Radiohead - A Moon Shaped Pool

  On 5/17/2016 at 9:49 PM, Ayya Khema said:

yes, on my hd800 and harbeth p3esr, I absolutely find that this album is weirdly badly produced. overly smooth, lacking transients ect.

 

About the album, the first few listen was very good, but I feel that this album is less and less impressive the more I listen to it. I still find the lamenting voice of Thom yorke lacking rythm and im not big fan of his tonality., he always use his voice the same way, I feel he lacks sense of rhythm and musicality in how he sings nor do I often understand what hes trying to actually mean musically.

I really cannot stand thom yorke tbh, the most overrated singer.

Are Burn The Witch and Daydreaming muffled/sibilant to you, guys?

The production on this album is sublime. I definitely feel like it's better on headphones than speakers as there is just so much texture to every sound and lots of stereo effects. The opening of Glass Eyes in particular sounds amazing on cans.

Obviously under the effect of new shiny object at this point, but this is quickly becoming my favorite album of theirs.

  On 5/17/2016 at 9:49 PM, Ayya Khema said:

yes, on my hd800 and harbeth p3esr, I find this album is weirdly badly produced. overly smooth, lacking transients and clarity. I guess they wanted that but I find the sound muffled.

 

 

About the album, the first few listen was very good, but I feel that this album is less and less impressive the more I listen to it.

I still find the lamenting voice of Thom yorke lacking rhythm and im not big fan of his tonality., he always use his voice the same way, I feel he lacks sense of rhythm and musicality in how he sings. I really cannot stand thom yorke tbh, the most overrated singer.

 

radiohead are good musicians, sucks that they are stuck with Thom.

I can't even

  On 5/17/2016 at 9:49 PM, Ayya Khema said:

yes, on my hd800 and harbeth p3esr, I find this album is weirdly badly produced. overly smooth, lacking transients and clarity. I guess they wanted that but I find the sound muffled.

 

 

About the album, the first few listen was very good, but I feel that this album is less and less impressive the more I listen to it.

I still find the lamenting voice of Thom yorke lacking rhythm and im not big fan of his tonality., he always use his voice the same way, I feel he lacks sense of rhythm and musicality in how he sings. I really cannot stand thom yorke tbh, the most overrated singer.

 

radiohead are good musicians, sucks that they are stuck with Thom.

Not sure there's anything to be done about your grievances with Thom... that's just the way it goes, and will probably impede your enjoyment of any Radiohead if that's how you feel. Strokes/folks.

But for the album, I don't think it's necessarily going to be an "every day listen". Take a break from it for a couple of days, throw it on when it seems appropriate and you will probably appreciate it more (again).

  On 5/13/2016 at 8:42 AM, Jobe said:

 

  On 5/11/2016 at 6:44 AM, kaini said:

relax we all know how to feel about it now

 

 

"FAV TRACKS: Like 8 tracks that aren't Decks Dark"

 

I think I'll be ok not watching this all the way through

 

Lol, those are all my favorite tracks, cept Burn the Witch. I like all the tracks though. Decks Dark is the one that everyone like that hasn't clicked with me on that level yet. I enjoy it though.

Favorite track is glass eyes, at least non-live. It's always different because I like their more energetic tracks live better.

Only bit of criticism I can really think about, only having listened to the album like 3 times. Is that the tracks initially played live, Ful Stop/Identikit could have been crescendo'd more like their live versions. Both KoL and AMSP (eww) suffer, AMSP much less since the songs are much better, from the need to have all the tracks feel similar throughout. It's a fairly calm album, and needed some punctuation at some points, which we only really get half punctuation, where the live versions where full.

Looking forward to skirting on the surface and cut a hole separately, or they may have gotten bored of them ;)

I actually had the experience of it sounding muffled. I was thinking my ears were just tired or I hadn't slept well, or that my ear damage was suddenly very audible (no high freqs)

It changed the day after though, I forgot about it

actually, scrap my previous post.. i dont think its too relevant with this album / may elaborate later :^)

I don't know man, twisted words sounds like it's an 11 minute jam and it's the same length or shorter that anything on this. national anthem jams that riff for well over a minute before the first word. I think they just have a good way of manipulating the time of what they are trying to express. it's quite fascinating.

  On 5/18/2016 at 3:57 AM, jules said:

I don't know man, twisted words sounds like it's an 11 minute jam and it's the same length or shorter that anything on this. national anthem jams that riff for well over a minute before the first word. I think they just have a good way of manipulating the time of what they are trying to express. it's quite fascinating.

hehe yeh i immediately* deleted the post cos i standed disagreeing with my own point (( can you imagine ??? )).

* apparently not too immediately cos you read and replied to the post >:|

my point was ... which i may or may not agree with !!!

radiohead have this tendency to write and edit their songs down in a way that gets straight to the point, normally has a conventional-ish verse chorus structure maybe, and doesn't waste any time on prolonged instrumental sections or anything. they're generally always snappy. recently ive started feeling that the snappy song structures is almost to a fault. there are songs that are wicked but i just wish could go longer so i could sink into them a little more. but !! this is a probably just a matter of personal preference. i seem to be complaining here about a song writing philosophy which is 'no boring bits'.

a moon shaped pool seems to break this trend a bit with longer sections here and there ( ful stop comes to mind.. the outro to decks dark) ... but im wondering if the 'seemingly more relaxed and drawn out' style songs + micro editing NO boring bits philosophy is creating a sort of contradicting friction on some of their songs. i could just be totally wrong of course. and probably am. i'll probably change my mind entirely on this.

i also think the super snappy song writing / editing / no boring bits combination might be why some people are saying the album requires lots of attention. i duno. to be honest i dont really have a problem with it. i like the album! it's just something i think about :^)

Tinker @2:35, I love it when the full violin (or cello?) power arrives. It's beautiful if multiple violins are being played legato simultanously, RVW Tallis theme comes to mind: https://youtu.be/0U6sWqfrnTs?t=60

Beautiful. Thoms voice very lovely in that song.

I want an Ae/Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra collab now. :D

I agree with AutoLog that Radiohead could do more jams in their songs. The ending gradation of Burn the Witch literally begs for a longer version.

I would not say no to longer Jammie's songs but I think I still disagree about the micro editing. their average song length is def much longer than your typical standard no attention span pop song. I think they have lots of wonderful musical passages. splitting hairs here probably.

I seem to skip track one a lot.... but the rest is AMAZING and 10/10. i keep loving 'head more and more.

  On 5/19/2016 at 11:27 AM, phudoshin said:

I seem to skip track one a lot.... but the rest is AMAZING and 10/10. i keep loving 'head more and more.

yeah same here. It has a "generic fan pleaser" vibe to it

is that because it was the first single? the song is incredible to me. it's like there will be blood met tomorrow's modern boxes and it happened to be one of the most mythological and one of the most sought after radiohead vault songs.

yeah but tonally it sticks out like a sore thumb imo.

I felt the same way and was saying so in chat a week ago.

  On 5/19/2016 at 12:08 PM, o00o said:

 

  On 5/19/2016 at 11:27 AM, phudoshin said:

I seem to skip track one a lot.... but the rest is AMAZING and 10/10. i keep loving 'head more and more.

 

yeah same here. It has a "generic fan pleaser" vibe to it

 

Yeah same here, I like it alright but doesn't fit the vibe of the album for me

  On 5/19/2016 at 1:25 PM, kirm said:

 

  On 5/19/2016 at 12:08 PM, o00o said:

 

  On 5/19/2016 at 11:27 AM, phudoshin said:

I seem to skip track one a lot.... but the rest is AMAZING and 10/10. i keep loving 'head more and more.

 

yeah same here. It has a "generic fan pleaser" vibe to it

 

 

 

Yeah same here, I like it alright but doesn't fit the vibe of the album for me

 

pre kid a era songs have a very different mastering / arrangement and this one fits right in. it was very obvious when they played these kind of songs live. sounded like a different band

well. i like burn the witch just plenty !!! tad simple but also very nice with the pulsing orchestra all over it having that weird lfo swirl over it or whatever it is you wanna call it.

burn the witch is all political and tad more energy brimming than the other tracks, but i dont think its an outright outcast. The Numbers is 100% as much a political lyric focused song as burn the witch is ... (plus, the lyrics are vague enough sometimes that you can interpret the albums song lyrics in one of two ways. is thom singing about relationship emotion things or is he singing about the world being fucked over).

so you have burn the witch. the catchy opener track that MAJORITY of filthy casual listeners might not turn off in disgust ( compared to some of the other tracks on the album if they were positioned as track 1 instead, ... for example) (sometimes you have to think about the filthy casuals... if you're wanting to reach millions of listeners i guess?). but then immediately afterwards you have the soul crushing daydreamers track, which actually does a better of job of setting the tone for the rest of album.

so you have track 1, grabs your attention. then track 2 sets the tone. i have zero issues with the track being on the album.

i think the album title , Moon shaped pool plays into alot of this as well. the album is about relationship emotions and distance and all that kind of stuff, but its also got the thought of the world being destroyed in there as well. moon shaped pool = earth covered in water because of global warmings. moon shaped pool = tear, because thom yorke is a sad man.

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Yeah same here, I like it alright but doesn't fit the vibe of the album for me

that is true with a ton of their opening tracks though

Burn the Witch is prob my least favorite too. I thought it was a pretty bland single, and the mix is all wrong to my ears... I want to EQ it differently. Thought Thom's vocal melody ideas were super weak on that one too, like he just went with the first thing off the top of his head and didn't bother to craft it any further. That said, I love the instrumental arrangement of the song (and every song on this album). It could have been a great song SO easily. This album has a real 70's vibe to it... Can, Nick Drake, Pink Floyd. Similar warm sound too, reminiscent of albums from that era.

*Burn the Witch isn't exactly a bland single, it's just the vocals that make it seem that way to me.