Worst Song on Radiohead's 2CD "Best Of" Compilation

Wow I love a lot of these

haha, I was looking for "Pop Is Dead" in there. Somehow, "Pop is Dead" made the Best Of DVD (in the U.S.)

lol, "somehow". EMI having beef with Radiohead and getting vengeance? nah

Dan OTM, but since this is a wurst poll, it makes it kinda easy.
1.Search out Pablo Honey tracks
2.Yeah, fuck it, "Creep"

"Creep" it is

"Creep"

Voted "High and Dry"

lol I said "Anyone Can Play Guitar"

Anyone Can Play Guitar, which I liked at the time, but now could happily never hear again.

But yeah, if Pop Is Dead was on here, it would be that.

not a huge fan of this band but i do like enough of the '90s stuff (and avoided or forgot enough of the recent stuff) that this is kind of hard. i voted for "Knives Out" because i kept hearing that it was gonna be a standout song and it just sounds really dreary and uneventful to me.

There isn't much to love about Knives Out, Optimistic or Go To Sleep. Their early 00s plod-rockers really put The Bends in a better light.

Haha they probably put Pablo Honey in a better light as well.

I love all 3 of those songs! (ESP "Knives Out")

The muffled production on the instruments combined with Thom's soaring echo-laden vocal really works for me.

That's what annoys me about them. Plus they are dull.

Although I didn't see I Might Be Wrong on there initially, which was tremendous and bouncy and dynamic when they did it live and really limp on the record.

I Might Be Wrong is a bit dull. Can't vote Creep, it's a really well-written pop song.

"creep" by quite a bit

Amnesiac did some awful things to some great songs productionwise, but also gave us "Pulk/Pull Revolving Doors" which is still one of my favorite tracks of theirs ever.

"Optimistic" is fucking great. Don't think anybody ever needs to hear "Street Spirit" ever again.

street spirit (fade out). it sounds like 'dust in the wind' therefore major dud

"Optimistic" rules for it's heavy zeppelin swampitude, and "Go to Sleep" is just meh, but "Knives Out" is a song that I always want to end just about as soon as it starts, so "Knives Out" is my pick.

Full Disclosure: I've not actually heard anything from PH aside from "Creep," so those songs don't even count for me.

HONK SWRAWK HONK National Anthem SWRWARK HRONK

Hey guys, Street Spirit" is boring, but not nearly as offensively boring and shrill as "Knives Out"

Back off ledge, TNA is my jam.

Nothing with HONK SWRAWK HONK in it is bad.

I like Go to Sleep, though it works better in the context of HTTT than as a standalone.

"Go to Sleep" always just struck me as a way less interesting version of "Follow me Around," which those fuckers never released. I used to be such a gaydiohead back in the day.

I like Go to Sleep, though it works better in the context of HTTT than as a standalone.

You can actually say that about almost every track on HTTT except "There There" which is just as awesome by itself as it is on the album.

As is 2+2=5. And Backdrifts. And Wolf at the Door.

"Optimistic" rules for it's heavy zeppelin swampitude

god, Radiohead really is some kind of magic eye poster that fans project whatever they want to hear onto

lol was going to mention "2+2=5"

god, Radiohead really is some kind of magic eye poster that fans project whatever they want to hear onto

ha yes. Too bad Greil Marcus doesn't write about them.

I just think the sludgey dirginess of "Optimistic" works, particularly when the incredibly crisp snares burst in at the end and usher in the song's climax.

(I also like that you have this murky, muddled-sounding song called "Optimistic" pretty much right up until the end; it's an exercise in sonic irony.)

(also I can come with a defense for practically every song here except "Anyone Can Play Guitar" and "True Love Waits")

Can't vote Creep, it's a really well-written pop song.

Correct.

The poll is for worst song, not most unlikely hit single.

Clearing out my challopian tubes, I am voting for "Pyramid Song", because I cannot hear a song in there.

xxxxxxxxxxxpost - some dude: I didn't mean it really sounded all that much like zeppelin...those were just kind of the first words that popped into my head. but you surely cannot deny that optimistic is both swampy and heavy...plus that funky coda that comes out of nowhere--I'd forgotten all about it. It's really been years since I listened to any of that stuff.

ALSO: I think there's a legit reason Radiohead have that "Magic-Eye Poster" sort of quality; because they manage, unlike a lot of their peers, to take their mope-pop idiom in a whole variety of different and interesting directions; there's something for everyone in their discog.

forgive my semicolon abuse.

NEVER

btw saying that you can't hear a song in "Pyramid Song" implies that you either are horrible at expressing yourself, you are deaf, or you are easily confused by things that are in meters divisible by 3.

I am all three of those things, but I mean I can't hear anything to latch onto, no hooks.

...

wow

so are you just going on your memory of what the song sounded like before you went deaf?

I mean, there's the piano riff (which follows a 4-bar pattern), there is the string line, there are all of Thom's vocal lines (which are the most straightforward things in the song rhythmically since they all begin on downbeats)... the entire song reads to me as musical hook after musical hook and I really can't fathom not hearing ANY of that.

lol I actually wonder if my cd is fucked up and I hear something totally different from everyone else, because I have tried really hard to hear what everyone raves about

ok I honestly didn't expect to hear people hatin on "Optimistic" and "Pyramid Song". Is this thread a flashmob or something?

;-)

heavens! et al

Silly me, I forgot to mark on my calendar that Jan. 9 is Mindless Inflammatory Posting day. Whoops!

By the way, I feel the need to point out that pretty much ALL music works on that Magic-Eye poster level; obviously how any given piece of music is going to signify depends a LOT on the pre-existing ideas and prejudices of the listener.

I mean, I'm sure there's somebody out there who LOVES "Knives Out" and has their own well-thought out reasons for it, for example.

just listened to "Pyramid Song" again and I guess I hear what HI DERE is describing. I actually dig most of what Radiohead's done but Thom's vocal lines on this song drive me batty. I keep wanting some kind of resolution but he holds off, and the rest of the song doesn't crest to make up for that, it just drones on.

there is one song here that i really like!

'creep' isn't the worst song but its self-pitying whine is ideologically intolerable and inspired a whole load of even more intolerable white-boy whines. and tbh i've managed to avoid actually hearing new radiohead material for like 7 years so i have no idea how bad they've gotten.

oh shit i actually remember 'idioteque' though and that awful relentless voice and wankers all going "IT'S A BIT 2-STEP!!!1111" and me wanting to kill them

lol "ideologically intolerable."

Thom Yorke as Trotsky to lex's Stalin

All the wankers I knew were going "IT'S A BIT AUTECHRE!!" except they'd never heard of autechre. (xxp)

By the way, I feel the need to point out that pretty much ALL music works on that Magic-Eye poster level; obviously how any given piece of music is going to signify depends a LOT on the pre-existing ideas and prejudices of the listener.

― telepathy_rock!, Friday, January 9, 2009 12:59 PM (3 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

don't get all philosophical on me. i'm just saying anytime a comparison prompts me to imagine phil selway as john bonham i go all o_O

actually i think there are TWO songs i like here, except i can't remember how one of them goes

there is one song here that i really like!

I am guessing Everything In Its Right Place, right?

(Nb I heard a clicky minimal remix of that a couple of years ago and it made so much sense)

nah not that one - the intro, the descending piano chords, are spine-tingling, probably radiohead's finest moment, but then he starts singing and UGH.

xxxpost - yeah, man, I'll fess that it was a poor analogy on my part.

I always heard the self-deprecation in "Creep" as being really dry and tongue-in-cheek (a lot like in "Loser," you know?)...like, the guy singing the song doesn't REALLY see himself like that, but it's a good overwrought description of his situation. In fact, given how the rest of Radiohead's output turned out, I'm strongly inclined to see it as having that sort of goofy irony.

lex, are you excited to be forced to listened to this entire 2-CD based on two songs you might like? That's what you're hear for, rite?

Reading "Creep" as ironic ruins the song for me.

Oh okay Lex, probably Street Spirit or Lucky then.

haha yeah obv those two. i'm sure you knew that already!

"Lucky" is a beautiful song; Thom should spend more time down in his lower register.

Street Spirit is uber-whiney!

xpost - I particularly like 'It's gonna be a glo-o-orious day'

"Airbag"

the jingle bells ruin it

that is precisely why it's my favourite of these - i really enjoy his lower register but can't abide his higher notes/falsetto (ie most of the rest of the time)

xpp

ffs people only Z S has it thus far

HIGH AND DRY by about 3 zillion light years

and abanana you are actually insane

"High and Dry" is also a gorgeous song, mostly because he's actually somewhat delicate about the way he uses his falsetto on it.

dan dan the vocal stan, he may sing beautifully but this does not prevent the song from sucking the big one

Can't vote Creep, it's a really well-written pop song.

― chap, Friday, January 9, 2009 9:20 AM (58 minutes ago)

lol...

(also I can come with a defense for practically every song here except "Anyone Can Play Guitar" and "True Love Waits")

Alright, "High and Dry": GO!!

"You" and "Anyone Can Play Guitar" are worse songs, but I look at Pablo Honey as an album that shouldn't have been heard as widely as it was. The unexpected success of "Creep" catapulted them to the mainstream before they had the songs to back it up. So I'll give them a free pass on that.

But with "High and Dry", there's not excuse. The song practically invents Coldplay. Even the video was the worst of The Bends batch (both the UK and US version)!

oops, xpost. OK, he uses his falsetto nicely, I'll give it that.

also Euler is insane

in fact this thread is probably gonna turn into a huge repository of insane and i'd better leave it aaaaht

yes yes Z S has it. H&D is pure bedwetting student-strum-along sensitive-guy evil and i know for a FACT that Yorke regrets writing it

"Kid A" onwards has been an extended apology for unleashing the titanic and influential wrong that is High And Dry

^^^ Hates fun

what passions this band inspires

'No Surprises' is even more boring than anything else that has been mentioned yet

Dude you voted for PYRAMID SONG

like, shit

no "like spinning plates", no "where i end and you begin", no "morning bell", there is too much whiny, gutless stuff on that best of. and not enough psyched out, explosive stuff. how can i judge which is the worst when i don't know all of the tracks. but there is loads of crap i know. can someone please flush "ok computer" down the toilette, please?

There are many words I can think of to describe "Like Spinning Plates" and "Morning Bell" but "explosive" is so far away from being one of them it isn't funny.

no "morning bell", there is too much whiny, gutless stuff

what is wrong with this sentence

xp :)

explose like in head exploses, knowwhatimean?

ok i try again. explosion doesn't necessarily mean a big bang of some physical device. the kind of explosion i find much more fascinating is an inner explosion. when something inside your head which you have held back for a long time suddenly comes to the fore. "you can keep the furniture", if that isn't an explosion of a relation, i don't know what is. doyoufuckinggetit?

"you can keep the furniture", if that isn't an explosion of a relation, i don't know what is. doyoufuckinggetit?

... No?

Unless you mean "implosion", in which case what you're talking about starts making some amount of sense.

the difference between im- and explosion isn't very important, i think. in one case there is an outer pressure making something implode into itself, in the other it is an inner pressure making something explode into the outisde. the result is the same. total break-down. even the movement is the same. only its direction is different.

i dig knives out. lots of dissonant jazz chords and great chord progressions. 'shrill' is not what comes to mind, it's totally mellow

xpost - this thread is more batshit insane than the best beatles single poll thread

anyone who votes creep is a dickface.
the right answer here is "high & dry"

see?

this thread makes me want to hate radiohead. and I love radiohead!

I'm voting 'High And Dry', the chorus just makes me cringe. Plus the solo is crap.

I'll stick up for 'Knives Out' too - what 6335 said basically and there's that lovely guitar tone. Reminds me of 'Some Girls Are Bigger Than Others'.

I'm curious to see how Geir votes -- "The National Anthem," perhaps?

That or "Idioteque," I'd guess.

'high and dry' and 'fake plastic trees' are almost interchangeable for me.

so drop one of them.

though 'anyone can play guitar' is maybe my least favourite

Easily "The National Anthem". The worst, most unlistenable piece of rubbish they have ever made.

OF COURSE "anyone can play guitar"

Don't discount my Get Out of Jail Free Card approach.

"Anyone Can Play Guitar" and "Creep" are both better than "You."

Seriously.. it's gonna be "Anyone" and "Creep" in the top 2, and that's just lame.

Even Beavis and Butthead liked Creep.

Creep is not a bad song. It just happens to appear pale in comparison to the rest of the Radiohead catalogue.

Knives out and Go to sleep on the other hand feel incredibly knackered. I'll go for Knives out as the worst in here if only because Go to sleep has some redeeming guitar solo towards the end which makes it worthwile to wait the first 3 or 4 dreadful minutes for.

first sentence otm for me

Liked Pablo Honey, actually, and didn't care all that much for anything until Kid A.

"Optimistic" is my very favorite Radiohead song. Voted "Paranoid Android" here, but I haven't heard any of the Pablo songs besides "Creep."

I'll stick up for 'Knives Out' ... Reminds me of 'Some Girls Are Bigger Than Others'.

Good call there!

"go to sleep" is barely 3 minutes long and is a groovy little rocker imo

"you" has some cool chords despite its callowness

voting for "paranoid android" is wilful contrarianism of the most insane kind

The worst song here, by quite a distance, is I Might Be Wrong. It goes nowhere and does nothing. Live versions are slightly better, but not by much.

something from the last eight years.

or eleven really.

"Creep" is NOT the worst song, in my opinion, but I voted for it anyway because it is my least favorite song out of all of the ones listed that I have heard before (in other words, I would switch to a different station the quickest if I heard Creep as opposed to any of the other songs here).

"Knives Out" perhaps the best Radiohead songs from the noughties.

Someone get me up to speed, when did the "magic eye poster that fans project" etc meme get started? Can't track it down right now.

Go to sleep has some redeeming guitar solo towards the end which makes it worthwile to wait the first 3 or 4 dreadful minutes for.

And then they fade out the guitar solo halfway through! That's always driven me nuts. Maybe Jonny hit a few sour notes a few seconds after it completely fades out.

Yes! I hate the fadeout, it sounds like it goes on for a few more minutes into some awesome Can-inspired jam and the basterds decided to fade it out. I've always found fadeouts in music very distasteful and lazy.

Johnny does use a max/msp patch when playing this song so I suppose your theory about him hitting notes that might have sounded sour through the patch is correct, hence the decision to fade it out.

people who vote for Knives Out in this poll are mental...Knives Out is one of Radiohead's best songs...I Might Be Wrong is not far behind...and Street Spirit is pretty damn great, too. I mean, what's more annoying than a Radiohead fan whining about whininess...?

for me, it's either Let Down or 2+2=5

^^^awesome punchline, would lol again

Let Down = worst chorus ever
2+2=5 = climaxes too early

I'm not actually a great fan of "Let Down" either, but c'mon there's some real dross here (pretty much exclusively from the first two records), and it's not even the worst OKC representative here (that would be No Surprises).

I think "Anyone Can Play Guitar" is a really good 90s rock song, despite the "wanna be Jim Morrison" stuff. The hooks get in my head all the time and I really like the noisy and dissonant guitar sounds. Even "You" seems like pretty solid hard rock to me. "Knives Out" is nice fragile jangle-pop for me. "Go to Sleep" is probably my least favourite of these.

"wannabe jim morrison"

is a funny phrase

2+2=5 is fucking awesomeness, on the other hand. Especially in its primary role, as an opening track. It wastes not a second.

Yeah, I guess I can deal with the "wanna be Jim Morrison" stuff too.

well...i haven't heard Pablo Honey...and No Surprises is pretty bad...but Let Down is about 100X more dreary Nowheresville than either Knives Out or I Might Be Wrong...I do like the diffuse, inebriated, out-of-focus jangle of the song (like being hammered at 6:30 in some dive bar where there are Xmas lights still up in April) but there's no escaping how completely it kills OK Computer just by being fourth in the tracklist...kills it worse than Fitter Happier, so bad that Climbing Up the Walls and Lucky can't redeem it...

2+2=5, though, is not a song...

OK Computer
# Title Length
1. "Airbag" 4:44
2. "Paranoid Android" 6:23
3. "Subterranean Homesick Alien" 4:27
4. "Exit Music (For a Film)" 4:24
5. "Let Down" 4:59
6. "Karma Police" 4:22
7. "Fitter Happier" 1:57
8. "Electioneering" 3:51
9. "Climbing Up the Walls" 4:45
10. "No Surprises" 3:49
11. "Lucky" 4:20
12. "The Tourist"

http://www.thefreedictionary.com/song

stop saying stupid shit plz

a) it's 5th
b) is appreciably less dreary than the TWO tracks before it
c) KARMA POLICE

Anyway.

2+2=5 is a brilliantly concise rollercoaster of a song, and its madcap brevity is to be treasured.

crap i didn't see Go to Sleep, I hate that song even more than Anyone Can Play Guitar, which is only redeemable because it led to the existence of that hilariously bad MTV beach house performance that ended with bleached hair thom yorke jumping into the pool. they really, really, really wanted to be rockstars.

i forgot abt Exit Music...yeah maybe that helps kill it...but if you're saying that Let Down is less dreary than the weightless ecstatic visionary gem that is Subterranean Homesick Alien then you need to go listen to OK Computer again...

2+2=5 sounds more like a rought draft to me, but I've pretty much agreed completely with HI DERE pretty much completely in this thread ythus far, so I'm gonna take his word for it here...'stupid shit' acknowledged & retracted...

SHA is BETTER than Let Down, sure, but it's also slower and more melancholy. Dreary not necessarily a bad thing.

slower =/= drearier (even melancholy levels are only part of the picture)

I think the 'pretty colours' sfx makes Let Down a sort of vivid sensory experience, but as a song, its minor-key diffuseness, esp. at the chorus, robs it of any power it might have apart from the aforementioned sfx. the song reeks of paralysis, and I know there's nothing more annoying than a Radiohead fan whining abt paralysis, but as Radiohead songs usually offers some sort of redemptive power in its odes to alienation and paranoia, some sort of empowerment in the fact that these things still bother us, this song remains the most glaring example (except as country matters pointed out, in no surprises, which I did not see) where the empowerment is pretty much MIA, leaving the song stillborn and stagnant in its special effects...

But Let Down is in a major key.

^my bad. I meant descending melody...which is something completely different...

One good thing abt Let Down is how in the verses the chords descend but it feels like they are ascending, but all the potential lost in the dishrag chorus...

thinking again about No Surprises, I think it escapes the dreary tag mainly because it comes hot off the heels of Climbing Up the Walls, and sounds in every way different from that song, and yet manages to be even more frightening...

Okay... so how is "I wanna be Jim Morrison" any worse a lyric than "I wish it was the sixties"

Why oh why did I vote for "Android" before watching this?

Sounding like a rough draft of a rock song is pretty much the point of 2+2=5 - that song always struck me, from the "that's a nice place to start" onward as Radiohead going "okay Kid A haters, you wanted a rock song, HERE'S a fucking rock song". I mean, it's sort of deliberately stupid, but the bit when it explodes is still fucking glorious.

I think the point of that song is that it starts with introspective, taut, nervous minor-chord plucking (still arresting, and pulse-quickening, but not completely convincing) and somehow within 3 and a half minutes it has scorched the earth several different shades of jesus fucking christ

I mean it even has the GALL to step back, like a receding surf, further into moody noodly drear with that "devil's way now" bit (while the background guitar, crucially, retains our interest), before Matt's aforementioned glory. Such an awesome way to begin an album.

i dunno country matters...yr points are all good...but something abt the "madcap brevity" I think undercuts its effectiveness, and more important, its memorability as a song...the whole point which I read to be sort of "rude awakening into Big Brother" is not so much achieved as much as outlined...the beginning part seems written only to set up the explosion--I would they had more gall and written a second verse honestly--and I think it tends to make the explosion sound a bit trite, esp. on replay...

then again I prolley haven't listened to this in abt fiour or five months...so the very visceral immdiate thrill of the song could be very well escaping me...mebbe my next step is to pull this out and have at it once and for all...

you do seem stuck on this as the opening track of a (concept) album...I wonder if divorced from these settings, it can retain the same power...

(wow this is kindof anal aint it...i keep swearing i'm done posting on ilm...)

It's NOT a concept album. 2+2=5 is a very good opener for a Radiohead album, especially one that covers as MUCH disparate ground as HTTT.

(concept) meant to be followed by a ?...as in a proposed idea not an assured opinion...my bad completely, just a bit o noise in the signal...

I really like HTTT a lot, and I was wondering why it fell so much in critical esteem round the time _In Rainbows_ came out...2+2=5 was one of the first reasons I could come up with...as I keep hammering: more a schematic than a song...

I've said it before and I'll say it again: HTTT is leagues better than In Rainbows. Miles. Huge amounts. But this thread is already full of enough insane, and I'm probably not helping.

There's something in the (played-up) rough edges of 2+2=5 that makes it even more thrilling, as if it just happened spontaneously while they were dicking around in the studio. It has its cake AND eats it too with all the post-production and overdubs. Which suits it down to a tee.

Actually listening to 2+2=5 again right now, the best bit is "are you such a dreamer to put the world to rights?" Man... 2003 now feels like AGES ago but that was a withering first line, given the messianic language Blair was talking in at the time.

Given that HTTT generally sounds like a composite of all previous Radiohead records, I suppose that's the only real claim you can make in defence of it sounding contemporary. I still remember the shiver that went down my spine hearing Thom perform 'I Will' on his own, at the start of the encore, on the day Bush arrived in London.

it is rather raw, that's truee...and anything that raw can't be v. bad...

truee

(strike through the second e)

(also: I like Thief way better than Rainbows also)

isn't 2+2=5 3.20 long? i mean, isn't that basically a normal song length? Its' not the fucking minutemen or anything...

yeah but it spends the first 1:54 being taut and noodly and then the last 1:25 rocking balls

has anybody ever done a really kickass remix of there there btw? The drums at the beginning are so great.

basically I love that song until the bit where he shouts THERE THERE, at which point its a lot less interesting, radiohead being taut and noodly>>radiohead rocking balls

i think a healthy and well-deployed mix of both is what suits these dudes most

although to be fair "a punchup at a wedding" is probably my favourite radiohead song and if that one rocks balls then it does so really subtly

oh shit wait "a reminder" is my favourite radiohead song

and that one's pretty taut and noodly too

maybe you have a point young sir

what i am trying to say is that sometimes when radiohead decide to rock balls ("airbag", "2+2=5" etc) they do so very very effectively

I don't really come to this from a position of love though, which is a shit way to approach music really. Still, the moments when I like them are the wiry, krauty intros on some of their songs, but I don't like the dramatic crescendos.

Idioteque is the exception to this btw

Well "A Punchup At A Wedding" should be completely your thing then! Although, ha, it DOES have a dramatic crescendo, just one done pretty much entirely with the lyrics/vocals.

I love that flying lotus remix, actually its made me rethink radiohead a little lately

"Anyone Can Play Guitar" is so obviously the worst song on here, as evidenced by that awful embarassing video posted upthread. How the hell did they go from "worst band ever" to "best band ever" in two years?

I don't really wanna hear the original because I've had some bad experiences lately in listening to the originals of great remixes (friendly fires and born ruffians, I'm looking at you!)

"2+2=5" = Radiohead thinking "what's it like to make a Can rock song. Oh HERE".

It's one of my favorite songs by Radiohead for that reason alone.

Trust me dude, you'll like the original.

Also you need the Airbag EP pretty much for "A Reminder" and "Meeting In The Aisle" alone. Although I'm a huge fan of the slightly more simple-minded but nonetheless tricksy rockers like Pearly and Palo Alto as well.

Well, I was, anyway. When I was young.

How the hell did they go from "worst band ever" to "best band ever" in two years?

?

The Bends is so good and Pablo Honey is absolute shit! How did they do it???

I'm listening to In Rainbows for the first time ever right now, btw. Good stuff!

Pablo Honey is pretty much the summation of all their earliest material finally given a "proper" production and album release, but in retrospect sounds like a band trying to shelve away that stuff and move on. I'm guessing their music tastes had changed far beyond the more Buffalo Tom/Pixies-esque stuff once Pablo Honey was finally released.

So I suppose the best thing you could say about Radiohead is that they get bored of their influences rather quickly.

See...

Twelve Radiohead singles are to be re-released by the band's former record label, EMI, on 12” vinyl this April.

The re-releases include the band's rare Drill EP, as well as the hits singles 'Creep', 'High and Dry' and 'Pyramid Song'.

Each special vinyl sleeve will feature a sticker of the original 5” CD single artwork.

Radiohead left EMI shortly before the release of their 2007 album 'In Rainbows'

Following their departure, EMI controversially reissued Radiohead's albums – excluding 'In Rainbows' - and released a 'Best Of'.

The singles re-releases will be available from April 21st.

The full 12 singles are:

'Drill'
'Creep'
'My Iron Lung'
'Just'
'Fake Plastic Trees'
'High and Dry'
'Street Spirit (Fade Out)'
'Paranoid Android'
'Karma Police'
'No Surprises'
'Pyramid Song'
'There There'
'2+2=5'

So, if you wanted to get rare 12" like Anyone can play guitar or Pop is dead, nevermind therethere.

Still, Drill....

Knives Out - it sounds like a sort of weak mishmash of let down, creep and karma police but not as good as any of those.

amnesiac as an album was pretty insubstantial, i found. a few stellar moments ('packt like sardines...', 'like spinning plates', 'life in a glasshouse') and a whole bunch of half ideas and missteps stretched to song length. 'knives out' is exactly as described above - a mishmash of already played out concepts, done in a pretty nonchalant and bland way.

I fel the same way about Amnesiac, though I'd add Pyramid Song and Dollars and Cents to the stellar moments list... It's definitely the weak link in their post-OKC discography.

oops, yeah 'pyramid song' is indeed pretty special. forgot to mention it.

'twas one of those last "all time" TOTP moments....

where they had to halt the loop of "whoo - yeaeh" party noises for the entirety of this performance...

I am not going to defend "Pablo Honey" much in terms of the album as a whole. But "Creep" was still a great single.

I'd still rep for quite a bit of Pablo Honey - the last five tracks in particular is not a bad run.

^^^not the last 5, but a friend of mine last night was wholly taken aback when I told him my favourite Radiohead closing track (other than Palo Alto, which doesn't really count) was Blow Out. Lurgee is really good too.

Even at the time 'You' sounded ill-conceived and immature.. Particularly the awful ending where he simply screams for lack of anything better to revive easily still the weakest song in their 90s back catalogue. In the context of the other stuff on this compilation, its inclusion is laughable.

I actually rather like "You". It, Stop Whispering and the last two are the only things REALLY worth saving from Pablo Honey IMO

worst early radiohead song is "inside my head", but the best is also tucked away as a b-side and is called "faithless the wonderboy".

"Thom is a DJ"

Knives Out - it sounds like a sort of weak mishmash of let down, creep and karma police but not as good as any of those.

I never quite understood why ILM (and FT) c. 2001 went for Amnesiac in such a big way, including posters who haven't had much truck with Radiohead either before or since.

The second half of Pablo Honey (most of the tracks after 'Anyone Can Play Guitar') is very strong. 'I Can't' has an excellent refrain. 'Vegetable' and 'Ripchord', while lyrically naive compared to later efforts are also very good, and 'Blow Out' as Louis said upthread, is a great jazz-tinged precursor to things like 'Glass House' from Amnesiac.

I never quite understood why ILM (and FT) c. 2001 went for Amnesiac in such a big way, including posters who haven't had much truck with Radiohead either before or since.

― Matt DC, Thursday, 15 January 2009 11:07 (27 minutes ago) Bookmark

Yeah I never understood either, and (slightly less so) for Kid A. While I understand that a lot of people saw Kid A as a revolutionary gesture from a "made" rock act to go electronic and experimental, the sounds were largely recycled Warp ideas (which Thom and co made no bones about). Amnesiac was a b-side to that in my mind. Maybe it was because previously non-fans had seen Radiohead as an overblown depressive pomp-rock outfit and had decided to give them another go after the Kid A hype. Amnesiac therefore became "their" album.

Don't knock "You", its so much better than ACPG

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

the sounds were largely recycled Warp ideas (which Thom and co made no bones about)

I've heard this line repeatedly trotted out since before Kid A even came out, but it's never justified. Yeah, Thom made some comment at the time about purchasing the entire Warp back catalog. "Treefingers" is made up of Ed's processed guitar tones, "Idioteque" uses a drum machine, and "Kid A" sounds like computers were involved (!!!!) during the recording. But to suggest that the entire album is just outtakes from Autechre and AFX albums is so misleading. Which Kid A song, specifically sounds like which Warp artist's song?

i like most if not all of these but i voted "talk show host"

*VLTF*

that youtube version of "you" up there is outstanding, wow.

i'm a pablo honey apologist, though.

I've heard this line repeatedly trotted out since before Kid A even came out, but it's never justified. Yeah, Thom made some comment at the time about purchasing the entire Warp back catalog. "Treefingers" is made up of Ed's processed guitar tones, "Idioteque" uses a drum machine, and "Kid A" sounds like computers were involved (!!!!) during the recording. But to suggest that the entire album is just outtakes from Autechre and AFX albums is so misleading. Which Kid A song, specifically sounds like which Warp artist's song?

― scourge of cords (Z S), sábado 17 de enero de 2009 1:23 (1 hour ago) Bookmark

WORD.

lol @ thom's hair (ahh 1993)

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

If they did a "best" poll, would the results be much the same?

this is an embarrassment even for ILM

:(

There There 0
Exit Music (for a Film) 0
Everything in Its Right Place 0
Optimistic 0
The Bends 0
Just 0

fierce

of those the only one i would have thought about voting for is "exit music." i mean, i could probably jam it because it's been years since i heard it, but in my head it sounds even more wahhmbulance than 'creep.'

The Bends 0
Just 0

yeah

ha you know "fierce" is actually how i would describe thom yorke on "the bends."

http://farm1.static.flickr.com/32/54377838_7c7f6160d0.jpg?v=0http://www.jewelryandbeading.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/03/gallery2.jpg

"The Bends" is like "Anyone Can Play Guitar pt 2" - "I wish it was the sixties, I wish we could be happy" vs "Grow my hair I am Jim Morrison".

"Babeeee's got the Beeeeeeennnds, we don't have any real friieeeends" <- so lame. I should totally have voted for it.

yeah butttt the guitar is awesome?

No way it sounds really like 'rawk by numbers' to me. The intro is really heavy but totally devoid of feeling, and the licks in the middle of the first verse sound almost mechanical.

Shall we have a repoll? ;-)

12 of you are dickfaces.

*ducks*

I don't care for the shitty lyrics on The Bends, it's still a great rawk song. Which can't be said about dull dull dull Karma Police, which I'm glad got more than my vote alone. God, such a dreadful boring-dressed-as-hipster song.

because things associated w hipsters are so exciting

Yes, that's exactly why...

the worst song to not receive a vote is 'just', which is just plain annoying and not enhanced by its noisy sections

the other four are classics.

4 + 1 = 6 (answer song to "2 + 2 = 5")

No way it sounds really like 'rawk by numbers' to me.

You know, the funny thing is that I remember a time when they hype surrounding every new Radiohead release was that guitars were going to return on this one, "..it'll be more like The Bends..."