Alright! My first listen once I get the Bravo V2 will most definitely be
Kid A 
Man,
Kid A and
Amnesiac are both just stunningly brilliant. I can't even listen to them most of the time due to the emotional connotations they now carry for me... I actually listened to
In Rainbows (discs 1 and 2) today on my down and back to a meeting, and it's just as good now as it always has been. "Jigsaw Falling Into Place"? So much to love about so many songs on that album...
Radiohead is in top 3 for all time favs for me - I've never been able to get into NIN although I haven't tried too hard.
Yep, depending on the day (and my mood), Radiohead is either my favorite band or, worst case scenario, Top 5. I think the number of bands
in history with the sustained level of brilliance in their musical output can probably be counted on one or two hands... Truly worlds beyond basically everybody else. (Even after I wasn't crazy about
King of Limbs).
NIN is different-- they/he don't do the types of things with melodies that Radiohead does, but they do some really amazing things with textures and layers.
The Fragile still ranks among the ten best albums I've ever heard, and prior to its release I never thought they could equal
The Downward Spiral, much less exceed it. Just unbelievable.
If you haven't checked NIN out before, I'd probably steer you toward
The Fragile (particularly the Left disc, although they're both excellent) or
The Downward Spiral (although it is quite caustic in places); or, if you're into live vidoes,
Beside You In Time is exceptional. They end up being a bit of a love 'em or meh 'em band, as nobody I know who knows anything about music really dislikes them, but I know quite a few people who can't get into them. Diff'rent strokes and all that.
Same here re radiohead. NIN have some of the worst lyrics imaginable, but the music/production is awesome. "The Downward Spiral" and "With Teeth" are good places to start.
You know, I was just discussing this with a friend of mine over pints last week. Reznor stumbles across some moments of lyrical brilliance ("Beneath the stains of time, the feelings disappear / You are someone else; I am still right here"), but he reuses the same trite imagery a
lot (down on your hands and knees-- how many songs does that appear in?). Overall, I consider him to be a subpar lyricist who occasionally strikes a chord; then again, I tend to be really tough on lyricists. But his music is wholly worthwhile in and of itself, IMO.
Don't know if you guys have checked out his soundtracks, but they're actually quite good (excepting
Natural Born Killers, which wasn't his composition and which was too forcibly schizoid for me). My vinyl copy of
Gone Girl came in last week, and I've been listening to the album as I go to sleep some nights. Very good ambient-soundscapey-type stuff.
Man.... There is going to be some hardcore music nerdiness going down at this meet, I can already tell
.
