Yeah, but "moon" isn't a shape. The moon is an imperfect sphere. The title basically translates to "spherical pool." I think the title may mean nothing and just be one of those "hey, fuck it, it sounds cool" things.

...

Although... I suppose it could be a global warming reference. The world is well on its way to looking like a giant sphere of water. Plus, this is a subject that's close to the band's heart. The choice to use the word "pool" might suggest that people are supposed to use or inhabit the titular phenomenon, which would certainly be the case if the poles melted.

Actually, I think that is probably what the title is a reference to. Radiohead love apocalyptic imagery, and they have a history of being politically vocal.

That's my take anyway. That or the "fuck it it sounds cool" thing.

See i eventually grew an attachment to TKOL but i definitely took me time. I agree with you on this one, ive made an instant connection with this record. I was walking to the metro after work with it on in the spring sunshine and admittedly felt very rapturous. Now, i actually love TKOL now, and was just feeling pretty good listening to it on monday morning as my consolation prize for having to wait on Amazon. But again it took a long time to develop that connection. What is very different for me with A Moon Shaped Pool is the connection has been instantaneous

And to be sure i wouldn't even call it a particularly good record. I just feel like i really like it regardless

I think it's a pretty goo record. I have to admit, I do a bit of track skipping on this one. There are a couple songs I'm not quite feeling. But most of them clicked right away.

Still not sure about "True Love Waits."

I read Pitchfork's little ode to it ("True Love Waits has finally found a home," or some such nonsense), and they were pretty hard on the I Might be Wrong version, which I don't think is particularly fair. I'm not sure how I feel about having the "official" take be so far removed from the song as I've known it for all these years. Definitely an odd choice. It's not like they're lacking in unreleased songs.

I hated it when Arcade Fire put No Cars Go on Neon Bible. It sounded like shit compared to the '03 version. Times like this I really have to wonder, fucking WHY?

Yeah that's fair. Sure I was harsh but fuck it. This is a Sonic Youth fan forum right? If you hate AMSP that's fine, but some of things I'm reading here....holy fuck....Thom needs to quit the band? This is boring as fuck grandpa music? I could go on and on but there sure is a lot of insanity in this thread. I would hate for a newcomer to SY music to stumble on this thread. I've been here a lot of years and honestly there is a new low in this thread, and I'm not saying you have to love RH.

Anyway, fuck it. One random thought:

Someone said TKOL songs all sounded the same. Now, TKOL is not my fav RH, but my main problem with it is how the songs sound like they are from 2 entirely different EPs!!

What the hell are you going on about?

Also.. new low? Exactly how many years you been here cuz we certainly have had some epic low points here on Days Of Our Sonic Lives

So... are we supposed to actually point out all the bullshit nonsense in this little temper tantrum, or should we assume you already know you're talking out of your asshole? I think you know, but maybe I'm giving you too much credit.

I would like to know why you spend time watching their videos in full if you hate the band so much. Don't you have things in your life that are more important? Perhaps a part time job? Maybe for an urban mobile retailer that sells do-rags and XXL white t-shirts?

Maybe a family? Friends? A support group of some sort?

NOBODY SAID THOM SHOULD QUIT THE BAND, GODDAMMIT. Except SFAD, who was jokingly accusing me of saying that (which I was not).

But dead battery's posts and the grandpa music shit are just total asswind.

 

Tom as The Scream...

I have only their first one and Kid A album. I was never a big fan of theirs, but enjoyed some of their stuff. thought i will check out their new stuff on youtube (esp. since this thread, haha), but it is impossible at the moment.

So why exactly do you guys think Thom should quit Radiohead?









...just kidding. The grandpa music comment really did make me chuckle when I read it though. What I wouldn't give to see any band title an album "Grandpa Music" now.

Ok, I'm going to say this: people (not here, but elsewhere) are writing way too much about Radiohead and it's getting on my goddamn nerves.

I want to hear Radiohead news as much as anyone, but this isn't news. It's filler... it's overfiller... overkill... unnecessary and a total goddamn turnoff.

I think it speaks to the state of popular culture that certain artists just get covered and covered and covered when a new album drops. Kanye West and Radiohead more than any others, really. But the news coverage is absolutely fucking exhausting. There's no attempt to be tasteful, no attempt to stick to what the public needs to know. It turns into click-bait. New Kanye album? Well, Kanye West is one of the most Googled names in the world, so surely if we fill our website with daily updates on every facet of his public and personal life, we're sure to have a spike in readership that will make our parent company (let's say, for no reason in particular, CONDÉ NAST) happy.

Radiohead drops a new album? Well, we have barely said a word about them in five years, but they're Radiohead so a new album means a bunch of nerds will be habitually checking our website for tidbits every goddamn second for a while, so let's absolutely DROWN our readers in bullshit features about Radiohead and politics, Radiohead and technology, Radiohead fandom, Radiohead anal beads and Radiohead bumfuckery to milk this data cash cow for all it's worth until... y'know... Kanye or Betoncé does something else.

It speaks to the state of pop culture because pop culture is more fractured, fragmented and divided than it's ever been, and yet these artists are presented as though they somehow unite EVERYONE in the way the Beatles (or, to a lesser extent, Michael Jackson) did. Well, they fucking DON'T.

This board is evidence enough of that fact. I'm estimating that about 80% of the users here are well over the age of 30, meaning we all remember when Radiohead became "started" -- we all remember "Creep," and we remember the Bends, and we certainly remember OK Computer and the media frenzy surrounding it, and everything since. Add in the fact that this is a Sonic Youth board, and you can probably safely assume that just about EVERYONE here either is or has been a Radiohead fan at one time or another, probably between the years of 1995 and 2003 for the most part. Not only that, but we were all getting down to Sonic fucking Youth during those years, so it's probably not a stretch to assume that Radiohead is one of the "biggest" non-Nirvana bands we habe ever been into.

So we've all been there, seen it, done it, bought the t-shirt.

And yet, look at where we collectively stand on Radiohead now. Fucking everywhere and nowhere. There are a couple absolute die-yards, but mostly we're split. There are old timer fans who think the band dropped off a bit at some point, but still consider them a great band (like SFAD, louder, myself and a bunch of other folks who don't waste as much time here as the three of us). Then there are the golden era fans who think the band has sucked for 15 years. Then there are the dead batteries and evolloves who may or may not still like them, but certainly would rather talk shit than fawn over them at this point. And then there's the folks who just think they're awful, even though I'm positive that even they carried a torch for the band in '97.

Radiohead is/are not the Beatles.
Kanye West? Not the Beatles.

We have no Beatles. But Pitchfork wants to present this image of Radiohead somehow uniting two (or three?!) generations of music fans unlike any other band.

It's nonsense, and I'm sick of it. I work in the media. I have to write new content every goddamn day for one newspaper or another. If I wrote about the same goddamn thing and tried to slap it onto the homepage or front page every day for a week, I would be told to take my bullshit copy and shove it up my ass, and asked to go find something REAL to write about toot sweet or else.

I'm not saying anything negative about Radiohead here. Certainly not saying anything negative about Kanye, or Beyoncé. But I am saying the global entertainment media machine has turned into a shit factory. It's not even in the same category as news anymore. Pitchfork turns into a higher profile, no character limit version of a fan Twitter for the days and weeks surrounding a major release by a major artist, just like Entertainment Weekly wrote about nothing but The Force Awakens for three goddamn months.

It's despicable, and it actually makes it harder to enjoy the music. Who cares about decoding the deeper meaning behind the politics of a music video?! That just makes the band less appealing. Makes me want to take a hammer to my skull. It's just a song!!!! It's just a video!!! It's just an album! It's just a band!!! You're KILLING it by analyzing every little goddamn detail. Fucking executing it.

We have no Beatles. Nothing and nobody unites the world anymore. I wish everyone would stop wishing it was the '60s and wishing we were all happy. We're not, and nobody needs three Radiohead history lessons in one week.

You are quite the comedian, Severian.

Its why i stopped reading music "journalism".. i just let music speak for itself and this record speaks to me

I love starting rumors. Read through the thread again it may just surprise you

Also Michael Jackson united people more than Beatles. Go to any party anywhere in the world right now. Spin a Beatles track. Might garner some mild interest but otherwise likely to bore the crowd. Spin ANY MJ track?? INSTANT PARTY BOOST.

Michael Jackson might be the most unifying artist in human history.

I've yet to listen to it. I heard the first single. It's not bad. Much better than 90% of In Rainbows.

I like that song too because the riff at the end reminds me a bit of Roxy Music.

Opinions, opinions..

No need to read through it all again. I totally get it actually. It's been one of the more amusing elements of this whole thread, hence why I had to poke some fun at it myself. I just want to belong...

On a more serious update, I have totally come around to True Love Waits now. Was very odd to hear it in this form for awhile, but the initial shock has worn thin and I really like listening to this tune. Nice closer for the album.

You must spread some Reputation around before giving it to louder again.

If the "party" is filled with the usual idiots who like to "party" then you're probably right. With non idiots though? Somewhere other than a "party?" No.

Just stop. You know damn well what i am talking about. The party could be for your grandmomz birthday! You know Beatles aren't bigger than MJ. Stop trying to over think it like you always do. Just read the words at face value.

The Beatles have always been and will always be bigger than MJ. They are so much bigger than MJ. Go home, if you think otherwise, 'cause you're drunk.

Dude you know that isn't true. I know that isn't true. Ringo knows it isn't true. Sir Paul knows it isn't true. When you gonna stop low balling MJ???

I mean in the pantheon of human history it is probably only Jesus that is bigger than Michael Jackson and that is only because Jesus had a 2000 year head start ;)

Can we get back to radiohead now?

I don't know it isn't true. Because it is true. The Beatles are without question a bigger, better, more influential, more successful global phenomenon than Michael Jackson.

Mike's probably number 2. But come on man. It's the Beatles. You're insane. They did more in 7 years to alter music than MJ did in 30. There's no fucking contest. Consult any source you like for confirmation. Except for your own weird brain, which seems to think that MJ was way bigger than he was. And he was SO big that it's hard to believe he was as big as he REALLY was. But he's forever in second place to the Beatles.

Not dissing on MJ here. Just telling the truth to someone who has clearly invented their own version of it.

Have you ever tallied the sales figures for the Beatles albums? Just in the US, they annihilate MJ. He may have sold more copies of Thriller than the Beatles sold of any single album, but Jesus Christ man. 27 number one singles. The biggest selling band or artist of all time. International sales are freaking astronomical.

Their fucking greatest hits album, 1, was the biggest selling "album" of the 2000's. Also, every single album they released changed music forever.

It's not opinion, it's math. Even MJ was jealous of the Beatles. That's why he stole their songbook out from under Paul and stabbed him in the back.

There's no argument to be had here, drunkard. So yes, let's get back to Radiohead.

Also, the Beatles being "bigger than Jesus" really turns your ridiculous comment about the pantheon of human history into a semantic dagger in the gut of your argument. ;)

Haha i love you bro. Its too easy with you

No doubt the Beatles are number one! However, about Mike being number two, 50,000,000 Elvis fans might argue with you.

sounds good from what I've heard.

you people are incredible.

Well I WAS going to give my thoughts on A Moon Shaped Pool but that clearly isn't what this thread is about anymore.

I love you too man. We have fun.

Shut up and talk about Radiohead! ;)

Haha classic SYG once a thread gets to four pages all bets are off

Radiohead is boring and has always been masters of the boring and they will likely be voted into RnR hall of fame before The Cure, The Smiths, and a dozen other Brit acts that deserve it much more.....because boring sells

Rob your boring

That's the truth.

Radiohead has a really fucked up love hate relationship with boring. I remember in the late '90s, Radiohead was essentially considered the antithesis of boring by alternative rock fans. Radiohead was what people who called Peal Jam boring listened to and jizzed their pants over.

They have the ability to be almost unfathomably boring, it's true. Have you ever listened to "Black Star?" I'll bet there are a few loyalists here who will still stand by that pure loaf of shit song, but it achieves levels of boringness that are usually reserved for the Vertical Horizons and Third Eye Blinds of the world. It's just fucking TERRIBLE.

On the other hand, if you think "Idioteque" is boring, you're high. "kid a" (the song) is so non-boring and sublime that it boggles the mind. And who in their right mind would say "Myxoma-motherfucking-tosis" is boring? What? Not so. Simply not so.

But several tracks on this new one are boring as hell. It's like 50% aural ambien and 50% greatness. But to say that Radiohead is, as a whole, boring is pretty fucking absurd in my opinion.