Radiohead: The King of Limbs, Continued

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Something like Born to Run has only 8 songs, but it's far from slight.

Which is why "Meeting Across the River" bothers me so much.

It's incredibly weak that PF first assesses fan response on message boards before formulating their own review. Grow a pair

Yeah, they liked everything about the album, but gave it a 7.9 because fans didn't like it and it's only a 7.9?

You're a music critic. Your job is to tell it like it is, not how other people want to hear it.

That being said, I'd probably rate the album as a low B myself, so I'd generally agree with this review if it weren't for the fact that it just seems to be Pitchfork trying to please the masses instead of doing their fucking job.
 
Honestly, even Mr. Magpie and Little by Little are really growing on my at this point. Not to say I ever disliked them.
 
The end of Jigsaw, starting at "Jigsaw falling into place / there is nothing to explain / You eye each other as you pass...." is my absolute favourite part of In Rainbows. It just builds to a head with so much energy and emotion; there's almost a sort of catharsis there. Definitely the climax of the album for me with Videotape following as a nice denouement
 
Why, because it's a stunningly gorgeous track, a graceful moment of restraint in the midst of a bold and brash opus, and the perfect lead in to "Jungleland?"

It's just not a song I care much for at all, and usually will skip. To each their own, you know as well as I that I am not alone in disliking the song.
 
Jigsaw is my least favourite on IR, by a fair stretch. I love House of Cards and I love Videotape.

I also absolutely adore Meeting Across the River. As in, I prefer it to Backstreets, She's The One, Night and Tenth Avenue. How's that for a friggin cobbler opinion.

Also, who called it that THE FORK! would spend three paragraphs talking about commerce before getting to the music?

I believe it was me :D
 
So, it's been almost a week, and I'm now convinced of this: KOL is a remarkable album, and a mundane collection of songs. I think that is specifically to blame for the collective shrug this album has received (as well as P4k's peer pressure 7.9): you've got to have a track to match the buzz. A track to function as soundtrack to the buzz. Lotus Flower isn't it, and it shouldn't have to be.

IR, in contrast, had wonders of all shapes and sizes, so it was received warmly from the start. Of course, people misinterpreted this, attributing the album's quality to its release method rather than attributing it to maturity and focus. Why? Because people are, by and large, idiots, and those very same people are disregarding KOL today. I'm convinced they couldn't have made it all the way through more than once (with that one listen drowned out by sobs and gnashing of teeth) because, had they, they would have noticed the level of craft placed behind every sequence and arrangement here, the fact that the album lures you into its spell while saving all of the best tracks for later. That's a trick only the masters can pull off.

I really think people forget why they put such unconditional faith in Radiohead. They're skilled at what they do, and consistently bring quality material. KOL is probably the worst combination ever: the slap-dash attitude of Amnesiac, the satisfied mood of IR, and the brittle instrumentation of Eraser, and yet this will go down as a late-career gem that all of our best grizzled vets churn out when people stop caring. However, people do still care, and that's why they can't accept the album for what it is. This is a product of the greatest band in the universe, dammit! What the hell? Once they pull their heads out of Radiohead's collective ass and listen to the music itself, I think they will view this record very differently.
 
Also, Meeting Across The River is unspeakably gorgeous and functions to give context to the darker second half of Jungleland. It's dour enough to work on Darkness, but it would have been an awkward fit musically.
 
Feral is fine, it just sounds more like any number of nondescript glitch/IDM bands than Radiohead. My main issue with it was on first listen, when I had no idea that one of my favorite Radiohead album halves was right around the corner. Definitely got a bit restless and impatient then.
 
At first I was in a WTF mode, but this album is growing on me. Codex and Separator are great songs. But I'm still underwhelmed by the whole, since it just leaves me wanting more.
 
On the other hand, I could live without Nude, House of Cards and Videotape, which I find to all be varying degrees of terrible. And would be happier if it were just 7 songs long? Possibly. It goes both ways.

Can I ask you why you have such animosity toward Nude? If you like tracks like Codex and Lotus Flower, I do not really see how you could possibly call Nude a "varying degree of terrible." It has the same languid pace, haunting vocals, and general mood as many of the tracks on KoL.

Maybe it's just because it is my favorite Radiohead track, but I cannot understand the song being called terrible in light of some of the other music floating around at the moment.

This isn't directed at anyone here specifically, but rather at the general criticism of KoL: perhaps Radiohead doesn't care about making conventional rock albums anymore? People complain that no songs stand out, that the album is too short, that the ideas are undercooked, that there are no guitars, drums, or huge choruses. Put another way, it is not over-wrought, self-aggrandizing, and self-congratulatory like some of its contemporaries (e.g. The Suburbs, which after the Grammy win has now become something of a paradigm for rock albums). I'll take an understated album that knows its limitations over a bloated album, which the vast majority of releases are, any day of the week.
 
I like the fact that I'm liking the second half much better than the first. It always gives room for the first half to improve.
 
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7.9? Daaaaaaaang. From any other outlet, that'd be pretty normal...but Pitchfork?

For the record, this is the lowest score they've given to a Radiohead LP, and the first one not to get Best New Music (Pablo Honey excluded in both cases.)
 
So you're already a big fan of Feral?


Wow.

Was one of my favorites on the first spin. Most of the other album has surpassed it since then, but I still love it, yes. I suppose it might sound like one of any "nondescript glitch/IDM bands" but personally it feels like a throw-back to some of my favorite moments from the Kid A/Amnesiac period. I'm pretty smitten by the bass line that emerges from the chaos as well as the reverb-drenched deconstructed vocal samples. Anyway, my favorite track on Kid A is "Treefingers" so what do I know.

As far as "Nude," I really can't say it does anything for me lyrically, and despite having a certain mood and what-not I don't find it interested musically in the least. Plus, it just sounds like it could have come straight off OK Computer, which means it doesn't fits well on In Rainbows and generally irritates me :p
 
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