which band was the best replacement for Radiohead?

[willbo]

I was just thinking, after Radiohead went experimental with Kid A, a lot of bands were hailed as being similar to their Bends/OKC era. Coldplay, Travis, Muse, Keane etc and probably more. Was there any band that was really an heir to their Bends/OKC era sound? Like something you could recommend to a fan who missed that sound.

[drummersaredeaf]

Hope of the states?

All of the bands you listed there sound like acoustic guitar bedwetter fodder to me.

[The Culture Bunker]

Hope of the states?

All of the bands you listed there sound like acoustic guitar bedwetter fodder to me.

I don't like Muse at all, but I certainly wouldn't put them in that category.

[drummersaredeaf]

Yeah, ok on Muse. But I always thought the comparisons to Radiohead were fairly shallow - just the falsetto vocals really. Muse are about the only band on that list I could stomach, and I can only really listen to their first few records. The first couple from Coldplay are ok too I suppose, if aggressively inoffensive. But that list strikes me more as 'influenced by Radiohead' than the continuation of their earlier material.

[Spiteface]

Muse were more overblown than Coldplay etc.

But they were part of a glut of bands with singers that listened to Jeff fucking Buckley way too much.

[badaids]

The Unbelievable Truth.

[willbo]

I forgot about Jeff Buckley. I remember loving Blur's 13 album a lot at the time too and that had some nice falsetto vocals on it from Albarn. I found about about Sigur Ros around the same time too.

I never loved Travis' singles, but I was in a shop playing The Man Who album last year and I quite liked what I heard (of the album tracks).

Maybe some US artists could count like Wilco or whoever, I didn't know anything about US indie rock at all in the 90s and 00s.

[sevendaughters]

probably TV On The Radio you racists

[turnstyle]

Medal were a band that got Radiohead comparisons at the time (post OKC, pre-Kid A). Oxford based, too.

I enjoyed their Drop Your Weapon album at the time, although I've just looked up the NME review, who were less keen:

Indescribably complicated and bewilderingly pretentious and that's only the cover. While The Cranberries' 'Bury The Hatchet' marked a stultifying low in record sleeves – the big eye staring at the naked man in the desert – Oxford's Medal may have sunk one step lower. Not only that, but once you've negotiated the CD out from its sub-surrealist sheath – tie-dyed boy standing in field – you discover that 'Drop Your Weapon' is a dead ringer for Pink Floyd's 'Dark Side Of The Moon'.

From the undulating stoner fuzz first track, 'Is Your Soul In Your Head', 'Drop Your Weapon' sets out to redefine grandiose for the millennium. The pace rarely rises above funereal and Jamie Hyatt's zonked-out Thom Yorke vocals only occasionally deviate from a vague, anguished burble, so that in the same manner as thick books or films with subtitles, you're forced to vainly try to persuade yourself that something this boring must at least be educational.

This, then, is the logical conclusion of rock's recent search for inner meaning, which has brought us such defining moments of tedium as 'OK Computer' and Embrace. Medal's debut album fetishises gloom to a point beyond comedy and emerges as a grim testimony to what fatuous, miserable tosh has been masquerading as intelligent pop music these last few years. Sad.

[SteveDave]

Tom Jones

[The Culture Bunker]

Re that NME review above, I never got the impression Embrace was into any "search for inner meaning", more that they were hoping to follow Oasis towards a goal of football stadiums of lads singing their songs back at them.

Presumably having a frontman with such incredibly limited singing ability helped them in this respect, but the songs weren't much kop to fill the gaps. I was amazed when they made a fairly successful comeback after getting dropped. 

[drummersaredeaf]

Yeah, I think my badly expressed point above was meant to be that to carry the baton of the pre-Kid A sound, there needs to be a hell of a lot more than 'sad twat plays sad shit on acoustic guitar'.

Keane, Coldplay, Embrace, Travis, Snow Patrol - They might have gone out and bought a 72 Telecaster, but they're using them for evil. Making music for CD compilations for people that don't like music.

[pigamus]

Nizlopi

[idunnosomename]

Tool

[pigamus]

I'm allowed to like Nizlopi if I want

[Jockice]

I remember in the last 90s a music paper ran an article on who could be the heirs to Radiohead. I'm sure the likes of Muse and Coldplay were mentioned, but so were Wireless, a band made up of former members of Molly Half Head and with an old schoolmate of mine on keyboards. Alan McGee raved about them too (they were on Chrysalis Records but I think Creation did their publishing) but they never made it. A couple of minor chart placings for singles were followed by a flop album that makes me think that they were the basis for the band mentioned near the start of Kill Your Friends by John Niven. Even down to the 4 out of 10 review by the NME. My mate now plays in wedding bands and suchlike and is much happier than when he was caught up in major record company mechanisations.

So for old time's sake I'll say Wireless. Although to be honest they sounded bugger all like Radiohead.

[lazyhour]

Granddaddy circa The Sophtware Slump.

I love Grandaddy but I prefer then when they're doing goofy indie rock. I definitely remember journos at the time of this LP saying "these guys are poised to be the American Radiohead!".

[Seedsy]

Hope of the states?

All of the bands you listed there sound like acoustic guitar bedwetter fodder to me.

That's a great shout, their first album the lost riots is fantastic. Out of the post bends/OK computer influenced bands they certainly didn't go down the easy route.

[ProvanFan]

Used to see Bell X1 mentioned in this light

[idunnosomename]

Scooch

[studpuppet]

Hard 'n' Phirm

[Hat FM]

Medal were a band that got Radiohead comparisons at the time (post OKC, pre-Kid A). Oxford based, too.

I enjoyed their Drop Your Weapon album at the time, although I've just looked up the NME review, who were less keen:

'up here for hours'! great tune. can't say i heard anything else by them.

[Blue Jam]

The Unbelievable Truth.

I laughed.

[JaDanketies]

Sigur Ros hit the same space for me although I appreciate they are in a different genre. I guess it's the 'music to zone out to on acid and think you're hearing hidden messages at the back of the track' genre. I once realised that Sigur Ros are Coldplay for hipsters but I didn't know of anyone to share my revelation with.

Cage the Elephant are good indie for acidheads but they're not anywhere near as miserable as Radiohead, they're much more upbeat and optimistic.

[turnstyle]

The Unbelievable Truth.

I actually saw Unbelievable Truth live a few times back in the day. Obviously, I was a massive Radiohead fan, which I have to imagine is how 99% of their fans came to them. Always felt a bit sorry for Andy really - I'm sure he probably felt a bit of Sliding Doors-style pathos that it was Thom's band that hit the big time. He was in a band with Jonny before Radiohead, so it must be slightly galling to see your brother and old mates hit the big time, while you're playing Basingstoke town hall to 15 spods.

Also, good luck finding any article about that band that doesn't reference the family connection.

At the time of the first album, I was a pretentious teenager with 'feelings', so you can bet your arse their music appealed to be. A lot of gazing was done to my navel while listening to Almost Here. I'm giving it a spin now and I can't tell if it stands up or if I'm wallowing in nostalgia, but Finest Little Space, Stone and Settle Down are still hitting the mark for me.

They lost me a bit with Sorrythankyou, although it did have considerably more energy than the first album. I believe that they actually plugged their guitars in for that one.

[Custard]

Settle Down I really liked, but I could never quite shake the feeling that it was a tune his brother could knock out in ten minutes. Probably whilst watching telly

[popcorn]

Do bands ever really have replacements? What was the best replacement for the Beatles, Pink Floyd, Led Zep, Eagles, Michael Jackson, Queen, Fleetwood Mac? I guess other artists continue their work in some sense but...

[The Culture Bunker]

Do bands ever really have replacements? What was the best replacement for the Beatles, Pink Floyd, Led Zep, Eagles, Michael Jackson, Queen, Fleetwood Mac? I guess other artists continue their work in some sense but...

I thought the question was kind of "replacement as band lonely teenagers listen to while feeling depressed" - the space previously occupied by, for instance, the Smiths, the Cure and Joy Division. But that might just be projecting my own previous listening habits onto the matter.

I suppose Led Zep were the replacement for the Beatles in the "massively popular band who defined a decade" stakes.

[the science eel]

Do bands ever really have replacements? What was the best replacement for the Beatles, Pink Floyd, Led Zep, Eagles, Michael Jackson, Queen, Fleetwood Mac? I guess other artists continue their work in some sense but...

ELO, Radiohead, Wolfmother, George Strait, Bruno Mars, Foxy Shazam, Beach House

[Nobody Soup]

I kinda feel like Arcade Fire became the new "stadium band that also garner a lot of critical praise" but their critical praise is a bit patchy. The National also seem very much in a lineage from Radiohead, but I'd be lying if I said I'd listened to them much.