Digipacks suck! Anything not in a jewl case pretty much sucks! I sometimes do like the artwork better with digipacks but they never last. My Silver Mt. Zion cds are only a couple of years old and they are starting to fall apart. I even keep them in the plastic wrapper that they came in to try and protect them more. My copy of Sting's the "Soul Cages" which I believe was one of the frist digipaks has gone from white to a light brown in some places. But what pisses me off the most is my copy of Neil Young's "Broken Arrow". The glue inside the cd jacket has loosend and now it is hard to get the cd out because the edges of the cd is covered in glue. My copy of the Rolling Stones "Between The Buttons" spindle broke so now the cd falls out when you open it. If it was in a jewl case I could easily replace it but with since it's in a digipack I can't. I own over 3,000 cds and I keep them in mint condition, but it is almost impossible to do this with digipacks. Some of these digipacks are over 10 years old but I own jewl cased cds that are over 20 years old and they are still in mint condition. I agree 100% in protecting the enviorment! I thought it was great when they got rid of the long boxes and blister packs that cds came in back in the 80's and 90's

Yeah, the CD packaging for that Thom Yorke record is definitely awful. Personally if I had known how nice the vinyl was in retrospect I would have just kept my promo copy CD and bought only the vinyl for the artwork. The embossed cover of the LP's jacket and sleeve are totally sweet.

I haven't yet purchased a copy, so I haven't seen the packaging yet. Kind of funny that this turned into a digipack discussion board, huh?

Anyway, as far as the album goes, it seems like most of the reviews I've read are pretty accurate. The Eraser is a nice album, and if it were released by some unknown artist, I'd probably like and think it was a very relaxing listen. I think Thom made the right decision not announcing the release until a few months before it came out because it's not exactly a grand, ambitious project.

I think people who prefer Radiohead's older stuff (The Bends, OK Computer) should be excited. If these electronic songs Thom wrote are on his album, that could mean that style won't be on the band's next album. There's certainly a pretty big discrepency concerning when the band originally thought their album would come out and what they're saying now. Perhaps these songs were orginally written to be the Radiohead album, and the band decided to go in a new direction? That's kinda the impression I had, anyway.

Don't get too excited for the old sound! According to Thom Yorke the sessions for the new ablum is sounding more like Kid A.

According to the concert reviews I've read and the live Bonnaroo concert you can get off the Net, the Head plays a lot of new songs (at least eight at the L.A. Greek Theatre), and most of them DO sound very guitar-oriented Bendsish.

I've listened to this about 5 times by now, and I'm really impressed. 76 is a very decent metacritic score, but I'm surprised it's not in the 80s. "The Eraser" isn't surprising or groundbreaking, it's just utterly solid and lean, impeccably produced. It's one of my favorite albums of the last couple years, and one of the best solo-type "diversions" EVER, to my knowledge. Thom Yorke's voice sounds incredible.

quote:

Don't get too excited for the old sound! According to Thom Yorke the sessions for the new ablum is sounding more like Kid A.

He didn't say that the record was sounding like Kid A. The quote was that the next record was going to be the biggest leap between records since going from OK Computer to Kid A. Like some of the others have already stated, there are bootlegs of them playing the newer songs, none of which are very electronic sounding at all.

For those of you keeping track at home, The Eraser moved almost 100,000 units in the US and debuted on the Billboard chart at #2. It's a weird world where a decidedly anti-pop record like that hits the charts at #2. But, Hail to the Thief sold upwards of 300,000 copies its first week, so I guess I shouldn't be shocked.

By the way, it trailed Now that's What I Call Music 22, which was number one, and was ahead of Pimp C (by about 3000 copies), Nelly Furtado, and Gnarls Barkley. It's pretty impressive that Thom can beat a first-week hip-hop release: conventional wisdom in the biz is that hip-hop records hit HARD the first two weeks and then die fast.

Thom Yorke does a good job, I wasn't exactly expecting it to be a very ambient electronic record but he loses the guitars and gains more with a laptop.

I think The Eraser is quite a patchy but mostly beautiful record. I also think that its general quality is perhaps more down to Nigel Godrich. It incessantly feels like a collaborative effort rather than Yorke solo with Godrich fleshing out his songs in rather thesame way Radiohead do at the day job.

Its not a perfect album, but the highpoints are good enough to lift it into the realms of excellence and save it from becoming a dirgey mess of depressive electronica which it occasionally threatens to do.

While I enjoy it however, if he can take the stronger points back to the new Radiohead record, particularly his career best vocal performance, then their next could be very special indeed.

kid b

quote:

Originally posted by sk:
kid b

Nothing like Kid A. I just don't understand that. I mean, Kid A wasn't even all that electronic. The Eraser has a very original sound and if you listen to the truly electronic songs on Kid A you'll notice that the beats are simpler, the mood is different and they are distinctly more experimental than The Eraser is.

Kid A wasn't that electronic? Huh? The opener is all electronics and voice, and the rest of the songs feature electronics prominently as well.

I listened to the very first track, "The Eraser", and though it sounded very Kid A, sort of in the vein of "optimistic". After that, I have to say that while the electronics are very interesting - in a dark, icy sort of way - Yorke's style of crooning makes the album a little boring.

THe first track is still my favorite.

you know, it is what is is... everyone is trying to compare The Eraser to radiohead when it isn't much alike... this proves that Thom Yorke isn't Radiohead, and that each member is contributing just as much as the next to make the greatest music ever in Radiohead.

quote:

Originally posted by RavingLunatic:
Kid A wasn't that electronic? Huh? The opener is all electronics and voice, and the rest of the songs feature electronics prominently as well.

Actually, no they don't. "In Limbo" and "Optimistic" aren't electronic really at all.

I expected a lot from it.... and after a couple of listens it stuck w/ me enough to stay on my laptop, but not enough for me to listen to it that often. I don't think I've said "I feel like listening th The Eraser" ever. It just pales in comparison to ALL radiohead, I guess... but just saying that makes me tell myself "Duh, it's impossible for most stuff to hold a candle to their albums" and I'm not even a huge radiohead fan.