Zoo1

hopefully just 4/5 years now before you admit it's the album of the decade.

because he adds a lot of colour to the Blur sound, good songs inspire him, sure he may not be able to write many good songs himself but i don't think that matters very much in a Blur context

is some kind of angle that might let me in to an album and get something out of it. That's the only worth the whole critics shebang really has to me. Any negative review can be dismissed with a 'you don't get it man!', an awareness that all the scorn might be motivated by a reviewer's prejudices and not the substance of the record. But a review that provides some kind of, not necessarily just bland praise, but an insight into the experience of listening to the album, what it can do- that's the kind of stuff that leads to me as a reader actually being affected by a review. And then when I write a review somewhere, that's why I try to give anyone reading it, a way in if I have one. If I haven't got one, I tend not to waste my time writing it in the first place. I see no point in being influenced by reviews that basically just go 'don't do it!' because I want to enjoy music.

Also, I've actually explored records because of a review that cast them in an interesting light on one hand while calling them shit with the other. Because while the final quality judgment is subjective, the qualities being identified within might mean something to me. As an obvious example, Kid A got slaughtered by the British press when it came out, here as well, but anyone who read those reviews and didn't think 'damn I have got to hear this' was bonkers. So I feel like negative reviews actually backfire on the reviewer sometimes- They're telling you not to bother, but the lengths they go to actually imply that nevertheless there's something interesting happening. The best truly discouraging reviews are written-in-5-minutes 7/10s, and not scathing, shocked 0/10s that inspire the reviewer's best prose, if you see what I mean.

It's more obvious than ever that any critic is just one person bullshitting like everyone else, and it doesn't mean the end of music journalism or anything, and it doesn't mean that anyone has to sit there pretending to like everything. But I think it's true that if you're writing a review actually hoping to change the world a little, there are a few intriguing and almost always 'positive' pieces of writing that do, and then there's a whole load of white noise.

they seem to get nominated for the sake of it every time with never any real expectation that they'll win. even The Eraser did!

than they are. i think people read this stuff in DiS and don't realise that it's just a reply to a question taken out of a wider interview. people are acting like Radiohead are frothing at the mouth about it and they're just not- you guys are, if anything. i don't understand why these fairly stating the obvious remarks about their situation agitate people so much. it's so indulgent to dislike them because of this stuff.

and yes, he still has a better understanding of the situation than you. he lived it, he signed it, i don't know why you all assume you know better. i don't know why they don't get praised for trying to stick up for artist's rights and trying to own what they actually made. it's just sad. just because something can be expected to play out in a certain way doesn't mean you can't moan when you try and change that and it doesn't work out.

and frankly, Radiohead did have a right to expect that they weren't going to be treated like any other band. they have occupied an unusual position for many years. no-one anticipated what was going to happen, to the band and the changes in the way music is put out there, when they signed a contract in 1992. and it's plain to see that a greatest hits for this band indeed doesn't make a great deal of sense, business or otherwise, especially looking at how the catalogue gets handled in the long term. and the reality is they don't owe EMI anything. they used each other, obviously- they could have carried on doing so for mutual benefit, and EMI are the guys who went wacko, very publically in many respects, so i know who i'm looking at when i wonder why that didn't happen.

trying too hard to dislike them

he can have a wee moan about the situation if he likes, christ. it's justifiable to want control over your own stuff. any of us would be doing the same. this isn't a press release, just an honest response to an interview question. he has a far better understanding of the situation than you.

are really getting on a bit now and competing with other songs that are over a decade old (!) for about 5 slots. they do still flitter in and out of the sets but they've released an awful lot of stuff since then so, really, statement of intent? nah, honestly they played a standard 2008 Radiohead setlist and there was little reason to expect anything else. i'm sure they didn't try to piss anyone off of anything, but maybe the people who can't face the reality of a Radiohead that carried on existing should stop actually going to the gigs or something.

i'd agree that yeah, maybe the band just can't find the appreciative balance at a big gig like this, except that these people snapped up plenty of tickets for the wee 2006 theatre tour too, from what i saw (and i know there were hardcore fanboys left at home for that one). Radiohead are the abolute last band we would expect to be playing decade old hits, so it just seems daft how stubborn people can be about such things. i understand how the uncharitable can suck out the atmosphere for other people and that sucks but an opportunity to patronise people who don't ultimately care very much is one easily avoided.

http://www.mediafire.com/?cxjibx5edmm

from colin greenwood's waste central page (although at time of writing it seems he's taken it down)

hahahahahahaOH HO HO!

Thom Yorke can't express his bemusement at what his old record label (who he LEFT for a reason) do with his music is pretty fucking sinister oppressive bollocks. that's all he did and when you call it throwing toys out of prams... what is this, he can't express the smallest concern? shut up for the rest of your life because you wanted a record deal in the early nineties? don't comment on society because you don't have the 'right'... because you wanted to be heard? who's the real enemy here, where are such attitudes taking us?

you can not like their stuff without pretending you can read their minds...

i bet when they started writing jazz and electronica informed stuff they were really thinking with their wallets. 'oh man, the kids are gonna love this ambient bit! oh and let's chuck in some free jazz for the guys at drowned in sound, we're gonna get the best review ever!'

people would be bitching if the normal cd never came out. it was always obvious it would if you were paying attention. it's become a bit of a myth that it wasn't, but i was there a couple of hours after it announced and saw the 'will be available in this format FOR NOW'... it was officially clarified within a day or so... jeez.

hardcore fans don't tend to moan about deluxe sets with extra songs and vinyl and huge artwork etc etc. it was fairly priced for what it was- maybe a little over if you lived in the uk 'cos the cost included free delivery anywhere in the world, but if you lived in south america or something you were sorted. i was very happy with it, except for the little plastic knobs that hold the cds.

the mp3 moaning is a bit indulgent. the fact is those mp3s were perfectly listenable and of a quality that people had traditionally paid proper money for on itunes etc. whether it was the sourcing or the production or what, it sounded better than any leak i've ever downloaded. it has everything that is on the cd. if they'd been flacs or whatever a small minority of audiophiles wanted then the online distribution would have fucked up, like it did for Nine Inch Nails weeks later, and people would be bitching about THAT to this day.

realistically it was a three pronged experiment to get material out to three distinct kinds of consumers and not get ripped off. you can probably feel annoyed if you paid a decent amount of money for the download and still felt compelled to buy the cd, but who actually did that? and who had a gun to
your head?

i'm tired of cynicism masquerading as intelligence when they did such a empowering, exciting thing and basically GAVE A FREE ALBUM TO HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS OF PEOPLE in the process. seriously. go and bitch about the real cynical businessmen in the world, such as EMI and their psuedo the-only-Radiohead-product-you-ever-have-to-buy 'best of'.

access to any studio outtakes or anything. i'm sure there will be a b-sides complilation eventually.

misspoke

i mean it looks like a pretty bad comp. that this might be expected and that no-one really cares anyway doesn't mean they should get away with some horrible 'the only Radiohead product you ever have to buy', even reducing The Bends and OKC to mop-ups for someone introduced to the band with this. it's pitched awkwardly somewhere between a neat singles collection and a more ambitious, balanced summation. failure by committee for which they should be spanked.

like a bit of a masterstroke. i hope it does get a deserving review, i mean it must be tempting to go 'oh it's been ten years' and be cynical and not give it the benefit of the doubt, i've seen that elsewhere, but its best stuff is about as great as music gets.

love what Deep Water does for the record btw. that kind of humour, along with the grooves, is what i suspect will makes this the most listenable Portishead album when the dust clears. it might be a harsh record sometimes but it's also their least claustrophobic.

for the record, the reason why i will never again pay to see the Manics live is because they, as noted, try to totally write-off some of their recent stuff live. '94 to '98 is their golden period in my eyes but this idea that they were totally hopeless on every song afterwards is mad to me. i'd love to hear them play the best stuff from those records live, with the same feeling they put into the 1000th performance of You Love Us or whatever, but they won't and it's got to the point where most of their set is ten or more years old. i wouldn't have much hope that they'll keep playing the SATT stuff people like either... they're just nostalgic and lazy live in my opinion.

to see some positive words about This Is My Truth, which, yeah, it's like Nicky Wire's own Holy Bible or something, and no less disquieting. anything they'd done at the time would have sold a ton... but it's a pretty touching, odd wee album at its heart. hard to imagine anything off it being seen as cynical commercialism if they released it now. i see Send Away The Tigers as a million times more like that kind of thing than songs with lead sitars and properly involved string parts, especially considering their output up to then.

something a bit preordained about the new Pumpkins slagging though. i mean Zeitgeist isn't a masterpiece as an album, but if people can't get behind anything on it at all... that seems kind of silly. United States may well be my favourite Pumpkins song ever, i just think it's hysterical (mostly in the good sexy powerful way). but people are so humourless about it and the new stuff generally, and were from the off. playing big sprawling gigs with new songs is a sign of a healthy creative attitude and i don't know if that could or should be spun as anything else.

just totally irrelevant in the context of his formidable body of work. you don't know how the guy who wrote Sign 'O' The Times can work up the interest to write stuff like this... surely he's boring himself? but no, he does sound like he 'means it', which is a little worrying.

track 8 is pretty pumping though and it's one of those good ipod albums, when the odd track pops up on shuffle you can appreciate the basic songcraft more.

from his cv doesn't exactly look like the guy who'll bring R.E.M. back from the brink of blandness.

they should lose the session guys, go to a shack in the middle of the desert... puke on each other and record a shabby punk album in two days or something. Around The Sun had some great songs beneath the insipid performances and gloss.

aye. the Manics fanboys are annoying and all, but the 'a switch flicked in '98 and they went from really great to utter shit' idea is just as blinkered. ex-fanboys who still hold the band to the old fanboy ideal are annoying too- as far as this thread goes i think the extremists deserve each other.

'cos sparking debate with strong opinions is a nice theory but here we just have a bunch of people shouting at each other. i think a 4/10, negative review could have been written that didn't enfuriate the 'cult of wire' quite so and been a bit more rewarding for everyone. there are non-crazies who like postmillennial Manics, there are people who love Lifeblood and don't love this, and this review could have been given to someone who doesn't think they can read JDB's mind when he solos. what does the person who gave Lifeblood 9/10 think?

i don't think so. people do enjoy getting their knickers in a twist at the Manics continued existence don't they? so many approach them in a joyless, humourless way and then tell us that they hear joyless humourless music. so like, you really think they don't know how daft Autumn Song is? you really think they don't know the irony of covering Lennon? you really think Winterlovers- that for the love of God climaxes with 'The End' style bass, guitar and drum spotlights- is straightfaced? that they're going through the motions?

no. it's a unashamed pop record that they clearly had a lot of fun making, and you've been a right miserable git about it.

pretty fucking silly but tuneful punk. which is exactly what Generation Terrorists was in the cold light of day. reminds me of Love's Sweet Exile without the 'orrible solos. they've done worse in better times and this download is more a wee gift to the remaining hardcore fans than anything... it's not bashing you over the head with the self-importance of a comeback single. so it seems like people are just determined to hate them. daft little rocker, 2/10? what exactly are they supposed to do, you know? they get shat on for being pompous, but the knives are still out when they have a bit of fun? the message seems like: don't sound like you're as old as you are... but don't dare try and sound as young as you're not? if they can't win in the eyes of so many, then they ARE Underdogs aren't they? i don't know. this IS the worst song on the album, for what it's worth.

pisses on Heathen :( it was the first album post-Let's Dance that sounded like it had been made by the demented genius who created stuff like Low. really creative, inventive stuff, a classic pop song for every jazz/electronic exploration. even features Eno and Garson. bitched at for its ambitious excesses by the same critics who put all his gloriously pretentious latter seventies work on a pedestal. he'd been hitting his heights on and off for almost a decade beforehand, Heathen was just him doing so in a more easily digestible pop/rock format reminiscent of his breakthrough records. something critics could endorse without going out on a limb, like.

and secret lizards plotting takeover, and the increasingly deranged nature of the music... i don't think Muse have ever taken themselves very seriously.

and an easy 10/10, surpised at the 8 considering the history of Muse love on DiS!

shame about the album mind.

'cos they reported this yesterday and i was bemused 'cos i'm sure i heard this months ago.

the last two are 'bonus' ones for the 'special edition'. unless i'm grossly mistaken the album is intended to end with the Horrible Fanfare suite, this obviously makes more sense and gives the suite itself an actual point. the bonus tracks are fine but they dull the impact of the record if you count them as truly a part of it.

9/10 album by DiS standards i'd say.

is like shooting fish in a barrel

is that there really isn't that much 'electro-bleeping songwriting' on these supposedly electronic Radiohead albums anyway. Kid A has like 3 honest to god electronic tracks, including the Enoesque Treefingers, and the last album Hail To The Thief was basically guitar pop (and fantastic guitar pop at that)... weird how the press seems to have forgotten their own 'angle' on that album now i'm on the subject...

anyway, if you're going to be a miserable reactionary cunt at least react to the reality and not the myth, you know.

she's basically right, as far as NME/Q 'good indie rock' goes anyway. her music is no better of course but it's no worse, and it doesn't take a genius to see the lack of spark in Razorlight or The Kooks... or whatever reverent guitar band is playing down the pub this week for that matter.

is pretty 7/10 after the rush wore off :(

every review of this album seems to be either obnoxiously negative or ridiculously positive. but 'Black Holes...' is just an expected development for Muse... it's like a summery, poppy Absolution. it's as good as the last two records, it's great, but where all this 'defining masterpiece' stuff is coming from i don't know. there's nothing here more 'ambitious, combustive, bamboozlingly bombastic' than, say, a five year-old track like Citizen Erased.

i might actually agree with the 9/10 but the critical line DiS and NME and Q among others are going for seems to me out of step with what Muse have actually delivered. look past the band's own hype and what we have here is a (relatively!) stripped down summer pop album. there has been no dramatic leap, and why this would be their 'OK Computer' when OOS and Absolution haven't... well anything's possible, but that doesn't make much sense to me.

from when he got banged up for something or other last year. it was like a cockney Kurt Cobain. "cor, the judge slammed his gavel and sent me down!" etc etc etc

not a massive fan or anything, but the guy is clearly having mental health problems. i wish him well and hope he gets some support.

but don't shoot the messenger.

that would be an ecumenical matter.

when we get the 'it's impossible to be original' defence.

you don't have to invent a new instrument to be original, you just have to create something distinctive, emotionally. a reason why i would listen to you as opposed to what had gone before. something that deserves to exist in its own right. Towers Of London don't do this... you may as well just listen to the many hair metal and punk bands who did the same thing, just better.

as is, paying good money to see Towers of London is the musical equivalent to voting Tory. my dad listens to punk music... loud guitars, snide quips, it's all just easy gestures to shore up their comfortable middle-aged punk constituency. you can't evoke the spirit of rock 'n' roll when you're slavishly aping what our parents did better.

http://www.repeatfanzine.co.uk/Reviews/towers%20of%20LOndon,%20bedford.htm

Towers of London- a band so bad the only way to make them look good is accuse their detractors of being Snow Patrol and Embrace fans.

is that they tore up my student union and then got some undeserved attention from local Manic Street Preacher fans... and on someones myspace i saw a video of some soulless throwback they saw fit to release on the world. this news item is some, ahem, funny shit, but i wouldn't give them the oxygen.

what a seven minute brooding jazz ballad had to do with the rest of the album i don't know, but there it was.

Radiohead's reputation for 'progressing' has done them more harm than good, if people demand they change genre or re-invent the fabric of music every time they want to play a tune.

it's unlikely they'll ever again change quite as many instuments as they did between OKC and Kid A, they don't need to, but they still seem to write distinctive material. these new songs wouldn't fit on any of their previous albums.

Outside, Heathen, and bizzarely enough my favourite Bowie song of all time ever is on Reality. i was pretty shocked, i can tell you.

anyone having a problem with Bodysnatchers, seeing as it has the kind of exciting rockist climax people seem to miss.

the other two are Radiohead songs, and thus will be attacked for being miserable and whiny, you know the drill. nevertheless, lovely melodies.

was the name on the setlists so it is 'official' although it may well be a working title.

great stuff.

i had assumed he'd be working on the next album now, not starting to take a year out... then again, we all heard in the mid-eighties what happens when he tries to make music even though he's not interested in it. so i suppose we should be thankful.

there's another side?

Goldfrapp were such a breath of fresh air, now they're just preaching to the converted.