Can Someone Explain Radiohead to Me? Grammys

Chris LeDrew · From: Canada

As much as I try, I cannot seem to grasp all the hoopla about this band. They always underwhelm me, despite all the critical raves and peer admiration. Their first album or two had good songs, but when they started going off the rails with OK Computer, I totally lost them. At this point, it seemed many people were drawn to them. I just can't make heads or tails of them at all. But I am willing to look a bit deeper if someone could give me a bit of perspective on their artistic direction. Their performance on the Grammys left me cold, while the audience reacted with a standing ovation. I always considered myself fairly open to musical styles, but I absolutely dislike what this band produces. And for some reason, I feel like I'm missing out, due to their widespread appeal. Most times, this doesn't bother me, because a lot of the Rap and Hip-Hop goes over my head and I just don't care. But with Radiohead, I sincerely feel as if I'm overlooking something.

Here is the Grammy clip:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7IMiiJRwhS0

Anybody wanna discuss Radiohead?

Barry Blackwood · Posted 10 Feb 2009 7:35 am

Chris LeDrew · From: Canada

Barry, I attribute my age (and cultural/geographical factors) to my dislike for Hip-Hop and Rap. But I am about the same age as the guys in Radiohead (late 30s), and while I do like Oasis, Coldplay and a number of other Brit-Rock bands of the same era, Radiohead escape me. If most Radiohead fans were under 20, I'd attribute it to age. But they seem to attract an audience of 25-40, or thereabouts. Beats me. Smile

Archie Nicol R.I.P. · From: Ayrshire, Scotland

Music to slash your wrists to.

Arch.
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John Steele (deceased) · From: Renfrew, Ontario, Canada

Chris,
When you get it figured out, then maybe you can explain the Tragically Hip to me.
-John

Marc Jenkins · From: Victoria, British Columbia, Canada

For years, during my early twenties, I felt that Radiohead were just too dark for my tastes. I liked 'the Bends' but found it to drag in the last third. Moreover, I was more into shiny, happy hippy music, and discovering darkness more through folk music (Townes Van Zandt, for example). I got my butt kicked by Kid A the first time I heard it (very loud, paranoid, in the dark at a strangers' apartment) but it never grabbed me again the same way. Hail to the Thief was regarded as 'a return to guitar rock' but I didn't get it, or care, either.

Fast forward a couple years. I kept trying to let Radiohead in. Eventually, Amnesiac and Kid A started to stick. Maybe it was riding the bus for an entire rainy Victoria winter (I'm a prairie-boy expat) in the dark, but the isolating feelings in the songs (traditionally-formed or not) felt like what I felt inside. That did it, I was hooked. I'm reading the 33 1/3 book on OK Computer right now, and I have to say that it's incredible. Their last album, In Rainbows, is spectacular.

As a reference, I find that early REM and U2, the Smiths and darker Neil Young can pave the way to Thom Yorke's lyrics, which are often little clumps of everyday sayings expressing loneliness, disenchantment, and the aforementioned isolation. Musically, there's often a more direct line to Mendelssohn or Messiaen, as well as Brahms and Beethoven string pieces than rock music. But with a really solid rhythm section.

I finally saw Radiohead live in August at an outdoor show, where it POURED the whole time. It was perfect.

Bob Hoffnar · From: Austin, Tx

While on tour guys take turns plugging in there Ipods on the long drives. Within the endless hours of mundane, referencial garbage I sat through everytime Radiohead came on (which I hadn't heard of yet) I would perk up and ask who was that. They have something special. The Ok Computer album is up there with Sargent Pepper or the Band's brown album to me. A brilliant masterpiece. The production alone is astonishing. I tend to not like most music. But I think Radiohead is the real deal.
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Theresa Galbraith · From: Goodlettsville,Tn. USA

I'd never seen, but heard the name Radiohead.
Anyway, I liked Radiohead on the Grammy's. I don't think I'd buy the CD, but...

His movements and singing reminded me of Joe Cocker. Smile

Marc Jenkins · From: Victoria, British Columbia, Canada

More ammunition:

The occasionally reliable indie-snob website Pitchfork Media has a breathtaking review of Kid A.

A snippet:
"Even the heralded OK Computer has been nudged down one spot in Valhalla. Kid A makes rock and roll childish. Considerations on its merits as "rock" (i.e. its radio fodder potential, its guitar riffs, and its hooks) are pointless. Comparing this to other albums is like comparing an aquarium to blue construction paper. And not because it's jazz or fusion or ambient or electronic. Classifications don't come to mind once deep inside this expansive, hypnotic world. Ransom, the philologist hero of C.S. Lewis' Out of the Silent Planet who is kidnapped and taken to another planet, initially finds his scholarship useless in his new surroundings, and just tries to survive the beautiful new world."

Another:
"When the headphones peel off, and it occurs that six men (Nigel Godrich included) created this, it's clear that Radiohead must be the greatest band alive, if not the best since you know who. Breathing people made this record! And you can't wait to dive back in and try to prove that wrong over and over."

Brian Kurlychek · From: Maine, USA

As Randy Jackson would say.... "I'm not feelin' it Dog".
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Chris LeDrew · From: Canada

Bob and Mark's comments are why I question my lack of connection with this band. The pure mention of the Band's Brown album in the same sentence as Radiohead leaves me in a state of frustration. If OK Computer is on a level with the Brown album (in my top 5 favs of all-time), then I've missed the bus completely. Is it considered on par with Who's Next as well? If so, I seriously have to give it one more try.

The more I think about it, the more I realize it's probably the darkness of the music that prevents me to delving deeper or giving it more of a chance. I'm not generally into dark themes in music. "Stormbringer" is about as dark as I can go. Smile

But as a Beatles fan, I have to strongly state that on a hundred different levels the Beatles are profoundly better than Radiohead. But then again, it all comes down to preference.

David Doggett · Posted 10 Feb 2009 10:57 am

I'm like Bob H. If you listen to a bunch of other electronic art-rock stuff, you begin to realize how much better Radio Head are than most of the rest of it. But if you are not into the genre, maybe that's not good enough.

Chris LeDrew · From: Canada

This is probably also part of it. I have no idea about any bands in the electronic art rock genre. Right now I have Sinatra on, and it's all I've been listening to for days on end. I'm only now fully grasping the genius of that incredible vocalist. There is nothing to wade through with Sinatra, I'm learning. He's right there: bang! Wicked! Interestingly, I always knew how good he was, but didn't care. Now I am in freak-out mode, which leads me to thinking that the same could happen in the future when the time is right to lock into what Radiohead are doing.

Skip Edwards · From: LA,CA

Right on, Chris. Frank is always in heavy rotation here.
It's all so cool that I kinda never quite know what to focus on at any given time. His vocal, the arrangements, the rhythm section, the tune, etc.
It's no wonder we don't get Radiohead...

Chris LeDrew · From: Canada

Yes, Skip, I guess they are on opposite poles of the spectrum. Smile

I'm with you on not knowing what to listen to, regarding Sinatra.....you get the phrasing, the swing, the song, the separate players, the sweet dissonance (ie. Witchcraft horns), and on and on. I can't believe I snoozed on it for so long.

I like to be open-mined, as I already mentioned. But stuff like Sinatra just makes me feel good. Radiohead makes me feel anxious.

Bob Hoffnar · From: Austin, Tx

Chris,
Years ago I didn't get Sinatra until a punk rocker buddy made me a cassette of "The Voice". Once I heard Sinatra with the Nelson Riddle arrangements I was hooked for life. I actually put Radiohead up there on that level. Its a whole different thing of coarse but both are on the same artistic/musical level to me.

You may not ever like it or you might have a real treat ahead of you some day.

BTW: I stood in line when I was a kid to buy Beatle and the Band albums when they first came out.
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Bob

Chris LeDrew · From: Canada

Marc Jenkins · From: Victoria, British Columbia, Canada

Interesting, Chris. I can't, for the life of me, figure out what the big deal with Sinatra is. Maybe one day!

I'd recommend 'OK Computer' or 'In Rainbows', on headphones, when it's dark and rainy, as a potential gateway. Individual songs will never really cut it for me, as some of the best moments on these albums, to me, come in pieces that are far removed from the earlier, singer-songwriter-ish songs of Pablo Honey and The Bends.

Doug Beaumier · From: Northampton, MA

Earnest Bovine · From: Los Angeles CA USA

Earnest Bovine · From: Los Angeles CA USA

b0b · From: Cloverdale, CA, USA

They're one of my favorite rock bands. Their progressions are really odd, their lyrics are tight, and their tones are really different from most bands.

Only thing is that the singer sometimes gets on my nerves. I suppose that's intentional on his part, though. The songs weren't meant to be comfortable.

I have a 2-disk vinyl set called Radio Dread that is OK Computer played reggae style. Whoa!! It's really cool.
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Jon Light (deceased) · From: Saugerties, NY

There is far more Radiohead that I haven't heard than that I have heard (yet) but from In Rainbows, from a one hour in-studio performance video I saw recently, and from the occasional single song that I may hear on the radio from I-don't-know what cd, I consider them singular, unique, from the ground up original and simply brilliant.

I have become more and more aware of "sonics" in music---not just the way it is constructed, not just how well it is picked, not just the interesting changes, not just the way it makes you think or feel.....how it sounds. How it moves the air. How it blends into one single sound. How it sounds. Sonics.
As obvious as this idea seems, it is a borderline epiphany for me.

Radiohead is, to me, a large and hugely successful exploration of sonics and I'm glad there's a bunch of stuff I haven't heard yet.

Tucker Jackson · From: Portland, Oregon, USA

Musical taste can be like food taste: some people like coconut. Some people "don't get it."

And nobody can make convert a coconut-hater into a lover, no matter how eloquent the argument.

Everybody prefers their own set of things. There is no universal "good" or "bad." Whether food, music, or movies... nobody can talk another person into liking what THEY like -- or vice versa. Tastes don't work that way.

Chris LeDrew · From: Canada

Tucker, I understand what you're saying. Your point has been going around in my brain since the start of the thread. But sometimes what initially sounds unpleasant or unspectacular can hit you a different way at a different time. I am interested in anything that good musicians rank alongside other albums I really like, and Radiohead is just about the only band that holds this position without clicking for me. Therefore, your point is, in a way, the reason why I started the thread.

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