The Bends was my favorite Radiohead album for a long time, but in the last 6 or 7 years, that has become Kid A, followed by In Rainbows. I wasn't one of those fans that didn't understand their new direction, I welcomed it - I just thought The Bends was a better album overall.
But over the decades (wow, crazy to think I saw them perform 26 years ago in 1995!), I've come to appreciate Kid A a lot more, and it's the album I return to more often. Songwriting-wise, In Rainbows was their peak for me (I'd say that album was from their 3rd phase of sound transformation that started with Hail to the Thief).
I understand their sound became less guitar based, but I don't know that makes them any less of a rock group.
First, totally! Yea, I get it. I agree, other than imho what I liked best of theirs was the bends. I put that album on quite a high pedestal.
It isn't the lack of guitars later on. It's not even the genre... which was no longer rock for the most part, although that alone is enough for them to no longer be as good a rock group after that date... but again this thread topic isn't limited to rock music. Music group? Yes. Rock group? no, but again that is not what is what makes them less great to me after that change.
However, on the bends, the group sounds like a cohesive mesh that is amazing to me, and the input of various licks per player is very strong all over the bends, and the listening and jamming along and creativity together is amazing... to me. The chemistry is incredible there...
The later albums had less of that even magical chemistry between all of the members, imho, to my ears. It's not that they couldn't do that, they chose not to so much, clearly, due to the style of music they were playing.
So this is partly due to the direction of musical style they went forward in... which is not rock, for the most part. It's naturally a style of music that requires a different type of communication and cohesion - one that is more planned out, more carefully orchestrated, more like what contemporary "classical" music composers have been doing for a few decades now. It's amazing, and musically more impressive, but they were no longer as amazing of a rock group after The Bends.
To be clear - I am not criticizing them negatively. As a classical musician myself who focused on "new music", which is very much like what they did over the last few albums, I have immense respect for what they do and I love it. So my opinion here is subjective in teh thread. I feel that their change was not for the better afterwards. That's the thing with music - it's subective! I think my reason for feeling this is because they were SUCH a GREAT ROCK BAND before this... and then when they went in a new direction, they lost that magic, to me, imho.
They are still one of the 2 most impressive groups to me that started 2-3 decades ago and are still going strong. The other is Muse. That's within a very limited category for, since there are obviously many more than that. Just being topical here
What's awesome is that you and I are both huge fans of theirs, in all of their genres! Pretty cool
