Album Club: 06.09.2011: Radiohead - The King of Limbs

[WAD62]

Right here we go…

Well as I bang on about there being a lot of good new music out there I’d better go for something new. So I’ve decided to have my own mini ‘mercury prize’, something released in the last 12 months, and something I believe to have given something worthwhile to the field of contemporary music.

I’d quite happily have gone with any of the following, amongst others;

Fleet Foxes – Helplessness Blues
Bon Iver – Bon Iver
P.J Harvey – Let England Shake
Caribou – Swim
Fourtet – There is love in you
King Creosote & John Hopkins – Diamond Mine
Gil Scott-Heron & Jamie xx – We’re new here

…if you’d asked me on any given day last week it could have been any, hopefully these will get a chance with other posters. And now that Poly Jean has picked up the ‘real’ mercury prize, I’m sure ‘Let England Shake’ will get plenty of airings.

Anyway enough of my mental turmoil…and the winner is

Radiohead – The King of Limbs

Wiki;

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_King_of_Limbs

Spotify;

http://open.spotify.com/album/3EkYAh7JiJNSUxzhVLJqnL

Amazon;

http://www.amazon.co.uk/King-Limbs-R...5387705&sr=1-1

Here we have a band that refuses to churn out the same old stuff, much to the disapproval of their so called ‘established’ fan base. Perhaps they are lucky enough to be in a financially secure position, which allows them the indulgence of a little experimentation.

They’re obviously a band that keep abreast of contemporary music, and have been dabbling a little with newer rhythms over the last couple of albums, e.g. ‘2+2 = 5’ from ‘hail to the thief’, or even ‘15 Step’ from ‘In Rainbows’. With their 8th studio album they’ve gone the whole hog, amalgamating current dance floor electronic rhythms (dubstep, broken beat etc.) with more traditional analogue instruments, a modern day fusion of a kind.

It’s no surprise that a double remix of the album is due out next month, featuring track versions from Fourtet, Caribou, Nathan Fake etc. Their influence is obvious throughout the original album...

http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B...ef=oss_product

Anyway give it a go, try to forget your pre conceptions about the band, and try to listen to it standing up, you might find yourself bobbing about the living room before you know it…or you might just hate it!

[Tim]

Thanks Will, I have listened to this many times already, so could vote now! However, I'm going to try and clear my mind and listen with fresh ears and see what I think
I must admit, I have never listened to it standing up before?

[WAD62]

Thanks Will, I have listened to this many times already, so could vote now! However, I'm going to try and clear my mind and listen with fresh ears and see what I think
I must admit, I have never listened to it standing up before?

...I find it helps understanding the rhythms, which can seem a bit impenetrable at first, but that's probably just me being a bit slow, and anyway I like a bit of a bop

[John]

I let you know my thoughts hopefully latter in the week. I no idea how I am going to get on with this as have not listened to Radiohead for a long time and will do my best not to make early listening judgements

[Alex_UK]

Thanks Will - an interesting choice. I have this, and all of the Radiohead albums that have gone before - but I won't say anything just yet! Should be an interesting one, and nice to see something modern and very different to the choices so far.

[griffo104]

Radiohead are a bit of an enigma for me. With my general preference in music I SHOULD like them but there's always been something stopping from getting on with them.

I need to try and get hold of this release and give it try. Hail To The thief was where I finally sort of gave up with them. Not sure if it's the complexity - I have plenty of complex music but there's just something there that just doesn't do it for me - maybe because I feel they are trying too hard at it ????

Will hunt it down and give it a try though.

[Welder]

I was looking forward to Wills pick for the Album Club.
I like a lot of the tracks he posts in the Listening Now thread. I wasn’t expecting this

If he had picked any of the artists he mentions as possibilities, bar the Fleet Foxes, I could have written something nice.
But he didn’t, he picked King of Limbs by Radiohead and a more pretentious pile of uninspiring drivel I have yet to hear from this band and I reckon they’ve pumped out plenty to choose from.

It all went Pete Tong for Radiohead after OK Computer and The Bends. I appreciate that they are probably trying to be diverse and experiment with new ideas but like most experiments, I would rather they waited until they got it to work before sending it off to market.


I’ll get my coat and go and join Andre I think

[The Grand Wazoo]

Hmmm, Radiohead.
I truly believe they are one of the most over-rated bands ever!
I like Pablo Honey - an album they admitted was directly lifted from the Pixies recipe book.
I quite liked The Bends.
After that, to me, things got worse & worse, so normally I'd say no thanks, if invited to buy one of their albums.

However, they've sold over 30 million albums, so they're obviously catering to someone's taste! According to the big Wiki: "OK Computer is often acclaimed as the landmark record of the 1990s" This might well be true but I can't help thinking there's an awful lot of people buying their records just lately in the hope that they might be returning to form.

But in the spirit of what Album Club is all about, I gave this record much more than what I would normally consider to be a fair crack of the whip, and have now listened to it 5 times as a complete work and I've also picked out various tracks to play several times over individually.

There's a bit of a theme there with the 'complex rhythm thing', isn't there! Most of the attempts at this seemed rather jarring and ill-conceived to me. I'm no stranger to complex interwoven and sometimes 'nested' poly-rhythmic sounds - try listening to some Jack Dejohnette, Elvin Jones or, particularly, Frank Zappa (of course!) especially the work Vince Colaiuta did for him.

I found that often, rather than complementing each other, the rhythms were working against each other in a way that went rather beyond counterpoint and the effect was just that it made much of the album hard to enjoy.
The tracks that didn't suffer so much from this were just rather unremarkable in a let the music wash over you sort of way. Something that annoyed the hell out of me was that I was made to constantly keep hoping that Thom Yorke might look up from his shoes, open his mouth properly and start singing!

It's been an interesting exercise for me to listen to this, but I'm afraid it scores just a 1 from over here!

[keiths]

Sorry to continue the negativity...

Radiohead are a band that I've tried several times to get into. An ex-girlfriend was very into OK Computer? when it came out, so I listened to that many times back then (not so much since - until recently, the only copy of that I had was on minidisc) and also have 'Kid A' on CD which rarely gets a spin.

The amount of hype that surrounds them together with the ridiculous adulation they received (maybe they still do?) from 'Q' magazine (OK Computer? "best album of all time" - give me a break ) isn't something that endears me to them either.

However, in the spirit of Album Club, I've given 'The King of Limbs' a fair chance (3 listens all the way through) and really cannot say I enjoyed any of it. Thom Yorke must have the most annoying voice in music today and the more experimental tracks just sound just that - unpolished experiments.

Sorry Will - just one star from me (and to be honest, if there had been a zero stars option, I'd have probably used it )

[griffo104]

However, they've sold over 30 million albums, so they're obviously catering to someone's taste! According to the big Wiki: "OK Computer is often acclaimed as the landmark record of the 1990s" This might well be true but I can't help thinking there's an awful lot of people buying their records just lately in the hope that they might be returning to form.

I know a few Radiohead fans and I'm convinced they buy their albums simply for the point you've made above.

Some bands need someone, a producer, guru or something to put their arms around them and say "stop being silly and get back to making proper music that you are good at". this sums Radiohead up for me. Vanity albums doing what they want and fan base hoping another OK Computer will come along.

I've only given it one listen at the moment and I wasn't 'properly' listening so I'll give it more listens before giving it a full judgement but...

I just think they are trying to be too clever and intellectual over their music rather than actually playing from the heart.

I suppose it doesn't help that I'm one of the few who never understood the fuss over OK Computer.

As to Thom Yorke - I don't actually mind his singing style - but I'd rather listen to him on Unkle's Rabbit in Your Headlights than his band's own musical leanings.