Album Rating: 2.0

Bending rules and conventions is how good art is made and it means people have to first work within established guidelines. Hating something because of the process taken to get there is, frankly, like hating Radiohead because they wrote Pablo Honey

Album Rating: 2.0

^ spot on (2)

And yeah ‘old man yells at cloud’ is Zak’s entire shtick. It’s disappointing conversing with anyone whose opinion is so absurdly predictable. Whether he actually believes it or not, it doesn’t exactly make for riveting reading

Album Rating: 4.0

I never get a ‘yelling’ impression from a Zak post



Why shift your opinion on things dear to you if you believe in them? Especially if…you’re correct?



I think the phrase is: ‘the man don’t give a fuck’

"What a load of shite"

i hope u see the irony in that this is exactly how a 40+ yr old would react to the subgenres of the 90s or whatever era u want to discuss

i agree that subcultures are pretty dead, culture's been flattened, social media is a cruel mistake etc but some things dont change as much as u think

Album Rating: 4.0

…and yet checking Zak’s ratings he’s more open minded about new music than most here. Quite the head scratching dichotomy unless you read between the lines - music isn’t what it was but he’s still questing

Two people sharing the same set of blinders must often feel like they have the most accurate view of the world

Album Rating: 4.0

Confucius

"Why shift your opinion on things dear to you if you believe in them? Especially if…you’re correct?"

"The world doesn't engage with my perspective in the way it did when the artistic scene was dominated by artists from the same generation. I hold consistently reactionary perspectives to the social movements of the last ten years so much contemporary art, particularly of the sort that can in anyway be said to engage with a 'zeitgeist', is engaged with exploring. I don't ask any of these questions in good faith. I call women 'birds'."

Album Rating: 2.0

stoned outta my gourd and had a flashback to high school when I made "Ripped Boids Magazine" in photoshop for a class assignment and so a picture of a duck with abs ended up stapled to the wall for a year

Album Rating: 4.5

Reordered this a while back and now it's the only way I'll listen to it.



1. Read the Room

2. Bending Hectic

3. I Quit

4. Friend of a Friend

5. Wall of Eyes

6. Teleharmonic

7. Under Our Pillows

8. You Know Me!

Album Rating: 3.0

Interesting order, I'm giving it a try now.

I'm empathizing with Zak's frustration as someone having lost touch with contemporary music like a decade ago (and yes, I was born before Zak's year zero). "Bubblegum bass" (heard about it for the first time now) does sound like a bag of shite, even tried some youtube lists, but the experience was disturbing.

But it essentially boils down to if one finds peace with being off that train or not. Having the compulsion of repeating that everything was better in the ol' times can easy the frustration, but is not productive, is it? To me the treasure in music definitely lies is in the past (so much yet to discover), and not in the present/future, but I just keep this to myself. There, I said it...

Album Rating: 4.5

At least we are talking about it.

I liked this

Album Rating: 4.5

‘this is exactly how a 40+ yr old would react to the subgenres of the 90s or whatever era u want to discuss’



As a lad the 40+ year olds knocking around in the 90s were the skinheads, revivalist mods, soul boys or later in the decade the original punks.



I respected them because I could completely understand where they were coming from. I had a frame of reference to compare and relate to where they were at.



I remember in the 80s old school teds walking around still with the suits on and duck tail hair, giving it large and again although it was completely alien even then I understood it.

Album Rating: 4.5

Fucking bubblegum bass

Album Rating: 3.0

Could call it "Aqua without the brains"

Album Rating: 2.0

so zak's entire personality is based off what older generations were like when he was a kid, just adapted to fit his own generation's stereotypes - adhering to what's expected without deviation and fuck anything else to the contrary. Sticking to the script as it were

ahh, the progression of British society truly is a beautiful thing

The selective memory is working overdrive, using artistic taste and fashion choice as interchangeable with culture is telling, and zak’s is predictably using his “the kids aren’t alright” shtick he beats into the ground to misunderstood that he’s alienated from the modern generation not because contemporary cultural scenes are taking influence from the wrong threads of 90s dance music but because his sense of aggrandizing cultural movements in the first place is part and parcel of the mindless xenophobia he regularly regurgitates in threads the site over, and that isn’t nearly as prevalent in the youth raised on information sharing and fragmented media rather than waxing nostalgic for the shared unity and understanding of that beautiful oasis (no pun intended) of culture from Thatcher to Blair.

Fitting that we’re having this conversation in a thread for musicians famous for their preoccupation with the cultural descent of the late capitalist technological age without any apparent understanding of how that is reflected most aggressively in structures of imperialist violence evident in their unequivocal support of the state of Israel

Album Rating: 2.5

It’s hard for me to wrap my head around how fans of Radiohead’s best material think this is a 4-4.5/5. Makes me think Thom can put out anything and still get praise