Hail To The Thief is a very disappointing Radiohead album

[Zoots]

Listening to Pull/Pulk Revolving Doors right now....

what is this??? alien music?

 

[GibsonGirl]

There are barn doors. And there are revolving doors.

Yes, quite possibly alien music.

 

[bsp77]

Well Zoot, we're waiting on your first impression of Amnesiac.

Gotta love how this forum has turned into all Radiohead threads.

 

[financeguy]

I bought this album last Saturday, and I still think it's the worst album they've ever made. Then again I don't own Pablo Honey, but You is awesome, so it must be better already.

You bought the album LAST SATURDAY and are prepared to dismiss it? Slightly premature methinks.

 

[gareth brown]

good point

hail to the thief...ah, superb album. 14 tracks, quite a lot for Radiohead...love it from start to finish! The LA version of 'I Will' NEARLY comes close to the original!

 

[Sleep Over Jack]

There is more genius contained on this album than any other in the last 5 years, regardless of whether or not it's cohesive. It's not often that you can put on headphones and be totally transported to all these different soundscapes in an hour's time. It's a fucking PRIVILEGE to listen to this album.

You should all be licking the shit off their shoes.

ahahah talk about deluded...classic fanboy drivel.

 

[Basstrap]

yeah, I hate it when so many people are fawning over radiohead.
it makes me NOT want to listen to them out of spite and I LOVE them

calm down...take it easy
enjoy the music and stop alan cumming all over their faces

 

[angelordevil]

ahahah talk about deluded...classic fanboy drivel.

I've heard most of Radiohead's stuff over my summer-long rookie blitz...It's ALL fucking amazing. I completely agree with the soundscape thing lazarus mentions; when I play their stuff on my mp3 player while walking, I feel I could be in the middle of a video; I notice the trees and birds more, cracks in the pavement...little things, corny as that sounds!

We read all the time about these so-called 'near-death' experiences. In my mind, or ears, the trip along the way to that 'light at the end of the tunnel' would have Radiohead as the soundtrack.

By default, this makes U2 the official sound of heaven...

Hell?

 

[bollox]

There is more genius contained on this album than any other in the last 5 years, regardless of whether or not it's cohesive. It's not often that you can put on headphones and be totally transported to all these different soundscapes in an hour's time. It's a fucking PRIVILEGE to listen to this album.

You should all be licking the shit off their shoes.

im sorry, i love radiohead and will throw the "genius" label at them all day, but i can't condone this kind of sycophancy that seems to infect many of their fans and most of the mainstream music press.

httt is a substandard radiohead album. yes, a below standard radiohead album is better than most band's best, but the fact remains. much of the songwriting is uninspired, it breaks very little ground musically, and the production is pretty awful overall. sure, it's a good album, but radiohead has the burden of their past masterpieces to live up to. do they owe us a great album? hell no, they don't owe us anything. but that doesn't mean we can't expect them to be great when we know what they are capable of.

 

[lazarus]

sycophant? you have to be kidding me. radiohead take themselves too seriously to even be one of my top favorite bands. I'd take the Super Furry Animals over them any day, and they're just as experimental. you want sycophants just check out any of the interference discussions about U2, where people proudly lick up anything and act like children when their objectivity is questioned.

radiohead may not be kicking a hole through the envelope but they're still nudging it. besides, any further experimentation and they'd disappear up their own assholes. but I still say they are the most vital band in the business, and they're doing what Bono promised to so long ago--abusing their position and fucking up the mainstream. they're the resident capital-A artists, for good or bad, and they still deserve respect for that.

your declaration of "substandard radiohead album" is about as cliche as anyone trumpeting the band's genius. shit, even the assholes over at Pitchfork Media didn't turn hater on HTTT (I'd suggest reading that review for some balanced and thoughtful perspective). What it comes down to is that despite the poor ebb and flow of the tracklisting, there is a treasure trove of eclectic choices on this record. not many bands give you that much to choose from in a year's worth of work.

"songwriting uninspired" -- what the hell do you base that on? I'd say the state of the world and getting the shit kicked out of you by locals is pretty inspiring in terms of material. "breaks very little ground musically". How far away from rock and roll are these guys supposed to get? They aren't Brian Eno. They're a band. They couldn't function with 4 guys hunched over keyboards. Just because they scaled it back a bit doesn't mean it's any less creative, or that they're running in place. "production pretty awful overall" -- based on what, exactly? same producer. same recording process. I don't know what you're hearing but it doesn't sound bad to me.

this is all about taste, but whenever I hear radiohead "fans" bitching about HTTT I always think bitter Kid A lover who can't get past the fact that those out-of-left-field magical mindfuck days are over. These are the same people who would have been disappointed with Abbey Road. Whatever.

 

[reptile]

I havnt read all of the replys to this thread, but i will start my response by stating that i think 'Pablo honey' and 'The Bends' are just warm-up albums......i dont need to defend my opinion of 'Pablo' ( 3 maybe 4 good songs) but it always amazes me how wrapped up in 'The Bends' everybody is. I think it contains some stunning songs, but is not consistent as an album.
I dont think they have really set a foot wrong since! OK and KId A are my faves closly followed by "Hail" which contains everything that is good about the band.......but hey my current fave is 'Com Lag' (Japan only compilation) of B-sides and remixes........

 

[Zoomerang96]

hmmm.

i have mixed opinions on this album. i think it's really good, compared to almost anything else out there.

however, i think the production SUCKS. absolutely terrible.

2+2=5 is way, WAY too quite. the paying attention part is really good, but after that nigel sucked all the life out of the song. listen to this song live...that's how it deserves to be heard.

sit down is good.

sail to the moon is nice

backdrifts is an amazing song. again though, the production is SHIT. the absolutely disgusting guitars that appear in a live setting make this song unreal.

go to sleep...read what i said about backdrifts. another live highlight.

where i end...meh. nothing too great.

we suck...yes, it really blows ass.

i will...beautiful.

there there...perhaps a top five radiohead song of all time. again the production is iffy at best. the drums should be far more prominent.

punch up...quite pointless. really catchy hook that AGAIN SURPRISE SURPRISE is totally muddled by nigel. idiot.

myxamotosis...unique, unlike any other radiohead song which gets points.

scatterbrain...a song that goes nowhere...slowly.

wolf at the door...beautiful song. production again could have been SO much better.

 

[bollox]

sycophant? you have to be kidding me.

sorry, i tend to think brainwashed fan when i hear such "you're not worthy-isms" as coercing me to lick excrement from their collective boots

your declaration of "substandard radiohead album" is about as cliche as anyone trumpeting the band's genius.

how so? barring pablo honey, i think httt is radiohead's worst album. given the standard set by the other albums, httt qualifies as substandard.

"songwriting uninspired" -- what the hell do you base that on?

"we suck young blood"? that's the sound of tired songwriting to me. "scatterbrain" isn't even worthy of being a bends-era b-side. "punch up"? to reiterate a repeated point, goes nowhere. does a song have to "go somewhere"? no, but i'd point to a song like "in limbo" as one that does not go "somewhere" in the traditional sense, but it sounds amazing. the songs on httt are boring, simply put. lyrics? "the rain drops" <repeat 42 times> fine, words were never really thom's strong point, but come on.

"breaks very little ground musically". How far away from rock and roll are these guys supposed to get? They aren't Brian Eno. They're a band. They couldn't function with 4 guys hunched over keyboards.

fair enough, and to sound like a total cliche, that's the burden of genius. musically, the progression from bends->okc->kid a is absolutely amazing. so to hear radiohead do an album that just sounds like them repeating themselves is a disappointment. overall httt is a good album, but i personally expect more. i think they still have it in them to do something better than good. that's more than i can say about a lot of bands. hell, i'd love it if u2 could make an album now that was just "good", but i don't think they can (or want to, might hurt sales)

4 guys hunched over keyboards? well, they've already almost totally forsaken guitars and tend to play bizarre instruments with difficult to pronounce names. who's to say what they can and can't do? i think the reason i (and others) love radiohead is that they have completely redefined the boundaries of a traditional "rock" band

"production pretty awful overall" -- based on what, exactly? same producer. same recording process. I don't know what you're hearing but it doesn't sound bad to me.

have you heard these songs live? album can't even capture a fraction of the intensity of 2+2=5 live. zoomerang sums it up nicely in his/her comments above.

what's funny is that im not even in the kid a cult, i actually prefer "rock" radiohead, okc is my favourite album followed by the bends. there's a lot in kid a that blows my mind, but overall it is dragged down by some experiments that just fail. still, i appreciate it as an artistic progression and recognize radiohead has no desire to rewrite the bends or okc. just about everything on httt feels like stuff they've done before, i don't find it that artistically adventurous. i'd rather see them try something different and fall flat on their face than just make a "good" album.

 

[GibsonGirl]

I don't think HTTT is ALL disappointing. Some of it is disappointing, but I think the album is treated a little unfairly by fans on the whole. Every track on HTTT has its merits, in my view. Sure, the only really "unique" songs (in terms of Radiohead) are A Wolf At The Door and Myxomatosis, but that doesn't stop it from being a good album.

2+2=5 | 4.5/5
Sit Down, Stand Up | 4/5
Sail To The Moon | 4/5
Backdrifts | 3.5/5 (music DEEP in the background could have been louder...)
Go To Sleep | 4.5/5
Where I End And You Begin | 4/5 (most of that ranking comes from the bass/drums - one of my favourite rhythm pieces)
We Suck Young Blood | 2/5 (I HATE THE CLAPPING)
The Gloaming | 3.5/5 (better live)
There There | 5/5 (WE ARE ACCIDENTS WAITING TO HAPPEN)
I Will | 4/5
A Punch Up At A Wedding | 4/5
Myxomatosis | 5/5 (stacatto is good)
Scatterbrain | 3/5 (a bit boring)
A Wolf At The Door | 10/5

 

[Layton]

they're doing what Bono promised to so long ago--abusing their position and fucking up the mainstream.

Sorry, I'm going to be the U2 sychophant and take umbrage with that statement. Radiohead has never really had a truly mainstream-oriented fanbase to fuck up and abuse. U2's mainstream credentials became huge in the late '80's. RH has never come close to those kind of mainstream credentials.

The way U2 alienated Jack and Jill '80's fan with their '90's output was impressive. It's also impressive how U2 are alienating Jack and Jill '90's fan with their '00's output. Instead of abusing their position as a mainstream act, they're now abusing their position as an alternative/adventurous act. I don't see how one is more/less risky than the other. They're still abusing a segment of their audience, just a different segment.

Radiohead is alot of things, but they don't come close to partitioning their audience the way U2 does theirs. I can't wait for RH to abuse their position as an alternative/adventurous act the way U2 has done this decade. All the crying in here would be priceless.

The thing I want most from the next RH album is for them to REALLY abuse us all. Not by delivering another sonically creative piece of art full of existential angst, but by not being deterred by their current audience's worst fears and proving that they can be great in that kind of a fashion, also. I hope they have the guts of a U2 to really be abusive because I'm starting to get bored with the RH thing.

 

[Zoomerang96]

Sorry, I'm going to be the U2 sychophant and take umbrage with that statement. Radiohead has never really had a truly mainstream-oriented fanbase to fuck up and abuse. U2's mainstream credentials became huge in the late '80's. RH has never come close to those kind of mainstream credentials.

i agree with this.

 

[lazarus]

Perhaps Radiohead wasn't as mainstream or popular as U2 (there's not many bands that are), but there's a LOT of people who bought OK Computer that wouldn't have normally been into the band. And after that album, they had the entire music world waiting with bated breath for their next release. Had they put out something akin to The Bends they would have become a lot bigger. Maybe not Coldplay, but as popular as a band with actual balls could get.

You're all forgetting that even though Kid A debuted at #1 (on a low-selling week, mind you) and moved a lot of units, there were just as many confused and disappointed people as there were impressed ones. So I don't see how my statement is a false one. Perhaps you may not think they fucked up "the mainstream", but alternative music was a lot more acceptable and on the charts then when U2 pulled their fast one in the early 90's. Radiohead definitely abused the position they were in back in 1997, even if it wasn't as high of a vantage point. They upped the ante on what alternative music could be, what a rock band could be.

I agree that U2's move was certainly more daring. Kid A is (to me, at least) a natural extrapolation of where Radiohead was going based on The Bends-->OK Computer. My point was that U2's "fucking up" lasted about 4 years. Radiohead after 8 years is still confounding expectations and not going through the motions.

And the next album will bear that out, mark my words.

 

[Zoots]

Okay.... so I bought Hail To The Thief... the special edition! I might add At first listen, I wasn't too impressed and couldn't wait till There There showed up. So by the end of it, I was thinking.. eh, Kid A is better, heck! even Amnesiac is better. But then after the second listen... I liked it a lot more! Backdrifts has been in my head all day. Love the 1-2 punch of 2+2=5 and sit down, stand up. Sail is gorgeously ghostly, very Floydian and seems to be the How To Disappear Completely and You And Whose Army of this album. Backdrifts is groovy, catchy and very addictive! Go To Sleep & Where I End are cool, esp. the latter with the amazing bass line and... 'I will eat you alive'. which leads me to We Suck... lol. it's pretty bad I admit but I can still kinda listen to it and appreciate the drama if I'm in the right mood. Lemme put it this way... 'Mother' by The Police is a lot worse and more painful to listen to! Haven't yet gotten into the Gloaming. There There is perfection!!! The opening tone, the haunting drums, the build-up, the lyrics.. Top 5 track! I Will is alright, not bad. Punch up is cool. Love Myxomatosis!!! Like somebody on amazon said, it sounds like a zipper orchestra! The last 2 tracks I'm yet to really get into.

But overall, it's not bad at all. In fact the album has got it's own identity and doesn't sound like a washed out Kid A at all!

 

[angelordevil]

But overall, it's not bad at all. In fact the album has got it's own identity and doesn't sound like a washed out Kid A at all!

I love the description of Myxomatosis being like a zipper orchestra...

That song sounds extra cool through earphones.

Extra zippy as well...

 

[Zoots]

The line in There There that goes.. 'Heaven sent you to me, to me...' I always thought it was 'We are centuries too late, too late...'. And I think my line not only sounds better, it fits better and actually expresses a kind of panic that suits Radiohead very well.

Oh... and I absolutely love this album, been listening to it for 2 days straight! Every song is interesting... well, except for maybe We Suck which is quite dreary.. but I can still kinda sit thru it.

 

[RA-D]

The line in There There that goes.. 'Heaven sent you to me, to me...' I always thought it was 'We are centuries too late, too late...'. And I think my line not only sounds better, it fits better and actually expresses a kind of panic that suits Radiohead very well.

Oh... and I absolutely love this album, been listening to it for 2 days straight! Every song is interesting... well, except for maybe We Suck which is quite dreary.. but I can still kinda sit thru it.

I have exactly the same thing with There There, my favourite song from that album - admittedly, I have a tendancy of doing that to a few songs, but that was/is one of the most obvious cases.

 

[reptile]

whats wrong with "we suck young blood'? Too close to the bone ?
Its brilliant and, fuck, i would rather listen to it 100 times than have to watch some stupid 'reality' search for a 'star' moron who doesnt realise being voted off is a good thing not a bad thing and shit listen to the lyrics and.....maaaan i could go on

 

[intedomine]

Disappointing is certainly the word for it. I still think it's a solid album, though; it just reeks of filler.

Good call...

Although the imbalance of the styles and sounds reminds me of the White Album in some ways.

Some songs in my opinion seem fragmented and unfinished (I Will/We Suck Young Blood) whilst others just seem positionally out of place (Sit Down Shut Up/Sail to the Moon/Backdrifts/Go to Sleep/Where I End/We Suck/Gloaming).

Nevertheless, there are some fine individual creations on here, and every song has it's merits.

Personal faves include: Myxamatosis, Where I End, Gloaming,

 

[intedomine]

I havnt read all of the replys to this thread, but i will start my response by stating that i think 'Pablo honey' and 'The Bends' are just warm-up albums......i dont need to defend my opinion of 'Pablo' ( 3 maybe 4 good songs) but it always amazes me how wrapped up in 'The Bends' everybody is. I think it contains some stunning songs, but is not consistent as an album.
I dont think they have really set a foot wrong since! OK and KId A are my faves closly followed by "Hail" which contains everything that is good about the band

Another great call here....I totally agree...

The Bends IS a warm up album, it's good, but i find it hardly a classic....messed up track order too. Gimme Oasis' (What's the Story) Morning Glory anyday.

OkC and KidA are something else altogether. Both are at least 10 times better than The Bends....

 

[RademR]

It was a pretty good album, definetly worth picking up. But I didn't think it was anything special.

After Bends and OK, I was a Radiohead fan. After KIDA, I was a really big one, I thought that album was genius.

But they went too far with Amnesiac, I kept trying to get into it (still do to this day), and keep saying to myself "what is this?"

They've kind of lost me with their last two releases but can't wait for the next one still. HTTT did have some great songs on it, but like someone else mentioned, a lot of filler.

 

[reptile]

Another great call here....I totally agree...

The Bends IS a warm up album, it's good, but i find it hardly a classic....messed up track order too. Gimme Oasis' (What's the Story) Morning Glory anyday.

OkC and KidA are something else altogether. Both are at least 10 times better than The Bends....

Hey somebody agrees with me! Thats a first!



OKc&KidA....i think u r right...cant beat 'em
just watched (film version) of Hitchhikers guide to the galaxy last night. Glad to hear they left in the 'Ok Computer' line......

i stil think Hail is much better than most people here seem to think.....

 

[Zoots]

I will eat you all alive
I will eat you all alive
I will eat you all alive
I will eat you all alive
There'll be no more lies
There'll be no more lies
There'll be no more lies
There'll be no more lies
I will eat you all alive
I will eat you all alive
I will eat you all alive
I will eat you all alive
There'll be no more lies
There'll be no more lies
There'll be no more lies
There'll be no more lies
I will eat you all alive.

 

[lazarus]

Another great call here....I totally agree...

The Bends IS a warm up album, it's good, but i find it hardly a classic....messed up track order too. Gimme Oasis' (What's the Story) Morning Glory anyday.

OkC and KidA are something else altogether. Both are at least 10 times better than The Bends....

Ha! Oasis in a million years couldn't put together a song as brilliant as Fake Plastic Trees. Or Bulletproof. Or High and Dry. Or Street Spirit.

Instead you get overdone Beatles wannabes like Champagne Supernova. Give me a fucking break. And yeah, Wonderwall is a great song but the difference between that and the above-mentioned Radiohead songs is SUBSTANCE and transcendence. Something The Beatles knew about but Oasis can only imitate emptily.

OK Computer and Kid A may be superior in terms of ambition and execution, but 10x better than The Bends? I don't think so. The songs, man, the songs...

I will agree, however, with your assessment of HTTT's incoherency and disjointedness. The comparison to The White Album is apt, and has been made before. Don't forget though, it's considered by many to be one of The Beatles' best works (and the favorite of many, including myself), despite tracks like Wild Honey Pie, Honey Pie, Savoy Truffle. It's the willingness to dive into so many different styles and create all these unique sounds that is the accomplishment. Look for more focus on Radiohead's next album, but remember when The Beatles did the same thing we got...Let it Be, which is subpar at best.

 

[Zoots]

Ha! Oasis in a million years couldn't put together a song as brilliant as Fake Plastic Trees. Or Bulletproof. Or High and Dry. Or Street Spirit.

OK Computer and Kid A may be superior in terms of ambition and execution, but 10x better than The Bends? I don't think so. The songs, man, the songs...

Totally agree!

Even though I love Oasis' Morning Glory, the Bends is on a different level altogether! You're right, it's the songs! Every song is gold, every fucking song!

 

[CrashedCarDriver]

yeh pretty poor effort

their new song they have started to carve a cliche of themselves:

ie a bunch of old miseryguts