Radiohead revisited
When talking about indie rock we can't exclude Radiohead, can we? It is just an aberration that these guys are with EMI/Capitol. But a jump from a small indie lable to a powerhouse is all but inevitable for talented bands. Take the case of the latest Death Cab For Cutie album on Atlantic-"Plans"( they have gone even more indie, I feel).
With OK Computer tasting mainstream success, Radiohead added scores of wannabe Radiohead-heads. To filter out some of that fan-base, they set out on a mission which was, to put it mildly, audacious. They set out to make an album which would not be a Radiohead album. They set out to make KID A, an out-n-out electro-punk record. But the end result was a true Radiohead album (it succeeded in its endeavours however). Full of creativity, originality, genius, unpredictability and outright brilliance. A true non-commercial and anti-pop album.
(For me it is up there with OK Comp & The Bends)
So, the children of the 90s (me included), thank your stars that you have witnessed the birth and growth of a powerhouse in the realm of music. A band you can proudly say belong to your generation. To celebrate this fact, I present to you 3 wonderful Radiohead bootlegs.
The audio is very clear (encoded@256 kbps). The KROQ acoustic show is great. And check out the live version of "Idioteque" on the Canal+ show. It's a treat.
P.S. Advice for people who want to burn these shows (or any other bootleg with good sound) onto a CD. Boost up the track volume by at least 200% before doing so. It would just sound like an officially recorded show.
posted by whitelight @ 2:00 PM
10 Comments:
But a jump from a small indie lable to a powerhouse is all but inevitable for talented bands.
Gotta call bullshit on that. There are exceptions like Mars Volta but if you want real music get the fuck out of your mainstream big labels.
Hey, great site. I'm a major indie (and general) music buff too.
I must say, I disagree abt DCFC. Had my first album been Transatlanticism, perhaps I may feel differently. My first exposure to them was Something abt airplanes and We have the facts.. I think they've been on a steady decline, with Plans being their worst yet.
Radiohead are one of the few bands who've been consistently brilliant on a major label, but it's a bit easier in the UK (plus, Thom and co. have buckets of 'artistic integrity') I don't think a band 'sells out' when it signs with a major label (hell, Sonic Youth is on a major label), but it gives the critics/public a ready reason for trashing the band if the new album sucks.
In the end, different bands have different reasons. Sure, major labels may be more conservative (Wilco's Yankee Hotel Foxtrot incident), but some imprints are more conservative/money-minded than others. Even Wilco are currently signed to Nonesuch, an imprint of Warner Bros. (and a sister label of Reprise, their old label). Indie labels put out plenty of trash as well.
antickpix-exactly. indie produces a lot of trash too.
i guess you have a point there about DCFC. agreed Plans has more than its share of ballads but somehow i feel TA had a greater chance to make it to the mainstream compared to Plans. or I have not given Plans a more thorough listen.
yeah, that wilco story is a perfect case. agreed major labels exert a lot of pressure but now more and more of these labels have their independent arm. take the case of Modest Mouse who are with Epic.
agreed crass commercialism is not a great thing, but that does not mean albums or bands being featured on MTV or Vh1 are sell-outs. take the case of Franz Ferdinand. i think they are the best among the new breed of so called retro rockers.
antickpix-thanks for dropping by.
true. forgot abt MM. Good news for ppl.. could be classified 'mainstream' as in it's accessible, but great too. There will always be nitpickers who go on about how 'the band once were' and swear by the old stuff, but sometimes it's more due to hanging onto a principle than actually listening to the music.
If you take Smog (Bill Callahan), his lo-fi stuff is borderling unlistenable, while his later stuff is great. Some cash is good (though he made the shift from living room to an indie label). One interesting case may be the Flaming Lips, who after signing to WB significantly changed direction artistically (became spacier and less punk), but are still a great band.
and yes, FF are prob the best of the so called NME induced new rock revolution, which in itself (NRR ie) is a case study in style over substance. But they rock, and that's that. Maximo Park (who interestingly are signed to Warp records of all places) and Bloc Party give them a close run.
sorry if i go on and on. just nice to discuss music.
antickpix-no problem, brother. you can take as much space as you want if its music. i love it too. and i get to know new stuff.
MM- 'moon & anta' is as easy to get into as Good news. but it is just classy. plain beautiful music.
yeah, Bloc party. they too get a lot of mainstream press. but are great too.
i have been hearing a lot about My Chemical Romance. how are they? they too have shifted to some major label.
My Chemical Romance are one of those punk-lite bands that I don't really follow (see also: Yellowcard, NOFX, Switchfoot etcetera). IMO, they all sound the same, and they all sound like crap.
Things I'm listening to now are 'Strange Geometry' by The Clientele (bloody awesome),'The Campfire Headphase' by Boards of Canada (ditto), 'Takk' by Sigur Ros (great, but not as good as Agaetis Byrjun) and 'The Runners Four' by Deerhoof (solid, but not as good as previous stuff such as Apple O' and Reveille)
thanks a lot for the reco. i will surely check these out.
it seems all these bands' latest album is inferior to the previous one. it is valid for practically all the bands/artists. or you have some like Dylan who, according to me, made his masterpiece 15 years after his career started. that was Blood on the tracks.
there has to be an answer to that problem, is not it?
I think the problem is that certain bands trailblaze a totally new genre (or sub-genre), and so all subsequent albums pale in comparison with the archetype.
Take The Books for example. A small band from the US, their first two albums ("Thought for food" and "The Lemon of Pink") sound like nothing else I've heard. Their third album "Lost and Safe" is a bit 'straighter', and so suffers slightly.
I guess some guys just burn out quickly. Look at David Bowie (and I've heard 90% of his catalogue, 'cept the late 80s and Tin Machine stuff). Every new album is hailed as 'the best since Scary Monsters'. But, his best output was all 70s, and has been slowly but surely declining ever since. His last few albums have been decent, but it's always 'well, it could be called a good album, but considering the artist is David Bowie...meeeeh'
Then again, take Radiohead, who change direction almost every album, and their masterpiece (till date) could be either OK C or Kid A (personally, OK C edges Kid A out by a nose). Their new releases are actually something to look forward to, unlike loads of other bands whose new albums are approached with trepidation (like Oasis). Another band in the R'Head vein are Sleater-Kinney, who've slowly matured with each release, and (IMO) their best release was their last, "The Woods".
As for the stuff I mentioned, The Clientele's first album was less cohesive than this one (this is their second), but my fav Clientele song is from the first album ("The Violet Hour"..also the album title). BoC and Sigur Ros suffer from what I said in the first para. Excellent albums in their own right, but their back catalogue takes a bit of sheen away from it. Deerhoof, everyone has a different fav album. They're an extremely weird band.
One band (and I think you'll agree) that doesn't have too much variation in quality over the entire catalogue is VU. Other than the eponymous album, which I think is their weakest, I really can't choose between the other three.
In the end, it's all subjective. Sometimes, the fav album of an artist may also be due to circumstance (say, first album heard of that artist..like you and DCFC), and not what the general music world perceives as lesser or higher quality.
Oh, and many many bands are crap to begin with, and sink downwards with each subsequent release. :)
very true. it depends a lot on which album do you start off with. more so with likes of beatles, stones, dylan, lz. they have at least 4 albums with nothing to set them apart. just the listener's perception.
absolutely. there is nothing to set VU's albums apart too. for me all their albums are at par. i just can't pick out which one is the weakest. vu& nico is my fav, however. loaded, which is much easier to get into, is sheer genius.
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