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Radiohead: What's the big deal?


ITW 2012

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I completely hear ya. I liked quite a few of their songs back when In Rainbows was released. Really liked that album. But that's until I had my first Radiohead live experience. Then I barely ever listened to their albums again. When I saw the kind of fan base they have, I just couldn't be part of that. It's like they think they're some kind of intellectual music elite, as if the fact your like Radiohead makes you 'sophisticated' or 'superior'. I hated how their behaved during the concert, their claims and all, plus the concert itself was really weak. Really, really weak. After that, barely ever listened to them again. Gave 'em another shot a few months ago but just couldn't get into them anymore. Too hipster for my taste.

Edited by It Don't Really Matter
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Everything In It's Right Place is something I'd pick if I were to show aliens how profound human creativity can be, each album alone is a big deal, not to mention a catalogue which is enormously varied and ambitious. I think cause the material is so packed with great stuff and layers that it's almost saturated and taken for granted. The abiity and determination it takes to make music as deep as that these days without repeating a successful formula isn't easy. That band is just on another planet the same way Floyd and The Beatles were, always looking for a new trick to the sound but never losing identity.

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I completely hear ya. I liked quite a few of their songs back when In Rainbows was released. Really liked that album. But that's until I had my first Radiohead live experience. Then I barely ever listened to their albums again. When I saw the kind of fan base they have, I just couldn't be part of that. It's like they think they're some kind of intellectual music elite, as if the fact your like Radiohead makes you 'sophisticated' or 'superior'. I hated how their behaved during the concert, their claims and all, plus the concert itself was really weak. Really, really weak. After that, barely ever listened to them again. Gave 'em another shot a few months ago but just couldn't get into them anymore. Too hipster for my taste.

Don't hate a band for its fans. Radiohead fans tend to be douchebags, but that doesn't stop me from loving their music.

I guess what it is personally for me, is how they managed to go from an average, near one-hit wonder Brit Pop band, into one of the biggest rock bands in the world in 1997, and then completely turned on their heels and made something completely out of left field. No one album really sounds the same, but you can always tell that it's Radiohead.

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Their progression is amazing. For people familiar with their work Pablo Honey -> The Bends -> Ok Computer -> Kid A..... That's a remarkable run.

They are the best band of our era imo. What other band can do this:

Gagging Order: Beautiful, tender, soft acoustic song

Idioteque: Wild electronic, beat heavy madness

Paranoid Android: Queen sized epic with insane guitar sound

Just: classic standard 90s rock song

There There: Tribal classic rock

Kid A: distorted but beatiful electronic weirdness

I Am a Wickid Child: Dirty blues tinged song

A Wold At The Door: borderline rapping

The National Anthem: Jazz freak-out

They just have it all so music fans who like a wide variety of music can really dig deep into them. They use guitars, all sorts of electronics, weird less common instruments, trumpets, clarinets, strings, etc etc etc. Every album is it's own experience.

Also I don't get the guy who said they were bad live! Their songs live are about twice as energetic as in studio, the light show is always amazing, and they bring the same varied style where every song is different from the last.

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Guest Len B'stard

i'm a bit of a dickhead like this because i sort of go by what i am led to believe certain bands are like without checking out their shit, a type of ignorance i'm trying to rid myself of so like, yeah, Radiohead, i always was led to believe that they were like a soft lads version of like, y'know, bands like PiL or Can or Neu! or Magazine or Sonic Youth. A version of that kinda thing thats more like, NME-reader acceptable.

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Guest RonMexico82

Musically brilliant but I always thought that they, and their fans, were a shower of miserable cunts.I think their music is downright depressing and negative, reinforced by the amount of fans they have that have "issues". Recently a friend of mine who is obsessed with the band, tried to commit suicide but instead ended up paralysed for life. The other day he told me that he probably shouldn't have been listening to Radiohead given his problems with depression. I find it hard to look past that shit whenever I hear about them.

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Guest Len B'stard
Recently a friend of mine who is obsessed with the band, tried to commit suicide but instead ended up paralysed for life.

Woahhhh...fuck me man, it's just a band. You wanna keep that lad away from fuckin Joy Division!

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Guest RonMexico82

I know...I could elaborate too but frankly it is fuckin disturbing. They are a bunch of joyless fuckers though. Remember that scene from Father Ted where the suicidal priest was cured by Ted playing the Shaft theme for him. On the bus home he hears Radiohead and lapses back into depression lol

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I don't get the depressing bit. If you're depressed songs like Exit Music just sound more beautiful to me... they don't MAKE you depressed. Also they have plenty of stuff you can drive around blasting in your car singing along to. The lyrics are just about things more surreal, silly, abstract, or serious than "oh baby let's do it all night" or "I wanna rock ya ya rock party party ya" like Myxomatosis, A Wolf At The Door, Arpeggi, Lotus Flower, Electioneering, Just, I Might Be Wrong, 15 Step etc etc etc!

For example I've heard people call their song "Nude" depressing.... how is shit like that depressing?!?! haha

Edited by The_Universal_Sigh
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Guest Len B'stard

Yeah people say the same about Joy Division but i've just found it to be beautiful. I mean there is a tone of melencholy to it but thats sort of whats beautiful about it, i suppose music is as good as it's ability to evoke a response but i've certainly never listened to anything and had it influence me towards negativity. The way i see it is, someone thats gonna harm themselves is in that frame of mind, when you're depressed a song can trigger shit but so can just about anything else in the world, i don't think it's necessarily the musics fault i mean, a man could commit suicide to Something Tells Me I'm Into Something Good if they were inclined, when you're sad inside it makes everything around you feel sad to you.

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I completely hear ya. I liked quite a few of their songs back when In Rainbows was released. Really liked that album. But that's until I had my first Radiohead live experience. Then I barely ever listened to their albums again. When I saw the kind of fan base they have, I just couldn't be part of that. It's like they think they're some kind of intellectual music elite, as if the fact your like Radiohead makes you 'sophisticated' or 'superior'. I hated how their behaved during the concert, their claims and all, plus the concert itself was really weak. Really, really weak. After that, barely ever listened to them again. Gave 'em another shot a few months ago but just couldn't get into them anymore. Too hipster for my taste.

now i fucking love radiohead, i will rock the fuck out whenever they play and im going to see them live in a week or so, but your right about their fan base, from what i heard alot of people at their shows kinda stand around not dancing or anything just waiting for the tempo changes and what not and they think thats cool, thats the lame thing about their fan base, other then that there a great band

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Musically brilliant but I always thought that they, and their fans, were a shower of miserable cunts.I think their music is downright depressing and negative, reinforced by the amount of fans they have that have "issues". Recently a friend of mine who is obsessed with the band, tried to commit suicide but instead ended up paralysed for life. The other day he told me that he probably shouldn't have been listening to Radiohead given his problems with depression. I find it hard to look past that shit whenever I hear about them.

Sorry, but anyone that blames listening to a certain band for their own attempt at suicide...it ain't the music's fault. It takes a lot more to get someone to that point, not just a melancholy record or two. It's the same as when someone like Marilyn Manson gets blamed for inspiring school shootings, a crock. Radiohead's a pretty downcast sounding band, granted, and I could see why people that are depressed could enjoy them more, but they're not one and the same.

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I have all of their albums, yet I rarely ever listen to them. What's the big deal about this band? They definitely aren't in the same league as Pink Floyd.

been wondering the same thing i find them vastly overrated, they are not even playing the same game as pink floyd

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I have all of their albums, yet I rarely ever listen to them. What's the big deal about this band? They definitely aren't in the same league as Pink Floyd.

I have none, but I have wondered this for year. I just don't get the fuss about them.

And no, definitely not in the same league as Pink Floyd.

But then again, only a few bands that have ever existed are.

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Guest Len B'stard

Musically brilliant but I always thought that they, and their fans, were a shower of miserable cunts.I think their music is downright depressing and negative, reinforced by the amount of fans they have that have "issues". Recently a friend of mine who is obsessed with the band, tried to commit suicide but instead ended up paralysed for life. The other day he told me that he probably shouldn't have been listening to Radiohead given his problems with depression. I find it hard to look past that shit whenever I hear about them.

Sorry, but anyone that blames listening to a certain band for their own attempt at suicide...it ain't the music's fault. It takes a lot more to get someone to that point, not just a melancholy record or two. It's the same as when someone like Marilyn Manson gets blamed for inspiring school shootings, a crock. Radiohead's a pretty downcast sounding band, granted, and I could see why people that are depressed could enjoy them more, but they're not one and the same.

Would you say that music can effect a persons mood or behaviour, don't think? I get what you're saying but i don't think Ronnie was saying that it's the musics fault, he seemed to be saying that, y'know, the music reminds him of that and he can't get past that as opposed to he can't listen to the music of what he believes in solely responsible for the death of his friend. To be honest if music didn't effect my mood/outlook i probably wouldn't listen to it so much.

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