[.ca] Strung Out On OK Computer: The String Quartet Tribute To ...

Hey man, slow down!:
Composition is one thing, arrangement is another much more IMPORTANT thing 'specially in a string quartet--cmon, I'm just as schizophrenic as the next Radiohead lunatic, my dreams are soundtracked by the bubbly harp at the end of 'Motion Picture Soundtrack'... But this is pretty lousy. They've managed to lose all of the anything everything that made Radiohead's general arrangment of their songs so lucid and swollen and fantastic. Songs like 'Homesick Alien' sound like they've been transcribed by a high school band major to simplify enough for grade school kids to play. No thick crescendos, none of the staple arpeggios, NO NO NO dissonance anywhere ANYWHERE! (this is RADIOHEAD for God's sake) ...just a big plastic mess that might have well been played on a Roland keyboard using the 'strings' patch. You'd think a 'string quartet' would have enough practice not to be blown out of the water by Johnny Greenwood's OWN guitar-general-instrumentist string arrangements--but then I spose that's why Johnny's the amazingly successful and talented band member on the top of the universe, and these guys are putting out cheap covers of an album that's amazingly hard to cover. Listen to the strings at the end of 'How to Disappear Completely' or 'Pyramid Song' then come back and 'splain how still wonderful this collection sounds. Go for Brad Mehldau, a spontaneous mind over such calculated music wildly brings out how wonderful a pianist he is, as well as how spectacular the fundamentals of Radiohead's songs are built. Maybe even O'Riley and the classical stuff, to get the idea what it would sound like without a brain like Mehldau's... You decide, I wasn't charmed

surrogate art?:
Doesn't the bulk of Radiohead's catalog now consist of intricate, highly arranged and nuanced music, considered almost too, um.... MUSICAL for commercial airplay? So what kind of alternative is this product to the real thing? This work tries, but just doesn't succeed in capturing the scope of the music. Face it, if Radiohead believed that a string quartet would be the right medium for their ideas, they would have done it themselves, a long time ago.

This is one of the few non-classical cds I own...:
It isn't classical - just because it's in a string quartet form does not make it classical. That being said, I first heard this album at one of the local shops in town and was immediately drawn to it. I had never heard of Radiohead before - anyhow, I bought this cd and I listen to it all the time. I have since heard the Radiohead version and love that too. The Section did an awesome job of capturing Radiohead's essence, obviously things area little different, but I still think they hit the mark.

Surprised as hell...:
In all honesty, I didn't expect much from this format; old popular songs classicalized, but it works surprisingly well. Paranoid Android was worth the price of admission alone. Very cool stuff.

Playing your Heartstrings:
This is one of the better string tributes I've heard from bands in recent times. It definately adds more drama to the already emotional feel of O.K. Computer. I guess I could say the strings capture and eccentuate the flow with such perfection it is stunning. Exit Song(For a Film) is the track that gets me. Always put a lump in my throat as big as when I had heard Krono's Quartet do Gloomy Sunday. Makes a great soundtrack for a cloudy morose day.

• Airbag
• Paranoid Android
• Subterranean Homesick Alien
• Exit Music (For A Film)
• Let Down
• Karma Police
• Fitter Happier
• Electioneering
• Climbing Up The Walls
• No Surprises
• Lucky
• The Tourist