Posts Tagged ‘radiohead

03
Jul
13

Kodaline have The Most Intense Music Videos

DavosRemember when I posted a music video by the band Kodaline? The track was called “All I Want” and I’m not ashamed to admit the first time I watched I may have gotten a little choked up.

I mean shit guys, I’m only human. That video was brilliant, it was like watching an entire feature film in 3 minutes. Also, I miss music videos like that one and the ones that came out in the 90s and early 2000s.

Remember Radiohead’s “Just”? Or Coldplay’s “The Scientist”? Those were great videos that told a story, which is why I thought that Kodaline video and the one I’m about to show you are both so brilliant.

I guess I also miss this style of music. Sure, it’s been done to death and a lot of bands have really fucked it up and made it unbearably shit and oversentimental, but once in awhile a band comes around that strips everything back down to the basics and focuses on getting them right, which is what Kodaline does so well.

Here. This is what I’m talking about.

 

 

Powerful stuff hey? Really loved that. But I know what you’re thinking, you’re thinking “Damn, I wish Slick had posted the other video right here for me to watch.”

Let it be. Here’s “All I Want”.

 

 

Sho. Emotional stuff. Must be getting soft now that I’m going to be a dad Winking smile

Speaking of which, as you read this I’ll be going to our 33 week scan to see how our little cub is coming along. You’ll be happy to know that so far all our scans have been really healthy, everything is happening as it should and on the 12th August I will hold my little girl for the first time.

Ain’t that wonder.

-ST

16
Nov
11

Karma Police Like You’ve Never Heard It

karma-policeFor quite a long while back in highschool, “Karma Police” was the soundtrack of my angst-ridden early teenage years.

In fact, OK Computer was my go-to album if I was feeling happy (“Subterranean Homesick Alien”) , sad (“Exit Music For A Film”), wistful (“Let Down”), lonely (“Karma Police”), lost (“No Surprises”), angry (“Electioneering”) or lucky (“Lucky”).

It’s a masterpiece of songwriting and its tracks have no doubt been covered time and time and time again, but have they been covered by one man on a six string bass guitar? (Starts slow, but just wait for the part he starts shredding his bass – too awesome).

 

 

Poetry I tells ya.

He’s still not the best bass guitarist I’ve ever heard though. That dubious honour goes to my main man Les Claypool, bassist, singer and frontman of Primus, who could eat that last guy for breakfast.

Case in point: the song “Professor Nutbutter’s House of Treats”. [Disclaimer: This song will make you lose your mind if you listen to the whole thing. Feel free to kill it after 3 minutes].

 

 

Now THAT’S how you play a bass guitar.

-ST

09
Mar
11

Album Review: Radiohead – King Of Limbs

As a music critic one of the biggest schoolboy errors you can make is to write off a Radiohead album as rubbish because those same songs that went over your head completely on the first few listens can become your favourites given time.

It is for this reason that I am extremely hesitant in calling King Of Limbs the weakest album that Radiohead has recorded to date because I realise fully that my initial perception of it could change at any moment.

 

 

Still though, at 20+ listens I’m usually batshit over their albums and sadly that’s not the case with King Of Limbs.

Sure, the production is slick and Thom Yorke’s vocals are as dexterous, haunting and fresh as ever, especially on the album’s first single “Lotus Flower”, but there’s something quintessentially RADIOHEAD that’s missing from this album.

The opening tracks “Bloom” and “Morning Mr Magpie” float past in a stuttering, meandering arrangement of pianos, customary post-OK Computer shuffling drum beats, blaring horns and repetitive melodies that don’t have a single hook to share among them.

“Little By Little” is a great track though and sounds like it would be right at home on Hail To The Thief with its full, multi-layered percussion, catchy basslines and ingeniously subliminal guitar parts. It’s the Radiohead we know and love and one of the few rays of light on this album.

 

 

“Lotus Flower” is also a phenomenal track. It hangs in the balance between the sinister and the sublime, finally breaking free in a moment of catharsis as Yorke’s vocals soar above the stratosphere as the song reaches its climactic chorous.

“Slowly we unfurl / As Lotus flowers / And all that I want is the moon upon a stick / Dancing around the pit / Just to see what it is” Yorke sings in a voice so pure and unrestrained it gives me chills every time I hear it.

In comparison the rest of the material on King Of Limbs is pretty mediocre. “Codex”, for all its glorious melancholy sounds like a recycled version of “Pyramid Song”, “Give Up The Ghost” sounds like a bad cover of “Nude” and the instrumental track “Feral” is pure, unadulterated filler.

And that, bar the echoey, limp closing track “Separator” is that. Eight tracks that are almost all pretty much instantly forgettable and it’s over before it ever really started.

There are rumours of a second King Of Limbs album being released shortly and all I can say is I hope they’re true and I hope that the second one is better in every conceivable way than the first because if this is the best this band can do then I sense an imminent hiatus on the cards.

Final Verdict: 6/10

23
Feb
11

New Radiohead album – What’s The Feeling?

It dawned on me the other day that in almost every aspect of my life I’m probably in the early majority / late majority hump on the adoption curve, except music.

With music, I need it NOW! A new album gets released and I have to have it inside my skull as quickly as possible. That’s how it was with the new Radiohead album, King Of Limbs. They released it for internet download on Friday and by 2pm I’d already heard the album twice.

What’s my overall opinion thus far? I’m not sure it can hold a flame to In Rainbows. As with all their material, maybe it will grow on me, but my initial impression is that they’ve backslid into Amnesiac territory on this one and musically, guitars have taken a backseat to pianos, electronic blips and beeps and shuffling drum machine beats.

The first single, “LotusFlower” is a great track though and Thom Yorke’s spazzing out is something you gotta see to believe.

 

 

Sadly though, the main topic of conversation doing the rounds on the interwebs right now seems to be, “Is Radiohead the most overrated band of all time?”

I didn’t think so before King Of Limbs, but this paltry 8 track effort has disappointed me on the first few listens and shown an uncharacteristic lack of inspiration from this band, who have always rated highly in my top 10 bands of all time.

What do you guys think? Anyone out there heard the new album yet?

-ST

14
Feb
11

New Radiohead album lands on Saturday!

It’s probably already old news, but Radiohead announced that their new album, “King Of Limbs” is going to be available for digital download from the site http://thekingoflimbs.com/ on Saturday.

 

 

King Of Limbs costs £6.00 for the MP3 version, £9.00 for the WAV version, £30.00 for the “Newspaper album” version in MP3s and £33.00 for the WAV version (which comprises 2 x 10” vinyls, a CD, a whole lot of artwork and other rad stuffs too!).

I’m fucking excited guys. This band can do no wrong in my eyes, pure and simple. I have every album they’ve done in studio and a couple they haven’t plus a few of B-Sides and some acoustic versions of their stuff and never once has an album disappointed me.

Mark my words, 2011 is going to be a great year for music.

Thanks to Civilian for giving me the heads-up on this one. Love your work dude Winking smile

-ST

29
Sep
10

Album Review: Philip Selway – Familial

There’s no two ways about it, drummers are a special bunch. Quiet and stoic, they have a gentle way about them not unlike idiot savants or people with severe autism.

This is, of course, a gross over-generalisation. There are at least three drummers that come to mind who are exceptionally gifted with both intelligence and musical ability, and one of those three is Philip Selway.

 

 

Selway was well on his way to becoming a full-time academic back in the early 90s, studying English and History in Liverpool, before he joined arguably the best alternative / indie / experimental rock band of all time, Radiohead.

There are only a few drummers in the world that boast the chops and muscle that Selway does behind a kit and can still pull off the shuffling, syncopated twists and turns that gave Radiohead classics like “Idioteque” and “There There” the bones to stand tall and strong.

Question is, is Selway worth a damn as a solo musician, or does his material sound like watered-down Radiohead B-sides?

Huh. Not an easy question.

Click here for the whole enchilada…

-ST

11
Jul
10

Song For Sunday

Doing weekends right is an art that can take a lifetime to perfect.

Me, I’m still learning. Some weekends I spend partying my ass off and living to regret it when I’m suddenly back chained to my desk on a Monday, blinking red-eyed and unshaven in the artificial light and wondering how the fuck I got there.

 

 

Other weekends I chill to the max (read: do absolutely fuck all) and arrive on Monday feeling somehow cheated and like I’ve wasted my time in the worst possible way.

Depending on how the weekend’s gone, these feelings of regret usually start setting in late afternoon on Sundays while I make frivolous attempts to at least tidy the house or put on a load of washing or SOMETHING.

Today’s different though because I actually got a shitload of stuff done this weekend and I’m pretty damn proud of that.

On rare days like these, the Radiohead song ‘Everything In Its Right Place’ starts playing in my head like this:

 

 

So I’ll leave you with that thought while I get ready for the WC final tonight where I’ll be supporting Holland because my sister lives there and I’m a huge fan of the underdog, having been one more times than I can count 😉

Later masturbators.

-ST