radiohead=modern day beatles?

And yet, since our very concept of normative "guitar rock" is largely based on the Beatles' career, and since even more than that, our concept of what kind of career path a "classic" band should follow is based on the Beatles' career, isn't the comparison utterly pointless?

I mean, isn't this what we've established as the template career for a great / significant / brilliant band? (1) Release high-quality records that are fresh-sounding but not too out-there. (2) Refine original "fresh-sounding but not too out-there" sound by stretching in the sorts of directions normally labeled "mature," "thoughtful," or "finely-crafted." (3) Decide that you've done pretty much all you can with that original sound (or smoke some weed with Dylan) and elect to try and create a wholly new sound; release a few records that actually do sound sort of "out-there," despite still basically sounding like yourself. (4) Figure out exactly where you were going with this whole "new sound" thing and release one or two albums that actually sort of achieve that sound and are really pleasant to listen to. (5) Do random stuff for a few records, since everyone was so taken with your last experiment that they'll pretty much take your word on anything further. (6) Either (a) break up and do solo records, or (b) figure out what to do next, even though no band has yet managed to get there.

Isn't this the path of development that nearly every ambitious band in history has tried to follow, some organically but some self- consciously enough that they'd even say, in interviews, "Yeah, we felt like we'd gone as far as we could with that early sound. We'd always loved Sgt. Pepper's, and we really wanted to do something like that---we wanted to do *our* Sgt. Pepper's."

Blah blah blah. Radiohead make good records, but lately it's fuss fuss fuss as if they invented (a) guitar rock, (b) "atmospheric" guitar rock, (c) rock masquerading as cut-rate IDM, and (d) the entire musical universe outside of chart pop.

But I am really beginning to get sick of the way that the *career* of the Beatles hangs like a pall over every successful and/or groundbreaking band to come after them. The Beatles were The Beatles. They were a brilliant band. But they were not the sole and only archetype for every rock band to come along after, and trying to see correllaries (sp?) seems pointless and silly.

Judge bands on their own terms, instead of constantly trying to push them into the pidgeonhole of some archetype- whether that be the Beatles, the Stooges or the Velvet Underground. (maybe this is a continuation of my thoughs on the velvets/criticism thread)

That is still a very strong archetype, especially in music. Do we know anything about the creators at all? No, very little, to the point of wearing masks etc. It's so far beyond the "it's not the singer or songwriter, it's the song" mentality that it strives for a machinelike ideal.

No matter what you think of the music, please bear in mind that there is a substantially different way that a band like Oasis are presented as songwriters/grand artistes than the way that a band like Kraftwerk are presented and/or interpreted. (Bearing in mind that I haven't read the tell all autobiography that claims it was really a dictatorship style power dynamic.)

(Course the Stones also went through a very extreme shift in this mode, after bump-off of B.Jones and post-Altamont sell-out: but that was a "70s" archetype thing also, and this time you needn't mess with dates.)

And to bring up Brian Jones within the Stones- very interesting. The way he was ruthlessly cut *out* of the Stones' power core was to me only more evidence of the band consolidating the idea that they revolved around a twin powerhouse. Even in the early days- it revolved around the Jones/Richards axis, power was never shared equally between the three principle members.

And as to Syd-era Pink Floyd (the Lunatic In Check is probably another archetype I should have added) well, honestly, I think Thom Yorke is far too *controlled* in his neurosis to ever reach a Barrett- like status. He's neurotic, he's alienated, but he still someone gives the impression of being an artist who is still ultimately grounded, who is still in control. I think this is why so many people dislike him for being "whinging" or being "contrived" - because, for all his affectations, he never seems to truly let go and just soar into that divine sort of madness.

It's the madness of old man who stays in his bedsit and writes irate letters to the council about Martians running the NHS, rather than the sort of lunatic who goes running down the street nude, shouting that the Martians are here, painting their flight plans in his own shit on the city hall.

(Not to make light of mental illness or anything like that. I hope you get the point.)

I mean, especially Oasis. They have, after all, toured without Noel, so Noel's claims that "me and your grandmother would be Oasis" are rather blunted.

As to Radiohead being dictatorship, I don't know. Everything I've read about the making of Kid A seemed to point toward a Yorke/Greenwood axis, rather than just Yorke. I think Ed, Colin and Phil expressed feelings of being ignored or bypassed, but despite the "lack of guitars", Johnny's presence was very much felt on that record.

I could go out on a limb and say something horribly sexist, and think that maybe it's because the majority of music fans that I know, and seriously discuss music with are female, that we concentrate and discuss these sorts of issues. Women are, stereotypically, more concerned with the relationships *between* things or people, rather than the bare, trainspottery facts about the same. (Yes, that is an extreme generalisation, but many stereotypes have a grain of truth to them.)

I would be interested to see what other people have to say on the subject, (if they think this is a load of pretentious, over- analytical bollocks) but I think the fact that this is yet another Radiohead thread probably scares them away. ;-)

Think I should create a new spin-off thread for this, since it's no longer even tangentially about Radiohead?

The problem, for routine het men (= most rock critics?) is that intense love w/o sex seems to be a territory that makes no sense to them, and they wander elsewhere, bewildered. Actually, I think there's more fright, also. Cuz there's a AWFUL LOT of undeclared homo-eroticism in male rock- fandom waiting to leap out and bite the unwary happy little breeder-boy.

Radiohead = modern day but average Waters-era Pink Floyd. Just have to make a soundtrack and it's a done deal.

no, fuck's sake no

Radiohead = the "no, fuck's sake no" Beatles

radiohead are ok.

loving the rock dynamics analysis in here, good bump

there's even more of that here:

Power Dynamics and Creative Archetypes within bands (was Radiohead vs. Beatles)

The comparison doesn't line up for me because of Radiohead's different position in pop culture.

I can't think of a Radiohead counterpart to Beatlemania? I'm wary of saying that RH are more 'marginal' than the Beatles, because of the immense respect and attention that gets paid to them, but if they're popular they surely popular in a very different way.

Seeing that Todd posted this in 2001 is giving me instant strange flashbacks.

My ex-wife used to say that

oh dear -- Todd!

I really like them but I have to say they're both similar in one important aspect: They get pinned as innovative and inventive bands when in reality they mostly created juxtapositions of unconventional techniques and influences, at their most experimental. The Beatles and Radiohead didn't invent anything. For most of their career they simply took the work of lesser known artists and made it more digestible for the masses.

Also Glass Onion and Karma Police.

I'm being a bit harsh by saying they didn't invent anything new but in a way they never did. Velvet Underground, The Stooges, Neu!, My Bloody Valentine to name a few did really create new genres almost out of thin air. The Beatles and Radiohead were more of a trend jumpers.

give me 'sexy sadie' over 'karma police' any fuckin' day.

ah yes sexy sadie, not glass onion. Sorry.

i wouldn't say the velvets and stooges invented a genre 'out of thin air' -- they've both clearly got their roots in american garage rock.

You just cannot expect any band in the world not to have any roots.

My point was rather that they progressed and evolved the sound of their roots into something unique whereas the beatles and radiohead are the sort of bands that if they had not existed someone else would have eventually followed. Maybe not with the same bang but the music they create from was already there.

Which is to say; if the Beatles had not existed we would have invented them. This phrase sounds true for Radiohead too but I can't say the same for VU, My bloody Valentine, Neu or the Stooges.

Let me further illustrate my point. Pet sounds was released a year before Sgt Peppers. A year later Odessey and Oracle was released. We all would have fared quite alright without it.

Kid A also gets heralded as a groundbreaker when in reality they're just borrowing from Aphex Twin's works a few years before mixed with a few unusual influences (can, messian, mingus, talking heads). We didn't need Kid A either for its sound to expand over the next decade.

Now that I bring him to the table, Aphex Twin, per example, wasn't really borrowing from anything around him at his peak and he wasn't following any trend.

does pepper actually sound anything like pet sounds?

This may deserve its own thread, but the majority of heavy-lifting in "modern" musical evolution has been handled by america/uk over the last half-century (read, R&B, R&R, Soul, Hip-Hop, Techno, Punk, Motown/Soul, et.al;

Fundamental shifts in musical doctrine have occurred less in the last 500+ years than they have in the last 50. In this day and age it's unlikely that the presence and excitement of The Beatles will be repeated within our generation.

does pepper actually sound anything like pet sounds?

― (The Other) J.D. (J.D.)

Well, not really discussing which one is better or how alike they sound or not. What I want to say is that psychedelia and conceptual albums in pop were already becoming mainstream before the beatles did it.

Would Donovan be a more apt comparison? He was doing the same rubber soul folky sound and then shifted into jazzy pop psychedelia for sunshine superman.

So just to wrap it up. I can't really think of anyone else at that time doing an album as say, Kraftwerk's Man Machine, but I can easily name at least three albums that sound like Sgt Peppers around the time of release. Ditto for Kid A.

As many times as i've listened, little comparison is acknowledged between Pet Sounds and Sgt. Pepper. Beatles on top every time.

---- afterthought; i like me some Donovan bigg-times, but he always seemed to coat-tail within a given genre.

And that's more or less the basis I'm using as actual inventiveness. Don't get me wrong I love both bands but people tend to overrate them as geniuses, in reality they're more likely obsessive music lovers with a great ear and talent to follow trends and adapt them into their own brand.

The Beatles were also a marketing machine; i suppose the defining question is "will Radiohead ever make an "Abbey Road"?

Personally, i doubt it; they will live for the commerce of it....... So... in my book.... Beatles = Better

Moka:

in reality they're more likely obsessive music lovers with a great ear and talent to follow trends and adapt them into their own brand.

Although when Radiohead do this, they're mainly doing it for the benefit of other obsessive music lovers, whereas the Beatles were able to do this for the benefit of everyone.

Well it's not like you had to do that much crate-digging in the mid 60s. Every modern trend was happening next door and it was easier to appeal for the masses because they were all in tune with what was hip at the time. Radiohead had over 100 years of cultural baggage and the millions of microtends to pick from.

i'm not sure that 'shite' wasn't already a genre before VU made it

https://www.instagram.com/eobofficial/

Ed O'Brien is on a call with Paul McCartney it's pretty adorable

paul seems to have a fake background of a house that includes a bodyguard lurking

Ed going on about the summer of love... 1989. I don't suppose you were into acid house mate?

Crowded House maybe