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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 21 ส.ค. 2023
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🙏 SPECIAL THANKS to my amazing Patrons, without whom these videos would not be possible, credited at the end of this video! - บันเทิง
So this may blow your mind: you mention the 'beautiful synth arpeggios with a random feeling, bubbles popping, bright colours' at 24:40 and again at the end of the song 29:51. Those synth arpeggios are not just a random set of notes made on a modular synthesiser. They are in fact the sound of a coded computer programme for an British early consumer computer from the 80s called the ZX Spectrum. On the OK Computer 2017 OKNOTOK bonus cassette, they include that synth sound (listen here: th-cam.com/video/TFsAgBuMeeg/w-d-xo.html) Basically if you run that casette through the original ZX Spectrum computer you get a computer code message from the band (because that's one way to store computer code!). The band basically wrote this computer code for the spectrum, and the synth tones encoded the message are what is used as the sound on Let Down. Mindblowing. Bonus fact: the sound is also sampled by Vampire Weekend at the start of their song Give Up the Gun th-cam.com/video/PgniUG-1YlE/w-d-xo.html
Wow! 🤯 Mind definitely blown. *Thank you* for sharing this and the links. It's incredible that we can listen to _Radiohead's_ music for years and still discover new layers and meaning we weren't aware of before. I love ixi for unveiling even more of the depth nestled in their music and arrangements. 🎶
It's amazing that she picked up on the "bright colours" and mentioned "in rainbows". After reading your awesome post, I took a look at the history of the ZX Spectrum, which was so named _"to highlight the machine's colour display that differed from the black and white display of its predecessor, the ZX81"._ 🌈 So a switch from monochrome to "In Rainbows". 😁 In fact, _In Rainbows_ had the working title _Zeroes & Ones_ - the black and white of binary code. 🎹
The only problem with this is that’s not what Speccy program tapes sounded like. This is what they actually sounded like: th-cam.com/video/lLy9_jkqxzc/w-d-xo.html
I guess it’s possible they slowed it down and made that arp out of it, but then you wouldn’t be able to run the sound back into the Spectrum
@@hoagy_ytfc you can literally run the sound through a ZX Spectrum emulator and the programme will run. Search it on youtube
Consider my mind very much unblown. _Every_ kid who owned a Spectrum put a data tape in his cassette player at least once.
@@korbendallas5318 jeez, sounds like you’d be fun at parties
Their most outstanding arrangement in my opinion. As much as I love Radiohead, this is probably the only song of theirs that make me weep. I don't even stand a chance against its gorgeousness. Thanks for the breakdown.
Same 😢
Yes
Same
Same❤
I’ve come to watch this hoping to make me understand why it’s good because I’ve listened to the song over and over and I’m yet to be convinced it’s not filler. It has no feeling, sounds boring, I think it sounds like a filler version of high and dry if that’s possible.
Hold the phone a second, that’s just unscrupulous opinion though, I’d like to understand it. Saying you like Radiohead but don’t like letdown is like saying you’re a blur fan but don’t get the praise for beetlebum.
It's a shame that this kind of thing isn't monetized. It's pretty clearly exactly the kind of thing that fair use was made for. But youtube obviously doesn't want to get into the business of adjudicating what is or isn't fair use (which, granted, would be a huge pain). And the recording industry is just so aggressively litigious.
Great video though! Happy to support it.
Thanks Mitch! I don't know much about fair use but I appreciate the sentiment! And welcome to the Patreon, your support means so much.
Your theory is so deep and mine so shallow that it feels like you’re making up musical terms as you go along. Yeah Thom uses a flanged eclipse here while the next chord descends into a bramble parse
He *occasionally* uses bramble parses but usually he prefers fragmented malfeasance stacks and carptillions.
Proof that Let Down is underrated
lol
Not by me
jeeez I was very impressed watching you play Johnny's 5/4 guitar part over the track like its NOTHING 😵 but seriously, this song is proof of Radiohead's innovative approach to music writing. They can take a I-IV-V-vi song in a major key and make it sound like something brand new! Super awesome video as always ixi!
There are certain songs that put you in a specific place, and specific feeling. This song is one of those for me. It always brings up a well of emotion for me, with very specific memories.
Radiohead has been my favourite band since 1997, and this song is my favourite song of all time, by anyone. I've told my family for years that I want it playing at my funeral. I am absolutely delighted to see you analysing it, and looking at what makes the magic, as it were. Keep up the brilliant work.
Totally agree. I discovered Radiohead in 2001 and this song still chokes me up after 22 years. No other song in the world has that effect on me. Great to hear it being analysed. Thanks Ixi.
@@graemegrant2228 Thirded. This and How to disappear completely.
I have no grasp on music, it's like magic or magnets to me, I just like radiohead. but your videos are so interesting and engaging. Thank you.
Im very Late to this particular party but gosh what a find. This song carried a lot of weight for me, possibly my favourite Radiohead song ever and I always felt like it was just for me, no-one else seemed to dig it. For me, it crawled into my aching teenage heart, bereft with a love lost and absolutely drew the grief out and gave it physical form. For me the bridge is where it happens, when those drums beat all the way down back into the verse… almost physical pain of grief realised as music. THANK YOU!
As a long time amateur guitar noodler with the most limited understanding of music theory, I've learnt more watching 3 of your breakdowns of Radiohead songs than I have in ~20 years of random and poorly structured practice. I've never heard a muso explain the various chords and chord changes with regard to the feelings they evoke like you do, and I think that makes you so good at this ..... and I dated a professional violinist for 3 years who taught me zip! Tell you what else... I suspect that if tom and ed and Johnny and Colin and Phil watched this, they'd be pretty impressed with you too.
All the best, from Devon in the UK. 🙋♂️
"Black Star" from "The Bends" is one of my favorite Radiohead songs. But this one is great too!
One tiny bit that you missed was the guitar at 3:27 to 3:41, it's amazing. Love these videos, I have a baby grand piano coming soon!
Crazy shit this song. Crazy crazy. Killed me. Changed me. Gave birth back to me. I'll never forget that day.
This is probably my favourite Radiohead song and the bridge and final climax are just amazing. I particularly love Colin’s bass in the bridge as he descends to meet the rest of the band.
THAT PART is not only my favorite part of that song but also of the entire album. It might even be my favorite moment from their entire oeuvre. So exquisitely beautiful it takes my breath away every time I hear it.
Keep up the great work Ixi!
I’m bookmarking this to watch it soon. I’m a minor fan that recognises the greatness but listening to this song the first time hearing ok computer I thought it was filler. I looked it up and not only was it not filler, a few people think it’s their best song (certainly top 5). I feel nothing with this song and it stopped me from pursuing my fandom further. Once a few of their other songs has clicked with me I knew I had to retry this one.
I never felt drawn to this song either. But it definitely deepens my appreciation to break a song down!
I really appreciate these analytical videos.
Despite loving music, my understanding of the theory is frustratingly lacking but I find your communication style, with equal focus on the theory but also the emotional response, really resonates in a way that few others manage. I genuinely feel that I better understand and appreciate more fully tracks that I know and love after you’ve discussed them.
I HAVE BEEN WAITING FOR THIS FOR SO LONG
This is my favorite song off the album.
When Johnny goes into his variation of his usual chords in the middle, it's when things are breaking down story-wise, Thom repeats "hysterical" and "useless" a lot more, like a worn-out traveler getting more annoyed due to the fatigue and sensory overload of travel. It feels like the unraveling, tied in with the stronger drums hinting at the strain increasing and the din of the world getting louder.
I'm not sue but LET DOWN might be Radiohead's first use of poly meter; something that comes up a lot in their later music. If not the first it is at least the first extensive use. I often explain poly meter vs poly rhythem to folks using LET DOWN because you know it when you hear it
This is my favorite Radiohead song, potentially my favorite song period, and I was literally beside myself at all the things i wanted you to notice that not only did you notice but you described in emotional context not just musical theory. You absolutely get it. It's fantastic to hear your thoughts articulated even better than you could ever do it. Love your channel. Thanks for loving the same music i love
20:18 I think it is more 4 against 3 !
Great video and great channel by the way.
ah you're right!
I don't know much about music but i really like this song from radiohead, and still enjoyed watching this video.
Surely one of the greatest pieces of art that human beings have ever created. So beautiful, nuanced, complex, subtle and original. It's a brilliant and insightful analysis, btw. From my perspective though, what's missing here (and I'm not a musician), is how, for the introductions to the first two-thirds of the song, Ed and Jonny are playing in an inconcongruous 5 and 4 time.sig,to accentuate the feeling of the world letting you down, and then during the intro to the last part of the song, when everything's OK -" you'll know where you are" - they both play in a more harmonious 4 time. Absolute genius at work. In 10 years time, after we've both listened to this song another 100 times, no doubt we'll both find something else that we didn't pick up during the first 25 years of listening - what a band, eh?! Loving your work ❤
Many thanks for your master class..
Especially for this 5/4 johnny part.. finally i understood what he does after more than 20 years....
Even though you led up to it, I wasn't prepared for 25:42. This is my favourite Radiohead song, and I adore it all the more now after your loving analysis.
best video of 2024 full stop
Great musical breakdown. My favorite song of all time. I first heard this song over twenty years ago and it still floors me.
I'll borrow your term "hugging harmony" . Loved it❤
best song ever created.
Enjoy it, you ask? No, I LOVED it. I still can't believe you don't have 1M subs...
This is the song to get me out of a depressive state. Thanks for analysing it, means a lot to me
Thanks so much for this. I found it really interesting and it inspires me to want to make more music
For me I've spliced these lyrics and musicality to how it felt when my mum started trying to unalive herself in the early 90s, my ever thwarted attempts to recombobulate and keep going in a new form -- a quasi spiritual yearning to transcend but an intractable alienation from others, people going about their business, and ultimately how impossible that promised land or new form are to reach. Your ability to break down how the music choices qualitatively affect us is so appreciated and powerful, thank you !
Part of the scale and melody reminds me of the way they did All Along the Watchtower in Battlestar Galactica, but that came after Let Down. I just found it interesting because I found this melodic connection much more to Let Down than to All Along The Watchtower.
th-cam.com/video/dUDwOPI6pys/w-d-xo.htmlsi=R8tbJJPJQisELDC-
The best youtube notificantion possible! Watching right now and already loving it! Thanks, ixi!❤
This was so satisfying to watch thank you.
This has been my favorite channel for a few months now ever since I stumbled upon it. As a huge fan of both radiohead and nine inch nails, I love the way you explain each song so intricately and with such contagious passion. It makes me enjoy the music even more, which isn't common for a music analysis channel. Love you ixi and love this video!! ❤️
13:05 that chord progression sounds like an 80s sitcom intro. I Love these breakdown videos! I hope you take a look at Tools "Fear Inoculum" album. I would love to hear you analyze Descending and Pneuma😊
Cheers, lol.
This song is by far my fave on OK Computer. It just sucks you in and takes you somewhere, especially layed down with earphones on. I like to call the "random synths". digital rain. Such an uplifting part. Thank you for this video, I thoroughly enjoyed it.
The song that puts you somewhere else
Wonderful relishing breakdown of an astonishing song. Thanks!
I’m so, so glad The Algorithm brought me to your channel and this analysis. My favorite Radiohead song being pulled down to its individual parts and carefully put back together again by your insights, humor, expertise, and obvious love for the song and its arrangement. I was literally hanging on your every note and every word, especially analogous. Thank you for letting me hear it for the first time all over again.
I really loved your analysis and hope that everybody in the world could hear that masterpiece based on your review!!👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻
Goosebumps every time I hear it!!
Love the video! I think the polyrhythmic part is 4 over 3.
Thank you so much for putting in the time and effort to actually break down Radiohead's songs! So many other channels just "react" to their music and, which, I mean, I can react to their music, I don't need to watch other people react. Your analyses actually help me gain a better appreciation, and I learn things! Please continue doing these!
I rarely comment before watching a video, but in this case I want to talk about what I *hope* is covered, namely the part where it seems to almost collapse followed by the dual lead vocals. The point where the right channel hits the high note while the left channel sings the title of the song is the most sublime moment of the song.
I'm very interested to see if Ixi agrees with me ...
Yes the climax!
@@iximusic looking forward to this one. Need to find some time for uninterrupted listening/watching.
So nice to have a breakdown be technical and feel like a conversation with family.Your ❤ ok 🖥 is showing awesome job on a crazy difficult task
Yes - it is all about that third verse. When TY holds that poignant A through the first line of the chorus at 4:18… (chef’s kiss)
The video I've been waiting for!!
Maybe its hard to describe in words what we hear, or what we're feel, in musically context, from each radiohead track on Ok computer,, such as let down, exit music, subterranean,, climbing up the wall etc. But as far as i k now this is the best and my fav. analysis for Radiohead on youtube. Sorry my bad English🙏
Just found your channel a few days ago and I absolutely love your passion, expertise and sense of joy that comes from doing these breakdowns. I’m not a musically-minded person at all but I definitely come away from these videos knowing a little more than I did before. Thank you for all the work you put into these.
❤ let down ❤ your voice too
Just amazing. Thanks for bringing your authentic self to these reviews.
Of course you did this one. So happy to be here.
Yesss one of my fav Radiohead songs
Thank you so much for this perfect breakdown of an absolutely beautiful song. You are a treasure for us all ❤
Oh my hell how I love you.
If I'm honest this was a song on OK Computer I always used to skip, but after hearing it in After Life and getting the time to sit down and listen to it properly I developed a whole new love for the song.
Thanks
Excellent channel, you're very talented. It would be even more interesting to hear about a metaphysical
side of music too, emotional and psychological impact, place and influence of a song.
Easiest decision to subscribe ever. Very revealing and compelling analysis. Look forwards to viewing all your others (this is my first exposure to your content). Excellent stuff.
Achingly beautiful song, and lovely analysis of it. I'm way late to this video so I don't expect any replies from anyone, but for some reason (twinkly guitars, chimey sounds, some melodic similarities and sorta melancholy feel) I was always reminded of Sloop John B by the Beach Boys. Crazy maybe.
These videos are fantastic, really wonderful. Such clear and interesting points against the backdrop of songs I really love. Great stuff!
I loved your musical analysis and I felt every emotion with you just like when I listen to this beautiful song. Thanks for sharing.
Great analysis as usual. You are so good communicating complex musical ideas simply. I really admire your ability. Thanks....
this video is awesome, so excited for climbing up the walls!
meeee tooo
Anyone else hear reference to Brian Eno’s Music for Airports in the melody? I wonder if that was an inspo for it.
I have loved Radiohead my whole life. I really just like The Bends and OK Computer. I've tried their other stuff but it doesn't do anything for me. This music got me through a lot of my growing pains. I still think there isn't anything else like it. People compare this album to Dark Side of The Moon, but I don't really hear it. I saw Radiohead as my first concert back in 1997 while they were still touring this album and it was amazing. It was blinding too, because there were a lot of strobe lights. But the songs were perfect, just like the record, no BS, no talking, just playing the songs. The sound quality is still the best I think I've ever heard in a live performance. You couldn't tell the difference between the album and the concert, all the sound was there, full blast. It did get to one point where Thom asked if the crowd wanted them to play Creep, but then the band ignored their cheers and played the second half of the album.
Listening to this record makes me want to hear all the songs before and after each one. I only hear it sometimes now every few years.
I am kind of a freak, in that a lot of people start out with harder music and then get into softer things as they age, but I seem to be the opposite, where all I listen to is hard rock and metal, but I don't think OK Computer, or many other bands and songs, will ever leave me. Hearing this album is just as therapeutic now as it was back then and still reminds me of other times long ago. I love it.
Nice plants BTW, and I love your Orange lights. These are also very good reviews of the songs. Subbed.
@5:42, this is the sound of magic.
Really great video. So much to digest with this song. Always been a favorite and always brings up emotions from the melodies. Thank you for making this!
The disappointment in the minor is the song. Absolute genius.
Hey! I just came across your channel! We have so much musical taste in common. Here are my favourite albums (outside what you've already covered) that I recommend you enjoy and possibly review: Ulrich Schnauss A strangely isolated place(2003), Boards of Canada - Geogaddi (2002), Can - Tago Mago (1971), Kraftwerk - The man machine (1978), Philip Glass & Ravi Shankar - Passages (1990) and Demon Hunter - Songs of death and resurrection (2021).
I watched this video twice. That's how interesting it was.
Gosh that's quite the compliment! So glad you enjoyed it.
I've always read that those random synth arpeggio notes was sampled from the sound samples library of an old (contemporary at the time) Apple computer...the same computee they used to read out the fitter happier text.
Also, the last verse Thom sings, "one day you know where you are with" which the syntax doesn't make sense. I imagine a computer giving advice, or its just glitching, like a crushed bug on the ground.
No, they actually came up with it originally, but they based it off of the boot up sound of the ZX Spectrum
The proof for this lies in their OKNOTOK release where they have a cassette that begins with the spectrum boot up sound and ends with the let down synths
Thank you so much Ixi, I love this one😊
Great video!
Great vid, was not let down.
Brilliantly done as always. 16:09 Tori Amos vibes
Only three comments down and i already spotted the underrated meme 😅
This band is ridicuclous, the song is perfect, the arrangement is from another planet, the breakdown hit me like a hammer, my heart just broke, I'm crying a river here, and my dogs are "wtf is going on here?" concerned now.
26:58 🤘🤘
THIS JUST MADE MY DAY! YES! TIME TO SUBSCRIBE
I watch/listen to so much Radiohead analysis, and no one does it better than you. I keep wondering how you're gonna get through the Fitter Happier/Electioneering part of this record, but I'm sure you'll find a way to make it compelling. :)
First, there's some dope music under the robot in Fitter Happier! Second, I LOVE Electioneering.
Something you may have missed because you are not playing the song on the guitar and that we can’t really hear it on the original recording, is that Asus4 riff you played at the end is literally the acoustic riff thom’s playing. And there is this beautiful b6 he’s playing along with the F#m that resolve in the same way as the Asus4 (indeed this is the same note D), in fact the acoustic riff is such an interesting way of embellishing a simple chord progression
Incredible analysis !
I want to give this video more than one like
what a beautiful analysis, you genius! lol
13:23 As someone who was a teenage boy in mid-nineties Britain, this album is permanently etched somewhere deep within my psyche, so something really struck me when you were singing the vocal "let down and hanging around". It seemed to me you were squashing "hanging", bringing things forward a smidge:
"leee-t down and HANGing aro-ound"
instead of:
"leee-t down and HAAAAAA-nging around"
I'm interested whether this was simply a misremembering of the rhythm in the moment, or whether we have always heard the song differently somehow? Because to me, the "haaaa-nging" lyric is the most prominent of several places where the vocals literally hang, stretching out unnaturally in time, and I'd always imagined this as a deliberate (and unforgettable) effect to mirror the content of the lyrics!
Yes yes yes
I would love to see you go through some Beatles songs.
Something about 5:12 took me right back to 1997.
you should really do a musical analysis on two way mirror by loathe, or any loathe song i feel like you would enjoy their music!!
yep.
i'd buy a ring now.
Appreciate the work. Ever listened to the Melvins?
I don't think I have!
@@iximusic Largest drum sets of grunge music (especially those cymbals)
There isn't anything odd about this music...it's so CoE
Saddest major scale song I know
Great insights! I'd love to see what you'd come across if you did Limo Wreck by Soundgarden!
Hermoso
Let Down is underrated.
When I first heard this song my English was rather poor and I had zero chance of understanding the lyrics. However the melody is so soft and tender and comforting, and climax towards the end is so clearly pronounced… well, I thought it had to be about sex. Then again, I was a teenager, so pretty much everything had to be about sex.