comparisons

Radiohead sound nothing like Pink Floyd, especially now. There were a few bits on OK Computer here and there that had a SLIGHT Pink Floyd flavor, but nothing more. And nothing after or before OK Computer.
And to say Oasis sound like The Beatles is a terrible insult to The Beatles.
Stereolab sounded a lot like Neu! at one point...not so much now. And never to the point where their existence as a band was superfluous.

i think the stereolab neu! comparison is fair enough (for the first few records). this didn't stop those stereolab records being ace though.

i'm afraid i don't own any Oasis, Radiohead or Beatles records, and only the first Pink Floyd album

Radiohead did have some Floyd touches, but the Floyd comparison is basically the easy shorthand for 'prog but we like it' - The Orb used to get compared to PF all the time too and sounded barely like even "Echoes".

Oasis-Beatles was always lazy too - they never sounded much like the Beatles, they just nicked a few textures off them.

I haven't heard the new Charlatans album but did anyone ever get the feeling they just made about a hundred versions of Sympathy for the Devil by the Stones.

Either that or 'Like a Rolling Stone' . But now I hear they've doing twelve different versions of 'Move On Up' by Curtis Mayfield - what range!

All comparisons are valid, if honestly expressed - stereolab are the new everything, so I'm told, and none the worse for that. Whether comparisons are deserved or not is irrelevant. All that matters is whether the music is any good or not. The pupil can surpass the master, loathe as most fans are to admit it.

Interesting by the way that nearly all comparisons made in the pop world are musical ones. No one ever accuses Thom, Noel, etc. of ripping their lyrics off another songwriter.

Radiohead did have some Floyd touches, but the Floyd comparison is basically the easy shorthand for 'prog but we like it' - The Orb used to get compared to PF all the time too and sounded barely like even "Echoes".

I think there is validity in comparing Radiohead to Pink Floyd now because just as the Floyd was an accessible rock band interested in pursuing technology and a "futuristic" aesthetic in the 70s, Radiohead is doing now. Anytime I would compare the two bands, I would go for the conceptual comparison rather than a literal "they sound the same" one. However, this does not take into account dozens of other current bands with seemingly the same methods, and therefore could be argued as vague generalization.

Sometimes I think the comparisons like this can be great help -- for example, not mentioning The Beatles when discussing recent (last 15 years or so) XTC would be a disservice to both parties. But, often these comparisons are just easy ways to categorize music for which we don't have the interest to investigate further.

I don't think that's fair to Pink Floyd, because with all due respect to Radiohead they arent discovering new fields in electronica as Pink Floyd did regardless of what their fans will tell you.

Actually, I'm pretty damn sure that critics DID note various passages where Noel "borrowed" some lyrical ideas from the Beatles, both in & out of the studio - "That's a good bit, thank you very much". (I'm pretty damn sure of it - a Raygun article talked about nicking some of John Lennon's thoughts circa his sleep-in for "Don't Look Back in Anger".)

But everyone's right about the other "big" comparisons - they're mostly bollocks if used as absolutes (as in these cases). Writers are such lazy bastards. (Present company excluded, of course.)

I never saw the Radiohead/Floyd thing. I'd compare Radiohead more to the Alan Parsons Project, or Kansas

The kind of comparisons you point out have less to do with sound and more to do with the band's place in the pop culture cosmos: Oasis = The New Beatles because they were supposed to lead a new British Invasion (and they kept saying they were The NB); Radiohead are the new Floyd because they're the big bleak alienated statement studio trickster band.

These kinds of comparisons are useful too - I don't buy it when anyone says "it's all about the music, mannnn." To say that Oasis are The New Beatles is absurd, but to say that they were calling themselves The New Beatles around the time of the release of their second album tells us a lot. So The Manic Street Preachers are The New Clash in the UK and Rancid are The New Clash in the USA and everybody's happy.

except maybe Joe Strummer.

i'm very lazy David.

I never got the whole Beatles/Oasis bit either--except when they covered Walrus, when did they sound the least bit Beatle-y? On the other hand, Radiohead around the OK Computer period was VERY derivative of Pink Floyd. I mean, I hardly think it's controversial, as Thom Yorke all but said it, and then staged a show with quadrophonic sound a la PF... and if you listen to the early Floyd albums, the synthesizers and especially the harmonic content are quite obviously central conceits in the OK Computer dystopia theme. Having said that, I suppose it's up for debate whether Radiohead did it better than PF, in much the same way it was Kid A versus Warp Records for a while. As for new Neu!, I think that's the least tenuous comparison. But then again, how many new Nick Drakes are there? How many Jeff Buckley impersonators (Ours!)--how many new Billie Holidays must we endure!

Oasis weer supposed to be the 'Sex Beatles' weren't they nasty and confrontational - but with singalong tunes? 'cept that the Beatles were quite confrontational in their way and the pistols were nothing if not singalong .

Blur sounding like XTC was a fair comparrision for a couple of albums tho'.

Beyond a few guitar flourishes, I don't hear it. The songwriting and structure is very different.

Blur sounding like XTC was a fair comparrision for a couple of albums tho'.

"Tracy Jacks" gave me Black Sea flashbacks.

Me too, FWIW. It was "Generals and Majors" with a sneer, wasn't it?

"Respectable Street" was the most Blur-predictive.

Oasis nasty & confrontational? Maybe to the press & media (in godlike fashion), but their actual songs were nothing if not easy-to- please, sing-along, vicarious-so-so-thrill-seeking run-of-the-mill pop/rock offerings.

And, damn it, Gareth, take a compliment when it's offered, for the luvva. Otherwise, then I'LL have to admit I'm lazy, and then others will follow suit, and my efforts to boost morale will all go to shit.

let's try these 1) basement jaxx , beck (latest ouput of both ) _ Prince 2) royal trux - psychedelic era stones 3) radiohead - warp + conterbury sound 4) stereo total _ plastic bertrand + lio

How about how "Don't Look Back In Anger" begins? When I first heard it I thought someone had revamped "Let It Be"! They open sounding almost exactly alike.

Live sound like Bush sound like Pearl Jam. Ja Rule sounds like DMX. Elastica sound like Wire. Bad Company sound like Ed Rush & Optical. Foxy Brown sounds like Lil' Kim (or the other way around?). The Strokes sound like The Velvet Underground. Jamiroquai sound like Stevie Wonder. Samantha Mumba sounds like Britney Spears. 4Hero sound like Roy Ayers. Abba Teens sound like ABBA. 10 Cents sound like Beck. Slipknot sound like Sepultura. Linkin Park sound like Papa Roach sound like Limp Bizkit. Delinquent Habits sound like Cypress Hill. Starsailor sound like The Verve. Mariah Carey sounds like Whitney Houston. P J Harvey sounds like Patti Smith. Dido sounds like Beth Orton. It's hardly ever favourable, isn't it?

I sound like me. LOVE ME!

Roger Waters is a poor man's Frank Zappa. Based on that variable, y'all can do the equation re Floyd:Radiohead comparison.

The anti "comparing Pink Floyd to Radiohead" backlash continues. Face it people. OKC-era Radiohead owed a _lot_ to Pink Floyd. They themselves admit it. It's a combination of elements. The drumming style, the bass part in "Exit Music," the twanging riff in "Electioneering," the strident "Airbag" riff, the tremolo picking throughout -- not that Pink Floyd had a copyright on these elements, but it's a combination. "Subterranean Homesick Alien" is totally Floyd city, and "The Tourist" is remarkably reminiscent of the Pink instrumental "Mudmen." I'm not saying that they're ripoffs, of course; Yorke's soaring vocals are not analogous to anything in the Floyd catalog. Nor are whole swaths of the album. Radiohead did an excellent job of on that album of integrating their influences; Floyd, R.E.M, Bowie, U2, Beatles, and a healthy dose of themselves. I think that's one of the reasons why it's such a classic album.

Radiohead did have some Floyd touches, but the Floyd comparison is basically the easy shorthand for 'prog but we like it'

What? Pink Floyd is good prog? I also think Radiohead sounded nothing like Pink Floyd.

But of course Oasis sounded like the Beatles.

The Velvet Underground, while influential, are probably not quite as influential as reviewers would have you think. When Sonic Youth was big, they'd always get Velvets comparisons. Not that there is no VU influence at all but they'd often get cited as a primary influence, which they never were. The way the VU frequently gets cited as the ultimate source of punk rock amuses and bemuses me. Like, listen to the cafe ballads (What percentage of Velvets songs were ballads? 70?) on Velvet Underground and Nico and Minor Threat or even Never Mind the Bollocks back to back.