Radiohead - The King Of Limbs

That Hitler vid is possibly the funniest I've seen aside from the watmms one. Many hearty lols were had... but to be fair I was having a preemptive lol just thinking about the idea of Hitler going off on the new Radiohead. I'm spamming that one all over...

HMMMMMMmmmmmmm.....

I have come to the conclusion that The King of Limbs is a really unnatural direction for the band, if you can still call them a band at this point. It's Thom's show 100%, and for once The Bends devotees are right: They are completely ignoring their strengths and instead fulfilling Thom's midlife-crisis wish to be Warp-like artist. It's very self consciously "challenging" but without the fun or sense of discovery that the good electronic music he's inspired by (Burial, Four Tet + FlyLo)has. There are a few good moments, sure but do we really want this under the Radiohead name? Is this what they've become? A repository of Thom's second tier electronic music hobbies? Jonny Greenwood is basically a session musician now? The only explanation is that the band has already broken up. It's also ridiculously frustrating how he continues to suck the life out of his own songs. Videotape was excellent in its fully fleshed out live version. Supercollider seemed promising. Both gutted and turned into dull, drab shit.

I mean, shit. Thom supposedly has the advantage of having a full band to flesh out these musical ideas and take the music that inspires him into a fresh, unique territory with their input. But no. Weak.

When In Rainbows came out, I knew they were on the wain.

  On 4/20/2011 at 12:01 AM, Candiru said:

HMMMMMMmmmmmmm.....

 

I have come to the conclusion that The King of Limbs is a really unnatural direction for the band, if you can still call them a band at this point. It's Thom's show 100%, and for once The Bends devotees are right: They are completely ignoring their strengths and instead fulfilling Thom's midlife-crisis wish to be Warp-like artist. It's very self consciously "challenging" but without the fun or sense of discovery that the good electronic music he's inspired by (Burial, Four Tet + FlyLo)has. There are a few good moments, sure but do we really want this under the Radiohead name? Is this what they've become? A repository of Thom's second tier electronic music hobbies? Jonny Greenwood is basically a session musician now? The only explanation is that the band has already broken up. It's also ridiculously frustrating how he continues to suck the life out of his own songs. Videotape was excellent in its fully fleshed out live version. Supercollider seemed promising. Both gutted and turned into dull, drab shit.

 

I mean, shit. Thom supposedly has the advantage of having a full band to flesh out these musical ideas and take the music that inspires him into a fresh, unique territory with their input. But no. Weak.

 

 

When In Rainbows came out, I knew they were on the wain.

This is kind of a drunken rant, but I think I have a point.

  On 4/20/2011 at 12:01 AM, Candiru said:

HMMMMMMmmmmmmm.....

 

I have come to the conclusion that The King of Limbs is a really unnatural direction for the band, if you can still call them a band at this point. It's Thom's show 100%, and for once The Bends devotees are right: They are completely ignoring their strengths and instead fulfilling Thom's midlife-crisis wish to be Warp-like artist. It's very self consciously "challenging" but without the fun or sense of discovery that the good electronic music he's inspired by (Burial, Four Tet + FlyLo)has. There are a few good moments, sure but do we really want this under the Radiohead name? Is this what they've become? A repository of Thom's second tier electronic music hobbies? Jonny Greenwood is basically a session musician now? The only explanation is that the band has already broken up. It's also ridiculously frustrating how he continues to suck the life out of his own songs. Videotape was excellent in its fully fleshed out live version. Supercollider seemed promising. Both gutted and turned into dull, drab shit.

 

I mean, shit. Thom supposedly has the advantage of having a full band to flesh out these musical ideas and take the music that inspires him into a fresh, unique territory with their input. But no. Weak.

 

 

When In Rainbows came out, I knew they were on the wain.

I disagree. The truth is, we don't know how much input each member had in the creation of KOL. You might think it's "Thom's show 100%", but I get a very different impression. I think they all have a lot of input and are making the music they want to make. I happen to like it.

No, the closest they were to being "on the wain" was the HTTT era, where it sounded like they were trying a little too hard to sound like themselves.

yea i dont think this is as much thom as you might think. i think its that they are all about the groove right now. if they are all in the studio writing and recording together and songs like the butche and bloom are coming out of it, its not just thom noodling on a laptop.

not too upset about free radiohead. So it's not a hit single. well duh. they probably are going to not give away their best shit for free...

(yes I know in rainbows was "pay what you want" but still)...

"Say Thank You Gilbert"

It's FREE

Got a 'Thank You' e-mail from info@waste.uk.com I'm assuming the money for the 'newspaper' has been taken out of my account now then?

Radiohead are a pretty mainstream band these days, and for that reason I'm out.

lol

Well not quite a new limb jules, but at least we've got a few extra digits . Nice to get the single tracks, but are they still only available to those people who ordered before 3:30 on the date TKOL was announced? A bit naughty if so. Whoever pre-ordered the Newspaper doodah still had to fork out the same amount of cash, whenever they did it.

i totally thought my universal sigh code would count for something.

i'm getting the feeling theey scrapped the download code idea??

Personally I'm glad those two half baked songs didn't make it onto the album.

  On 4/20/2011 at 1:15 AM, Poiman said:

 

I disagree. The truth is, we don't know how much input each member had in the creation of KOL. You might think it's "Thom's show 100%", but I get a very different impression. I think they all have a lot of input and are making the music they want to make. I happen to like it.

 

Yeah, I never quite get all the radiohead fans crying 'where's Jonny?'. It would make a bit more sense if his solo albums were full of bends-esque guitar rock, but they're pretty abstract for the most part, lots of spooky ambience like you find in...modern-day radiohead tracks.

  On 4/20/2011 at 1:47 PM, Caretstik said:

Well not quite a new limb jules, but at least we've got a few extra digits . Nice to get the single tracks, but are they still only available to those people who ordered before 3:30 on the date TKOL was announced? A bit naughty if so. Whoever pre-ordered the Newspaper doodah still had to fork out the same amount of cash, whenever they did it.

as far as i know, it was emailed to everyone who ordered the album through kingoflimbs.com.

maybe they will release a couple singles this way over the next year or so? i still feel like twisted words was an experiment of sorts in spreading 1 song with no prerelease or announcement at all. im hoping that we will get a couple of songs at least.

im still not sure where this innovative new release method went though, but i am fully enjoying all 10 songs so far.

  On 4/20/2011 at 1:52 PM, pigster said:

i totally thought my universal sigh code would count for something.

i'm getting the feeling theey scrapped the download code idea??

i think it was to track your picture and that idea was scrapped or it was just to track who went to the site from the qr code.

http://thekingoflimbspart2.com/

lol

i beat those guys are feeling pretty stupid right now

Iain shut up haha. Fucking hipster

For some reason it didn't occur to add this little nugget when posting my first impressions here: while I was on my KOL-first-listen walk with my discman, I saw a couple doing it on a park bench during Separator. King of Limbs indeed.

Should have asked them what their first impressions were.

what electronic artist will he be 'influenced by' next?

by the next influential one for sure.

  On 4/20/2011 at 3:08 PM, danshoebridge said:

  On 4/20/2011 at 1:15 AM, Poiman said:

 

I disagree. The truth is, we don't know how much input each member had in the creation of KOL. You might think it's "Thom's show 100%", but I get a very different impression. I think they all have a lot of input and are making the music they want to make. I happen to like it.

 

 

Yeah, I never quite get all the radiohead fans crying 'where's Jonny?'. It would make a bit more sense if his solo albums were full of bends-esque guitar rock, but they're pretty abstract for the most part, lots of spooky ambience like you find in...modern-day radiohead tracks.

True, I'll never know how much input each member had. All I have to go by is the music, which is made to sound unfinished and half baked. Weak, tinny, empty, etc. Honestly, why bother crediting it to 5 people if it was so painstakingly made to sound like half a Kieren Hebden? Did they all get to vote on which part of the track to delete?

TKOL sounds nothing like the Bodysong soundtrack, or anything else Greenwood has done outside Radiohead.

I dunno, man. Jonny does film scores now, Phil does acoustic singer-songwriter stuff, Thom wants to collaborate with everyone. "Radiohead" as we once knew them are obviously an afterthought now. The album states this pretty clearly, as well as some stuff Thom said in interviews about how diving into an album again will kill them. Whatever.

all I know is the butcher is one of the best things they have made in the last 10 years to my ears.

I love all this new Radiohead stuff. It has a nice vibe to it.

I was suprised how instant King of Limbs was to my ears. I sometimes find dredging through The 'head can be hard work, but not this time.

The abyss like waves of Codex which then sinks into the tripped out campfire vibe of Give up the Ghost is killer. The only track I aint keen on is Little by Little. The free downloads from Waste.com I have only played a few times but again seem ace.

Yeah. Back into The Head.

This album holds up brilliantly to repeated listens

newspaper album spoiler

http://imgur.com/a/p1k5F

  On 4/27/2011 at 1:02 PM, jules said:

newspaper album spoiler

 

 

http://imgur.com/a/p1k5F

Looks very nice, tempted to get the newspaper as well!