No comments about The Slip.

5 comments about Viva la Vida.

1. I'm a huge Coldplay fan and they did not disappoint. Love their sound. Love their lyrics. Martin is a one of a kind singer.



2. It's surprising that a band that makes millions in record sales using their own format would change their music due to a few critics' remarks. I have every Coldplay album and thought I would continue to buy each one until they stopped making music. Sara is probably very disappointed, she's the one I listened to Parachutes with in the office, when we both fell in love with Coldplay. Their next albums were amazing as well but what is this? Besides the instrument arrangements which are pretty decent, there is nothing else of substance in this album that even resembles the standard any of their old work. When I heard that Viva la Vida was their first single off that album, I should have known. It is a good song but ranks nowhere in the top 10 Coldplay songs. For them to lead an album with that song should have been a tell tale sign. This is the most regrettable $15 I have spent this year, my wife found the album in her car (where I tried to dump it), listened to it once and threw it back in my car that same day after work.



3. Viva La Vida grabs you from the opening chords. Chris Martin and company have outdone themselves. This group appeals to any age group (it knows no limits). As a child of the 60's, I love their way with lyrics and music. I am a Coldplay fan and really love this new CD.



4. At first it was strange to get accustomed to the "new" cold play, but after a few listens, it is there best work yet.



5. ORDERED THE ALBUM, ARRIVED IN A NICE OVERSIZE BOX AND THE ALBUM WAS SHRINK WRAPPED ONTO A STIFF CARDBOARD PIECE, VERY NICELY PACKED, WISHED ALL ALBUMS ARRIVED THIS WAY, WAS IN PERFECT CONDITION WITH NO BENT CORNERS OR DINGS, MANY THANKS TO THE SHIPPER. WAS SURPRISED TO FIND A FREE CD OF THE ENTIRE ALBUM INSIDE THE RECORD SLEEVE, WHAT A NICE IDEA...

No comments about War.

5 comments about In Rainbows.

1. You know when you're tuning a guitar, and you keep tweaking it tighter and tighter, and the pitch keeps rising, until eventually it snaps and evens its tone out? That's what happened with Radiohead, where the experimentation and chaotic sounds of their previous albums finally give way to a delectable mellow buzz. Bravo.



2. "In Rainbows" got a lot of attention for the novel way Radiohead started to sell it. The music shouldn't be overlooked. Each song is in the Radiohead style, catchy, and organic. There are some synth or looped parts, but it sounds like five guys in a room. Highly recommended.



3. I was apprehensive about buying this cd after reading some of the negative reviews on Amazon.com. However, I bought it and have listened to it quite a few times now and must say that I prefer it to "the bends", but find "ok computer" a better album. This is much more of an album than "the bends", which to me is a collection of singles.



4. People should stop expecting Radiohead to be what they think they should be, and just listen - if they did, they might get more out of it. In Rainbows, which very importantly was independently made without a studio hanging over them, is the band's most refined album to date. The songs, both in their construction and arrangements, are concise, punchy, consistently imaginative and often very moving. Some are more successful than others, of course, while some take longer to speak and are therefore worth listening to again and again. But after listening to the album maybe 100 times over the last 6 months, I still find many new things each time. This is not an album that everyone will like on the first hearing - and thank goodness for that. Like most truly valuable things in life, the more you put in to it, the more you get back out, and that is certainly true of In Rainbows. That said, the melodies are very memorable, and the overall sound not nearly as complex as in previous albums, and yet the effect of the songs is more focused. Quite simply, this is a consistently satisfying album.



5. My initial first listen to this album on college radio had myself and the DJ bummed out. Are we all so desperate for another OK Computer or Bends cd that anything with Thom Yorke doing some actual singing will create booming praises? I think so. Most likely In Rainbows will share space with Amnesia, Kid A and Hail to the Thief, sitting in a box in my closet, completely stopped listening to.
   
   This album is plain and simple boring to listen to, with lifeless songs that are no fun to sing along with (I admit I like to sing along with music). What happened to actual SONGS this band used to create? I can take an artsy off the usual path album or two from a band, but maybe radiohead should have just called it quits after OK Computer because it doesn't seem they even aspire to top it.

5 comments about OK Computer.

1. Without a doubt one of the best albums Ive ever heard, cannot say its the greatest because Radiohead does have other albums which are as great so buy them all you will not be disappointed.



2. This is easily one of the best album ever. An album attains the status of 'epic' when you can listen to it 3 or 4 years after your first listen, and still get the same chills and still experience the same anxiety and mood changes.
   
   I understand why some people may not appreciate this album as much as others, but honestly, what everyone else has said is true, the more time you spend listening to the CD the more beautiful it becomes. I can't really see any current alternative bands ever releasing anything that could even be COMPARABLE to this CD for the next few decades. This album is like our generation's equivalent to Dark Side of The Moon
   
   One of my Favorite Moments comes in Paranoid Android: The descent after the chaotic guitar riffs (It's incredible how much this album plays with your mind/emotions.. This song gets you extremely riled up, only to plunge you into a ridiculously relaxed, almost hypnotic state, and then back up again)
   
   
   Watch Karma Police live in Glastonbury online, its awesome
   
   From June 2008 issue of Rolling Stones:
   "I think if you imagine Radiohead going through a jungle clearing a path, then we're the ones who are probably just criminally paving it. I would still give my left ball to write anything as good as OK Computer. I would become a eunuch just for 'Paranoid Android'"
   
   - Chris Martin, Lead Singer of Coldplay



3. i love this one from Radiohead. Its been awhile since this was released but i've only got into Radiohead after i purchased their latest "In Rainbows" and decided to check this out. It's everything that's in their current release and then some. It goes without saying that its one of the few cds that i can listen to from beginning to end without skipping over a song or losing interest in the cd midway through.
   
   They have a way of bringing out the music without all the unnecessary distractions and things that doom other cds while in production. It's subtle yet forceful and energy filled as well. I could go on and on about "OK Computer" but most of it has already been said by other folks many times over. So i'll just end this by saying that Radiohead has a new fan in me..all because of this cd.



4. Well, it is hard to describe this album. It addresses many different problems in thick layers, that may take a long time to decipher. But, this album, this band, is still relevant to this day, and i think that do not get all the critical praise they so rightfully deserve, even with their great critical acclaim. But, hey, in a world where people see "My Chemical Romance" as one of the greatest bands, who gets what they deserve?
   
   This band is a breakthrough band, which inspired other bands such as Coldplay. This album is a hard album to follow up behind, because of the way they describe humanity with beautiful production and sounds, whether its the soul bending keyboards and guitars or Tom Yhorke's beautifully distorted voice, OK Computer is a beautiful album that shall be cherished forever.



5. This is a great cd that definately requires your full attention while listening to.If you don't,you most likely will not appreciate the cd for all that it really is.My favorite tracks are all of them except Exit Music and The Tourist.I just haven't really found much appeal in those two tracks yet.

No comments about Boy.

No comments about October.

5 comments about It Still Moves.

1. Ya know this somehow reminds me of the Screaming Trees when they were coming up. A little Red House painters/Sun Kil-Moon as well. The album is low-fi, perhaps partially reminding me of early Screaming Trees studio efforts.



2. Indie-darlings My Morning Jacket get a call to the majors and...well, does anyone really love this record? I suspect that affection for earlier work influenced the mostly good regard and praise heaped upon It Still Moves. In fact, the problem is ironic considering the title: it hardly moves at all. Most songs stretch five minutes and more, but feel nearly twice as long as that. And at seventy minutes of music, that is one long slog.
   
   The reverberating echo effect is alternately mesmerizing and annoying; the tracklist full of decent but rarely exceptional songs. The highlights include the pretty "Golden," the strong opener, "Mahgeeta" (and one of the few songs that feels longer than it is, but in a good way), and the bluesy "Run Thru." Having not listened to the band's earlier music, I don't know if this is just another case of an indie losing authority on a major label, but they straightened out their problems with the flawed but often stellar follow-up effort, Z. I suppose the fan-base was strong enough to make this record seem better than it actually is.
   
   Best cuts: "Golden," "Mahgeeta," "Run Thru," "Easy Morning Rebel," "Masterplan," "Dancefloors," "One in the Same"



3. I really wanted this cd because I love the song "Golden," and I thought at the rest of the album must be at least passable. So it was surprising to hear how bad the rest of the songs are, mostly due to the gimmicky "echo chamber" sound to all of them. "Golden" is so different from the rest that it seems like it was done by another band altogether. A big disappointment! Sorry, but that's my opinion. . .



4. this is a rock and roll album that is a classic. i really can't say much more. the disc plays long, over 70 minutes. i love every song, and i play this cd very often, almost once a day...still.
   
   this is a must have, and a no-brainer!!



5. reverb drenched guitar, a big sound worthy of neil young's crazy horse band, i can't get enough of these guys. if you haven't heard them, you need to. as fast as you can. a rock band with melodies and riffs and a haunting sound, this is a great album.

5 comments about Kid A (2-10" LPs).

1. It's almost tragic, in a way, the first time you hear an album as magnificent, visceral, and life-changing as Kid A; tragic because you just know you're never going to get the same feelings from an album ever again.
   I was a casual Radiohead fan in ninth grade when I decided to pick up Kid A. I was first drawn to the more immediately catchy tracks on the album (The National Anthem, Optimistic, etc.), but ultimately I didn't grow to love it as much as I do until I went to college, where my obsession with this album led to a complete reevaluation of my music tastes, leading me to explore more experimental and electronic music.
   It's hard to explain in words the impact Kid A has on me. I can't listen to it without having certain moods, feelings, and memories being brought out of me. The first few seconds of the first track, Everything in its Right Place, push me into this amazing mental space every time I hear it. The track "Kid A" has these calming nursery sounds that melt into a pulsating muffled rhythm from the future. The National Anthem, with its "traffic-jam" orchestra sections crashing over the catchy, rolling bass line. The beautiful, eerie acoustic How to Disappear Completely. The ambience of Treefingers, the epic rock anthem Optimistic, the underwater acid trip In Limbo, the danceable stuttered rhythms of Idioteque... I can go on for pages.
   Kid A is the perfect album. Every song is incredible. The album takes a little time to sink in, not so little that the hooks become boring but not so much that the album becomes too difficult and aesthetically awkward. No track goes on for longer than you would like, no sound seems misplaced. Everything seems to, well, fall into the right place.
   I cannot overstress the brilliance of this album and recommend it to anyone who enjoys music. Kid A is approaching its tenth birthday and has only become more musically relevant over the years in this music reviewer's opinion. If you haven't heard Kid A, do yourself a favor and buy a copy of one of the best records of all time.



2. To examine Kid A's influence (and it is influential), let's look at "The National Anthem." This song starts with a simple bass line, not even a bass line so much as a very basic bass rhythm. This rhythm is then played unswervingly for the rest of the song. No other melodic elements are ever added. Where a rock band might gradually raise the tension with a developing guitar solo, where a club-oriented dance band might build up many different layers to crescendo, Radiohead adds a whole bunch of blaring trumpets, squealing cacophonously all at the same time all of a sudden. The surprise and the volume attempt to make up for the lack of music.
   
   In recent years, this sort of thing occurs all the time in popular music, when albums are largely defined by the adjectives assigned to them in reviews or interviews, and their musical content consists of very common, basic stamps, simple stand-ins for the explanations offered in the reviews and interviews. You know the type, when "musical diversity" means that someone bought a couple of exotic instruments, strummed a few idle and disconnected notes, then tweaked them in ProTools until they sounded palatable. "Making nonsense seem profound," to paraphrase the editorial blurb, is the defining quality of popular music throughout the 2000s. If you want to see the downside of Kid A's influence, listen to something like Blur's 2002 album Think Tank. "Crazy Beat" is a more ingratiating take on "The National Anthem," based on the same exact kind of dull repetition.
   
   This approach is heavily inspired by the "artistic" trend in nineties electronica: Aphex Twin, Autechre, Bjork, etc. This type of music was already extremely susceptible to adjectives and mystique, even in the nineties. Look at some of the essays written about the Warp Records catalog in the early nineties, and you'll see what I mean. Kid A synthesized many of those sounds and made them mainstream. Put Bjork in front of the microphone in "Motion Picture Soundtrack," and you get an absolutely typical example of one of her "harpsichord songs" like "Cover Me" or "Like Someone In Love," where she sings over incidental strumming. "Idioteque" recalls Autechre with a mechanical dance beat that you can't dance to, with a few dissonant, droning synth waves (again, no other melodic elements) laid on top. And just about any electronic band has done something like "Treefingers," a moody ambient drone with no musical progression.
   
   The title track, in particular, is a flawless Aphex imitation. He did this kind of playful/wistful music-box lead many times, both before Kid A ("In The Glitter Part 2" from 26 Mixes For Cash) and after it ("Nannou," on the Windowlicker EP). The distorted, croaking vocals, half-creepy and half-innocent, as well as the jittery drumbeat, are also straight out of his playbook. I guess it's a testament to how deeply Radiohead buried themselves in the part. But, in Radiohead's hands, this stuff became oblique enough for countless adjectives, and sounded serious enough to create mystique.
   
   The best musical moments occur in the mid-tempo tracks, where it's possible to ease into the mood and zone out. "Everything In Its Right Place" is quite original in the way the moody piano is arranged into an oscillating loop, backed by buzzing vocal samples and Yorke's neurotic lead. "How To Disappear Completely" takes the quiet acoustic guitar from "Exit Music For A Film," and adds whale-song synths to match the drifting vocals -- pretty and detailed for a rock band, inventive for a techno band. "Optimistic" also has a pretty simple guitar line, but the aggressive rhythm section creates a powerful churn. 'Churn' is one of those meaningless rock-journalist words, but here it's apt. There's a chaotic and ramshackle feel to the song that gives it the energy that was lacking in "The National Anthem." Of all the songs on the album, this one is closest in spirit to OK Computer. "In Limbo" is quieter, back to drift mode, but keeps that chaotic churn, now given form by a faint keyboard line.
   
   Take those four tracks, add "Kid A," and you have five very good songs that genuinely make use of some of the strengths of Warp-style electronica. But the album's reputation claims so much more. The lyrics play a key role in the mystique of Kid A, and here too, we run into some trouble.
   
   Lyrically, Yorke's focus has constricted to oblique, demonstrative statements of isolation, things like obsessively repeating, "there are two colours in my head." OK Computer is also an introspective album, but most of it somehow reacts to the outside world: to lovers ("Exit Music For A Film," "Lucky"), politicians ("Electioneering"), insufficiently sensitive bourgeois ("Fitter Happier," "The Tourist"), or outside events ("Airbag"). By contrast, Kid A shuts out everyone and everything other than Yorke. The only reaction Yorke has to anyone other than himself is stated in the first song: "What, what was that you tried to say?" Any possibility of meaningful communication is immediately, categorically denied.
   
   Yorke's exclusion of the outside world is so total that it begins to sound very deliberate. The loneliness of modern man is no longer enough to explain it. It takes a sustained, deliberate effort to drown out the outside world so completely. This type of thing has its appeal, in one's self-pitying moments ("the best you can is good enough," Yorke reassures in "Optimistic"), but it's important to realize that it's not all that sympathetic. And then, one can't help but get a bit fidgety. Gentle reader, are you really patient enough to want to help someone who seems to delight in rebuffing your efforts?
   
   Kid A is not so much an "experimental" work as it is a collection of many then-contemporary ideas in electronic music. In a way, it set the tone for the decade. However, one might wonder if that was entirely a good thing.



3. This may be the best album I've ever heard. The first five notes are simply the most arresting announcement of a sea change for a band that I know. When this was released, it was instantly the most important popular (admittedly, a dubious title) album on the planet. That it only lasts about 60 minutes (when it easily could have been crammed to the brink with the outtakes that later comprised the comparatively weaker and less mysterious [read: Kid A could not have been equaled or surpassed] Amnesiac) is instead a testament to its cohesiveness. It is the only album I own that I almost never interrupt to select individual songs.
   
   As for the mystery, it is rampant and lovely: Who is Kid A? What is he or she (or, most likely, it) the product of? What is the year? Does the cover depict a landscape or a soundscape? Are those the same thing?
   
   I could go on. I won't.



4. I just saw Radiohead live for the 1st time last night in Bristow, VA. They were absolutely incredible live!!! If you're looking for one of they're best, then you can't go wrong with the album KID A. From start to finish it just leaves you wanting & yearning for more! If I were stranded on a desert island(no not on LOST)I would take this one with me with plenty of batteries....er maybe Saywer could help me out with that?



5. I'll make this short as so many people have nailed the amazing aspects of this album.
   
   Radioheads sound changed on a large scale in only a few years. They became a
   Post-Rock Electronic band with a majority of the songs zeroing in on the sound and flow of things.
   
   The songs are well produced and very technical. The album is worth double the price in my opinion and will remain a constant in my playlists for ages to come.

5 comments about In the Aeroplane Over the Sea.

1. By the time I was appreciating music as a young man stumbling onto records, one group I would grow to love was already over - and I was crushed to learn online that there would probably never be a chance for me to see the group perform the songs live. I remember fervently trying to make up for that by searching for hours for Neutral Milk Hotel rarities and demos, an act I normally just don't do - even for bands I really enjoy. I searched for photographs and interviews with Jeff Mangum, wondering where this mysterious, power-voiced balladeer disappeared to.
   
   And I am still reasonably sure that the allure is more than just the mystery, or whatever it was about losing Cobain that made everyone think Nirvana was so great. Even now, after listening to this record for years and years, I'm still floored by the lyrics and delivery, the sheer, brute force and clarity of the communication. I don't think I'll ever shake the eerie feeling of barely-perceived magnitude - of utter awe- I got when I heard the songs on Areoplane at 15 or 16. It makes me utterly uncomfortable to have such a strong one-way avenue of communication from such an enigmatic, commanding figure. When I put the records on now, it's like he just walks into the room, sits you down, and says listen to me. Don't move. Don't speak. Don't breathe until I'm finished, and everything will make sense.



2. I knew there would be an ocean of reviews for this, and I probably cannot add anything that has not already been said. But I love this album so much, and find so it moving, that on the 10th anniversary of my wife buying and it and playing it for the two of us for the first time, I simply have to express my feelings about it. (In all of her infinite wisdom, she bought this album with no hype, virtually no advance press, a near-total whim. I still remember our reactions listening to it for the first time--try to imagine hearing this with n o w a r n i n g w h a t s o e v e r. We were stunned and stoked when it made amazon's best of '98; we didn't even know anyone outside of Georgia even knew of it.)
   
   By now everyone knows this is a "love it or hate it" kind of album. But to those of us who know, this is one of the most moving and personal pieces of art you will find--not just in the pop music landscape, but really anywhere. It's just like that: you cry. Not because it is sad, which it is; not because it is intimate approaching naked, which it is; not because it is stunningly inventive, which it is; not because it is beautiful, which it is; not because it is completely out of left field, which it is; but because it is all of these things at once, and it alternates between rambling torrents of visceral energy seemingly from line to line. And about the singing--ya know, he HAS to sing it like that. That need to "get it all down" that Mangum's out of control singing conveys is what most makes the album so singularly unique and heartfelt--so absolutely full of immediacy and abandon.
   
   We all lament Mr. Mangum's disappearance from the scene because, selfishly, we want more. We want to see this performed in person, to meld with its soul, and with its making in front of us. But we all must know that this is what happens when someone makes something so perfect: there really is nowhere else to go and nothing else to do. It has happened, and lightning was not meant to strike twice.
   
   Thank you so much, Jeff, for sharing it with us.



3. Hey World,
   Guess I'm the minority here, possibly out of my element? Just cant stand his over pushed voice and the repetative strums. Lastly, and most important his sick demented lyrics about little boys! Who would back this album??? This songwritter is truly a sick man who needs help. Shame on all the reviewers who cant spend time to scratch the surface. Sad sad sad sad!!!



4. This review is really just repeating what others have already said... but I felt it was good to reiterate on the flaws of this album.
   
   I wanted to give three stars but the vocals just bring this album waaayyyyy down and mess it all up. On one side, this is a VERY good album. I love the acoustic structure and all the neat sounds in the music but the lead singer is just annoyingly terrible! For the first song, I was saying "okay, it's rough around the edges but I like it" but by the middle of the CD, he was still singing in that whinying, monotone and had me saying "just shut the #*%@ up, man!". His voice is just unbarable.
   
   If he could just sing in a couple different ways of if he would just not sing at all, it would even out but I think the lead singer just took an album that had very good potential and just made it unlistenable. Still... I will keep this album on my ipod



5. Yes, it's that good. There isn't a note, a beat, a breath out of place. If you don't get, you just don't get it.