What are your top 5 albums, Radiohead or not?

My first two entries are guitar centric and closer to being raw, not-well-washed rock n roll albums than the vast majority of fussy, yuppie 2010s "indie" releases, including the (awesome) (but not exactly rock n roll in its studio iteration) album by Radiohead in that period.

Joni never got closer to jazz fusion (a genre of course based on mixing heavy psychedelic unwashed-rock and jazz) than on the album Don Juan's, where she collaborates with members of Weather Report. Her own instrument, as usual on all her albums, is the guitar. There is no better way to describe the title track, or something like Black Crow from her previous record Hejira, than to call them guitar-heavy rock songs. Black Crow even verges on being an actual heavy rock song- it might even have been considered metal back in the days when people were saying Hendrix and Led Zep were inventing that. Don Juan's is more strummy, but in the way of something off Bad Moon Rising, Sister, Daydream Nation or Goo. These Joni songs even sound like Sonic Youth's '80s work in the instrumentation- or rather, SY was influenced by Joni- Pixies also were- which means "alternative rock" as we know it is already just a watered down version of "Black Crow" or "Don Juan's" style guitar parts and then "indie" is an even more watered-down, washed and digitally smoothed version, which some people have weirdly considered more "raw" than the original just because the original was by a woman wrongly grouped under the heading of "music for starbucks" (but guess who actually made a greatest hits album for starbucks? sonic youth. joni refused to make a hits album for 28 years of her recording career and finally agreed, only on the condition she could release at the same time, a "misses" album featuring, not hot b-sides, but rather, the weirdest and least commercial album tracks.)

as for grimes, she didn't play the guitar in the past, but has been adopting it as the main instrument in her studio tracks on Art Angels, and transitioning toward increased use of it live too. she described Art Angels as a rock album, and in comparison to the indie landscape today, it certainly is. with regard to washing, grimes (as befits her name) sometimes is literally unwashed, and shocked stella mccartney when she revealed she often sleeps in the same clothes she will later wear on stage while touring. grimes seems to love wearing her own merch, and it's unclear whether she actually washes her favorite grimes hoodie in between the vines of her wearing it in her hotel room dancing to rihanna in tokyo or walking around LA.

grimes' dislike of washing would make sense given her background as a metal, goth and hardcore punk kid in the '90s and early '00s, and with outkast's very unwashed stankonia as her first obsession with more electronic-based music. not washing is actually central to her origin story. remember, after all she is known for having spent three weeks in a room alone with no light to craft visions on her computer barely even pausing to eat (she never left the room, immersed in drugs and music making- apparently majical cloudz and another friend brought her an avocado to eat on occasion). was there a shower in this room? doubtful. (this may also explain why as the weeks rolled by, only one or two friends dared to visit.) bon iver's "cabin" was just his dad's suburban mcmansion, fucking stocked with dvds of a show designed for people too conventional minded to enjoy twin peaks. yet somehow i'm supposed to believe that corporate sellout and coward and others like him even merit the "unwashed guitar guys" designation?

i'm not interested in goody-goody well-washed "pop" music that gives a bad name to "pop." for years now i have had to suppress the urge to assassinate taylor swift. (although i would rather kanye and nicki handle it.) grimes and joni certainly aren't anything like that in their mentality or aesthetics. and massive attack? ornette coleman? definitely not guitar based, but not exactly hyper-washed. even janet, who probably does shower ten times an hour (you can just smell the perfume when you see her photos) released as the lead single for rhythm nation, a video where she's a militant guerilla leading a global rebellion in the sewer, and she made similar gestures (including musical ones- the song itself is raw and grimy) in many of her other albums.

punk is bullshit. it's the establishment, it's not a challenge to it. i mean, margaret thatcher was the favorite of the original punks. today's punk is trump. these people are well washed trolls. that said, the new establishment is moving beyond punk in a way that's no better. when you have taylors, and when "indie" gets redefined so vampire weekend is as oppositional as it gets, we do need some way of calling bullshit. and note: I love chairlift, they are unapologetically pop, but like most good "indie" acts today (who aren't grimes) they aren't opposing anything- they aren't standing for anything or meaning anything. neither is panda bear- or grizzly bear- or bon iver- or the national- or beach house- or the newly-sold-out lcd soundsystem, who destroyed any meaning a song like new york... may have once had.

and you know what? radiohead made a masterpiece with the king of limbs, and sounded better than ever live on its tour (this will one day be widely acknowledged, when a new album can be scapegoated by the conservatives yearning for them to repeat their past work instead, which they never will as long as they exist). but the way they chose to tour and promote king of limbs (and indeed radiohead's business practices in general) was kind of "meh" on the inspiring scale. radiohead don't really know how to create an inspiring social environment around their work. they briefly tried with the kid a tent tour, and made some half assed stabs at it with the IR recycling and leds, but mostly, they give in. they don't know how to effect change of those parts of the industry they hate. and maybe, just maybe, they are too cowardly, or they've gotten too greedy and too comfortable, to try. radiohead still know how to say no to bad ideas. many much younger bands never knew how. and most older ones forget how (neil young has even taken to doing private concerts for random rich dudes). radiohead know how to say no- often they may even say no to things virtually all of us would rather they say yes to. but knowing how to say no, while it does take courage, is not enough to be a true anti establishment fighter.

i am not saying grimes is that. or joni. let alone janet. (or even massive attack, whose self-styled leader 3d seems to believe they are the only true anti establishment revolutionary musical act in the mainstream, although if they ever had any real claim to being revolutionary leaders it was on their early albums before 3d kicked out their most musically progressive force, mushroom, and essentially tried to remove the black- musically, even though daddy g stayed off and on- from massive attack, and 3d is only now backtracking when black is back in fashion, realizing this perhaps wasn't a great artistic- or social- idea). but if you are looking for a dream... not girl, but possibly-unwashed militant fighter against everything wrong with our societies today and in recent decades, you will find it much more in rhythm nation and control, blue lines and protection, and the grimes of art angels, than you will in any albums Radiohead or any of the "unwashed" (well washed) (possibly not guitar) indie guys of the 2010s made. it's not because i side with the establishment that my list is like that. and it's not cause i'm being tokenistic. as a male i know guitar guys are usually bullshit. i can see straight through bon iver or panda bear. as for grizzly bear? vampire weekend? it's complete bullshit. whereas i have no idea what revelation grimes received. i feel the same in listening to king of limbs, radiohead are divinely inspired, they always were, but their new role is as old sages teaching the kids that dancing or even believing in love is okay. their new role is to undo the damage of the cynicism a generation wrongly learned from their younger rebellious selves, misinterpreting their intent. but all you need is not love. i think it suits radiohead surprisingly well to become our hippie fathers, but we still need rebels to say, actually we need to fucking fight, and enemies exist. where are the fucking "indie" people of the millennials who are saying that? or even expressing a fighting spirit? okay, tuneyards tries, st vincent... st vincent is so musically mediocre though. so studied and forced. where are the natural, not overly intellectualized musicians, who are hyper-intelligent but also intuitive? raw? not preachy? we only have grimes as a militant. rebellion must be left to the youth, and the youth of what used to be known as "rock" just aren't rising to that task. maybe the post millennials can? i really think song-based music has been dead since kid a as a meaningful art form. MIA and Grimes have been the only exceptions in a way.

/r/radiohead Thread Parent