Nor is it unprecedented - Johnny Marr played a lot of synths in Electronic and Sumner had to lobby to get him to play guitar in that supergroup.
If the overall quality of Kid A, Amnesiac and Hail to the Thief was the same or better than the overall quality of Bringing It All Back Home, Highway 61 Revisited and Blonde on Blonde then more people would like post OK Computer Radiohead. I'm a huge fan (as evidenced by my username), but Kid A is the only one of those 3 that is highly regarded. I think Amnesiac is highly underrated yet the majority see it as inferior and the B-Sides to Kid A. Hail seems to be regarded as the 3rd worst album after Pablo Honey and King of Limbs.
I'd say that's a pretty ridiculous standard to hold any band to: Sorry, no significant stylistic changes unless you can guarantee three of the most revered albums of all time! Instead of playing it safe, Radiohead decided to take some chances and the came up with a lot of great music--including one of the most highly regarded albums of the last two decades--though naturally some old guard fans were disappointed. Disgruntled fans don't get to choose the artistic directions of their favorite bands. Artists have to follow their muse wherever it leads and I have more respect for bands that stick to their guns than continually second guessing themselves or pandering to fickle fans. I couldn't care less about guitar heroes. I'm more interested in good music.
I see Amnesiac as you do - I think of Kid A and Amnesiac as two different sides of the same coin. Pyramid Song and Knives Out are my two very favorite Radiohead songs. However, I would also place Hail TTT in that bottom order.
I understand that, but I still don't think it's a reasonable standard. Radiohead made some of the best music of their career as a result of their left turn after OK Computer. What more can you ask for? Miles Davis disappointed a lot of his more traditional fans when he pursued emerging influences like rock and funk in the late 60s/early 70s, but the naysayers couldn't constrain his creative vision either.
Amnesiac has several great tracks on it but overall I don't think it stands on its own as an album the way Kid A does -- it would have been OK as disc 2 of a Kid A double album but they should have recorded a couple more songs if they were going to release it on its own.
It's a shame that songs like Cuttooth,Fog and Fast-Track didn't make the cut. Let's not forget this gem. This is as strong as anything on Amnesiac.
Obviously I haven't heard the not-yet-released new album, but I'm already quite disappointed. Not surprised, however, since nothing they've done has be up to snuff since [insert name of random post-OK Computer album here].
Do you really expect a band like Radiohead to "return to form"? And what does that mean anyway? They've had many forms.
Bowie went into a more non-commercial direction with his Berlin Trilogy(with assistance from Brian Eno), but I think he made mostly quality music in those 3 albums. Then Bowie went off to explore different musical styles every few years after that time period. Radiohead since 'Kid A', with the exception of 'In Rainbows', has along with Yorke's Solo album(The Eraser), just stuck with the same type of music the past 16 years, which reached rock bottom with 'King of Limbs'(although a few exceptions like excellent songs, 'There. There', 'Pyramid Song', 'How to Disappear Completely', '2+2=5', 'Separator' and the excellent B-Side, 'Down is the New Up'). Those B-Sides from 'Hail to the Thief' that are all electronic blips & beeps are terrible to my ears. If Radiohead wants to be creative again, why not explore new types of music? How about making a FUNK album? Even MUSE made a great FUNK song(Supersonic Black Holes).
King Of Limbs rock bottom? actually it is a funk album but has a really, really slow beat....sort of like the long low wavelength of infrared light (or medium wave radio). I love that album.
When people talk about Radiohead 'returning to form', what they tend to mean is 'returning to the sound of The Bends and (parts of) Ok Computer'. Which is fine, if that's what you like. Nobody is being forced to love all of the band's work. But as others have said, it's pretty clear at this point that they're not interested in remaking the albums they made between 1993 and 1997 - twenty years ago, let's not forget! - & expecting them to suddenly do so is to invite disappointment. My problem is that people keep referring to Hail to the Thief - easily their scrappiest, most over-stuffed album to date - and ignoring In Rainbows. But in any event, both of those albums were chock full of guitars, so it's hard to complain that Jonny doesn't use his anymore. He does, just not on the same sorts of songs he used to...
Just as artists are not obliged to repeat the same formula and ought to follow their muse, whether their fans like it or not, fans are not obliged to like where the muse takes the artist. Something isn't good just because it's new or different. There's nothing wrong with people calling The King Of Limbs rubbish (or whatever they say). That doesn't make those people fickle. It just makes them people.
You are absolutely right.....and I would expect said fans to spend time discussing bands they currently enjoy, not wishing, hoping, and expecting that a band that they used to think was great back in college would re-write albums from two decades ago...
Well sure, I wasn't crazy about The King of Limbs and kind of feel like the sound that they've developed over the course of the last 15 years has grown a bit stale by now. Hopefully, the new album will find them revitalized. But for people who have been disappointed in the band since Kid A to keep complaining about how Johnny was forced to put away his guitar, hoping in vain for a return to their older sound seems a bit ridiculous.
If you watch the video below it will be obvious Greenwood is a multi-instrumentalist who is into so many things that actually making him play guitar like a standard guitar player would be limiting his creativity, not the other way round like the 'rock' Radiohead fans seem to think: I don't care at all what the new albums sounds like as long as the material is great, if you know what I mean. I didn't like KOL much not because of the absense of guitars but I don't think the songs were that good/interesting.
