^ I almost posted earlier that I felt like Tool was a lot like Radiohead. Like an American Radiohead.
They both make very popular music that is still very individualistic and challenging. They seem to have a good balance of songwriting and musical experimentation on their albums. Both of the vocalists’ styles rely more on a what I would call “attitude” in their performance as a vehicle for expression, but there singing contains lot’s of pitch and melody, not like, say, Mick Jagger who takes a blusier approach where there’s lot’s of emotive expression but not much specific pitch, or… uh… Andre3000, who does a lot of rapping. Melodically, both Keenan and Yorke are not really using catchy, singable melodies like much pop music. I would consider both of them to be aggressive guitar oriented bands, but they are both also very aware of using dynamics and atmospheric textures. I also think they both make records that sound very modern, but also push themselves to try out and develope new sounds. There’s not much “standard” production on either bands’ albums. I think that’s why you hear so many artists imitating them both.
I would consider them both to be modern, art-rock bands make a lot of aggressive guitar driven music, but don’t limit themselves. I think the differences in how they sound (I mean, no matter wierd Tool gets they are still a bunch of American metal dudes and Radiohead are British pant-waist Smiths’ junkies…) are really much more superficial and irrelevant when you look at there similarites as artists.
