This is topic I don’t understand myself with.... in forum Books, Films, Food and Culture at Hatrack River Forum.


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Posted by Presences (Member # 8492) on :
 
I don’t understand myself with Radiohead

I’m about to go back on about everything I’ve said and discussed here:
http://www.hatrack.com/cgi-bin/ubbmain/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=2;t=052209;p=1&r=nfx

In a nut shell, I just didn’t like Radiohead, I didn’t “get” their music.

But something just clicked, I don’t know why and I don’t know how. I just decided to give Radiohead another try and Bam, I think I get it. I’m backtracking and I’m experiencing a whole new universe of music!

It all started with “2+2=5”. Amazing, I have listened to many times now and all I can say is “what an experience”.

“Sit Down Stand Up” was my next song and it was also an experience, climatic at times, and very satisfying to listen to.

With “Sail To The Moon” I heard the guitar for the first time and loved it.

“Where I End And You Begin” was a 4 minute song and I honestly didn’t want it to end.

It is just very odd to me. I’ve been listening to songs over and over again when once I could not get through them.

Can anyone explain this sudden change of mine?
 
Posted by Achilles (Member # 7741) on :
 
Maturing musical taste?
 
Posted by advice for robots (Member # 2544) on :
 
Change of heart? Coming to the realization that Thom Yorke is actually a musical god?

I also like "Sail to the Moon" but the other ones you mentioned aren't among my favorites. So it's still hard to understand your approach to Radiohead. But I'm happy you now like them.

"I do so like green eggs and ham. Thank you, thank you, Sam-I-Am."
 
Posted by Launchywiggin (Member # 9116) on :
 
I had a similar experience. I didn't care for Radiohead in high school (I graduated '03)--finding them too weird (and I criticized York's voice). They grew on me after I started studying music in college, and are now one of my favorite bands.

Glad you gave it another shot.
 
Posted by Tatiana (Member # 6776) on :
 
All of my favorite bands had to grow on me. You're describing my experience with almost everyone I've loved. For a long time my dad played this Maurice Ravel piece that just sounded dissonant to me. I actively disliked it. But one day it just hit me, and suddenly I loved it and couldn't get enough. Bach was the same way. Dad was always playing him and all I heard was this surface multiplicity of notes and similarity of tone and it sounded so boring. One day when he was playing one of the Kyries from the Bm Mass on the piano and I just got what was so good about it. After that I heard the actual notes, the bones of the music, not the surface tone, and it sounded so great. Next I was learning to play his pieces, and they all have so much amazing stuff in them. Playing them is the way to appreciate everything about them. It makes you stop and go "what.....? what was that he just did?" He throws stuff in there that's so crazy and so right. He's amazing.

With Radiohead I started with OK Computer and I didn't like it much at all until Exit Music from a Film grabbed me one day and then another and another track until the whole thing became like oxygen to me and I had to listen to it again and again. Paranoid Android, wow. That's just one of the best tracks ever recorded. Rain down... rain down... come on rain down on me. [Smile]
 
Posted by El JT de Spang (Member # 7742) on :
 
Because Radiohead is weird, and thus unfamiliar to you. Musically, people tend to like what sounds familiar to them.

So you listened to them enough until they became familiar to you, at which point you liked them.
 
Posted by Strider (Member # 1807) on :
 
welcome to the club!

I don't think there was ever a time I disliked Radiohead. But they definitely grew on me. And different albums grew on me as well. I couldn't imagine my musical life without them now.

In fact...off to listen to some Radiohead.
 
Posted by EmpSquared (Member # 10890) on :
 
Radiohead isn't that weird. Maybe relatively weird. They can be inaccessible, but not weird (by my tastes.)

I'm not a huge fan, though. Some songs, sure, Electioneering (which I don't think I've ever heard anyone on the board talk about) for one, Exit Music is great, but I don't think I've ever been able to weather an entire album, and I'm an album guy.
 
Posted by TomDavidson (Member # 124) on :
 
I'm shallow. None of my favorite bands had to grow on me.
 
Posted by Tatiana (Member # 6776) on :
 
I almost always find that if something grabs me right away, it's destined to be an infatuation, not to last very long. I was delighted by The Postal Service's "Such Great Heights", for instance, but it faded so fast. The thrill is totally gone now for me.

Do any of you go nuts for a song and play it over and over and over like 1000 times in a row? I kept doing this with Tool's live version of Pushit from the Salival album, and it's like 15 minutes long but each time I got to the end I was like "oh just one more time, just once more" and that went on for hours. <laughs>

I do that fairly often. A few months ago it was "The Noose" by A Perfect Circle that I played over and over for 2 or 3 hours while I was driving home from Augusta. Each time it stopped I just had to hear it one more time.

On Pretty Hate Machine, which I discovered very late, a few years back, there's that one "Something I Can Never Have" that I actually played 10 hours straight on repeat while I slept about 8 of them. And I still wasn't tired of it.

Am I just weird and extreme or do other people do this too?
 
Posted by Launchywiggin (Member # 9116) on :
 
Nobody thinks you're shallow, Tom [Smile] You're just quicker than the rest of us.
 
Posted by Jim-Me (Member # 6426) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by TomDavidson:
I'm shallow. None of my favorite bands had to grow on me.

Me too. I do confess that my hatred for "Been Caught Stealing" and "Every Breath You Take" caused me to nearly completely miss out on two really outstanding bands. By the time I came to appreciate the Police and, much later, Jane's Addiction, both bands were relegated to "comeback" attempts.

Oddly, though, I find some of those "comeback" songs to be among the best... Simple Minds' "She's a River", Pat Benatar's "Everybody Lay Down", Alice in Chains' "Fear the Voices", Van Halen's "Me Wise Magic", and Jane's Addiction's "Just Because" are all great songs, IMO.
 
Posted by Orincoro (Member # 8854) on :
 
JOOOYYYY!!!!


[Party]


That's all I have to say.


:::plays Let Down:::
 
Posted by Orincoro (Member # 8854) on :
 
Radiohead stayed on the periphery of my musical world for about 5 years, until around 2003, before I really, really started to listen.

What I love about them is that even now, I can put on a track I've heard a hundred times, and I am likely to find something in it I had never noticed before. IF you are just now starting to get into Radiohead, you have a long and fruitful road ahead of you.
 


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