Sorry if I gave the wrong impression here. I base my supposition about how Radiohead constructed their early hits from learning to play them. I like 'No suprises', which I learned for the vocal challenge, but I think this bears me out. IIRC the song opens with an arpeggio using a simple open-D shape behind a capo high up the neck which gives that interesting tone. The second chord just involves shifting a finger to change the bass note, and the D shape can be maintained right through to the little ditty before it repeats. It sounds pretty but I can't believe he wrote that on a score and then found a way to play it. It seems to be that he had been fiddling around with the classic guitarists trick of holding a chord shape and moving the bass note around, noting what sounds good. The skill is surely in taking that little ditty and translating it into a song.
From the same album IIRC was 'Fake Plastic Trees'. I remember being staggered by the exotic chord names and the amazing sounds it made. then I set out to learn it, and again they are classic chord shapes with shifting bass notes etc.
So I wont credit Thom Yorke with having been a great guitar player back then, or even having somehow composed those songs with the aim of trying out interesting theoretical concepts. I will credit him with a great ear for turning those little tricks into songs.
Since this is HN I will note that his wiki says he does not read music[0] and that the rest of the band take his little sketches and develop them harmonically.
So he is a musician creating original (even amazing, surprising and exotic) music by playing with and exploring ideas on a musical instrument. And you consider this as something less valuable than trying out "theoretical concepts".
Excellent point. Also, who cares if someone is 'a great guitar player' in the sense of mere technical virtuosity. Youtube is full of guitarist videos with GREATEST and !!!! in the titles, a million notes a minute, sound and fury signifying nothing.
Your comment reminded me of Hendrix - most if not all of what he did seems to fit under 'stuff found by messing around on a guitar, moving chords/bass notes around, experimenting with sounds', mostly with no 'theoretical base' whatever except for developing what sounded good, what was fun to explore. In a word, playing.
Personal note: Someone played me Radiohead a few years ago for a while, I'd never heard them before. I remember thinking - I can see why this would sound amazing/mindblowing to someone who'd never heard anything but mainstream/charts/popular/etc rock. Like someone who'd only seen Hollywood movies discovering the whole world of movie-making for the first time. (I'm into jazz, classical, funk, reggae, indian classical etc etc)
No idea what you meant by that sorry. And now there's that other meaning..something about metrosexuals with beards or something. But either way, not clear to me at all what you could mean.
Hipsters care a lot about signaling that they prefer fringe/niche/"non-mainstream" culture. Since it is all about social signaling rather than actually enjoying a wide variety of culture, it is just as important for them to signal what culture they don't associate with, and that is decided not by the quality of the music/film/food itself, but rather based on whether other people why enjoy it are "down with it" or "mainstream".
Radiohead is a pretty popular and well-known band, so you have to pretend you don't know them, while at the same time disparaging them - not for anything related to their actual music, but for the people liking them not being hipsterish enough. This is the epitome of hipsterness.
Sorry if I gave the wrong impression here. I base my supposition about how Radiohead constructed their early hits from learning to play them. I like 'No suprises', which I learned for the vocal challenge, but I think this bears me out. IIRC the song opens with an arpeggio using a simple open-D shape behind a capo high up the neck which gives that interesting tone. The second chord just involves shifting a finger to change the bass note, and the D shape can be maintained right through to the little ditty before it repeats. It sounds pretty but I can't believe he wrote that on a score and then found a way to play it. It seems to be that he had been fiddling around with the classic guitarists trick of holding a chord shape and moving the bass note around, noting what sounds good. The skill is surely in taking that little ditty and translating it into a song.
From the same album IIRC was 'Fake Plastic Trees'. I remember being staggered by the exotic chord names and the amazing sounds it made. then I set out to learn it, and again they are classic chord shapes with shifting bass notes etc.
So I wont credit Thom Yorke with having been a great guitar player back then, or even having somehow composed those songs with the aim of trying out interesting theoretical concepts. I will credit him with a great ear for turning those little tricks into songs.
Since this is HN I will note that his wiki says he does not read music[0] and that the rest of the band take his little sketches and develop them harmonically.
[0]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thom_Yorke#Artistry