who cares about hype if you can be cool listening to this?
581291
i wasn't afraid to give the strokes a listen b/c i didn't care whether or not their hype was due to "daddy" or legitmate buzz, so i approached listening to these guys the same way.  the music is ok, but i wouldnt say they're bringing anything new to an old game.  for what its worth, if you like listening to joy div, the cure, or the smiths, then just keep on doing that.  if you need another band in that genre that doesn't seem to push anything forward, then you can be cool caught listening to this...
3892867
Fine, we get it.  Some of you hate Vampire Weekend.  Great, don't listen.  I don't understand why the haters feel the need to go on a crusade against the band.  Just leave Vampire Weekend alone, and leave us alone to listen to this great band.

[...]

Total garbage.
4710897
You are simply better off listening to their older stuff. This is derrivative, and not even all that.  You can tell they are trying, but somehow it all falls flat. I think its time to move on chaps - what worked back then, needs to move forward. So difficult, when that formula worked so well. Then again, it may not be the stlye of the music thats wrong, so much as the soul of the content.
757511
For the life of me I do not understand the fawning praises given to "artists" such as Hawtin. Admittedly, I`m not a techno/trance fan at all. The (sometime) updated disco beats always seem to be the opening bars of a song , yet , that`s all that happens. Listening to this garbage , I truly believe that anyone who owns a synth could "write" 100 or so of these "songs" a day. Really people , stretch yourselves and find something worthwhile to listen to.
907188
I'll lose all respect with a lot of people for admitting I like this album by this immature unoriginal posers who think they are punks. But come on! Stop being such snobs and listen to it. I would never claim this is punk, or that it is high art, great rock'n'roll, or even a great album. But it is a great mindless album...listen to it with your head switched off. Okay, it's never going to win any awards (not from me anyway) but this is the tolerable end of whatever they are calling the anti-punk spearheaded by Blink these days. Yeah, the lyrics are crap, it is generally not entirely groundbreaking stuff, the band seem real idiots and no, they aren't really all that scary. Just don't foget that this isn't REAL music! Okay. You CAN listen to it without ridicule...without ridicule from me anyway. Well, not much.
3663260
people who listen to this are the same people who think fingerpainting BS on a wall is art.
Dumb
50617
I've tried, honestly I really did give this album a chance, but 95% of the sounds on it are just not music. Okay, maybe that's a bit harsh, but to me (seemingly) random sounds are not music. I like albums that take a few listens before the magic starts to shine through, but I can really see no merit in this. Ever heard the story of the Emporer's New Clothes? Stop pretending to like this to appear knowledgable and hip.
(...)
3808766
I had a quick skim through the reviews of the album, let's just say I'm more than disappointed with the childish and ignorant one star reviews that have been written about this album.
From one person essentially claiming that this isn't music to others saying the band just put together a random bunch of crap and called it an album. I'm sorry but if you're not open minded enough to enjoy what's on the album can you at least be grown up enough to not have a cry about it and write over opinionated hate reviews. I barely found anything constructive in them, no one stated why they disliked some of the songs and those who did are hardly the type you would want to rely upon when making an informed buying choice, 'techno dribble' is the term these people brand it.
  To the open minded and non closed in person. Skip the one star reviews as they will sadly not be of any assistance with you unless you yourself are an ignorant purist.
This is a stunning album, a foray into the power of electronic and traditional music styles. This has as much meaning as Ok Computer and The Bends-make no mistake about that.
4569247
Folks, ignore the blathering fellow behind the curtain.  Amazon's reviewer is apparently outraged that Rhino has taken a "novelty-centric" (ooh, there's a neologism sure to last) approach to the Grungey '90s and ignored the turmoil, the tumult, the sheer musical ferment of that decade.

Mm-hm.

I'm thinking that the reviewer either hasn't listened to "Have A Nice Decade" or "Like, Omigod!" (Rhino's '70s and '80s box sets, respectively), or he somehow feels that the music of the '90s (for which I'm guessing he has much greater nostalgia) should somehow be treated with a reverence that is, you know, COMPLETELY ATYPICAL OF RHINO'S APPROACH IN THIS SERIES.  Unless he doesn't consider the inclusion in the earlier volumes of such enduring masterpieces as "General Hospi-tale" by the Afternoon Delights, "Take Off" by Doug & Bob McKenzie, "Disco Duck" by Rick Dees, and "Convoy" by C.W. McCall to be, you know, "novelty-centric".

Listen, I'm not a huge fan of the inclusion of novelty and fluff in this series at the cost of excluding prime cuts, but this set has a much, MUCH higher wheat:chaff ratio than either the '70s or the '80s set.  The fact that it doesn't exhaustively trace the development of the decade's many disparate under/aboveground movements is utterly irrelevant because that was never the compilation's objective.  The set has a ton of songs you'd like to hear but don't feel like buying an entire album to own.  In short, tune out the static and enjoy the set.  It's the best in the series to date.
143495
This item did not wow me at all. It sells through hype.
1617492
I listened a few times (bought it on the hype) and it got progressively less interesting each time.  It's pretty guitar-based Britpop a la Oasis (Godrich does it again) but lacks the experimentation and willingness to annoy that their peers have.  Writing to Reach You will stand the test of time, although the rest sounds more and more like filler.  Better to stick with The Bends or Mutations until something more interesting comes along.
518183
Ignore the hype & media of "Nevermind", ignore the critics, ignore the radio play, ignore VH1 and Rolling Stone magazine... ignore Kurt Cobain's "cool" look with his sunglasses and ripped clothes.

BUY Nirvana's "Nevermind"... listen to it, listen to it long and often.. I want you to...

BUY Pearl Jam's "Ten".. listen to it long and often...

And you'll see why, with much less promotion.. and much less commercialism behind the album, Pearl Jam's "Ten" sold millions more copies than "Nevermind"... why?  Because Pearl Jam's "Ten" was simply the album with better music.  How else could it of sold more copies if "Nevermind" had more radio play and music videos?

Ignore the hype, like I said.. and be honest with yourself, if you are honest with yourself, and you are not trying to fit in with the "cool" kids in high school who pretend to be much more troubled than they are, and listen with both your heart and mind... if you do this with both albums, 9 out of 10 of you will agree Pearl Jam's "Ten" is far superior.

I guarantee it... You know no matter how "cool" you want to be, whenever you hear Pearl Jam's "Black" on the radio, it hits your heart in a way no song off "Nevermind" could.

And yes, anyone disagreeing with this review are the people im refering to who try way too hard to be cool.
1674352
I agree that disliking this album doesn't necessarily make you "musically immature" or whatever, and I can see how just the overall arrogance of some Radiohead fans can turn you off to it.

But at the same time, you don't really offer any compelling arguments as to what's wrong with the album itself. I mean, your major beef with it is that you don't like Fitter Happier? First off, it's unfair to classify Fitter Happier as a song, per se, when that's clearly not what it's designed to be. It wasn't made for your auditory enjoyment. But it is significant in that it basically embodies the theme of the entire album: the dehumanization of the human race in order to conform to workplace society, the usurpation of charm and personality in favor of mechanical "professionalism." You might find the robotic voice annoying, but it clearly fits the theme of the track. And the fact that Thom came up with the idea to put it through his Mac while drunk doesn't take away from the value of it: while it might sound incoherent at times, he had written it out beforehand, so it's not just some unintelligible drunken slur.

If you don't like Fitter Happier, skip over it. It's just one track out of twelve. While I'll admit that I don't get the urge to listen to Fitter Happier every time I put in OK Computer, I appreciate it for what it is and don't hold it to a standard of what it is not.

And how the heck do the lyrics of The Tourist make it immature? Did you ever stop to analyze the meaning of the song, the deep, transcendentalist-like message that maybe everyone of us needs to slow down, that everyone of us needs to not be so caught up in frivolous cares, that we should all slow down and simply enjoy life? Not to mention that Jonny Greenwood's guitar playing in this song is absolutely AMAZING.

If you try to hold this album to standards of what it is not, you can't help but be disappointed by it. If you're looking for party music, this isn't it (not that there's anything wrong with party music). If you're looking for easily-accessible, sugary feel-good music, keep looking (not that there's anything wrong with a well-crafted pop song). If you come into this album with the idea that it's the most sacred and perfect fifty-three minutes of audio ever recorded, as many claim it to be, you'll also be disappointed, because this realization takes time to come to, and it's something that you have to reach on your own. So it's best to approach this album with a mind as open as possible, not being affected by the massive hype surrounding it but rather judging it by its own merits.

Again, I agree with you that it's childish and conceited to act like whether you like OK Computer or not is some litmus test for your intelligence or musical maturity. But Radiohead fans are known for their pretentiousness; maybe it's just that we appreciate their music so deeply that it's hard to imagine someone else not. But you shouldn't let this sour you on enjoying what is widely considered one of the greatest albums of the nineties, even of all time.
2300050
Well.. AMP 1 was alright... but now there goes MTV trying to fit electronica music into a box of what they like... this is a bunch of rap songs remixed into even worse rap songs... MTV leave electronica alone...  go check out Aphex Twin, Squarepusher, Christopher Lawrence if you want  some real music.
785590
nothing to be taken seriously about this song, it's just for fun, and people shouldn't read too much into it. listen to it on your way home from work, and enjoy the ride.
2168966
Only of interest to die-hard fans. Not something to sit around and listen to.
1522909
Despite the raves of True Believers giving Nanobots 5-star treatment, even TMBG fans like us really must have a high tolerance for mediocrity to adore most of this album. Granted, as one raver goes on about, one shouldn't expect the superlative excitement of discovering something new from a band that has been around as long as TMBG has. But it must be said that most of the tracks here are tired and uninspired, attractive only if one does not have hundreds (literally) of better TMBG songs at hand to hear. That's not even counting the 4 or 5 snippets of musical ideas included as separate tracks, which are not unwelcome: TMBG fans are interested in hearing those.

What I try to do to counteract the tendency to compare a long-lasting artist's latest album to their best is not to ask whether it is among their best, nor to compare it to their last album. Instead, I ask myself: If this was one of their first three albums, would critics and new music bloggers pay attention? Regarding Nanobots, the answer would be: "Maybe. A little."

Five songs out of twenty (again, not counting the snippets): "The Darlings of Lumberland" (absolutely the most ambitious and creative track I've heard from TMBG in many years), "Stone Cold Coup d'Etat", "Great", "Stuff Is Way" and "Sometimes A Lonely Way" might raise enough interest  for music writers to keep sniffing around looking for their potential to blossom on subsequent releases, if the mediocrity of the other 15 doesn't turn one off. But that's a nearly absurd thing to even imagine, given the deep outpouring of talent and wonder from TMBG in their first decade (far longer than their first 3 albums).

I don't hold against The Johns that they aren't producing prodigious amounts of tune-mastery any longer. If they don't have a financial need to release new music I would not fault them for taking a few years away from any pressure to record anything for release so they could recharge. But if they're going to stay in the game and stick to the standard every-other-year album release schedule, I don't know what prompts them to think most of Nanobots was good enough to make the cut as original-release album material. Most of what's on the album are curiosities at best - again, something TMBG fans have an interest in. But their sense for distinguishing between what's album-worthy and what's extras has skewed into not caring to distinguish anymore territory. If the only people who are left to pay for the album are those who want it all, and want it all now, then I'm just a voice speaking for a non-existent market.

And those 5 songs would have made a 4 star EP, and are almost good enough to prevent me from giving Nanobots 2 stars, because I can't agree that 2 stars, as Amazon defines it, means "I don't like it" for ALL of the album. But to be fair and true to the parameters Amazon provides, I don't like more than half of it so, reluctantly, 2 stars it is.