The American Radiohead?

[jakobnicholas]

OK Computer vs. Summerteeth.

 

 

 

???

 

 

Been thinking about this a bit. It's a tough call.

 

 

OK Computer is brilliant.....complex, deep, beautiful, interesting....amazing songs. Paranoid Android is unreal. Exit Music is unbelievable. No Surprises,Lucky then The Tourist finish a fantastic album fantastically.

 

Summerteeth is also great, and though dark, it's songs of love and loneliness and relationships make it more human than the worldly topics in OK Computer. Thom Yorke's voice soars on OK Computer and helps warm up the lyrically and musically cold OK Computer. Tweedy's voice also warms up a lyrically dark Summerteeth. She's a Jar is so great that it should be the album's peak, but it's outdone by Pieholden Suite, How to Fight Loneliness and Via Chicago. Can't Stand it, Always in Love and Shot in the Arm spice up the album. And Summerteeth/Future Age end the album on an equally great note as OK Computer's final songs.

 

Though my brain tells me OK Computer is the more powerful and relevent disc, my gut and heart says otherwise.

 

 

 

Winner:

 

Summerteeth

[lost highway]

OK Computer kicks that shit to the curb. OK is one of the most important albums of the last couple decades. Can't say that about Summerteeth, but you can about YHF. That's why if you put YHF up against it things get confusing.

 

Summerteeth would have been better minus about four songs. It's the only Wilco album after AM that doesn't play straight through seamlessly to me. It drags.

 

Ok Computer has the most outstanding tracklist/flow.

 

The gut and heart thing though, you got a point there if you look at the two bands overall. Thom Yorke definitely writes some stuff from the heart, but Radiohead has never had as consistent an emotional impact as Wilco has. They always have a visceral, sonic and musical impact (occasionally beyond Wilco's best) but it is a little more withdrawn, little more of an 'art' band.....I don't know how better to say it.

[Atticus]

y'all are going to be sorry when summerteeth gets remixed

[lost highway]

Sometimes I wish it would.

[fkinbs]

I've always found the comparison to be valid.

 

Radiohead is to Brit Pop what Wilco is to American Folk/Rock.

 

Both bands debut albums were shining examples of their respective genres and then their constant efforts to evolve within those genres from album to album are apparent.

 

I do not, however, find the album by album comparison to be so rigid.

 

 

Yankee Hotel Foxtrot I find far more comparible to Ok Computer than Summerteeth. YHF isn't nearly as a much of a departure as Kid A. I don't find an album to juxtapose in Wilco's catalog(ue) with Kid A or Amnesiac. Wilco hasn't strayed as far from A.M. as Radiohead has from Pablo Honey, but that doesn't mean that Wilco has fallen short in their experimentation by any stretch of the imagination.

[Gobias Industries]

OK Computer kicks that shit to the curb. OK is one of the most important albums of the last couple decades. Can't say that about Summerteeth, but you can about YHF. That's why if you put YHF up against it things get confusing.

 

Summerteeth would have been better minus about four songs. It's the only Wilco album after AM that doesn't play straight through seamlessly to me. It drags.

 

Ok Computer has the most outstanding tracklist/flow.

 

The gut and heart thing though, you got a point there if you look at the two bands overall. Thom Yorke definitely writes some stuff from the heart, but Radiohead has never had as consistent an emotional impact as Wilco has. They always have a visceral, sonic and musical impact (occasionally beyond Wilco's best) but it is a little more withdrawn, little more of an 'art' band.....I don't know how better to say it.

 

In The Aeroplane Over The Sea eats OK Computer for breakfast.

 

Just saying.

[lost highway]

That's an interesting battle......In the Aeroplane is so much more playful, it's hard to put up against such serious sounding stuff. But, you might have it there.

[jakobnicholas]

OK Computer kicks that shit to the curb. OK is one of the most important albums of the last couple decades. Can't say that about Summerteeth, but you can about YHF. That's why if you put YHF up against it things get confusing.

 

Summerteeth would have been better minus about four songs. It's the only Wilco album after AM that doesn't play straight through seamlessly to me. It drags.

 

Ok Computer has the most outstanding tracklist/flow.

 

The gut and heart thing though, you got a point there if you look at the two bands overall. Thom Yorke definitely writes some stuff from the heart, but Radiohead has never had as consistent an emotional impact as Wilco has. They always have a visceral, sonic and musical impact (occasionally beyond Wilco's best) but it is a little more withdrawn, little more of an 'art' band.....I don't know how better to say it.

 

 

 

 

 

I compared Summerteeth and OK Computer, as both were the band's 3rd album and came out within months of each other.

 

YHF may be considered to be "more important" than Summerteeth, but it's not as great as Summerteeth.

 

 

 

Believe me, I think OK Computer is remarkable. It sounded like the coolest, freshest thing ever the first 50 times I listened to it when it was released. And even today, it sounds pretty amazing.

 

But I can't get past the coldness of it. Yes, Summerteeth has a couple throwaways (for me, My Darling, ELT and Nothingsevergonnastandinmyway), but so does OK Computer (Fitter Happier and Electioneering.....maybe "Pearly" or "Meeting in the Aisle" could have added a little diversity to OK Computer....personally, I enjoy the Airbag EP almost equally to OK Computer).

 

If I have one complaint about Radiohead, it's that they can never seem to lighten up....even just a TINT bit. Not that they have to, but it might help humanize their records. Summerteeh is maybe equally dark to OK Computer, but it doesn't always feel like it with Always In Love or Can't Stand It or the bouncy finish to Pieholden Suite. I think Summerteeth has about everything one could want in an album. OK Computer IS a brilliant artistic achievement, but I don't like it as much as Summerteeth.

[lost highway]

Admitting that I'm taking us further into fandork debate, which is where record geeks debate the subjective to comic ends.......

 

1. I find it fascinating to know a Wilco fan thinks Summerteeth a better album than YHF.

 

2. "Electioneering" is a much needed face melting rock song to jolt you from all of the deeply intense midtempo numbers.

 

3. You're right, Radiohead never lightens up. Wilco's a little more 3 dimensional there.

 

4. The production on Summerteeth, that is, not the instruments chosen and arranged, but the way they were recorded and mixed sounds kind of gross to me sometimes. OK Comp has a really nice production approach in terms of the sound of the room, instruments etc. You can tell Wilco gave a knee jerk at ST with not only the way they did albums afterwards but the style of recording.

 

5. Trick question Lemmy is God.

[jakobnicholas]

Admitting that I'm taking us further into fandork debate, which is where record geeks debate the subjective to comic ends.......

 

1. I find it fascinating to know a Wilco fan thinks Summerteeth a better album than YHF.

 

2. "Electioneering" is a much needed face melting rock song to jolt you from all of the deeply intense midtempo numbers.

 

3. You're right, Radiohead never lightens up. Wilco's a little more 3 dimensional there.

 

4. The production on Summerteeth, that is, not the instruments chosen and arranged, but the way they were recorded and mixed sounds kind of gross to me sometimes. OK Comp has a really nice production approach in terms of the sound of the room, instruments etc. You can tell Wilco gave a knee jerk at ST with not only the way they did albums afterwards but the style of recording.

 

5. Trick question Lemmy is God.

 

 

 

1. I think there's quite a few who think that way. Being There is also a better album than YHF. As for Radiohead, I think The Bends is better than OK Computer. And I'd say The Bends is on the same level of greatness as Wilco's best....maybe higher.

 

2. I don't mind that it's a face melting rock song. I just don't like it. "Pearly" wouldn't have fit OK Computer, but it's a much better rocker, in my opinion.

 

3. Yeah, I can't think of any Radiohead song that's light in nature. But they've shown with High and Dry and Fake Plastic Trees and House of Cards, among others, that they can write incredibly great personal songs.

 

4. I don't mind the arrangement. I rather like added layers in album mixes. The best band in the world, The Flaming Lips, put out records that sound a little dense and perhaps overly layered, but they sound phenomenal.

 

5. ?

[mfwahl]

I personally like Summerteeth more than YHF, but that's the album that got me into Wilco. It feels emotionally stronger to me as well. I know objective arguments can be made that YHF is better but if I based my taste on objective arguments I probably wouldn't like music. I'm staying out of the Radiohead thing because the only album I've heard in its entirety is The Bends, which I like for a 90s alternative rock record but it doesn't touch anything Wilco's done (except maybe AM) in my opinion.

[Moe_Syzlak]

This just in: people on a Wilco board LIKE Wilco!

[jracette]

That's an interesting battle......In the Aeroplane is so much more playful, it's hard to put up against such serious sounding stuff. But, you might have it there.

 

An album about Anne Frank isn't serious? Man, I have to say I haven't heard a record as purely heartbreaking as In the Aeroplane ever, I don't think...

 

"And I know they buried her body with others

Her sister and mother and 500 families

And will she remember me 50 years later

I wished I could save her in some sort of time machine"

[lost highway]

Serious sounding, the Neutral Milk Hotel album might have a pretty intense thematic thread, but it sounds like a fun-time circus. It's too bad that guy wanted to disappear.

[jesus et cetera]

This just in: people on a Wilco board LIKE Wilco!

 

you are blowing my mind right now.

 

i can't see the comparison too clearly. i like both bands. wilco far surpasses radiohead as a personal preference.

[M. (hristine]

jesus et cetera trippin' balls!

[jesus et cetera]

jesus et cetera trippin' balls!

[jc4prez]

awesome

 

 

ETA: By the way, Wilco doesn't hold a candle to Radiohead.

[M. (hristine]

I need to save that.

[jc4prez]

I need to save that.

 

 

already did.

[Sweet Papa Crimbo]

Radiohead is dour.

Wilco is playful.

 

Radiohead is selfconsciously self-important.

Wilco is awkwardly self deprecating

 

Radiohead is a focused band of brothers (so to speak).

Wilco is an evershifting vehicle for Jeff Tweedy's vision.

 

Radiohead features British guitar god Jonny Greenwood

Wilco features American guitar god Nels Cline

 

Thom Yorke is somebody I would avoid socializing with (shoe gazing gives me the heebiejeebies)

Jeff Tweedy is somebody I would like to have a beer with.

 

Phil Selway is a transcendent drummer.

Glen Kotche is a transcendent drummer.

 

The debate is silly and the comparison is the province of lazy music journalism (as if there is any other kind).

 

You like 'em, or you don't.

[jc4prez]

The debate is silly and the comparison is the province of lazy music journalism (as if there is any other kind).

 

You like 'em, or you don't.

 

 

Bingo.

[jracette]

Serious sounding, the Neutral Milk Hotel album might have a pretty intense thematic thread, but it sounds like a fun-time circus. It's too bad that guy wanted to disappear.

 

I see what you're saying.

 

I agree about Mangum, but if Aeroplane (and On Avery Island I suppose) are all he gives us, that's enough for me.

 

W/R/T the raging Wilco/Radiohead debate, I love both bands very much and both have made a lot of records that are extremely important to me. They are very different in some ways (many of which I think can be explained to varying degrees by European vs. American musical and lyrical traditions) and very similar in some ways (not the least of which is consistent awesomeness, such that comparatively weak records by these bands are still better than almost everything else). I don't like calling Wilco the "American Radiohead" any more than I would like calling Radiohead the "British Wilco" because both bands deserve better than that, but it just seems right to compare/contrast them to each other because they are contemporaries and really represent the current pinnacle of their respective canons. I think that's what the "American Radiohead" thing is getting at, if crudely. Wilco are the best American rock has to offer right now, Radiohead are the best British rock has to offer right now, and it's been that way for about 12-13 years now. This is just like comparisons between the Beach Boys and the Beatles, American vs. British punk, and on and on... I mean serious scholarship has been done on those questions and I bet it will be done on this one (any culture studies/music history/pick your liberal art types looking for a thesis topic?) Bottom line is it makes total sense to be mentioning these two bands in the same breath if you give a crap about such things, and obviously everyone here does. These are, IMHO (and I would venture to say a lot of other HOs and some not-so-HOs) the most important bands of their generation.

 

BTW, there are some Radiohead haters here. I'm not going to blast you all with "OMG radiohead rulz ur a moron" fanboy gibberish. I think the "pretentious," "ponderous," etc. criticisms are not without some merit. At the same time I don't see anything wrong with a little pretense sometimes. It can lead to massive failure, but it can also lead to astounding art. Its a fine line and sometimes its hard to parse out the pretentious crap from the pretentious greatness. I guess its a little like obscenity, I know it when I see it. Radiohead, I submit, are frequently pretentious greatness.

 

Sorry, had to get that off the old chest. Like anyone who has strong opinions about music this just seems obvious to me.

[radiokills]

Jeff Tweedy is somebody I would like to have a beer with.

 

maybe he should run for president

[mastershake]

wilco > radiohead because tweedy is cooler than thom yorke. yorke is kinda a douche in reality. he cries like a little baby if something he releases doesn't get unanimous praise from the critics (i.e. The Eraser). i think both have been in a downhill spiral since their release of their masterpieces (YHF for wilco, OK Computer/Kid A for Radiohead)