this radiohead thing then.

crackerjack

Well-known member
I was going to link to the Father Ted scene where the suicidal priest is cheered up by Shaft,, then returned to his state of depression by hearing Radiohead on the bus, as proof that Radiohead have contributed at least one priceless moment to humanity. But Youtube hasn't got it.
 

Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
Hot Chip are just revolting though. Pure nastiness for smugonauts and people who don't actually like dance music. Cynical indie twats that they are.

Now this is interesting: I saw them a while ago on Jools Holland and thought they were absolute toss, but a mate of mine who generally shares a lot of musical taste in common with me reckons they're the brilliant... :slanted:
 

bassnation

the abyss
Taking really good music and turning it into dull miserable bland shite for people who don't know or want to know about it's roots could be seen as original I suppose. :slanted:

Fusing prog, Krautrock, musique concrete and electronica with 'indie' actually sounds like the world's worst idea anyway. I mean why the fuck would you want to do that?

Hot Chip are just revolting though. Pure nastiness for smugonauts and people who don't actually like dance music. Cynical indie twats that they are.

kid a was pretty good i thought. i hated their earlier thrashy navel gazing stuff, but somehow electronica combined with shoegazing really does it for me. i realise i'm probably in a minority with this - even suprised myself by liking it to be honest.
 

mms

sometimes
Hot Chip are just revolting though. Pure nastiness for smugonauts and people who don't actually like dance music. Cynical indie twats that they are.

ironic then given that they do best 2 step record pieces in mags, dance remixes, record minimal techno under diff pseudonyms, dj, and generally have nothing but great things to say about dance music.

but you can't necessarily blame a band for their audience, i imagine hot chips audience are a bit more up for it than others though, whatever it is.

and for the record i was only being rude about radiohead, i've never really seen the point of all that endless navel gazing, there are few people that do it in a manner where it doesn't seem utterly dismal and a waste of time.
my girlfriend always gets mad cos i laugh at lenny cohen, is that shallow?
does anyone else find him ridiculous?
 
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noel emits

a wonderful wooden reason
ironic then given that they do best 2 step pieces in mags, dance remixes, record minimal techno under diff pseudonyms, dj, and generally have nothing but great things to say about dance music.
Well I gave them a chance because I didn't mind their pre-electronic stuff. Saw them live last year and just found the wimpy posing really horrible, like a kind of passive aggressive inversion of rock. Only time I've disliked a show so much was when I saw the incredibly deep and sensitive Icelandic quintet Sigur Ros.
 

noel emits

a wonderful wooden reason
but you can't necessarily blame a band for their audience, i imagine hot chips audience are a bit more up for it than others though, whatever it is.

and for the record i was only being rude about radiohead, i've never really seen the point of all that endless navel gazing, there are few people that do it in a manner where it doesn't seem utterly dismal and a waste of time.
my girlfriend always gets mad cos i laugh at lenny cohen.
No you can't really blame a band for it's audience, which in the case of Hot Chip seemed to be a lot of 14 year old girls and older lads that should know better.

The wallowing in misery thing generally pisses me right off but at least Leonard Cohen has a dark and sick sense of humour.
 

RobJC

Check your weapon
Are most people turned off by music (or musicians) that are supposed to have "a message"?
 

RobJC

Check your weapon
Are you dissing Grandmaster Flash?!? :mad:

That would be an offence in my house - honest.

No really - is it cynical to find artists who have the opportunity to say something in their music as misguided, or is it just a personal thing...Personally with the likes of Radiohead, social commentry through music in a non-threatening or oblique way really missing the point, but endless protest songs would be really grating as well.

As for going back to your White boy indie rock credentials, I never really though they had any or wanted any to begin with.
 

noel emits

a wonderful wooden reason
kid a was pretty good i thought. i hated their earlier thrashy navel gazing stuff, but somehow electronica combined with shoegazing really does it for me. i realise i'm probably in a minority with this - even suprised myself by liking it to be honest.
Kid A definitely my favourite Radiohead moment, but I really don't have any desire to hear it again. It's only pretty good as you say.

Electronica combined with shoegazing? Yes, I always wanted this to work but I don't think anyone quite pulled it off right. I did a mash-up (when these things were popular) of My Bloody Valentine, Boards Of Canada and a bit of Autechre that approached how I think that marriage should have been.
 

Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
No really - is it cynical to find artists who have the oppurtunity to say something in their music as misguided, or is it just a personal thing...
I do see what you mean, and I think it is all too easy to cynical, but at the same time...
Personally with the likes of Radiohead, social commentry through music in a non-threatening or oblique way really missing the point, but enless protest songs would be really grating as well.
.
...I agree with this point too, that bands who 'sort of have a message', such as Radiohead that do it in a clever-clever (or so they think) roundabout sort of way, really seem to be rather pointless and annoying. And don't get me fucking started on At The Bleedin' Drive-In.

If you're going to do protest songs, they should be funky and danceable, perhaps even humorous, as well as to-the-point (Public Enemy, The Clash) or just really loud and shoutable and anthemic and frankly a bit adolescent (Rage Against The Machine). As you say, it grates after a while, which is why RATM broke up none too soon.
 

RobJC

Check your weapon
Radiohead were never shoegazing.

Ride, Slowdive, Chapterhouse, early Catherine Wheel were though.

Ride were seriously underated as wall or sound purveyors and flirted with electronica before sadly going down the trad rock path.

Slowdive went electronica then folk which was the weirdest transformation.
 

turtles

in the sea
the funny thing is that for me as a dance music fan hot chip made a version of indie that I could find palatable, whereas I usually can't stand the dreck. which is sort of the reverse of what everyone here is accusing them of...
 

bassnation

the abyss
Radiohead were never shoegazing.

Ride, Slowdive, Chapterhouse, early Catherine Wheel were though.

Ride were seriously underated as wall or sound purveyors and flirted with electronica before sadly going down the trad rock path.

Slowdive went electronica then folk which was the weirdest transformation.

you are probably right, i think i meant navel gazing rather than the short-lived indie genre.

would anyone categorise spaceman 3 or spiritualised under the same genre?
 

Gavin

booty bass intellectual
the funny thing is that for me as a dance music fan hot chip made a version of indie that I could find palatable, whereas I usually can't stand the dreck. which is sort of the reverse of what everyone here is accusing them of...

Agreed. I could do without all the xylophones 'n' glockenspiels or whatever, focus on THE FUNK.
 

dHarry

Well-known member
Taking really good music and turning it into dull miserable bland shite for people who don't know or want to know about it's roots could be seen as original I suppose. :slanted:

Fusing prog, Krautrock, musique concrete and electronica with 'indie' actually sounds like the world's worst idea anyway. I mean why the fuck would you want to do that?

Hot Chip are just revolting though. Pure nastiness for smugonauts and people who don't actually like dance music. Cynical indie twats that they are.
I can't begrudge Radiohead's belatedly discovering electronica etc. and trying to revolutionise their stadium indie with it, though I don't find it particularly engrossing. I'd applaud them in fact for such a brave move, if it weren't for what I've seen of them on Glasto TV etc. which reveals them to be shameless crowd-pleasers and cliched anthemic climax-builders, which takes the sheen right off their experimental lustre and po-faced "sincerity".

But the vitriol for Hot Chip seems misguided? Surely they're barely an indie band at all, and it's hard to imagine anyone writing, recording and producing the delicate, gorgeous, regretful ambient-disco-house-pop-with-harmonies of "Boy From School" cynically, "The Warning"-style jokiness ("Hot Chip will break your legs" etc.) aside.

[Edit - oops, came back to my 'puter & posted my reponse to Noel Limits to find a page & a half of discussion had taken place]
 
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