of my favorite songs on the album because it’s one of the lightest, more “pop” moments in there. I admit it kind of sounds out of place when taken as a whole. Punchup is also a sort of fun groove... it doesn’t seem to do many interesting things inside that groove but it’s pleasant. Personally I’d get rid of “go to sleep” and “sail to the moon” instead of those two.

WSYB and I Will while somewhat interesting experiments are way too gloomy and bring the album to a halt twice. Get rid of them in the original sequencing and you get one of the strongest sections in the album with WIEAYB, Gloaming, There There and Punchup.

I guess they could have gone the same route as TKOL and release two 7” of those non-album cuts. One with ISYB / I Will, the other with Punchup / Backdrifts. One really dim sounding 7” and a light one.

Ah man, I love Backdrifts and Punchup!

Here's my alternate version:

2+2=5
Myxomatosis
Sail to the Moon
Backdrifts
Go to Sleep
Where I End...
There There
I Will
Punchup
Wolf at the Door

A zippy 41 mins! This is their White Album, in that everyone agrees it's too long, but no one can quite agree on which tracks to lose.

Every review that gives this one a score better than 7 is a byproduct of accumulated goodwill.

Or a byproduct of having a different reaction than you to a highly subjective piece of art.

I like "Go to Sleep", it sounds like nothing else in their discography. also, guitars at the end go skree

ffs thom, i will -> punchup is like the best segue in all radiohead

Radiohead have always had a fragmentary streak and HTTT, even more so than Amnesiac, really brings it to the fore. The sequencing is occasionally brilliant but for the most part it's an inspired hodgepodge.

the ideal album is either that, or six perfect tracks

whynotboth.gif

doglatin: you’d keep “we suck young blood” and “i will” over the gloaming and sail to the moon?

The Gloaming wasn’t a favorite of mine either but it’s one of their most accomplished electronic productions - at least in that point of their career - and I’d keep it for the same reason as “there there”: they are fun live.

― ✖✖✖ (Moka), Friday, November 13, 2020 11:30 AM (two hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

I like the Mingus-styled funeral handclaps on WSYB. "I Will" I can take or leave, but it's not a bad ballad. "Sail To The Moon" is one of the sleepy songs that set my skip finger twitching: Nowhere near as lush as How To Disappear or Pyramid Song, even if that's what it's trying to do.

"The Gloaming" is quintessential Thom-tronica and frankly I find his ongoing obsession with trying to recreate "Freeman Hardy & Willis Acid" (neither AFX or Squarepusher's best tune) frustrating. These types of Radiohead songs always sound skittery and agitated, lacking in any real oomph besides nervous potent energy with no release.

Listening back, it does have an enormous amount of bass but it's not being used effectively: A hallmark of a lot of 'indietronic' production in the 2000s. The beats dart around the bass rather than carry it. Thom's voice floats awkwardly over it. Take the vocal out and you've got something that sounds like an unfinished experimental electronic thing that could have been knocked-out in an afternoon and left on a hard drive. It's a precedent to TKOL in that respect. I don't think they really nailed this sound until "Ful Stop" on AMSP

HEre's my God Mode HTTT:

Sit Down, Stand up
Myxomatosis
Backdrifts
I Will
There, There
We Suck Young Blood
2 + 2 = 5
Where I end And You Begin
A Punch Up At A Wedding
Go To Sleep
Scatterbrain
A Wolf At the Door

In reality, I'd trim it down a lot more. I'd happily prune Backdrifts, Where I End and Go To Sleep from these; they just never stuck with me. "Where I End" especially sounds like something off of "Some Friendly" but with those annoying skittery drums and a loose, meandering and unmemorable Thom performance

Backdrifts is one of my favorite songs on the album because it’s one of the lightest, more “pop” moments in there.

Ah I don't hear it as light at all really - it's lost and spooky and drifty. I always heard it as self-deprecating if you take the lyrics literally about being Radiohead at that point in their careers.

HEre's my God Mode HTTT:

How on earth could you not have 2+2=5 as the opener?!

Hearing "There There" on the radio for the first time is still the only time I've ever been so stunned by a song while driving and that I felt the need to pull over to the side of the road. (I couldn't, though, I would have been late to the 2003 Belmont Stakes...)

How on earth could you not have 2+2=5 as the opener?!

― chap, Friday, November 13, 2020 2:37 PM (twenty-three minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

Quite simply because HTTT has two openers and they're interchangeable. 2+2=5 opens the second side, but I'd happily swap em. Sit Down is more exciting and immediate to me

Backdrifts >>>>>>>>

Some of my fave Radioead-does-IDM production, the melodies, that piano solo mwaah

Tbh when I go back to this I listen to the first two tracks, Backdrifts, and the Gloaming. And that's enough, but those are all top tier.

this revive is so violent, leave the poor album alone

otm

otm

Relistening to Backdrifts right now. The lyrics are definitely not light but I always thought they were a bit tongue-in-cheek and found the perfomance a bit goofy - mainly because of those “ah ah ah” before the second chorus. I think that almost tropical piano that comes in at the bridge seals the whole deal and gives it that light tone I’m hearing.

I’m realizing that the artist it reminds me the most to is The Knife / Fever Ray. Change that piano melody with a steel drum and all those weird Thom vocalizations for Karin’s distorted voice and it wouldn’t sound out of place in Silent Shout.

My version of Hail to the Thief would be as-released because the whole thing is perfect

That’s the spirit!

yes

i really like the "ah ah ah ah" bit, I will say.

LOVE "ah ah ah ah"

would never cut the gloaming even if i ever cut albums and even if i didn't respond to its melodramatic political hysteria-- it builds nicely and it acts as an extended intro to there there. that opening tomtom hits a lot harder imo if the anxious electronic burble cuts off just before it. that's why there's no release, too, because there there is it.

rly love backdrifts and yeah it's about them, like dylan's "drifting too far from shore" lol. it does sound karin it's true. prefer it to sit down / stand up.

don't rly need go to sleep and don't rly have the patience for we suck young blood, tho it is at least singular, and theoretically hilarious.

my love for this album only grows with time

Get the flan in the face
The flan in the face
The flan in the face

is still the best

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pTfDn9bcWbk

if wolf opened the album, we'd always be waiting for another flan reprise

lol but i want the lips to move so badly

It's funny to read the early posts on this thread and see how eager some people were to evaluate or even write a review of unmastered rough mixes. I've never been that impatient to hear an album.

I agree with those above who say this is a record with no weak tracks, but difficult to listen to in one go. It helps that there are some immediately attractive songs mixed with some very slow growers.

xxp haaa i approached this album for the first time in... uh many years today and that's what how i started. I can't handle this thing at all as it was released. I like 2+2=5 but... i dunno maybe it should've been a single? i got:

wolf
backdrifts
where i end and you begin
myxomatosis
sail to the moon
there, there
the gloaming
sit down stand up
go to sleep
a punch up at a wedding

the best thing was just not having the momentum of 'sit down stand up' killed dead.

I've always felt this album is extremely backloaded; I think "There There" through "Wolf At the Door" is one of the best runs of tracks on any Radiohead album

Also "We Suck Young Blood" gets a lot of hate, but I love it--such a creepy, demented vibe, and the handclaps are a genius touch

i'm not sure i even agree with this, but 39 minutes, 9 songs:

side A
2+2=5
there,there
where i end
we suck young blood

side B
sit down, stand up
myxomatosis
scatterbrain
sail to the moon

upon revisiting, and seeing as how i can't find a good b-side of this era to substitute in, i think this is my least favorite of theirs since the bends. and really i think it would be best a 4-5 song ep (2+2, there there, where i end, sit down, one of the ballads)

i had "i want none of this" in the mix for a minute but that's a bit off since it's from 2005. But i think it does that Young Blood/Whose Army vibe better than those ones. But I'm not much into that side of them.

I liked "Scatterbrain" at the time but now it just seems like their worst.

Would easily reach for The Bends CD over this one... but maybe edited, I'd say this was a better era (bla bla, "white album" comparison above is otm)

i like the b-sides from this era. it usually felt like most of their b-sides were interchangeable with the coinciding album, but the b-sides from this album create this weird little ep of songs that sound like they were conceived on a broken synth and an obsolete 4-track. i still say "i am citizen insane" is one of the best of the krautrock classics — it was just 25 years late and not made by germans. throw in the remixes and i think it's a weird little companion piece that's very representative of the era.

only song I don’t like on this album is “go to sleep”

Didn't want to keep going on there, but funny you mention cuz that's my favourite one now (or maybe tied with There There). I thought it felt totally superfluous on the record back then. Listening to this era is always a ridiculous and changing experience unlike anything else. Of course a lot of it for me might be that I was finishing university when it came out.

The other one people go on about editing is King of Limbs but I wouldn't touch it. Maybe just make a sort of deluxe version by throwing the (great) additional material onto the end.

Never thought much of the Thief b-sides but Austin has me wanting to try again.

“go to sleep” is goddamn amazing

i think this album is too long and the sequencing has never made any sense to me. i did appreciate hearing an album majorly influenced by this one a few years ago tho (foxing’s nearer my god)

I remember being happy they were rocking again, even though I loved Kid A/Amnesiac.

Home to what has to be a top ten Radiohead song for me, “A Wolf At the Door”.

And agreed - it’s a bit too long.

wait there's people who don't like "go to sleep"? i mean sure, it sounds like a bends-era rewrite but . . . i'm pretty okay with that on this album? listening to it now after not hearing it for a while and it sounds like the zeitgeist of what i think of when i think of "what does radiohead sound like?"

it's a messy album & they never quite nailed a lot of these tracks in the studio - "the gloaming" and "myxomatosis" are live staples that were significantly improved by some small changes when they played them live

& tracks like "sail to the moon" and "scatterbrain" are solid songs but the arrangements feel like sketches compared to what they're usually capable of. "a punch up at a wedding" is on to something too but not quite there

idk it really stuck out as superfluous to me, I LOVE every other song on this album.

sail to the moon is like top 5 rh

xp re go to sleep

honestly it’s my favorite album of theirs

“punch up” is the best song on here

besides “there there”

the groove is great i just wish it got even more intense or the dynamics were stronger idk

the songs i would absolutely cut from this are "i will" and "we suck young blood"

"punch up" absolutely should have become a live staple

Yeah I like Punch Up. I think almost all the songs stand up on their own, it is, as everyone has already said, a strange matter of the whole thing not hanging together quite right

Through bad timing and other situations this tour was the last time I saw them live, though I've seen various webcasts etc since. Seeing them four times in five years from 1998 to 2003, they were hands down the most compelling live band on that scale easy, there was always something next level they brought, and so seeing them for the tour for this with a now ridiculously good back catalog they could draw on was a sight to behold.

When the guitars lock into that long outro groove in "There There" I'm convinced it's the most thrilling thing they ever did.

Hail to the thief cause he’s the thief and he needs hailing.

This and Pablo Honey are the two Radiohead albums I never listen to. I find it weird that for a younger generation this was their entry point for Radiohead and they love it and think it’s one of their best. I think I wouldn’t have been an immediate fan and would have probably written them off for years if this was my first Radiohead album.

There’s probably 5 songs max I’d save and half of them are divisive, I guess. Myxomatosis and Backdrifts are my two favorite songs in here.

Ah fuck I made pretty much this exact same comment a year ago.

Sorry for reposting then.

idk that there's really a generation that thinks HTTT is up with their best? there are people who do really rate it but i don't think it's at all a generational thing, just a matter of taste

Yeah Kid A tends to be seen as the nu-Radiohead / millennial fan canon

in rainbows has been pretty solidly established as up there with kid a/ok computer in the canon now for a while too

& people still seem to generally really love a moon shaped pool too, though i'm not a huge fan of it. it's a better listen front-to-back than hail to the thief or even amnesiac, but never reaches the same highs as those either, it's all solidly second-tier

I’ve been revisiting the Radiohead discography for the first time since I was an obsessive in high school 20 years ago, and enjoyed revisiting this one. I bought the special edition with the foldout map. I listened to it for the first time as I drove back from the record store and had a nice moment when a storm broke and it started pouring rain just as "Sit Down. Stand Up" hit the "raindrops” part.

I agree with the usual complaints about it being too long and not quite flowing. I’ve always loved individual tracks more than the whole. I’ve been listening to this re-arrangement of the album and have come to prefer it, even though when one song ends, my mind still cues up the opening notes of the next song from the original track listing.

They were really solid on the tour for this album, though not as good as they were on the Amnesiac tour (at least when I saw them).

Taking "Wolf At The Door" and "Scatterbrain" out of HTTT is a bold move

This order really works though

yeah i didn't listen to it, but that alternate sequencing looks a little weird to me. i'll check it out though.

“I am a wicked child” is one of my favorite tracks from the era, glad they added that one but yeah removing scatterbrain and wolf at the door is not ideal for me. I’d rather remove “go to sleep” which somehow I’ve never been a fan of.

Only thing I like of the song is the glitchy guitar solo, Thom’s performance is very… idk whiny lol

yeah that alternate tracklist is baffling, "where i end and you begin" as the closer?

Yeah Radiohead closers are usually low-key.

That said, “wolf at the door” isn’t a great closer. Not sure what would be the best one from the og tracklist.

Maybe the less electric “where I end and you begin” version of the kid a/amnesiac sessions would’ve a good closer, actually.

This one:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GYVMCKfFqbE

I think my main problem with HTTT is that it suffers from a stylistic focus. It feels like a collection of moods rather than a more concise “album” concept.

The alt tracklisting is frustrating but it does make the tracks I'm less fond of stand out a bit better, while making the tracks I like but feel are out of place fit in a lot better