Music: Is OK Computer the most overrated album of all-time?

[Langdon Alger]

I like 90's music, but I have never understood the appeal of Radiohead. I've listened to some of their stuff and have heard "Creep" on the radio a couple of times and it's just not my cup of tea, yet their fans worship the band like they are the greatest musicians to ever live.

I think they are a band that require multiple listens, or their stuff after the Bends does anyway.

Just out of curiosity, what music from the 90's do you like?

 

[Shareefruck]

Creep is ****ing terrible. I do find 90s Radiohead overrated in general. I love 2000s Radiohead though.

My feeling is that they're nowhere close to the greatest musicians to ever live, but their contemporaries have been so underwhelming that they're one of the best we currently have.

 

[HisIceness]

I think they are a band that require multiple listens, or their stuff after the Bends does anyway.

Just out of curiosity, what music from the 90's do you like?

I have a thing for the mid 90's post grunge stuff, like Gin Blossoms, Better Than Ezra, Blues Traveler, Hootie and the Blowfish, Counting Crows, etc. because I grew up listening to that stuff. My dad used to buy every new album that groups like this released that he could have opened up his own CD store, so I think that's where I get it from. The first concert I went to that I actually wanted to go see was Farm-Aid in Columbia, SC in 1996 because Hootie was playing. Crap rock as I once saw someone refer to these bands as, but I like it.

Really though, most everything that was on a mainstream radio station back then I can tolerate. I say almost because I can do w/o the Boy band/Girl pop music from the late 90's and I also hate that New Radicals song, the one where he sings about smashing a Mercedes-Benz

Probably lame to most of you my taste in music but it's what I grew up with. I like a lot of things most people don't like, such as Hockey in the Sunbelt, or non-retro sports jerseys, so I guess I'm used to being the odd man out

 

[Langdon Alger]

I have a thing for the mid 90's post grunge stuff, like Gin Blossoms, Better Than Ezra, Blues Traveler, Hootie and the Blowfish, Counting Crows, etc. because I grew up listening to that stuff. My dad used to buy every new album that groups like this released that he could have opened up his own CD store, so I think that's where I get it from. The first concert I went to that I actually wanted to go see was Farm-Aid in Columbia, SC in 1996 because Hootie was playing. Crap rock as I once saw someone refer to these bands as, but I like it.

Really though, most everything that was on a mainstream radio station back then I can tolerate. I say almost because I can do w/o the Boy band/Girl pop music from the late 90's and I also hate that New Radicals song, the one where he sings about smashing a Mercedes-Benz

Probably lame to most of you my taste in music but it's what I grew up with. I like a lot of things most people don't like, such as Hockey in the Sunbelt, or non-retro sports jerseys, so I guess I'm used to being the odd man out

I love Gin Blossoms! Hootie is great too. I only know one Better than Ezra song, which was their biggest hit, "good". Did you like Dishwalla?

 

[HisIceness]

I love Gin Blossoms! Hootie is great too. I only know one Better than Ezra song, which was their biggest hit, "good". Did you like Dishwalla?

'Desperately Wanting' is IMO BTE's best song as evidenced by the fact it's the most played song by them on my iTunes.

I had that Dishwalla album that contained "Counting Blue Cars" that I bought at a used CD store in high school, but I mistakenly gave it away at an attic sale that my church was doing for a mission trip fundraiser At least it sold for a good cause. So I ended up purchasing another copy from Amazon shortly after. Now it basically just sits and collects dust, like all my other CD's.

 

[Langdon Alger]

'Desperately Wanting' is IMO BTE's best song as evidenced by the fact it's the most played song by them on my iTunes.

I had that Dishwalla album that contained "Counting Blue Cars" that I bought at a used CD store in high school, but I mistakenly gave it away at an attic sale that my church was doing for a mission trip fundraiser At least it sold for a good cause. So I ended up purchasing another copy from Amazon shortly after. Now it basically just sits and collects dust, like all my other CD's.

I sold my copies of "congratulations I'm sorry" by gin blossoms, "cracked rear view" by Hootie and "jagged little pill" by Alanis Morisette a number of years ago. I wish I hadn't

 

[Acadmus]

Digging into my skull with razor-blades in the most exhilerating and orgasmic way possible would actually be an apt description of it for me.

One of my favorite things about music is that dynamic that some types have where the first dozen or so times something may sound like nails on a chalkboard, especially when uninitiated, but if I let it take me and throw away preconceptions, they end up completely blowing my musical worldview away-- With In The Aeroplane Over the Sea, that struggle is there, and there is a point where it clicks and stops sounding annoying/grating-- but even then, my reaction to it ends up being-- "Oh, cool.. This is nice..... but.... that's it?"

It never crosses over into something that ultimately ends up feeling like it's worth the effort, really.Really? I'm surprised you like Hot Fuss but hate Turn on the Bright Lights. They seem like pretty similar entities to me, with similar weaknesses-- I'd actually give TOTBL the edge for having a thicker/tastier sound.

I'd really have to question how you listen to music if you think there's ANY similarity between TOTBL and Hot Fuss. TOTBL is monotonous...and I mean that almost literally. There's so little variation within each track it simply fails to catch my attention. Killers are by far a better band, and are more of a traditional pop/rock band enhanced with a drum machine and demonstrates an understanding of good song crafting instead of just being a really piss poor New Order wannabe like Interpol, who fail miserably in the attempt. New Order also knew how to make their songs catchy. Interpol completely missed the boat with TOTBL, it just drones. That said, you misinterpret when you say I hate it - I have no feelings for it whatsoever other than to say I'd rather not bother listening to it, that's how little it impacted me.

I'll avoid the topic of what I think of your comments on the Neutral Milk Hotel album, as I don't particularly wish to offend you. We'll leave it at I disagree with your very premise.

 

[Acadmus]

Creep is ****ing terrible. I do find 90s Radiohead overrated in general. I love 2000s Radiohead though.

My feeling is that they're nowhere close to the greatest musicians to ever live, but their contemporaries have been so underwhelming that they're one of the best we currently have.

I never found Creep to be a bad song at all...that said I usually don't feel like listening to it anymore. I do, however, consider The Bends to be one of the best albums ever, whereas OK Computer wouldn't crack my top 50. Not even sure I had it in my top 100, I'd have to revisit that list soon (I have to check if Purple Rain was in it anyway - after Prince's death I had a chance to listen to the whole album again and forgot how great it was end-to-end).

I happen to like quite a few "contemporary" bands, but you'd disagree with them all as it's pretty clear at this point we have very divergent interpretations in listening to music.

My personal opinion is that Strangeland by Keane is the best album released in the last 10 years. Was able to listen to it over and over again for months - I think it was about 8 months before I gave it a rest - and never have a problem going back to it. Since 2001 the best albums I've heard have been (and you can Google if you care to for the bands) Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots, Hot Fuss, The Boy With No Name, Virginia Creeper, Fresh Wine For the Horses, Hopes and Fears, Strangeland, Franz Ferdinand, Absolution, Black Holes and Revelations, and Little Moon. Virginia Creeper/Little Moon artist Grant-Lee Phillips also just released The Narrows which is pretty good.

Mostly the albums above are the best from artists whose work has proven to be an oasis in a general musical wasteland that has persisted for nearly 20 years now. Ever since R.E.M.'s New Adventures in Hi-Fi destroyed the music industry

I'll give OK Go some credit too for excellent singles (I actually haven't had a chance to listen to any of their complete albums) and fun to watch performance art videos.

 

[Acadmus]

I like 90's music, but I have never understood the appeal of Radiohead. I've listened to some of their stuff and have heard "Creep" on the radio a couple of times and it's just not my cup of tea,

That's because "Cup of Tea" was The Verve Pipe

I liked Radiohead...up until Kid A, which only had a couple good songs on it. Then they lost me. I don't want simple ambient sound. What they seemed to be going for was what Catherine Wheel had already done extraordinarily successfully with Chrome, and Radiohead simply couldn't live up to that, much less improve upon it.

 

[Acadmus]

'Desperately Wanting' is IMO BTE's best song as evidenced by the fact it's the most played song by them on my iTunes.

I had that Dishwalla album that contained "Counting Blue Cars" that I bought at a used CD store in high school, but I mistakenly gave it away at an attic sale that my church was doing for a mission trip fundraiser At least it sold for a good cause. So I ended up purchasing another copy from Amazon shortly after. Now it basically just sits and collects dust, like all my other CD's.

Desperately Wanting is at least one of the best BTE songs...I've a few others I like quite a lot too, including some of the last several tracks from Deluxe. If pressed I'd probably say This Time of Year is my favorite. On Friction, Baby I'm actually pretty fond of the whole album, but King of New Orleans, Scared Are You? and Desperately Wanting are probably the best. I used to sing part of WWOZ to myself endlessly though, so I guess it has to be up there too.

Pet Your Friends was disappointing for me. You probably don't know, but Dishwalla actually had built up a following and some high hopes for their debut album when they contributed a cover of The Carpenters' It's Going to Take Some Time to the If I Were A Carpenter tribute album (best tribute album of all time, minus Shonen Knife's embarrassing cover of On Top of the World - only negative on an album that opens with American Music Club singing Goodbye to Love and ends high on Grant Lee Buffalo's cover of We've Only Just Begun). They took nearly 2 years to come out with their own album, and except for the mystifying success of Counting Blue Cars, I don't think the album ended up doing all that well and the band didn't see much success after.

I've got Hootie's Cracked Rear View - just can't listen to it anymore. It got boring. Exceedingly boring. I still like Gin Blossoms' New Miserable Experience though. I still like most of the 90s bands I listened to, but I do find I usually will pass on STP (except for some songs from Purple), Oasis, and Radiohead more often than not now.

 

[Shareefruck]

I never found Creep to be a bad song at all...that said I usually don't feel like listening to it anymore. I do, however, consider The Bends to be one of the best albums ever, whereas OK Computer wouldn't crack my top 50. Not even sure I had it in my top 100, I'd have to revisit that list soon (I have to check if Purple Rain was in it anyway - after Prince's death I had a chance to listen to the whole album again and forgot how great it was end-to-end).

I happen to like quite a few "contemporary" bands, but you'd disagree with them all as it's pretty clear at this point we have very divergent interpretations in listening to music.

My personal opinion is that Strangeland by Keane is the best album released in the last 10 years. Was able to listen to it over and over again for months - I think it was about 8 months before I gave it a rest - and never have a problem going back to it. Since 2001 the best albums I've heard have been (and you can Google if you care to for the bands) Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots, Hot Fuss, The Boy With No Name, Virginia Creeper, Fresh Wine For the Horses, Hopes and Fears, Strangeland, Franz Ferdinand, Absolution, Black Holes and Revelations, and Little Moon. Virginia Creeper/Little Moon artist Grant-Lee Phillips also just released The Narrows which is pretty good.

Mostly the albums above are the best from artists whose work has proven to be an oasis in a general musical wasteland that has persisted for nearly 20 years now. Ever since R.E.M.'s New Adventures in Hi-Fi destroyed the music industry

I'll give OK Go some credit too for excellent singles (I actually haven't had a chance to listen to any of their complete albums) and fun to watch performance art videos.

I'd really have to question how you listen to music if you think there's ANY similarity between TOTBL and Hot Fuss. TOTBL is monotonous...and I mean that almost literally. There's so little variation within each track it simply fails to catch my attention. Killers are by far a better band, and are more of a traditional pop/rock band enhanced with a drum machine and demonstrates an understanding of good song crafting instead of just being a really piss poor New Order wannabe like Interpol, who fail miserably in the attempt. New Order also knew how to make their songs catchy. Interpol completely missed the boat with TOTBL, it just drones. That said, you misinterpret when you say I hate it - I have no feelings for it whatsoever other than to say I'd rather not bother listening to it, that's how little it impacted me.

I'll avoid the topic of what I think of your comments on the Neutral Milk Hotel album, as I don't particularly wish to offend you. We'll leave it at I disagree with your very premise.

The biggest disconnect is that I'm generally not as bothered by repetition (I find that if the sound is right, relentlessly hammering home the same point can have a very infectious and hypnotic effect that I personally can't get enough of) but I have a tendency to be very bothered by overly hooky catchiness-- just comes across as annoying/compromised to me alot of the time. With TOTBL, I felt like they took what I felt was an undeniably infectious and satisfying existing style/sound and hammed up a cheap imitation grade version of it-- It still grabs me on some level because that style generally works, but I just find that they're bad at it, and ruin it with their horrible lyricism and wannabe delivery-- it all comes across very amateurish and disingenuous to me. The Killers I can't really find much positive to say about and actively gets on my nerves. I do feel like The Killers and Interpol are tangentially similar offshoots from the same source, with similar talent, personally.

I meant to say that I find Radiohead's contemporaries underwhelming only relative to the greats. There are many modern albums that I like, but they tend to pale in comparison to the genius-level stuff that happened from 61-81 for me, personally. Radiohead isn't quite there either, but I feel like when they're on, they at least flirt with bits and pieces of it.

I really liked Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots in early goings, but it's dropped for me over time-- I think it's good but I don't get excited about it. Hate Franz Ferdinand and dislike Keane/Muse in a similar way to the Killers, and haven't heard the others. As far as post-2000s stuff goes, I like stuff like Aphex Twin, Burial, Tim Hecker, Madvillain, Radiohead, William Basinski, and Squarepusher most. After the 90s, I seem to lean exclusively towards Ambient/Electronic/Minimalism/Hip-Hop, and kind of think of Rock as being more or less dead.

I agree that Neutral Milk Hotel isn't amazing or anything, but at the same time, I don't agree that the initial hangup of his voice sounding like nails on a chalkboard is ultimately where its flaws lie. I think that after the initial obstacle, it sounds good. I'm just a little confused by the massive hyperbolic praise even after the sound clicks.

 

[The Gongshow]

Never heard of it

 

[Mikeaveli]

In terms of critical acclaim vs. how I feel about the album, ones that immediately come to mind as massively overrated are Yeezus, Straight Outta Compton and Boy in da Corner.

 

[Chris Hagen*]

I was listening to The Peak in Vancouver earlier this week and one of the on-air hosts actually described OK Computer as "the Abbey Road of the 90s."

That's exactly the kind of **** I'm talking about.