Radiohead – A Moon Shaped Pool

[iron yuppie]

Originally Posted by cobl04

So I had my best listen to the album tonight. But I think I've worked out the reason why I'm just not connecting with it as much as I would have liked.

This is true for me as well. With a Radiohead record, I always appreciate the craft, but it is usually equaled or surpassed by a connection to the sentiments and music. That hasn't been the case with Moon Shaped Pool - yet.

Perhaps heresy to say this, but I actually prefer King of Limbs to AMSP at the moment; the second half of KoL captures the sentiment of AMSP more succinctly and more dynamically, I think. There's something of a meandering quality to AMSP that obscures the seriousness and integrity of the message and music, almost like the second season of Breaking Bad.

Regarding that Bart gif LM posted, I have had one of those recently - not romantic but in a broader social sense - and the album I keep going to for perspective on that is Carrie & Lowell rather than Moon Shaped Pool.

[u2popmofo]

To be honest, I'm not nearly as high on the new album as I was the first month or so. Still like it though.

[Kieran McConville]

Originally Posted by cobl04

So I had my best listen to the album tonight. But I think I've worked out the reason why I'm just not connecting with it as much as I would have liked.

It is so sad. So depressing. We all know Radiohead have trod this ground before; social isolation bleeds so strongly in OK Computer and Kid A.

But I think this is their (read, Thom Yorke's) most personal album. I think Burn the Witch and The Numbers are the only songs that aren't about relationship breakdown and loss. And I'm really struggling to relate to the sadness of all the other songs. By and large, they are really, really beautiful, but musically they're worms and lyrically I'm not in the same space.

But as I said, this was my best listen. Burn the Witch is brilliant. Daydreaming is one of their most beautiful songs. Desert Island Disk is Radiohead doing Nick Drake, who could hate that? Ful Stop fucking rules. Glass Eyes is incredibly, if darkly, gorgeous. Identikit contains some truly phenomenal and unique guitar work from Jonny. Present Tense is all In Rainbows, the shuffling drum line, the menacing folk guitar, Thom's moan and the guitar line that intertwines with the hi-hat drums. And then there's True Love Waits, which can be spoken of in the same sentence as Street Spirit, Motion Picture Soundtrack and Videotape.

I hope I'll get there. And I hope to get there without something bad happening.

My thoughts on your thoughts are that I mostly agree. There's a lot to like about this album, but there's an undertow there. Maybe it's that it is midwinter in this part of the world right now, and a fairly bleak one at that, but I'm more than a bit wary of swimming in that pool just at present.

Still, at arms' length? Definitely an admirable Radiohead album, if a bit long (says he about a record all of fifteen minutes longer than King of Limbs).

[joyfulgirl]

Originally Posted by cobl04

Thoughts on my thoughts?

I seem to remember you had trouble connecting with Carrie & Lowell at first for similar reasons.

[LemonMelon]

Carrie & Lowell I find that album connects with me on a broader existential level than AMSP's exploration of daily minutiae, so they serve different purposes in my rotation. 4th of July and Daydreaming provide the same heart-in-throat sensation, but connect to different parts of the human experience.

I find I enjoy King of Limbs less since the release of AMSP because it's obvious to my ears that the band has a greater sense of purpose on the latter. There's something very wandering and obligatory about the way KOL was constructed, whereas AMSP is very deliberate in its sequencing and message. The way it mines and repurposes old tracks to illustrate present struggles is quite brilliant. I could imagine the album being a great send-off for the band if they want to hang it up, though True Love Waits would be a real bummer way to go out, wouldn't it?

[cobl04]

It is really impressive that they've repurposed a heap of really old songs and managed to make them fit together cohesively.

Originally Posted by iron yuppie

This is true for me as well. With a Radiohead record, I always appreciate the craft, but it is usually equaled or surpassed by a connection to the sentiments and music. That hasn't been the case with Moon Shaped Pool - yet.

Perhaps heresy to say this, but I actually prefer King of Limbs to AMSP at the moment; the second half of KoL captures the sentiment of AMSP more succinctly and more dynamically, I think. There's something of a meandering quality to AMSP that obscures the seriousness and integrity of the message and music, almost like the second season of Breaking Bad.

Regarding that Bart gif LM posted, I have had one of those recently - not romantic but in a broader social sense - and the album I keep going to for perspective on that is Carrie & Lowell rather than Moon Shaped Pool.

Glad I'm not alone. And I think you're really on the mark about the meandering quality to AMSP; a lack of connection with the lyrics wouldn't matter so much if the songs really jumped out at you but after Burn the Witch that doesn't really happen.

On King of Limbs, I think AMSP is the better album but I certainly connect more with KoL. At this point.

Originally Posted by joyfulgirl

I seem to remember you had trouble connecting with Carrie & Lowell at first for similar reasons.

Yeah I did. But I think Sufjan's lyrics on that are so eviscerating and so specific that even though I don't personally connect with nearly all of them they're still so fascinating and interesting. It's like reading a gripping novel. Whereas AMSP's lyrics feature plenty of Thom's trademark esotericism and metaphor.

[cobl04]

I've come around to Decks Dark. It's like the hopeless sequel to Subterranean Homesick Alien.

[nielsgov]

The songs on AMSP aren't that old really. True Love Waits is the only one they've played lives for a long time. No-one had ever heard Burn the Witch. Present Tense is post In Rainbows so it could have been on TKOL (I'm glad it wasn't). All the other songs are post-TKOL. I don't know why but it bothers me that people are saying the songs are old. They aren't any older than the songs on In Rainbows.

Sent from my H60-L04 using U2 Interference mobile app

[LemonMelon]

Many of the songs aren't "old" per se (though True Love Waits is over 20 years old and Burn the Witch is about 15), but salvaged from previous sessions. It would be like U2 repurposing their 2006 work with Rick Rubin for No Line and somehow making it fit perfectly alongside new material, as well as an Unforgettable Fire leftover tacked on the end and an Achtung Baby era track for an opener.

[u2popmofo]

Originally Posted by nielsgov

The songs on AMSP aren't that old really. True Love Waits is the only one they've played lives for a long time. No-one had ever heard Burn the Witch. Present Tense is post In Rainbows so it could have been on TKOL (I'm glad it wasn't). All the other songs are post-TKOL. I don't know why but it bothers me that people are saying the songs are old. They aren't any older than the songs on In Rainbows.

Sent from my H60-L04 using U2 Interference mobile app

I've found this strange as well.

[cobl04]

Classic Interference. Attack people for their semantics

(I don't care, I think it's funny)

[u2popmofo]

In Rainbows contained as many, if not more, legitimate "old" songs.

[Kieran McConville]

U2 were known for this sort of thing too, but never anywhere to the extent Radiohead are. Wake Up Dead Man dating back to the Zooropa era, that sort of thing.

[cobl04]

Originally Posted by u2popmofo

In Rainbows contained as many, if not more, legitimate "old" songs.

I just used a word. I really did not mean to be taken literally

[LemonMelon]

Originally Posted by u2popmofo

In Rainbows contained as many, if not more, legitimate "old" songs.

True, but In Rainbows isn't as thematically unified as AMSP. The cool part is that these songs from various sessions/years/decades feel like they're telling the same story.

For example, the way True Love Waits seems to be saying something completely different than it used to without changing any of the lyrics is really impressive. They nailed that new arrangement. The context it's in helps too.