Most overrated album of all time?

Ok just to let you guys know I'm a huge RH fan and love their fist three albums but I just can't seem to understand what is so good about this record. Critics and fans have praised this album for years and many people call it the best album of the 2000's. To me personally i just sound like a load of pretentious bullshit. Am I too much of a pleb to appreciate it?

*it

It has one of the best opening tracks and closing tracks of any album

Nah it's just not in your taste. I'm a pleb and I love it, but my mum is also a pleb and she didn't like it at all. The weird thing is, i'm not really a Radiohead fan, this is actually the only album of theirs that I properly like.

It's incredibly well-written music. The way the album is paced, the amount of effects and influences in every song, how the electronic noises and synths mix with the acoustic strings and drums...it's extremely well crafted.

What do you find bad about it OP?

>I love their first three albums

>one of the best opening tracks and closing tracks
Do you mean THE BEST opening track and closer track?

>i love their three first albums
That's the problem

My main concern is mostly the weird lyrics, that the songs don't really match, and the fact that most of the songs just don't really seem to go anywhere.

If you want

Although Kid A is a better album than OK Computer, Airbag is slightly better than Everything In It's Right Place, only slightly though

>weird lyrics
Lyrics in music don't matter unless you are actively text painting like in Romantic artsongs. In the case of Punk/Emo/etc., lyrics do not matter at all because the artist is making no attempt to match the music and the lyrics.
>that the songs don't really match
what does this even mean
>and the fact that most of the songs just don't really seem to go anywhere
Every song has a very clear progression so you're just wrong about that. There are crescendos, there are variations in their parts, there's always stuff changing.

So you loved their poppy stuff but as soon as they started doing something experimental and different you didn't like it?

You're a pleb.

To me, Kid A is more about the atmosphere. In albums like The Bends and OK Computer, the lyrics are supported by the instrumentation, but in Kid A, the lyrics serve more as another instrument, since they lean more towards the abstract.

Take the song Kid A for example. The lyrics lyrics just kind of float around in the music.

>We've got heads on sticks
>And you've got ventriloquists

There's also vague ideas contained in the lyrics, like how that set implies a difference between a subjugated or persecuted group of people, vs. a group of people who manipulates. Goes hand in hand with Radiohead's political/social commentary.

also not too far a stretch from "all the unborn chicken voices"

>The way the album is paced
pacing is fucking terrible in this album

well these are a huge part of what makes it great

Yeah! Not knowing what's controlling you is a lot more unnerving than knowing.
True. There's elements of it in OKC.

id say ok computer is way more overrated, although i do love kid a so im biased

The best Radiohead opener is 2+2=5. And the best closer is Palo Alto.
I'M OK
HOW ARE YOU
THANKS FOR ASKING
THANKS FOR ASKING

palo alto is not even part of an official album

Airbag EP.

ok but you gave a best opener as an album track in a thread about an album, now all tha sudden an ep can get involved. and it's a us-only mini-album, those tracks are all b-sides from singles

I'd say OK Computer pretty much has running themes of loss of control. Quite noticeable in Airbag and Paranoid Android, but it's a running theme that shows up in Climbing Up The Walls and Lucky. There's also a bit of rebellion against the mundane, be it like Let Down, Subterranean Honesick Alien, No Surprises or The Tourist.

just stop, all the lyrci are quite self-evident, you don't need to jerk off

To me, OKC and Kid A are two sides of the same coin. What differentiates them is that OKC is more explicit, and Kid A is more atmospheric.

Fair point, though I'd say Palo Alto is one of the highlights of their career that I'm still kinda pissed it didn't go to OK Computer. For me Radiohead never really had really good endings.

>It's a thread where we actually discuss music.

Comfy.

yeah but now OP abandoned the thread because he can't reply to the posts...

>load of pretentious bullshit
in order to have pretense, this album would have to have come with some insinuation as to what it was going to be or do or provide a listener in some way, and then failed on that. it did not come as anything at all, there is no message, there is no concept. it's just music. the words were taken out of a hat. they hardly even allowed themselves to use the instruments they were known for and almost changed their name to release the album. it's an experiment. it was no acclaimed immediately, it has okay reviews alongside really bad reviews and many fans who loved ok computer hated this, it was a big split in the fan base and concerts had a lot of sad fans who expected the bends and usually only got two songs from that. now after time has passed, critics realize it is a one of a kind album and hail it as a masterpiece and this site - full of wikipedia dorks - also loves it now.

I'd say they're not quite, Kid A is way more internal to OK Computer's external - one is direct anger and rebellion at the estabilishment while the other is more of a psychological thing.

What do you mean by "a psychological thing"?

Radiohead is always good music to fall asleep to. Very boring.

Kid A never directly goes out and targets its anger and confusion and alienation at anyone like OK Computer does. One's Karma Police is the other's The National Anthem. "Karma police, arrest this girl, her Hitler hairdo, it's making me feel ill" over its instrumentation that create something of a hammering rhythm with the drums versus "Everyone is so mean" over a chaotic mess of soundscapes, brass instruments and weirdly agressive and offputting work by the rhythm section. Both variations of the same idea, yet OK Computer explicitly calls out the origin and sets the lightspot on it while Kid A makes it feel like it's more of the person's mental state they're focusing on with all that alienation and lack of control.

the lyric is "everyone is so near" - you might wanna brush up on your radiohead/kid a before coming in these threads.

>just don't really seem to go anywhere
that's just blatantly false and i got over radiohead years ago. there are genuine criticisms to have for this album but you just come across like a kid who hasn't really listened to that much music, or at least one who can't really articulate your thoughts on it.

ITT: no actual radiohead fan

you don't have to be a fanboy to discuss shit lmao

How is that not just an elaboration of

but you don't even know correct fucking album lyrics in here, so you can't make a real point about an album without knowing it

I think everyone has been guilty of mishearing Thom's vocals at least once.

great, wonderful. but if you misheard that lyric, maybe you missed the whole damn point of the song and whole damn point of the album

im not even the same guy

different user

i think he means that Kid A is a more direct look at the "protagonist's" mental condition, whereas OK Computer deals more with external things (but still looks inward a lot as well)

Yeah, you have a point.

Maaan, the first few notes of Everything in its right place almost killed me

Gave it a run down, turns out, it was only The National Anthem since I was 100% sure of what it was. Bad example anyhow.
This guy pretty much has it nailed, though.

>I don't like their first three albums

It's the only Radiohead album I actually listen to.

I never saw Kid A as having a protagonist. Kind of a neat interpretation.

yeah, sure, nailed it. not vague at all

Right, to be a bit more explicit - OK Computer cery often delienates something is alienating the "lyrical voice" - essentially the "person" Thom is singing about, such as the man who wants to be abducted by aliens - and it explores those themes either in the lyricsl voice's actions (suicide, daydreaming about abduction, anger, paranoia) or in the delineation of what is causing that sensation of loss of control or even in the loss of control proper. Kid A never explicits that, if anything it feels like the lyrical voice is talking to itself ("I'm not here, this isn't happening...", "Everything in its right place..." "Try the best you can, the best you can is good enough") and it's just grasping onto something to feel so it doesn't fall into numbness.

i like to think of Kid A as being a direct continuation of OK Computer (in this case, both have the same protagonist). OK Computer is him dealing with the stress and robotic routine of daily life (in a world that, as perceived through him, appears almost dystopian).

But, he still has a hint of optimism that one day he will escape from it (such as the lyric, "I wish that they'd (aliens) swoop down in a country lane
Late at night when I'm driving
Take me on board their beautiful ship
Show me the world as I'd love to see it

He still has some hope in almost childish solutions to his problems. But then Kid A comes along, and it's as if he has "grown up," he sees now that there are no fairy tale solutions. Everything is just shit to him and he struggles to come to terms with that.

>"Try the best you can, the best you can is good enough")
something thom's wife told him. the lyrics for kid a were pulled out of a hat.
ok computer is very personal, such as exit music being about his girlfriend.

i mean it's neat to speculate, but when the artist has said so much publicly about the album you are just making shit up

...

>ywn listen to how to disappear completely or motion picture soundtrack for the first time ever again

albums for this feel?

That was the inspiration for the rest of Optimistic's lyrics, yes.

dinosaurs roaming the earth was when his wife made him eggs and he ate them

*blocks your path*

just tastes man. if it doesnt click, thats fine, but it is certainly not pretentious, i love that album with all my heart

hear it again being drunk
then more drunk
and proceed utill you find out youre an alcoholic

I like the album quite a bit, but yeah of course it's hugely overrated when people talk about it like it's the best album of the century
Motion Picture Soundtrack is overrated and one of the weaker tracks

i'd let this album block my path all my life because there isn't a single thing about it that's overrated

Joy Division - Unknown Pleasures

most overrated shite ever

>Motion Picture Soundtrack is overrated and one of the weaker tracks
listen to it a few more times, it clicked for me

No matter how hard you try, no mere mortal's mind will ever begin to penetrate the rhombus cave of lilac dreams that is Kid A. In fact, Kid A is a broken album. Only one would use its pieces to scar themselves into a sanctuary of flames.

It was a once-in-a-lifetime album. It came at the most perfect time in history, when the world flooded itself with uncertainty and ambiguity. It questioned how life would become with its abstract ideas and esoteric narratives, that truly made it a timeless masterpiece of surrealism. Thom's poignant lyricism, such as the beginning track, harkens back to a past that never happened. It evoked the vision of a wizard trapped inside a bat's eyeball, as solitary punishment for his crass destruction. He paints himself with the three cans of potions, in order to disguise himself from the fangs.

t. turbopleb

>Motion Picture Soundtrack is overrated and one of the weaker tracks
you don't understand kid a on a fundamental level
motion picture soundtrack was written before creep and gestated 3 albums of progression to become what it is

desu I think OKC is much more overrated than Kid A

for me the album is supposed to feel like a dream/nightmare so these elements all add to the experience

Radiohead were ready to abandon pop after OK Computer. The production aspects of music were beginning to prevail over the music, so why not make them "the" music? The sound of Kid Ahas decomposed and absorbed countless new perfumes, like a carcass in the woods. All sounds are processed and mixed, including the vocals. Radiohead move as close to electronica as possible without actually endorsing it.
The first half of the album is their most ephemeral and artificial work ever: the ethereal vocal psalm of Everything In Its Right Place, the distorted musicbox of Kid A (which is virtually a remix of Kraftwerk's Radioland), the controlled horns nightmare over pounding drums and bass of The National Anthem (perhaps the boldest piece here), the new-age orchestration of How To Disappear Completely are songs only because they are sung. What they truly are is flexible structures for creative arrangements; mood-pieces in the vein of late Pink Floyd, with intellectual sprinkles of Brian Eno, David Byrne, Robert Fripp, etc; muzak for those who missed the story of rock music.
The second half of the album, following the brief ambient instrumental Treefingers, is more personal, as lyrics start unraveling angst and anger. And, suddenly, this sounds like Radiohead's more humane work. This sequence, from the distorted guitars and tribal beat of Optimist to the languid jazz-rock breeze of In Limbo to the futuristic, post-industrial spiritual of Idioteque to the Can-meets-Tim Buckley ambiance of Morning Bell to the celestial harps, accordions and synthesizers of Motion Picture Soundtrack, is almost a progression from earthly matters to heavenly matters. In fact, this album is as good (at what it does) as the celebrated OK Computer, if not even more inventive, unpredictable and baroque.
Radiohead are masters of the artificial. Their parable crowns a long tradition in British rock music of putting form before content, of concentrating on "sound" to the expense of "music".

This album is so overrated every song is just instrumental wankery
>21st century schizoid man
Saxophone wank
>I talk to the wind
Flute wank
>Epitaph
Mellotron wank
>moonchild
FUCKING WANK WANK!
>In the court of the crimson king
More mellotron wank.

too bad it still sucked.

>he likes Pablo Honey

i'll wank you off mate

...

This record should show everyone that wankery is actually good.