Radiohead, the most hyped and probably the most over-rated band of the decade, upped the ante for studio trickery...

Radiohead, the most hyped and probably the most over-rated band of the decade, upped the ante for studio trickery. They had begun as third-rate disciples of the Smiths, and albums such as Pablo Honey (1993) and The Bends (1995) that were cauldrons of Brit-pop cliches. Then OK Computer (1997) happened and the word "chic" took on a new meaning. The album was a masterpiece of faux avantgarde (of pretending to be avantgarde while playing mellow pop music). It was, more properly, a new link in the chain of production artifices that changed the way pop music "sounds": the Beatles' Sgt Pepper, Pink Floyd's Dark Side Of The Moon, Fleetwood Mac's Tusk, Michael Jackson's Thriller. Despite the massive doses of magniloquent epos a` la U2 and of facile pathos a` la David Bowie, the album's mannerism led to the same excesses that detracted from late Pink Floyd's albums (lush textures, languid melodies, drowsy chanting). Since thee production aspects of music were beginning to prevail over the music itself, it was just about natural to make them "the" music. The sound of Kid A (2000) had decomposed and absorbed countless new perfumes, like a carcass in the woods. All sounds were processed and mixed, including the vocals. Radiohead moved as close to electronica as possible without actually endorsing it. Radiohead became masters of the artificial, masters of minimizing the emotional content of very complex structures. Amnesiac (2001) replaced "music" with a barrage of semi-mechanical loops, warped instruments and digital noises, while bending Thom Yorke's baritone to a subhuman register and stranding it in the midst of hostile arrangements, sounding more and more like an alienated psychopath. Their limit was that they were more form than content, more "hype" than message, more nothing than everything.

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not overrated, just horrible

He likes OKC and Amnesiac the best. Seems pretty based to me.

I don't need his validation for my Radiohead love affair. Pitchfork does that for me.

I'm gonna be a liar if I say that KID A doesn't fuck but early and late Radiohead is mega-cringe.

Funny how nobody gives a shit
Radiohead is too good to get shitted on by some critic really.

Unpopular opinion: Scaruffi's critiques are a great guide for experimental music up to a certain point, because most of what he's written beyond the early '90s is pretty much stupid.
Nowadays he just can't keep up to the pace, he just has to admit he's too old to care. As for the 1960s to the 1980s, besides some some evident favoritism regarding some people, his opinion is nearly fact.

radiohead are very overrated

I knew "studio trickery" would be on this page

Wait, who was claiming Radiohead were avant-garde? It's pretty obvious they make artsy pop-rock. I personally enjoy some of what they do, but this guy seems to be arguing against a point that no one was making.