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.

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..."