There, There wins points for being pretty, sparse, mysterious, and ethereal. The melodic high point. And I think Myxomatosis is also melodically strong. Most of the rest of the album has some glaring flaws in the songwriting. Although there's so much craft and artistry that go into it sometimes you get to the end of one of these dreary, borderline unlistenable offerings and it suddenly picks up and you go, wait, what?

They really put a mountain of effort into this, at least ten times more than your average band puts into making a record, and it's still very low energy, half baked at times. But worse of all it's just gloomy and plodding for long stretches. The 14 tracks feel 4-5 too many. It's overly long and at times you can't completely tell when the song changes. It suffers from its own monotony and inability to shake things up or try something different. When they made it they must have been really stuck on whatever idea they had and were overly committed to the shtick. Still, despite the obvious criticisms, it is objectively brilliant at times and if any other alternative band made this record it would be their masterpiece.

There's one clip where Thom accepts some British award for the album and he's teary-eyed and says the band made the record for themselves with no hope that the outside world would give a shit about it, and that the award meant a lot to him and justified their efforts. If that gives you a little window into what they were thinking.

I think it's obvious they went into making In Rainbows with the intent to right some of the wrongs they made on HttT. It really was a bonafide redemption arc. Imagine being so talented that your worst is better than most people's best. I guess it's like LeBron getting knocked out in the conference finals or something. You know he'll be back next year with a vengeance.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5904182&forum_id=2)#50137293)

The biggest thing I’d change is that I don’t really think the problem is that they were unwilling to try different things. Almost the opposite. The album has too many ideas and too many partially resolved modes. 2 + 2 = 5, Sail to the Moon, There There, Myxomatosis, The Gloaming, and A Wolf at the Door are doing substantially different things. But they’re all rendered through the same anxious, murky, midtempo HttT atmosphere, so the differences stop registering after 40 minutes.

Most of the record was initially recorded in about two weeks in Los Angeles, often at roughly a song a day, because they wanted immediacy and live interaction again. Yorke described it at the time as direct music made quickly without thinking everything to death.

I think they overshot.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5904182&forum_id=2)#50137302)

There are tons of interesting sounds and production ideas, but the actual songwriting underneath them can be weirdly thin. The innovation is in the window dressing more than the meat. Sit Down. Stand Up is basically three minutes of setup for a great ending. We Suck Young Blood is more of an atmosphere than a song. A Punchup at a Wedding has a great groove but not enough going on melodically.

And if you're going to make an album that way, at least edit the hell out of it. Fourteen tracks and almost an hour is absurd for material this gloomy and half cooked. Take the best 9 or 10 songs, front load the strongest stuff, and suddenly the slower tracks have room to breathe instead of feeling like one more stretch of sludge.

That seems like one of the big lessons they took into In Rainbows. They had plenty of good extra songs and just left them off. Being good wasn't enough anymore. The song had to make the album better.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5904182&forum_id=2)#50137328)

Watermelon in Easter Hay live '78 tell me that isn't the most overwhelming guitar instrumental/solo you've heard in a long time. Perfect tone. So much feeling and digging deep.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5904182&forum_id=2)#50137373)

What album should I review next? Thinking about Sigur Rós - () but I'm open to suggestions.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5904182&forum_id=2)#50137338)

Crazy when you hear Everything In Its Right Place in the Nick Fuentes intro lmao. The long arm of Thom's genius and the Prophet 5.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5904182&forum_id=2)#50137362)

Hatp is a retarded emotional quasi-woman though

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5904182&forum_id=2)#50137374)