The Hold Steady & Silver Jews criticize Radiohead

silver jews suck anyway, i wouldn’t expect him to understand good music.

Who the fuck are these people anyway…”The Hold Steady and Silver Jews” ??!! Never heard of them. They sound like jews…great.

If I see these fucks in public I’ll piss on them. So add them to the same list as Oasis, wait I would do much worse to Oasis…fuckin fairy, faggots. WONDERWALL WAS A FUCKIN ONE-HIT WONDER!!!

Wankers

Fanboys - down!

Is this Liam from Oasis again?

I can’t believe that David Berman said that. I love the Silver Jews but I totally disagree with his statement. In Rainbows has been one of RH most positive albums in a long time. They are not rehashing their miserble view of life. All of the members of RH have moved onto happier places.

in rainbows is the culmination of their awesomeness! dance you f*cker dance (or stfu).

btw this type of remark makes this guy’s opinion fully (not mostly) irrelevant. i can’t imagine more compelling persuasion towards the belief that you just don’t get it.–

“You can go through the whole new Radiohead album and try and tell me what they’re saying, and all you’ll get over and over again is things are miserable, don’t try, things suck. And it’s all gray. There’s nothing there.”

i have never eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeever heard of either of these bands(just look at thier names). radioheads trying too hard not to be radiohead, that makes asolutely no sense. yeah they do do miserable alot but they still go over many issues. these guys must have been bitten by lilly allen or something and caught jealous bitch disease. HOLD STEADY while i punch you in the fucking face!!! silver jews my fucking arse.

erm just been on their myspaces and er……………………yeah er grounbreakin stuff

sound like drunk tramps

Radiohead? Non-positive? *listens to Reckoner, Lucky, and Arpeggi* Hmmm…

I actually know this guy from Hold Steady. He is one of those very insecure dudes that has a very big mouth. Used to see him in bars and he was always talking sh*t about others and saying his band was the greatest. Funny, they are local NYC band here but no one local really likes them. Just the typical state college frat boy crowd digs them. Don’t forget people like to say things “against the norm” just to get reactions. And it usually works. Unfortunately, these bands aren’t really worth enough musically or otherwise to gain anything by it other than initial shock reaction.

Everyone is entitled to their opinions but these are wrong.

Um.. Last I read we are all fucked. The world is dying, or at least ill, and there is nothing we can do about it. I am not climbing the hill singing Kay Serah Serah, I’m…. climbing up the walls.

It seems dissing on radiohead is the currently the best and fastest way to get free publicity. This is like feeding a troll, honestly. Who are ‘the hold steady’ and ’silver jews’ to begin with?

So some of the people who posted really need to grow up.

You dont have to agree with these guys but theyre still entitled to a fucking opinion.
Grow the fuck up, no band is infallible.

I guess that’s what living in the back of a van does to you when you’re 35+ and broke. Share the venom, fellas and dream of what might have been.

Silver?
Jews?
The Silver Jews?

BAAAAAA HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA…….

The Silver Jews!!!!!!!

hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahhaahahahahaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa
ah……..

“I’m a fan of rock music”…lolz.

In my opinon, Radiohead have never been better than now!!

And fortunate enough they do what they WANT to do, and not what some punk thinks they should do…

For one, if this were Craig Finn instead of Tab Kubler saying these things about Radiohead I would care… but it’s not. They’re open to like and not like who they want, but I mean if you’re probably the 3rd most important member maybe it’s best to keep it to yourself. (The Hold Steady are still probably one of the best rock bands in America)

Silver Jews? That’s just a Malkmus side project that hasn’t made a great record since he left.

“You can go through the whole new Radiohead album and try and tell me what they’re saying, and all you’ll get over and over again is things are miserable, don’t try, things suck. And it’s all gray. There’s nothing there. Never before has there been a “greatest band in the world” who had so little to say about anything.”
Opinion or not, this just isn’t true. If they don’t want to make the effort of looking further than a first listen, that’s their loss.

Bands have learned that this is a way to get publicity. Please take this post down and stop encouraging this shit. We all know what in Rainbows means - no need to post quotes like this hear to the contrary. Maybe Rolling Stone can run this garbage, but please keep it off of here. I don’t want to start using ateasewb to wipe my ass too, mostly because i’m not sure how I would do that.

So they should sing standard straight-laced guitar-rock suitable for tapping-along-to when you pick up the kids from school in a people carrier, with lyrics about “loving you baby” that everyone will be able to sing along to?

I’m suspicious these people have the slightest clue what they’re going on about.

This really grinds my gears. No offense to anyone here who likes SJ or HS, but I had no idea who they were until I read this article. So I checked their myspace and couldn’t really get into either of them really.

When I heard the voice of the singer from The Hold Steady, I thought of Toy Story and “You gotta’ friend in me” and the other singer from the Silver Jews gave a similar vibe.

Sorry for the rant, but when I listen to music, everything has to flow for me, so if the singer sucks, that’s tough shit for that band to me.

And they’re opinions are their own, even though it’s clearly out of exposure. The only thing I can really say about their comments are…..I’m sorry I ever gave you guys any myspace views/plays and I didn’t mean to get your hopes up. Keep playin’ though fellas.

my rant has ended. =)

when thom sings “immerse your soul in love” after three minutes of bleak nihilism, over the years that i’ve continued to reinterpret the song as my life experience expands, it has reinforced a fierce conviction in me at the most completely opposite ends of the emotional and socio-philosophical spectrums. and none of my responses were wrong, as no interpretation of the song is. maybe you had to be alive and paying attention during the 90’s, but the words to that song elicit something strong each time i hear them.

it doesn’t help that the one time i saw the silver jews live, it was one of the worst performances i’ve ever seen. but overall, i feel like david berman is a guy wrapped up in his own world and mind, with delusions of integrity. doesn’t make him an inferior artist, just one i can’t really relate to.

there are plenty of people in this world who also just liked the rocknroll version of radiohead. tad just doesn’t know much about evolution of sound because his band is fast becoming the ac/dc of indie rock.

i like the silver jews, so i’m going to guess this was probably hate bait by some journalist. it wasn’t as caustic a comment as the hold steady guy’s anyway. we don’t know the entire context of either quote. however, it is easier to pick on radiohead now than before, the vultures are circling the air vying for the next big thing spot. if these bands were as successful as RH i imagine they’d not have the same opinions. never heard the hold steady before, heard the name, never interested, not now.

Some snarky comments here.. Granted, the guy hasn’t taken the time to approach Radiohead’s recent music openly enough to see past his incredibly limited preconception of them, and his comments don’t hold any weight to anyone who is more familiar with the band as a result… and? There’s a million other people out there who don’t see eye to eye with a million other people\artists\etc, and are yapping pointlessly about it. I’m not sure defending our favorite band, be it with explanations or aggression, does anything more than make us look insecure and uptight. This sort of criticism of Radiohead should be water off a duck’s back to fans, as it in no way takes away or even impacts upon the experience we have with the music.

Honestly I believe this guy has some good points. I saw Radiohead live in Auburn and it didn’t do anything for me. Very uninspired performance, and I drove all the way from Portland. I still love the guys, and In Rainbows is probaby my favorite of their albums (besides Kid A), but you can’t relate to their music at all.

It’s okay guys. When you’re the greatest band in the world, you will be talked about, good and bad. IT’S ALL GOOD, so chill. If Radiohead is irrelevant people wouldn’t be discussing them.

lol, ‘pre-apocalytic world’? well of course everything before the apocalypse is the pre-apocalypse (if there ever will be an apocalypse). 1 million years ago the times were also pre-apocalyptic. it doesn’t mean that you have to sing about global warming, especially if that’s not your thing.

I find it interesting to get musician’s takes on the music they are listening to or at least are surrounded by. And I should note that I’ve enjoyed the Silver Jews (with and without Malkmus) both lyrically and musically. And it’s really quite pathetic that people, on this site in particular, would succumb to an idiotic anti-semitism. But moving on…

Given the weird rambling, conversational tone, and occasional incoherence of the interview, I’d not be surprised if we are not getting the full sense of Berman’s remarks. For example, the first line about Radiohead comes in almost bizarrely, from left field, at the end of a discussion of a song of his (which I haven’t yet heard) that uses various simple expressions and concepts to educe the poetic flows of things we experience daily. Great. He is after epigrammatic writing; apparently “Her Hitler hairdo is making me feel ill” or “before you’re lost between the notes” is not such for Berman.

The thing is, he is coming from a vastly different approach and tradition in terms of what he puts into and expects out of music; Emily Dickinson is his poet of choice, while T.S. Eliot (or W.B. Yeats?) is probably more apposite to Radiohead’s style.

In Rainbows (and really, all Radiohead albums) is not an expression that is carried by any one dimension of the band’s creative energies; besides just creating a “feeling”, pretty much every song can evoke complex experiential responses. It may just be me feigning synaesthesia, but the songs on IR all have different mashups of colors and spatial structure. Nude takes on an auroral expanse, a cloudy enormity; reckoner pans out and dances like the ripples it describes; videotape is the sound of a ghost crying over its former heartbeat, recalling its minds being consumed by a relentless machine…and so on for pretty much each song. These are not experiences that are simple feelings, but involve a wide variety of experiences and images. And they are not concepts that would fit easily into one’s pocket, or a jar, or on a neat little card to be whipped out at parties (notwithstanding the epigrammatic quality that does occur from time to time).

I can appreciate what Berman seeks and enjoys, but what baffles me is that he is trying to impose his expectations and hopes for music on “the greatest band in the world”, and their failure to fit his model thus constitutes them having “so little to say about anything.” This is borne out by his analogy with paintings; there plenty of people who, confronted with a masterful painting or poem, will simply experience and enjoy the work regardless of their ability to comment. It’s almost absurd to claim people do not react because they feel unqualified or uneducated. But there may also be people who are able to interpret and express their feelings of that experience, such that they can share them and perhaps enhance their own (or others’) experience. Whether or not they are “qualified”, and regardless of more academic opinions of the work. Sometimes the experience of the work carries it beyond rigorous interpretations. I’m sure he wouldn’t claim to be calling for an elitism in musical tastemaking, but it sure sounds it from this remark…which is untenable being aimed at Radiohead, given the musical complexity of what they play, and further so because there is plenty of room for interpretation (some even positive) of IR.

At the end of the day, I could see the point of people saying this is jealousy, of some sort. This is a talented artist wondering why his vision of “true art” is not the prevailing vision, and picking on a group he thinks embodies that idea. Which is a shame, because I find it pretty remarkable that a band as talented, literate, and evocative as Radiohead is tops these days.

I dont think this guy has heard In Rainbows. There is a distinct lack of button pressing, compared to the Kid A /Amnesiac era which he is obviously refering to. Sounds like the next “Noel Gallagher”. Prick.

i’d just like to say that i completely and utterly agree with everything ‘twentyseventh’ said.

the guy who posted this: “point me to a Radiohead-line that wants you to stand up against anything.”..he must have been joking. Radiohead is one of the reasons why i’m very passionate and outspoken about the things i believe in. i have no idea how one can actually listen to radiohead and not be encouraged to put up a fight against the evil powers that be.

Actually sad to see David Berman say this, but he’s known to be critical as such. He totally ripped one on My Morning Jacket in another interview recently. dissappointing. Can’t we all just get along and make good music?

i guess the silver jews have yet to figure out that they’re not pavement

comments coming from a two bands that have been around for a year or so or who cares have so much to say about a band that has revolutionised music, done what other band could imagine, write the most amazing lyeics, which are actually lyrics because thom studied literature at university). and they have the greatest musician of all time, jonny greenwood. RADIOHEAD rules the world

seriously david berman in rainbows is a celebration of life your just another moron who thinks their music is depressing and you probably think videotape is about suicide too you talentless prick

ahhh…..jealousy

sad really

LOL!!! David Berman and “The Hold Steady” are yet another set jealous hacks. Their music is so crappy that they have to talk trash about superior musicians in order to get the attention they want. Thom Yorke is a better songwriter and simply a better musician, than “The Hold Steady” and “Silver Jews” combined. anyone who disagrees is a silly, stupid douchebag!

Here’s a list of crappy bands and talentless losers, that deserve to be hit by a bus!

The Killers
Aphex Twin
Gene Simmons
Opeth
Sonic Youth
Tool
Lily Allen
Muse
Oasis
Trent Reznor
Blur
Manic Street Preachers
Silver Jews
The Hold Steady

Yes, they all suck! It’s true.

the Silver Jews are the best band ever to walk the earth.