Radiohead - A Moon Shaped Pool |OT| A Moon Shaped Poo

Get'sMad said:
so after like 5 listens I really really like this record while it's playing but I remember hardly anything about it once it's over.
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I get this sentiment for sure. First few listens, by the time Tinker Tailor comes on I'm just not in a good spot to appreciate it on it's own, all the sounds and buildups blend together. Now that I've got the album in my head a bit and listening to individual tracks more they're gaining a stronger identity. A bit of a testament to how cohesive the album is (or samey, if you want to take that as a negative).
 
This is also like 'RH post 2003' discovery for me. I was binged out on them after Hail to the Thief (an album I actually really loved!), and I'm now also listening to the other recent albums.

In Rainbows is slowly growing on me, but it definitely didn't click as fast as MSP did. I really love Reckoner.
 
I'm coming back around on this album. There's this Tindersticks-y glum and dour sweetness pouring through countless tiny holes in these tracks, if you squeeze hard enough. Beneath the layers (upon layers) of exquisite production there lies what I'd oxymoronically dub some really simple and comforting synth chamber pop. Desert Island Disk, Glass Eyes and Present Tense are the stand-out tracks for me.
 
Creamium said:
This is also like 'RH post 2003' discovery for me. I was binged out on them after Hail to the Thief (an album I actually really loved!), and I'm now also listening to the other recent albums.

In Rainbows is slowly growing on me, but it definitely didn't click as fast as MSP did. I really love Reckoner.
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Yeah, In Rainbows took me a while as well, but there's some incredible shit on there. All I need being my favorite on that album.

Goldmund said:
I'm coming back around on this album. There's this Tindersticks-y glum and dour sweetness pouring through countless tiny holes in these tracks, if you squeeze hard enough. Beneath the layers (upon layers) of exquisite production there lies what I'd oxymoronically dub some really simple and comforting synth chamber pop. Desert Island Disk, Glass Eyes and Present Tense are the stand-out tracks for me.
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Fascinating how everyone has almost completely different favorites.
 
Just finished giving it my first listen.

Not really sure what to think yet. There wasn't really a whole lot that stood out immediately. Some really interesting soundscapes and a lot of great orchestration for sure. I really liked the instrumentation in True Love Waits, I thought what they did with it was amazing. At the moment it may be my favorite track on the album.
 
demon said:
Just finished giving it my first listen.

Not really sure what to think yet. There wasn't really a whole lot that stood out immediately. Some really interesting soundscapes and a lot of great orchestration for sure. I really liked the instrumentation in True Love Waits, I thought what they did with it was amazing. At the moment it may be my favorite track on the album.
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These basically reflect my thoughts after listening to the full album for the first time.

The orchestrations are really interesting and intricate, but I think we all expected that. I really like this version of Present Tense - I had never really listened to Identikit before, so no strong feelings on that one. I listened to True Love Waits a couple times to come to terms with the arrangement (which I now appreciate). My thoughts will obviously change after repeat listens, but I'm not yet in the "top 3 RH albums" crowd. Nothing about this album screams "classic" to me in the way that it seems to have hit other people.


And I can't believe I missed the Blur talk!
 
Just listened to it for the first time, really good album that I think will get even better after multiple listens. Had the same otherworldly feeling as Kid A and In Rainbows, which are my favorite Radiohead albums.
 
Rez said:
It's the canonical song that members of Radiohead allegedly don't like themselves... It gets a lot of flack.
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The canonical song that they don't like is High and Dry (with good reason). I've never read anything about them disliking Electioneering.
 
lukeskymac said:
The canonical song that they don't like is High and Dry (with good reason). I've never read anything about them disliking Electioneering.
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I thought Creep was their disliked song, which I still love. And I love High and Dry as well, as it came off The Bends, my favorite album of theirs. Of course, I know that is colored by when I heard it in my life. It was one of those albums I can point to as being a major turning point in my life back in high school.
 
I know people jump to early conclusions, but I would not call this album one of their more accessible albums. Pablo Honey is super accessible, but not very good.


If I were to rank Radiohead on accessibility. Ignoring Pablo Honey

1. The Bends
2. Ok Computer
3. Hail to the Thief
4. In Rainbows
5. Amnesiac/ Kid A/ Moon of Poo
6. King of Limbs

Now ranking the albums IMO

1. The Bends
2. Kid A
3. OK Computer
4. in Rainbows
5. Moon Shaped Poo
6. Hail to the Thief
7. Amnesiac
8. Pablo Honey
9. King of Limbs
 
Pooblo Honey
The Poos
OK Compooter
Kid Poo
Amnesikack
Hail to the Poo
In Rainpoops
King of Poops
A Poo Shaped Poo

Behold, the great shitpost of our time.

(I'm still listening to Ful Stop like crazy, btw. So damn good. It also works nicely as an instrumental. I imagine most of the album could. The songs are rich even when they aren't string-heavy arrangements, and that's not down to just Jonny. The band puts in some damn fine work as a whole.)
 
Listened to the album about 7 or 8 times now. Fucking great. Probably top 5 Radiohead for me, tentatively between The Bends and Amnesiac.

Favorites: Identikit, Present Tense, True Love Waits
 
Lyrically dark but melodically marvelous (definitely their sexiest when it comes to pure instrument sound)

Really loving it now.
 
Pitchfork - 9.1 (Best New Music, and, I believe, their highest review of 2016 thus far)

Jayson Greene said:
Radiohead, who titled their ninth studio album A Moon Shaped Pool, have a unique grasp on how easily profundity can slip into banality. Their music is obsessed with the point where great truths harden into platitudes, where pure signal meets wretched noise. In the past, Thom Yorke has sharply peppered his lyrics with everyday cliches to suggest a mind consumed by meaningless data, but on the new album, he largely moves beyond cynicism. He is now considering simpler truths in a heretofore-unexplored register: wonder and amazement. “This goes beyond me, beyond you,” he sings on “Daydreaming.” “We are just happy to serve you.” There is no concealed razor under Yorke’s tongue as he offers this thought, or in the pearly music that surrounds him. It sounds for all the world like the most cloistered and isolated soul in modern rock music opening up and admitting a helplessness far more personal than he’s ever dared. Yorke has flirted with surrender before, and on A Moon Shaped Pool, that submission feels nearly complete.
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I wish critics had the sense not to drag the artist's personal life into a review of a work that may or may not have anything at all to do with it. It's awfully presumptuous.
 
Hail to the thief is still my favorite album for sure but this one's up there with the best. Identikit hit me hard on the first listen, I felt like it captured exactly how I was feeling not so long ago and put it in music, a truth you don't want to face, it's something else.
 
Steamlord said:
I wish critics had the sense not to drag the artist's personal life into a review of a work that may or may not have anything at all to do with it. It's awfully presumptuous.
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That is one of the reasons I hate Pitchfork. They tend to go into a bands history, and then their perceived personal life, and then maybe spend a third of the review on the actual album, relating it to the two previous mentioned things. And that is when they whip out the thesaurus to describe maybe three songs on the album, and you are still not sure if it is a positive review until you look at the score at the top.
 
ElectricBlanketFire said:
It's not malicious in this case and readily apparent on the album.

I think it's fair to mention it in a review.
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I agree it's not malicious, but it's still unprofessional. I wouldn't say it's readily apparent; I'd say it's possible, even probable, but to claim that the album is absolutely about Thom Yorke's divorce, even just a tiny part of it, is to make a massive assumption. A critic's job isn't to psychoanalyze the artist, it's to review the art as its own entity.

For another example, Braids' frontwoman Raphaelle Standell-Preston recently wrote an essay about how the band's latest album was, at least in part, related to her own experiences with abuse. Now that she has actually unequivocally confirmed the relation between the album's content and her own experiences, it's fine to acknowledge that. The problem is that before she wrote the essay, people were jumping to conclusions, interviewers were grilling her about possible connections, especially in the song "Miniskirt," and that's clearly not OK. Even if some people's assumptions regarding the song turned out to be accurate, it's still not acceptable to voice those assumptions in a professional environment without any sort of confirmation.

It's a different sort of scenario from Yorke's, but in terms of criticism and analysis it should be treated the same. I actually wrote a paper on "Miniskirt" in my senior year of college and I was very careful to make it perfectly clear that it was not appropriate to make any assumptions about the song potentially being autobiographical. If a college student can do that, surely a professional critic can too. And in fact, Pitchfork's review of Deep in the Iris did not jump to any such conclusions and I respect them for that. It's just a shame they didn't do the same here.
 
Radiohead is in my top 3 bands of all time

I just listened to this for the first time, and I really like it. Definitely need to give it a few more listens for full judgment, but I think it will rank in the upper tier of their albums for me. Identikit was the highlight for me on my first listen.
 
Said it before, but the groove on Decks Dark is some of the best music on the album.

I think Decks Dark, The Numbers, and Identikit are my favorite songs, followed by Burn the Witch, Daydreaming, and Glass Eyes.
 
Anyone know if the album will be fully available on Canadian Spotify soon?

Following the link in the OT, I can only listen to the first two tracks.
 
Cisce said:
Anyone know if the album will be fully available on Canadian Spotify soon?

Following the link in the OT, I can only listen to the first two tracks.
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Yorke doesn't care for Spotify so idk if it'll ever be available. Can try free trial of Google Play or Tidal if you want to stream it, since it's available on both afaik.
 
tlEZwwq.jpg

In the studio where they recorded 'A Moon Shaped Pool' - taken by Colin Greenwood at La Fabrique Studios, France
 
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