Album of the Week #4: "Kid A" by Radiohead

John

A modern classic this week. Well in my opinion it is. So Kid A, the best thing Radiohead have ever done or the most pretentious thing they've ever done? Or both?

super_furry

I don't rate it at all. It feels like all the left over stuff from the much better OK Computer.

Goodshape

Best album? no.

Great album? Bloody right it is.

Think I prefer Amnesiac myself, but only slightly... only slightly.

jtsuited

an album that proved their place in the world.

John

I think it's far better than OK Computer (which was good, don't get me wrong). I don't think it's as original as it's made out to be, it sounds like it could have come out on Warp Records at any stage during the 90s but for a major rock band to drop everything and completely re-address the way they play and write and pull it off is some achievement. What they did with Kid A and Amnesiac really made me pay attention to Radiohead. Before I thought they had a few good songs but these two albums were essential.

honru

Their pretencious attitude puts me off them completely, but this is probably the most rewarding Radiohead album out of the bunch.

Pitchfork Media might have gone a little overboard with their conclusion.

radiospan

Pitchfork went overboard all right.

In fact, they mention it today in their review of the new The Knife album:

One of the prevailing critical talking points surrounding the release of Radiohead's Kid A had to do with Thom Yorke's willful defilement of his own vocals. Remember the reactions? Those desperate for the band to remain in the golden-throated glory days of The Bends puzzled over the move before ultimately chalking it up to a function of Yorke's inscrutable eccentricity; others cited interviews in which Yorke professed to be sick of his own voice as proof there was a more sympathetic method to his madness.
But despite all the peripheral talk about the band's blossoming love of electronic and experimental music, few critics advanced the simplest theory, which was that Radiohead had completely succumbed to its own lust for the textures of dance music. No wonder those vocals had to go.

-- http://pitchforkmedia.com/record-reviews/k/knife/silent-shout.shtml

COCK

try listening to amnesiac and then kid a right after it, its like viewing the same thing from two different perspectives. a sort of firestarter/firevictim thing. which is which is your choice.

did you know that if you have this album running twice at the same time, the second running 17 seconds after the first, they combine

Also, the liffey is mentioned in how to disappear completely, i just think thats cool

This album is way better than ok computer. maybe thats just cuz i like electronic music a lot more than i do britpop. Theyre both great though ...

Karlusss

OK Computer is not Britpop, I nearly choked on tomorrow morning's corn flakes, jaysus.

Kid A is one of my favourite albums ever. Some people say it's intentionally avoiding doing what they're best at. I think they're intentionally ignoring doing what's expected. Just making the best music possible.

Songs like Everything In Its Right Place, The National Anthem, Optimistic and Idioteque aren't signs of a disappointing follow-up, they're ****ing fantastic music. The electro-fication just happened but the other stuff, the jazz band especially, shows that whatever Radiohead do they do it best, and when they're doing what no-one else is doing... they make the best music in the world.

Dick Darlington

It's one of those rare things that makes an album great, being able to listen to it over and over and still find new things to like in it.
Its also an album full of songs to get lost in, eg "How to disappear completely" and "Everything In Its Right Place".

MrJones

Kid A -what an album.
proved that Thom Yorke is up there with the best of them.
From beginning to end it is a masterpiece.It all fits together like a jigsaw.thats my 20 cents!

egon spengler

kid a is a very avant garde modernist piece of work. Radiohead are one of the few bands genuinely doing something new with rock music and they pull it off effortlessly. Its not like, "here is a really obvious time sig change which is new and different." for example the time sig changes in go to sleep just blend in seamlessly with the music, noticeable but not out of context. They represent for me, a resistance to the perpetual dumbing down of rock music and nostalgiasm which is so prevalent today and which is celebrated by rock journalists so they can indulge in their own critical and nostalgic hyperbole. Theres so little new happening in rock, just rehashes, but radiohead are definately trying to take it in a new direction and if that upsets people who want to live in the security of the past, so be it. They confound, that much is clear, but they also write the most transcendental music today and in history. I love Kid A. It conveys glacial beauty combined with abstract modernist principles which inform the music. At first I didnt understand it, but there was something in it that drew me back repeatedly and now its amazing

Smurfpiss

Kid A is an absolute masterpice and one of the greatest albums of this millenium. It may sound like hyperbole but it's true. (only another 994 years to go!)
It represented such a change in direction for the band, such an innovative fusion of styles and the end result leaves so much to analyse.
There's so much in it that i love.. especially that unusual spacial sound from treefingers, the crazy assed jazz and thumping bass of national anthem, the throating lumping beauty of motion picture soundtrack. An album without flaw.

lucernarian

Hmmm I have to say that I personally prefer Amnesiac. The songs are more contrasting and experimental I feel. It's more relaxing, I have to make a slight effort to listen to Kid A:o.

Kid A is still one of the best albums of recent times though. And kudos should be given for making a completely new style of album so well on their first try. I love EIIRW, Optimistic and Morning Bell. I've also started listening to In Limbo often.

treefingers

love it. very close call between this and amnesiac, but kid a slightly wins for me. amazing album, and i for one think pitchfork got a review spot-on for once!

secret_squirrel

I have to say I thought it was the worst thing they ever did.

'Twas the sound of a band disappearing right up their collective arses.

Ruined my liking of Radiohead for years afterward.

John

secret_squirrel wrote:

I have to say I thought it was the worst thing they ever did.

'Twas the sound of a band disappearing right up their collective arses.

Ruined my liking of Radiohead for years afterward.

It was the complete opposite for me. It was the sound of a band finding their feet after being just another indie band (well barring OK Computer but before that they were anything from dreadful to just above average)

DerekD Goldfish

Fantastic album one of the best of recent years
I cant think of many bands that made such a leap in one album
Talk Talk- Spirit of Eden being one of the only ones I can think of

Goodshape

John2 wrote:

It was the complete opposite for me. It was the sound of a band finding their feet after being just another indie band (well barring OK Computer but before that they were anything from dreadful to just above average)

Have to agree with that. OK Computer I liked, but I didn't get into them at all until Kid A / Amnesiac came along. That's when it started getting interesting.

Rubberbandits

egon spengler wrote:

kid a is a very avant garde modernist piece of work.

Avant garde My bottom. Great Album but not avant garde. Kid A Still more or less adheres to the pop format. Kid A may borrow slightly from the avant garde and I would consider it avant garde or Modernist in terms of Radiohead's career but thats it. True Avant Garde dosent obey musical rules or even attempt to convey aesthetic beauty, listen to the likes of "Silver apples of the moon" by Morton Subotnik, "Electronic meditation" by Tangerine dream, "Lumpy Gravy" by Fank Zappa or even John Cage's compositions for prepared piano. None of these works give a sh*t if anyone likes them, they are completely autonomous in relation to their aesthetic beauty.

egon spengler

Rubberbandits wrote:

Avant garde My bottom. Great Album but not avant garde. Kid A Still more or less adheres to the pop format. Kid A may borrow slightly from the avant garde and I would consider it avant garde or Modernist in terms of Radiohead's career but thats it. True Avant Garde dosent obey musical rules or even attempt to convey aesthetic beauty, listen to the likes of "Silver apples of the moon" by Morton Subotnik, "Electronic meditation" by Tangerine dream, "Lumpy Gravy" by Fank Zappa or even John Cage's compositions for prepared piano. None of these works give a sh*t if anyone likes them, they are completely autonomous in relation to their aesthetic beauty.

rules of atonality, the rule of rejecting rules, these sound like rules to me which are used in modernist music. I never said that the album is not autonomous in its beauty. It seems apparent that the band really didnt give a **** in the first place whether people liked it or not. If they did then it would ok computer 2. Im talking in the context of mainstream rock. What they are doing is modernist in comparison to a lot of other well known bands like the artic monkeys.

herbieflowers

COCK wrote:

Also, the liffey is mentioned in how to disappear completely, i just think thats cool

Yeah the rowd's gonna go crazy if they play it at the Mrley Park gig, just like they did the last time they were here!