Kid A

They do?

It's very hard to top that. Salut!

The fact remains, though: Idioteque is the best thing they've ever done.

It's pretty spectacular, and even more so live I've found. Something about it is absolutely right in concert.

YA KID K wins. Seriously.

in baseball however it would mean you walked with the gods i.e Dom.

The only song on Kid A that really bothers me at all is "In Limbo," but only if I'm being picky. The album really flows as a piece for me. Though I avoid listening to it on my walkman because I tend to get extremely paranoid. I almost went insane one time listening to it on the way to my then-girlfriend's house. When I got there the place was empty but there were a dozen FLIES swarming around. After searching for bodies, I went into full-on warrior mode, scaring the housemates when they got back cuz I was screaming and hitting the unknown-to-them flies in the bathroom.

I haven't really listened to Kid A for quite a while because a few of the songs seem to correspond directly to a certain point of my life. The album has to be worth something for that, I guess.

And I will have no Amnesiac dissage. It has most of the great songs, from those sessions, it just doesn't flow as well as Kid A.

I ask you, how could a "collection of b-sides" as crap journalists so loved to call it at the time, contain most of the great individual songs?

And to go off topic, did you enjoy that Trachtenberg Family show in Ames? I was the guy at the next table over for the opening acts.

Trachtenbergs were a train wreck, don't get me started

What my other self said.

-- J0hn Darn1elle (edito...), January 21st, 2004.

It's not that impressive.

And yeah I'm not a radiohead fan. Amnesiac was OK, Hail I havent decided.

Pablo Honey prob crap, based on: I remember radiohead on some early johnny vaughn prog, being boing indie band, played about three songs yawnyawn and ended the show with 'Creep' and WTFWT? went out and go the only thing available with it that was cheap, a cassette single of Oh no pop is dead long live pop whatever, with a live version of Creep.

Apart from that... no

Amnesiac = Much, much better. Damn, I have to listen to that again.

HttT = Fucking great. The only one that I feel like going back and listening to anytime (although I did burn out on it for a while after it came out).

Why make the distinction? Either it's good or it's not, you don't have separate 'pop/rock' and 'electronic' ears.

"Everything In Its Right Place" and "In Limbo" are two of my favourite Radiohead songs ever, the rest of Kid A bores me senseless. HTTT has dated really badly and it's only half a year old, I can listen to "2+2=5" and "I Will" and maybe some others individually but the mediocrity is too overwhelming all in one go.

Kid A was, for a lot of people I know that weren't particularly fans of Radiohead, the album that got them interested. Their (bad-ass) performance of "The National Anthem" and "Idioteque" on SNL also played a big part.

Kid A & Amnesiac should have been one album with the filler cut out. Seriously. I still love them both, though. Hail To The Thief was one of the few albums I didn't fall out of love with this year, so that's an accomplishment. But then again, I'm a Radiohead fan, so maybe I can't be objective.

Not completely. There are a couple songs on Kid A that would sound good in many different arrangements.

There is a quite a bit of electronic music that sounds good because it sounds good, the sound is the thing and it wouldn't neccessarily translate into another arrangement.

It seemed that many reviewers from the rock/pop world that gave Kid A a positive review went into how interesting and innovative the production was, which compared to the some Warp/IDM artists Radiohead seemed to be aping was fairly tame and light. Radiohead was even trying to get Autechre to open some shows, so it seemed to me a pretty direct route trying to get to those kind of listeners or incorporate those kind of sounds.

I think people getting all gushy on Timberland and The Neptunes is kind of the same thing. It is pretty good and sounds way different than anything in the pop music realm with vocals, but if you put it side by side with a bunch of electronic tracks whether for dance or not, it isn't quite as mind boggling, production wise. Now for pop music hooks, that is a different kind of thing.

Oprah Magazine: What Other Celebs Could Do One?

In the case of Kid A, it was hailed as a rock/electronic hybrid masterpiece when it most certainly was not. Suddenly, there was this collective shock of a "rock" band incorporating electronic influences into their music, as if this had hever been done before by Bowie, Krautrock bands, Tortoise and many other post-rock groups of their ilk, Blur on "13", etc. Furthermore, "Kid A" sounds more like a band trying to play with electronics for the sake of playing with electronics, rather than use these new (to them) sound creation tools to augment their songs. On "Kid A", Radiohead just wanted to experiment and forgot to write any decent songs to go along with their doodling.

As if that weren't enough, in interviews at the time, Thom Yorke spoke about Warp Records as if he'd discovered the Dead Sea Scrolls. It's one thing to pay homage to your influences. It's quite another thing act as though these influences were lying somewhere wasted and buried, just waiting for a proper band like Radiohead to uncover them and ascribe some meaning to them.

ARRRGGHHHH!

the duff cut on kid a is 'how to disappear completely' - a by-the-numbers string-laden ballad with a really sullen vocal performance from thom. his singing lets the gorgeous motion picture soundtrack down a bit as well. otherwise: flawless.

Anyone have a thought on this?

yes, i had this poster!

the rock & roll uncanny

The first song on Kid A paints the Manhattan skyline at 8:00 A.M. on Tuesday morning; the song is titled "Everything in Its Right Place." People woke up that day "sucking on a lemon," because that's what life normally feels like on the Manhattan subway; the city is a beautiful, sour, sarcastic place. We soon move onto song two, which is the title track. It is the soundd of woozy, ephemeral normalcy. It is the sound of Jonny Greenwood playing an Ondes Martenot, an instrument best remembered for its use in the Star Trek theme song. You can imagine humans walking to work, riding elevators, getting off the C train and the 3 train, and thinking about a future that will be a lot like the present, only better. The term KID A is Yorke's moniker for the first cloned human, which he (only half jokingly) suspects may already exist. The consciously misguided message is this: Science is the answer. Technology solves everything, befcause technology is invulnerable. And this is what almost everyone in America thought around 8:30 A.M. But something happens three and a half minutes into "Kid A". It suddenly doesn't feel right, and you don't exactly know why. This is followed by track three, "The National Anthem"

This is when the first plane slams into the north tower at 470 mph.

"The National Anthem" sounds a bit like a Morphine song. It's a completley different direction from the first two songs on KID A, and it's confusing; it's chaotic. "What's going on?," the lyrics ask. "What's going on?" It gets crazier and crazier, until the second plane hits the second tower (at 9:03 A.M. in reality and at 3:42 in the song). For a moment, things are somber. But then it gets more anarchic. (Reader's Note: You might want to consider playing KID A right about now, since I'm not always so good at explaining shit like this). Which leads into track four, "How to Disappear Completely." This is the point where it feels like the world is possibly ending. People try to convince themselves that they are not there. People keep repeating: "This isn't happening". People are "floating" (read: falling) to the earth. We are told of strobe lights and blown speakers; there are fireworks and hurricanes. This is a song about being burned alive and jumping out of windows, and this is a song about having to watch those things happen. And it's followed by an instrumental piece without melody ("Treefingers"), because what can you say when skyscrapers collapse? All you can do is stare at them with your hand over your mouth.

Time passes. It's afternoon. KID A's side two, if you have it on vinyl. Action is replaced by thought. The song is "Optimistic, " a word that becomes more meaningful in its absence. It has lyrics about Ground Zero ("vultures circle the dead"), and it offers a glimpse into how Al Qaeda members think Americans perceive international diplomacy ("the big fish eat the little ones, the big fish eat the little ones/Not my problem, give me song"). Track seven, "In Limbo" is about how the United States has been shaken out of its fantasy, with "nowhere to hide," finding only "trap doors that open, I spiral down"......

He goes on, but you get the general idea. You should really check it our yourselves if you're curious, but I thought I'd share some of it here.

my favorite 9/11 album is pj harvey's stories from the city, whose opening words are "look out ahead/see danger come," whose second song has her throwing "my bad fortune off the top of a tall building," and goes on to touch on the struggle for love in the middle of a world gone to war ... "city people in the dark" ... new york city on a wednesday evening ("i think it's wednesday," actually, which makes it even better, more haunting) when it's silent except for the helicopters and "the mess we're in" (and, hey, isn't that thom "kid a" yorke singing with her on that one?) ... standing on a brooklyn rooftop watching the lights flash in manhattan ... horses in my dreams pulling out of here because they are free ... and, finally, just wanting to "float, take life as it comes."

well duh its klosterman! i wanna read the book now.

isn't kid a on vinyl three ten inches or something?

Slung from the hoary heavens
With disbelief suspended
On a shining pendulum of faith

Hanging half awake and dreaming
Of burning cities gleaming
Beneath a sky of ash and slate

And as the fuselage goes down
You're thinking ain't it funny
Still owe some people money

It's hard to keep from laughing
No Smoking sign is flashing
Your mask descends without a sound
Your starboard hope receding
Even the sky is bleeding
You sure could use a smoke right now

And all the people wave their arms
But you can't hear them screaming
You're floating to the ceiling

There's no gravity that can bring you down again
It's almost over now
And you hope they don't wake you up.

Now the sun is shining
Somewhere the sun is shining
But it sure ain't shining on you now.

I always dreamed of big crowds
Plooms of smoke and high clouds

I think Hstencil pointed that out to me, actually, the first time I ever met him (pre-ILX).

bob dylan, love and theft. first words: "tweedle dum and tweedle dee/they're throwing knives into the tree/two big bags of dead man's bones."

mariah carey, glitter. from the opening song: "toes curl from the beat street to melrose, the whole world." or, "i like it when we smoked out, choked out."

"Hopeless bleak despair
It was always there
And then, one day, it disappeared
In a puff of smoke
In an unceremonious way
One day, it disappeared."

or a co-conspirator.

spat out with real ire.

Thom says....

"So who hear doesn't know about it? Everybody knows? What I'm talking about? You don't know what I'm talking about? You don't know about the airplanes in America? You don't know? Somebody tell him! I'll tell you. Well, I can't remember it all now. Two jets.....three, seven, i don't know. I've lost count. How many? Four jets. One crashed into the Pentagon, two crashed into the World Trade Center. One got shot out of the sky by the Americans. They say it crashed as well? That's why....things are are a little bit mute tonight, and I'm sorry. This is called 'Paranoid Android'"

:::crowd cheers:::::

"The entire series of writing on Amnesiac on LPTJ"

Is it possible to get one's own interpretation or personal association "wrong"?

ALL SONGS EVERYWHERE ABOUT DOOM = PRECOGNITIVE

So, there I am: overnight shift. I finally get a chance to spin Kid A in its entirety, as synched up with Klosterman's admittedly half-assed outline of it mimicing the events of September 11. For some reason, during my overnight shifts in the dead of the early morning, I so often think back to the events of that day, going so far as to trawl the `Net for conspiracy sites or footage etc. It's like picking at a scar, I cannot explain it. Like many New Yorkers, I almost miss the disquieting state of alarm the events conjured.

In any case, there I am, tracking Kid A and attempting to match up in my mind the events of that fateful day as Chuck depicts them. In doing so, I'm flipping through the exhaustively complicated booklet that comes with Kid A (I'm not talking about the "hidden" booklet under the disc tray either, but rather the booklet that comes sheetheed within the translucent front of the jewelbox. I've googled extensively for the image I'm about to describe to you, but came up empty, so you'll have to follow this with me.

Open the booklet. The front is the front cover (featuring the crudely drawn mountains and the album title). The second two paged feature: on the left: another mountainous scene, dwarfed by an indefinable white figure that towers over little red cubes and menacing figures with big teeth and Mickey Mouse ears. On the opposite side, what looks like a drab landscape. No hugely defining characteristics to describe. Turn this page.

On the second two page, there is a flap on the left hand side that, if opened, depicts a nother mountainous landscape. Don't bother with that. On the right side, is an ambiguous design on translucent grey paper. Turn the page.

On this pairing, on the left hand side (on the translucent grey paper) is what looks like a hallway framed with stalagmites. On the right hand side is some geometric design over a crude landscape. The coloers are black, grey and light brown. Turn the page.

On the right hand side of this paring, we see a group of figures (their backs to us) looking at what looks like a giant iceberg or possibly a wave. On the opposite side is just more of that same ice/wave imaery (with a splotch of red in the lower left hand corener).

Stay with me, there's a point to all of this.

Turn the page again.

On the left hand side of the booklet, ther is an ambiguous picture of what looks like a landscape from a birds eye perspective with lots of grey and black geometric shapes. On the other side is another indefineable illustration on that same grey, translucent paper. Turn the page.

On the next pairing, on the left you have the other side of the grey, translucent page....on the RIGHT side there is a flap that opens. OPEN THAT FLAP.

Open the flap to its fullest extent. Over four colored panels, there is depicted what looks like a distressed landscape, followed by a black panel featuring liner notes

ON THE COLORED PANAL IMMEDIATELY TO THE LEFT ON THE LINER NOTES PANEL there is a vague but discernible image of two oblong, rectangular blocks. One sports an antenae like spire from its top, while the other seemingly is hemorhagging a swathe or fiery oranges and reds, as if its either ablaze or bleeding. To my mind, this image looks eerily similar to the Twin Towers.

Yes, it was late. Yes, the power of suggestion is a potent one, but indulge me and take a look at this design and tell me what you see.

Bahahahahahaa!

As if you couldn't have just led us to the last page faster than that, ya card! ;)

I'm still freaking out about the fact that I never found the secret booklet behind the CD before now.

Bass line on How To Disappear is so great

The dissonant strings that open How To Disappear still remind me of those on Scott Walker's It's Raining Today. But I agree, it's a sweet bass line.

I've always wondered if they appropriated the strings (or the idea) from Sleepwalker's Woman.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wMC-Px27dFI

probably from penderecki since j. greenwood rips him off in all his "serious" music

He rips off Messiaen a fair bit too.

that said one of the working titles from the "kid a" sessions was "jonny's scott walker song", so...

ha! i did not know that but it makes sense.

Pretty much nobody will read the article after seeing the crazy clickbaity headline

https://www.theguardian.com/music/2020/oct/02/why-radiohead-are-the-blackest-white-band-of-our-times

what. the. ever. loving. fuck.

I was dreading this turning up on ILX.

The headline is... not good, and not actually indicative of what the piece is about (which is far more nuanced and interesting)

Happy 20th Anniversary to one of my favorite albums ever.

A bit disappointed we wont be getting a 20th anniversary edition like we did with oknotok

if I was the writer of that piece I'd be livid with the editors

looking forward to a Kid A relisten today, hugely formative record for me

headline is obviously insanely poor judgement, but the piece on its own terms also reaches a bit far imo

This tradition can be felt across the history of Black pop, in, for instance, the Afrofuturist aesthetics of Sun Ra

Sun Ra is "Black pop"?

was very very relieved to discover the writer of that piece was not a white man

The Guardian wouldn't have published it otherwise. And it's not just in the title – the first paragraph suggests it straightaway.

That piece is just a bit... hmmm

Yeah I don't think it's especially controversial to suggest that Radiohead (or at least 21st century Radiohead) have engaged with black music way more than the vast majority of white rock bands to have emerged in that time, and that it's relatively under-discussed facet of them.

'The Black era of Radiohead came fully to the fore on Kid A'

She failed to mention the bbe comp of black artists covering Radiohead

i remember black artists being "pushed" on the side by interviews with the band at the time, in the music they played before concerts, etc. alice coltrane, al green, dub reggae. does the article go into detail about that? i don't really want to click on the guardian right now it's friday and trump got covid.

around the time of ok computer there wasn't any of that soul influence iirc

Thing is though, the kinds of artists she mentions are very eclectic artists. They are very open to white / rock influences. So while Radiohead obv struck a chord, its also just cos they were the biggest most interesting band around for a certain period. So ofc ppl like meshell, Bilal, etc were going to be interested. They weren't exactly obscure. Many rock bands represent ideas like resistance, etc. Now imaginig a white writer in the 90s writing a piece on how PE were the last great rock band (which was the premise of several pe pieces at one point)

Interesting bit of trivia- OKC was voted one of the top 20 albums of the year in hip hop connection magazine lol

OKC always seemed more interesting production wise than other British rock of the period

I'd love to hear someone rap over 'Airbag', that beat is fire.

Yeah I don't think it's especially controversial to suggest that Radiohead (or at least 21st century Radiohead) have engaged with black music way more than the vast majority of white rock bands to have emerged in that time

tbh i probably would argue with "way more". article strikes me as suffering from the exaggeration of fandom, where to a fan 'radiohead incorporates some jazz influences' becomes 'radiohead are at the forefront of jazz influence in rock music'

I've read this writer on prince. She has a habit of liking something/someone, then contorting that like into something that fits her politics. Which I guess makes for interesting reading, I find it a bit eyebrow raising at times though.

Not someone who approaches music or a musician on their own terms

I'd love to hear someone rap over 'Airbag', that beat is fire.

― pomenitul

Not quite it but there's a mashup of Roc Boys / Airbag:

https://youtu.be/3nm3UtkEKY8

Heh, that got a chuckle out of me. I wonder whether the mashup era will ever make a serious comeback.

pom have you head of this neil cicieraga fellow

I have not, boomer that I am.

i bought ok computer about a year before kid a came out and my other favorite band's turn toward electronic music (sp adore) was already my favorite album of all time, so i was perfectly posed to fully embrace this record and not wonder where the tunes went. i listened to it a little today, "the national anthem" is still like what???? they did that????

A friend and I recently discussed our 5 favorite Radiohead songs and albums. The first three songs I named were Everything in It's Right Place, The National Anthem, and Idioteque, and yet I still lean toward Amnesiac as my favorite of their albums. If pressed, I'd probably say Kid A is their "best" though.

I saw them at MSG in 2001; "The National Anthem" was amazing live.

there was a time where i didn't understand the appeal of "idioteque." was i ever so thick?

Feel like such a chump that I've never seen them. Oh well. Brad OTM on The National Anthem.

Idioteque is one of the few songs out there that can make me cry.

Eventually The National Anthem will sound dated but it hasn't happened yet

I was in 8th grade and utterly obsessed with Radiohead when Kid A dropped, to the point where October 3, 2000 was the most anticipated day of my life up until that point lol. I had already downloaded the leak on Napster--the first 7 songs were 192kbps but Morning Bell forward was only available in 128, so I was really hyped to hear the whole thing in CD quality. And of course the artwork and hidden booklet beneath the CD tray was like some kind of holy scripture to an adolescent prog nerd. Also the little promotional "blips" and "scary bear" iconography were a major factor in the Kid A mystique at the time. Glad someone compiled them all: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c6YkH6nUG8o

my other favorite band's turn toward electronic music (sp adore) was already my favorite album of all time, so i was perfectly posed to fully embrace this record and not wonder where the tunes went

For me it was Thom raving about Autechre's LP5 in interviews at the time. I picked that up and it rearranged my brain to the extent that Kid A felt tame in comparison.

I didn't see them live until 2012, but when I did they played The Amazing Sounds of Orgy, for which I feel extremely blessed

Idioteque only gains power as time goes by. This band has accumulated a stunning body of work tbh

i saw them that october at the greek theater, i was so wound up i can't remember anything about it now lol. i'm one of those people for whom radiohead are now firmly in a closed chapter of my life though if i hear a handful of songs out in the wild i still feel a pang.

I was in 8th grade and utterly obsessed with Radiohead when Kid A dropped, to the point where October 3, 2000 was the most anticipated day of my life up until that point lol

whoa same timeline! and the amnesiac release date was even more intense for me

9th grade for me, and same.

I’m the biggest “treefingers” in the universe

scary

I love this author, but I haven't read this one (just came out the past few days):

https://www.amazon.com/This-Isnt-Happening-Radioheads-Beginning/dp/0306845687/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=steven+hyden&qid=1601681718&sr=8-1

I guess I should say a little more about why I think this would be a good book on Kid A. The author normally writes like you're having an intelligent conversation with a good friend about a record you both love and understand. He doesn't write in an overly academic way, if that's the kind of criticism you normally consume.

I remember having to suffer hours of The Ink Spots, of all people, being played over the PA at a homecoming gig circa Amnesiac.

I saw them at MSG in 2001; "The National Anthem" was amazing live.

I was lucky enough to see them on the North American Kid A 'tour' as such in 2000 (dates in NYC, Toronto, and my show, LA) and that's what they started with -- an insanely powerful moment, for a second I almost felt like what it must be to have seen Joy Division. But the whole show was remarkable, and while it was the third of the five times I've seen them overall -- sadly haven't since 2003, annoyingly -- that was the show that finally underscored that the band live was a different and ultimately better thing than the studio work.

^ I just want to call out that Ned is one of my favorite critics ever, having just spent time talking about another critic's book on this subject. #Irony. :)

itsasmallworldafterall.gif

(And more seriously, thank you.)

That must have been the same tour I saw, then, so 2000 not 2001. Kid Koala and the Beta Band opened.

treefingers fan

dammit

That must have been the same tour I saw, then, so 2000 not 2001. Kid Koala and the Beta Band opened.

― but also fuck you (unperson), Friday, October 2, 2020 8:31 PM (six minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

And now we have another amazing critic! I'm done. I'll stop. I've been on a personal mission the past few years to state what I love about the people I admire. It's how I stay sane.

That must have been the same tour I saw, then, so 2000 not 2001. Kid Koala and the Beta Band opened.

Nope, your show was 2001 -- they did a separate full Amnesiac tour and those were the openers out here for that as well. The Kid A dates really were the equivalent of those two/three date 'tours' that a lot of UK bands in particular would do just to hit the coasts initially, except in this case it just happened to be the band at the center of the discourse and topping the charts and playing an actual big venue instead of a club.

the equivalent of those two/three date 'tours' that a lot of UK bands in particular would do just to hit the coasts initially

Ah, what I used to refer to as the Einstürzende Neubauten "US tour" - New York, Chicago, San Francisco and L.A.

Our equivalent is the American bands UK tour which consisted of London.

There was a pot delivery service in NYC in those days called Radiohead and all of his different strains were named unwisely after Radiohead songs. There was one called 'The Bends', like, I can't wait to try that!!

I only got to see them once, HTTT tour with Malkmus opening. They ruled, obviously.

https://www.setlist.fm/setlist/radiohead/2003/parc-jean-drapeau-montreal-qc-canada-3bd6ec78.html

Heh, I was there too. 'Twas indeed glorious.

all I really remember about Malkmus was lots of people thinking we were getting two openers (Malkmus and the Jicks)

Ok, i'll bite. I only saw Radiohead once, unless you count the Letterman appearance where they played 'Karma Police'. It was the last show on the OKC tour, at Radio City Music Hall in April 1998 which i think is the one in "meeting people is easy" (never seen it).
I found out there was a ticketmaster at the 24 hour Rite Aid down the steeet from me in Harlem. So I collected money from a few friends and stood there in front if the 1hr photo counter at 5 in the morning and was first in line. By 7 there was a line of Columbia students out the door. The tix went on sale at like 8:30 iirc, and i got 4 really good tix on the floor and 2 in the first balcony. The student behind me in line got tix in the upper balcony, and when it got to the third person in line they were sold out.
Lenny Kravitz was seated right near us in the audience. I was in the 8th grade :)

Spiritualuzed opened (i was a huge fan at the time) and their set was just mud.
Radiohead were obviously amazing and to this day i'm really impressed with how they translated this really multilayered album to live performance without recreating it exactly.

Yeah I saw the last LA date on the OKC tour and it was during "Exit Music for a Film" -- looking around from the back of the balcony and seeing the place absolutely RAPT, like nobody was saying anything or cheering or talking with a friend at all, they were all just simply staring with utter fascination -- that I thought "Okay, these guys are the new U2." Didn't exactly turn out that way but close enough, really.

I just loaded up a playlist with Kid A and Amnesiac and the b-sides and...idk man it's tough to think of a set of "rock" sessions that produced a wider variety of awesome songs, or so fucking many great ones, other than like....MCIS. And these are way more consistently essential. (OK, I wouldn't cry if "Fast-Track" blinked out of existence.)

it is also wild to me that two records with such utterly distinct "vibes" were built out of the same sessions - a wonder of sequencing.

kid a was easily the most important personal record throughout my adolescence. its one of the areas of musical overlap i share with my wife. nowadays ive taken to my personal 'kid amensiac' playlist in lieu of going the whole album anymore, but i think i need to play it tomorrow for old time's sake.

i went to the show in houston in 2001 with my mom at 15 (lol) and somehow didnt let my wildass social anxiety make it turn sour. i saw them 2 other times, once in dallas during the in rainbows tour (mustve been 07 or 08) and in denver for king of limbs.

8th grade Kid A club unite! If you weren't in 8th grade, you were more like Kid B imo. Or Adult Z.

I was at that 2001 Houston show...pretty sure the pot cloud over Cynthia Woods that night cured all ills.

oh god I think I'm also in 8th grade Kid A club. I remember another kid, a Limp Bizkit fan, crowing about how Chocolate Starfish sold better.

Non-American here: what age is 8th grade? I was 15 when it came out - very important record for me too.

Saw them on the HTTT tour in 2004 - Thom was sick and apologised after he started losing his voice halfway but it was still a good show. I remember it was the first time I'd ever seen live video screens being manipulated in real time - was blown away.

And then again at Summer Sonic 2016, during my honeymoon. :)

it's pretty weird how singular kid a still feels, nothing else has really synthesised those particular influences in this way or even just ripped it off even half-decently

I remember another kid, a Limp Bizkit fan, crowing about how Chocolate Starfish sold better.

Haha. I think that was also the autumn of the most awful middle school bday party ever. Eminem, South Park, my peers humping balloons. Help me forget, Kid A.

Which, given Radiohead's appearance IN an episode of South Park around then...

"But he's got cancer! In his ass!"

honestly whatever SP's sins that was an incredible guest spot

it's pretty weird how singular kid a still feels, nothing else has really synthesised those particular influences in this way or even just ripped it off even half-decently

I mean it all came out of a pretty singular situation so it makes sense to me - academic music nerds with eclectic tastes and profound skill + extreme pressure and expectation + a leisurely recording schedule incl time and space to fuck around + the familiarity and comfort that can only come from having kept the same lineup for their entire existence + a symbiotic relationship with a stable producer. Most bands aren't lucky enough to get even one of those things going for them.

oh god I think I'm also in 8th grade Kid A club. I remember another kid, a Limp Bizkit fan, crowing about how Chocolate Starfish sold better.

― the typo doer (Simon H.), Saturday, October 3, 2020 12:03 AM (fifty-one minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

This and more particularly White Pony for me were the important transitional albums in making me realize that not becoming an immediate 2x platinum album didn’t invalidate it’s greatness.

oh yeah WP has that same "fully formed on impact" perfection vibe to me, again a product of a major band with time, space, and money to burn

They were on South Park? I was pretty good at ~disappearing completely~ when confronted with that show ;)

8th grade = 13-14, Roz

thanks, close enough I guess. :)

i should revisit this bandz

fuzz bass riff on The National Anthem is one of the great rock sounds of all time

I pretty much checked out after Kid A and have still never really listened to anything post Amnesiac. My problem is Thom: everything I love about his voice on the early records is a turn off on the latter ones. Can't explain it really. Anyway, Kid A is still completely magnificent. It's flawless.

I only saw them once, at Glastonbury in 2003. It was magic.

Funny to think of this as a middle school album. I was 21 and really into drone/minimalism in 2000. (Gr 8 Badmotorfinger club, I guess?) I was totally sceptical of this as an overly genteel watered-down version. It took a year or so for me to come back to it (I think because I was buying a lot of prog vinyl!) and give it the time to take the songs on their own terms and notice everything that was going on. It's the one I come back to most. It has a really singular mood and the songs are so strong. "Idioteque" is one of my favourite songs.

Jonny's Ondes Martenot fetish another major reason for the sound of this album being so singular (another thing basically no other band would either think to do or have the juice and skill to pull it off)

It's only on a couple of songs but it leaves a huge impression.

Looking back it's weird to compare this to OK Computer which at the time felt like a signpost forward for guitar-bass-drums rock music, a route than was never really taken. Kid A felt like an indulgence, I'm not giving Radiohead the credit for this especially, but the music of the first part of the 21st century turned out to sound a lot more like Kid A than OKC.

Muse sounded more like OKC, ha.

I pretty much checked out after Kid A and have still never really listened to anything post Amnesiac. My problem is Thom: everything I love about his voice on the early records is a turn off on the latter ones. Can't explain it really. Anyway, Kid A is still completely magnificent.

― Vanishing Point (Chinaski)

He lost the ability to control his falsetto effortlessly from HTTT onwards. Specially evident live, he used to nail every performance and he started having days were his voice strains too much and it sounds whiny instead of angelic.

I still think he nails it on record, he just has to do more takes to get it right unless he’s having a good voice day. HTTT isn’t a good example because iirc they recorded that one in a couple of weeks when usually they take more time and do an obsessive amount of takes. I don’t like how his vocals sound in most of the record. On In Rainbows his voice sounds as good as it did in the 90s. KOL and AMSP are hit or miss on his vocals but the rest of the band - specially Jonny - have upped their arrangements game and I find those albums good enough to focus on the instrumentation without the vocals being too much of a problem.

I suspect a lot of the vocal experimentations on Kid A is from Thom being dissatisfied with his vocal takes and thinking ahead, knowing his falsetto would eventually be harder to pull off and wanting to use it less. His vocals used to be the main focal point of the band and from Kid A onwards they begin to work as textures.

Muse sounded more like OKC, ha

This isn't really true though, is it?

xp thats def true. i am not a classically trained vocal person, but isnt he progressing from chest to head voice over time. he used to absolutely belt.

Muse definitely had a period where they were kind of offering one vision of a streamlined, simplified OKC style sound, complete with tech-anxiety. But they've become a different, much cornier, and imo considerably more fun beast since then.

Per unperson and I upthread comparing notes on American tour dates -- as mentioned Kid Koala and the Beta Band opened in 2001 but I was racking my brains trying to remember who opened at the actual Kid A LA show in 2000 (yeah, I could have looked it up but I was half asleep). Then it hit me -- Handsome Boy Modelling School. At once a very 2000-era choice but also perfectly appropriate.

They were on South Park?

Oh were they ever:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ex9cAbzGiN0

And this wasn't the only bit they did, this is just from the end of the episode, which ran a couple of months before Kid A was released.

I was in 10th grade, quite fond of it, going through a terrible time...I think that entire year, I only listened to Kid A, The Pixies, Simon and Garfunkel, and Sonic Youth. I was such a sad little fag...

Which tbh is why I find it hard to listen to this record. It just reminds me of being a sad teenager.

Jonny's Ondes Martenot fetish another major reason for the sound of this album being so singular (another thing basically no other band would either think to do or have the juice and skill to pull it off)

― the typo doer (Simon H.),

Oh yeah! I always forget that Jonny Greenwood was my point of entry to Messiaen. And by extension Takemitsu, I guess.

I was in the 11th grade and did not buy this album until later on. I only and always listened to Gay Dad that year. Idioteque could never compare to Oh Jim.

I was the drummer on that Gay Dad album. Good times.

20 years later, and while this album has grown on me more over the years, I still think of it as a disjointed, slightly awkward and strangely airless record despite some great moments

a disjointed, slightly awkward and strangely airless record

All of which could be seen as positives in the context of this album.

'Optimistic' really fucks with the album's flow I think, most of the more conventional songs on Amnesiac would have fitted better there.

But it's kind of a suite with 'In Limbo', so you'd have to get rid of that as well.

my only beef with this album is that I will always maintain that they kinda fucked up "Motion Picture Soundtrack" (though I do like this version as a closer)

I don't get the fuss about Motion Picture Soundtrack, it always struck me as more of a palate cleanser than an actual song.

no way, motion picture soundtrack is one of the ones they really got perfect. it's kinda fascinating that we can trace so many different arrangements of it now (with the ones on the oknotok cassette and the leaked minidiscs as well as the early acoustic version) but the final version is certainly my favourite

I don't get the fuss about Motion Picture Soundtrack, it always struck me as more of a palate cleanser than an actual song.

yes this is my beef! it *could* have been a song. like how they waited to do Videotape and TLW till they found the right arrangement.

I've always felt like the run from Optimistic through Idioteque is the meat of the album. I was listening to this in the car and the first part of the album sounded vaporous.
I love 'Everything In Its Right Place' (described by a friend as "like sliding into a warm bath"), but following it up with the title track lets the wind out its sails before the album gets going. Maybe the idea at the time was "Let's hit the 'Creep' fans with this and see who our real friends are", but it's an experiment that lacks impact and would have been better as a B-side.
'National Anthem' is also a brave new idea that doesn't quite hit the mark. I don't think I really appreciated it till I heard a live version.
'How To Disappear' is classic Radiohead balladry and a good song, but it kind of rattles around on Kid A, sandwiched between 'National Anthem' and 'Treefingers'. It's quite easy to switch off one's ears and lose interest.
The next three songs are really satisfying. No complaints.
I couldn't even tell you what 'Motion Picture Soundtrack' sounds like. They could have easily just left it off and ended with 'Morning Bell'.

Kid A felt brave at the time, but even then I remember thinking it could have been braver and the material just a bit stronger. Perhaps I would have better received a Kid Amnesiac hotchpotch of the strongest songs off each.

the album version of "true love waits" is kinda less of a song than the album version of "motion picture soundtrack", less fully formed. it's really one they never quite got right to me. the acoustic version is fine but obviously just translating that into a straight arrangement around that wouldn't have quite worked (a fan made a version that does that ages ago and it wasn't bad but i very much get why the band didn't do that). none of the okc-era arrangements that surfaced from the minidiscs really worked. the album version is alright but just missing something to me, it's too sparse and i really miss some of the chord changes from the acoustic version.

every version of "videotape" is great but the album version is probably my least favourite. the way they played it live after the album was released that adds back in the ascending guitar melody from the early version in the middle really improves on it

I don't like TLW or Videotape that much either! Both sound slight to me as well. My fave Radiohead closer is actually A Wolf at the Door, also their least typical.

yeah "Wolf" rules really hard

Considering Thom spent a reportedly long time deliberating over the sequencing of OK Computer (which to me flows extremely well), I've long been disappointed by the sequencing and flow of all subsequent Radiohead albums up to AMSP.
Amnesiac is massively frontloaded and gets so lost in the second half (redeemed by Glasshouse ofc).
By contrast, I hate the way HTTT starts with two crescending openers, gets a bit wish-washy around halfway through and then BACKLOADS all the decent tracks towards the end.
In Rainbows starts with two tracks that are stylistically disimilar to the rest of the album, making me wish they'd lopped them off and released them as a double A-side instead.
AMSP is perfectly sequenced, but that might be because it's more of a sustained mood throughout the album (other than the opener, which I generally skip).

I have never understood folks' sequencing issues w/ IR, it's pretty perfect to me, and they chose the right songs to keep on CD2

IR sequencing is very appealing to me as well, they've even been considerate enough to place my two least favourite tracks right at the end so I can easily skip them.

I agree HTTT could have done with more work. 2+2=5 is such a great opener, but as dl says the momentum is squandered by placing an inferior, similarly structured song straight after.

even Thom agrees w that assessment, but idk I like HTTT's unwieldy feel

guys

eh, it doesn't matter. expecting anyone to have good opinions about radiohead and the glorious technicolour thrill-ride that is HTTT compared to all their other albums is pointless ;)

pvmic

Ftr HTTT is a wonder in its own right and I will never tire of it.

I'll forever stand lonely by my unpopular opinion that the track 'Kid A' is the best song on here. Also, it should have been 20+ minutes long, pushing like four of the weaker songs off it. I resent that Radiohead didn't go full 'Djed' on their unsuspecting audience.

radiohead's lack of long songs is a serious flaw imo

pvmic

― pomenitul, Tuesday, 6 October 2020 12:35 (four minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

"Kid A" the song is cool in that the live versions and studio version are very distinct but equally dope

Not a fan of compact prog?

I assume this dearth is due to perfectionism.

xp

yeah they like to be very very controlled about their music. apparently the plan was to have 'there there' as a monster and jam it way out, but that got shelved

Yes! It's proven to be a song that can spin out in so many different ways.

xp to Simon H.

I'm certainly a big fan of many of HTTT's songs but I never really listen to it as an album.

but even some ostensibly throwaway b-side like 'supercollider' manages to gain great power purely from being 7 minutes long - seriously, why not try a few more like that

radiohead's lack of long songs is a serious flaw imo

― Chip-vill-A (imago), Tuesday, October 6, 2020 2:40 PM (two minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

Wholly otm.

I can't think of any Radiohead songs that would benefit from being longer, and a couple which could do with being slightly shorter.

By 2040 we’ll have our conceptual double album of 20 min+ avant-prog epics, they’ve got it in them.

but even some ostensibly throwaway b-side like 'supercollider' manages to gain great power purely from being 7 minutes long - seriously, why not try a few more like that

― Chip-vill-A (imago)

I like Supercollider but disagree with your odd thesis that its effectiveness comes from its length.

its effectiveness comes from that beautiful and mysterious melody being allowed to play itself out fully

I think it does so a good minute before the songs shudders to a close but

Struggling to think of many Radiohead songs that would be improved by extending them for a few more minutes, it's likely to bring out their worst tendencies. They're a band improved by the restrictions brought about by economy imo. (One of the problems with HTTT is that it's at least three songs too long).

'There There' is one that they might be able to pull it off with.

iirc the initial live version was a couple minutes longer?

there's a 7 minute demo of it yeah

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6q56tcQlZeM

in general their restraint is much more of an asset than a liability, their perfectionism otoh could stand to be slightly toned down at times

if they were to ever do anything more longform than they already have i'd expect it'd be some sort of really krauty thing or at least i'd hope so

'There There' is a partial Can tribute so it would have been a fitting candidate.

that There There is normal length then adds a pointless quiet bit on the end, lol

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lUagll2ujoE

there's also this 6 minute very jammy early version they did on a webcast in 2000

shame they don't do that sort of stuff anymore

question is whether yorke and company can find the guilelessness and lack of shame to knock out something like this (if they're not going to go full prog)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=do9JrQ1yzGw

see also: spiritualized

everything everything are a decent 'new' example of a proggish pop/rock post-radiohead band with a pathological objection to making long songs

i really hope there's some sort of kid a/amnesiac special reissue planned for next year with some outtakes & bits and pieces from the recording sessions etc. like with the okc reissue

there'd been a few interviews with ed where he made it sound like something was planned for this year but got put on hold due to covid

Spiritualized always seemed to have a complete lack of interesting or original ideas to me.

xpost

That plodding Blur track is worse than almost everything by Radiohead.

There There is their best song

lol i knew this would be the response

to think I could have put a Mansun song there instead

imago, you have a pathological obsession with long songs though. not that there's a problem with that, but i've never understood the idea that just extending the length of the song makes it better. I like the fact that despite all their experimenting, they remain a rock/pop band who generally stick to <5mins and a rough verse/chorus/verse structure.

‘There There’ is so bound up with a particular moment in my life that I am unable to approach it as pure music, but yes, it’s a top 5 RH song imo.

my point is that I'd just like to see them try! most bands have a 9-minute song somewhere in the archives if not longer. RH haven't done it even once! I think that generally their economy works really well for them, but every so often I'd like them to push it

Yet he (almost) never listens to classical music. Verily it boggleth the mind.

2xp

Long songs are fine if you've got enough ideas to fill them while still sustaining the mood. Plenty of long songs don't.

radiohead have ideas!

my point is that I'd just like to see them try!

But why?! I'd just like them to write the best songs they can at a length appropriate to them.

most bands have a 9-minute song somewhere in the archives if not longer.

Not convinced this is true...

my point is that I'd just like to see them try!

But why?! I'd just like them to write the best songs they can at a length appropriate to them.

I'd love to see them try it just once. A 2xlp, each side one track/piece, like f#a#∞. Go nuts.

(and f#a#∞ consists of shorter 'pieces' making up a bigger piece, I know, but that's the point)

I'd like to see them try the template Talk Talk used for their last two albums

rather than the over-simmered reduction that was Reckoner ;)

and f#a#∞ consists of shorter 'pieces' making up a bigger piece

I mean, you could say that about a lot of good albums...

'Daydreaming' is pretty long at 6.24 and seems exactly right. i wouldn't want it any longer or shorter really

daydreaming is one of their best songs imo

That would be a v good template, yes. The tyrannic mediocrity of AMSP is proof for me they should at least do something else next time.

(the Talk Talk template I mean)

I could listen to (and would like to hear) an at-least 10-minute version of "Treefingers"

but i will add that daydreaming is the only thing i really like off AMSP

daydreaming is one of their best songs imo

― Chip-vill-A (imago), Tuesday, October 6, 2020 2:41 PM (two minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

Agreed.

but i will add that daydreaming is the only thing i really like off AMSP

― Chip-vill-A (imago), Tuesday, October 6, 2020 2:44 PM (fourteen seconds ago) bookmarkflaglink

what

b-b-but "Ful Stop"!!!

don't you like full stop imago?

(xp)

might be due a relisten

oh! i liked that one with the really long title actually. the penultimate track

Love Supercollider, that synth sound is gorgeous. But tbh I wouldn’t mind if it was a minute shorter.

AMSP has plenty of 5min+ songs. It might be their album with the overall longer tracks. If the trend goes on LP10 might go full prog.

xp I just call that one Tinker Tailor and yes, it owns.

I remember AMSP sounding gorgeous but let down slightly by the quality of the songwriting.

At this stage in their career I'm more interested in hearing Radiohead do an album largely comprised of fast, energetic songs. Post-Amnesiac some of their best songs have been bangers.

xp I just call that one Tinker Tailor and yes, it owns.

The strings at the end!

Decks Dark is I think my favourite off MSP. Mostly a good album, a few of the lighter acoustic numbers are a bit unmemorable.

a moon shaped pool is one of their very best records imo, i had that argument with turrican a lot

there's also this 6 minute very jammy early version they did on a webcast in 2000

Nah don't like it, the groove isn't there (there).

the atmosphere was totally new for them, this kind of slow-bending dream in the woods

need I say more

https://i.ibb.co/VBdP3S8/Screen-Shot-2020-10-06-at-14-52-16.png

I think I will probably end up returning to AMSP a lot when I turn, idk, 50

i also don’t think the songwriting is weaker, its just more... open-ended

length is just a temporal feature, it’s what you do with the time you have, lj

I wouldn't change anything about Kid A. Funny to think of people describing it as a Warp rip-off or Thom Yorke singing over an IDM album at the time. Listening to it now, I don't really think that much of Aphex Twin or Autechre. I mean, it's there, ofc but it's ultimately more organic - the rock/folk/jazz elements seem as or more significant.

HTTT concert was great (I saw it in Toronto), yeah - loose jammier energetic versions of a lot of the songs. I don't really get this 'long songs' debate - there are loads of jazz or prog or classical albums I can listen to when I want longer compositions or improvisations.

"Identikit" is my keeper from AMSLP. In the end, I just didn't find most of it that memorable melodically and the compositions didn't depart enough from regular song structure for that to not matter, I think? It does sound great. xps Brad is making me want to revisit it.

Can I just say that Brad pointing out the veiled qualities of an undersung LP and claiming it is one of, if not the band’s very best, is up there with the ultimate ILM pvmic and I’m all for it.

Stanning for TKOL over and above the rest of their discography would be quite the challenge, however.

yeah i couldn’t do that

tkol from the basement would come close tho

lol this just in my inbox from norman recs

Rick Simpson
Everything All Of The Time: Kid A Revisited

Whirlwind Recordings / WR4765 / WR4765LP

Ever wondered what Radiohead’s Kid A would sound like as a jazz album? Well wonder no more as pianist Rick Simpson has made Everything All Of The Time: Kid A Revisited, a jazz reworking of the Oxford band’s groundbreaking classic. The album has been made to commemorate the original album’s 20th anniversary. On Whirlwind Recordings.

https://www.normanrecords.com/records/183920-rick-simpson-everything-all-of-the-time

Agree that AMSP is their best, or at least their most consistently enjoyable since OKC. Also agree with Matt DC that an album of energetic bangers would be the most welcome direction for their next album, whatever that might sound like.

Getting flashbacks of Richard Cheese covering ‘Creep’. Not good, not good at all.

I don't want to google that, do I?

*googles it*

Oh no

I decline any and all responsibility for what is about to ensue.

I wouldn't change anything about Kid A. Funny to think of people describing it as a Warp rip-off or Thom Yorke singing over an IDM album at the time. Listening to it now, I don't really think that much of Aphex Twin or Autechre. I mean, it's there, ofc but it's ultimately more organic - the rock/folk/jazz elements seem as or more significant.

I just don't think Thom is very good at doing these kind of IDM-style beats. They always sound a bit thin and unsatisfying. I've always felt similar about the AFX/Squarepusher track 'Freeman Hardy & Willis Acid' which he cites as turning him on to Rephlex/Warp in the first place.

Richard Cheese was of its time

Too late ;_;

I'd listen to a solid 30 seconds of a Frasier-bop 'idiotheque' tbqh

xxp

I've now decided RH should do a rollicking 16-minute The-Vile-Stuff-esque picaresque about CIA-sponsored juntas

"Idioteque" is the only track that I really think of as being built primarily around an electronic beat, though? And that's a full-on verse-chorus pop song where the melody is the central element. Maybe the title track? xps

Poor Peter Hepplethwaite's Iron Lung

xp

Otoh, I did think TKOL failed bc it seemed like a weak attempt at Burial/Four Tet.xp

Literally every Radiohead album since The Bends has been like...

Listen to on the day it comes out: yeah, I don't know what's going on here not sure I love Radiohead any more?

Listen to it 6 months - a few years later: HOLY HELL RADIOHEAD ARE AMAZING HOW DID THEY KNOW I NEEDED THIS NOW

Supercollider remains one of my favourite things they have ever done, but also HTTT is my favourite album so I am kind of out of step with canonical RH fandom.

TKOL has some good songs on it - they were doing some interesting polyrhythmic stuff. Little By Little is stunning

Did any IDM artists sample composers like Paul Lansky?

tkol was recorded too early, the arrangements in the basement sessions are like those songs at their fullest blossoming

i think i’ve made that exact post on ilx probably 50 times now

anyway i’m listening to amsp right now and just getting bowled over again by how good it is

Sund4r: not to my knowledge, no.

On a tangential note, that legendary Stockhausen interview where he comments on Afx, Plastikman and Scanner never gets old. Thinking about KH dissing RDJ’s ‘post-African repetitions’ still makes me chuckle:

https://www.synthtopia.com/content/2010/10/15/karlheinz-stockhausens-electronic-music-tips-for-aphex-twin-plastikman-others/

He has a good sense of atmosphere, but he is too repetitive again. So let him listen to my work Hymnen. There are found objects – a lot like he finds with his scanner, you see. But I think he should learn from the art of transformation, so that what you find sounds completely new, as I sometimes say, like an apple on the moon.

<333

when the choir comes in on "decks dark" @_@

"Idioteque" is the only track that I really think of as being built primarily around an electronic beat, though? And that's a full-on verse-chorus pop song where the melody is the central element. Maybe the title track? xps

― The nexus of the crisis and the origin of storms (Sund4r), Tuesday, October 6, 2020 3:22 PM (twenty-two minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

Idioteque works well because it's more electro than IDM and you can kind of dance to it. But yeah most of the rhythms on TKOL, and a lot of Thom's solo stuff lacks the drive and funk I'm looking for. It doesn't so much hit me in the gut as rattle annoyingly on the top of my head.

some of the songs on asmp aren't divisible into verses and choruses and yorke will just repeat this melody over and over while gradually changing it cf. "desert island disk"; i find this really hypnotic and it feels like the closest they may ever come to making a record that operates on shifts in mood and texture like later talk talk or happy/sad-era tim buckley

also "ful stop" is the correct length, and slaps

The beats on Kid A itself are gorgeous and intricate in a way I didn't really appreciate at the time.

I think my thing w AMSP is that I can never shake the feeling it's 1/3 a Radiohead album and 2/3 a (very good) lavish thom and Jonny side project

I think this is the complete Stockhausen interview, with the responses (Scanner took it to heart!): http://www.andreas.de/aphextwin/articles/interview2.html

heard the phased piano that opens "glass eyes" now and i'm like "this is the best radiohead album" which is as pom said is vmic, to the point where i think my ilx account should collapse on itself somehow

I was never sure how serious he was being. Didn't he hang with Lennon and have some jazz experience?xp

^ that choir and outro to “decks dark” are so great. One of the things about AMSP that always stuck with me was how they’d throw some great moment and not milk it. I’m thinking that choir moment in “Decks Dark,” the strings coming in during the back half of “The Numbers,” the “broken hearts make it rain” section of “Identikit.”

also the way they close "identikit" with that awesome guitar solo and then the song's just over!!! it rules

"the numbers" is absolutely on some laughing stock shit

lol Brad, keep ‘em coming.

Sund4r, thanks, it is indeed hard to say seeing as the man was a masterful troll (perhaps even to himself?).

tkol was recorded too early, the arrangements in the basement sessions are like those songs at their fullest blossoming

― mellon collie and the infinite bradness (BradNelson)

The basement version of Bloom in particular sounds like the universe being born in comparison to the flat album version.

heard the phased piano that opens "glass eyes" now and i'm like "this is the best radiohead album"

― mellon collie and the infinite bradness (BradNelson), Tuesday, October 6, 2020 10:12 AM (twelve minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

"glass eyes" has always been my moon shaped go-to, for that piano intro and the album's most haunting strings

Almost all their 21st century songs sound better live.

one of the most perversely enjoyable things about a moon shaped pool is how well the alphabetical sequencing works

They must have named some of the tracks retrospectively to achieve that.

Almost all their 21st century songs sound better live.

― Matt DC,

That reminds me, when they play The Gloaming live they add this jazzy ascending bass lick after each chorus which really completes it.

It’s always weird to me that Kid A was often described as this extremely experimental, electronic album when in reality Amnesiac is the one with the electronic experimentation going on (and the lesser of the two imho).

I agree that Kid A - except Idioteque - is more of a rock/jazz fusion. That said there’s definitely an electronic influence but in retrospect it’s not as alienating as several media made it out to be back then. The influences were there in OKC too just not as perfectly balanced, they were more of a texture. But you can definitely trace the path to Kid A here and there.

Sure they could have used something like Karma Police as a blueprint instead and be the saviors of NME rock but whoever thought that was their future was not paying attention. They were getting more and more interested and involved in classical, jazz and electronic sounds than with rock, and the rock that they did listen to was removed
from the traditional path of brit rock e.g.: Can, Captain Beefheart, Neu!, The Fall...

Almost all their 21st century songs sound better live.

― Matt DC

I’ve always thought that Nigel as essential as it is to their sound, kind of makes their music too sterile to be as expressive and warm as they want it to be. It worked wonders in albums like Kid A and Amnesiac, which were “cold” albums in concept, but soon afterwards when they started trying to achieve a warmer sound the production pulls them down. TKOL in particular so much better live in the “From the Basement” sessions that it makes you wonder if they should have added and additional producer - Nigel’s input still being important - years ago.

Also a bit funny that criticism of the electronic aspect of it making it somehow experimental or inaccesible since the most immediately likeable songs for non-Radiohead fams ime are Idioteque and EIIRP.

XPs yes, it is super weird that Amnesiac was touted as the "return to rock" album when it is unquestionably the more experimental of the two. I don't agree that its lesser, though, just different. I have a dim recollection of an interview or a review where someone said that Kid A was like trying to reach someone and getting their answering machine, where Amnesiac is like you reached that person and had a conversation with them. Or something along those lines.

A nice little chat about eating a mouse

imo Kid A was like trying to reach someone and getting their answering machine, where Amnesiac is like you called a fax machine

And you hung up but that fax machine was still listening to you

Just dropping by to say that as much as I still ride for & listen to Radiohead, I start at Amnesiac these days. Just never really connected to Kid A apart from Everything in its Right Place & Idioteque, a lot of the other tracks blur together for me. On Amnesiac I love every track distinctly.

(otherwise I've always liked Hail to the Thief way more than most seem to, In Rainbows has only gotten better over time, and Moon Shaped Pool is their best album, don't @ me)

i used to love radiohead but a lot of thom's vocals kind of set me on edge when i hear them these days. haven't familiarized myself with their last two albums. tbh, i wasn't big on Kid A or Amnesiac and thought Hail To The Thief was a return to form... kinda thought they were idm posers at the time lol

poseurs tend to make the best music

forget i said anything

Couple of posts are onto something regarding Thom's specific taste in electronic music. He would talk about "Freeman Hardy and Willis Acid" every chance he got... that's not a particularly well regarded AFX track, is it?

Amnesiac had some of that "rock" buzz just for having more guitar than Kid A does... but it's also, on the whole, terrifying!

I think it's less that Nigel Godrich had a restricting influence on their sound and more that they have treated their later songs as a base to be expanded on and evolved over time. Also the logistics of performing a lot it live necessitates different arrangements.

This isn't the case across the board obviously - they still play songs like 2+2=5 or Reckoner or There There reasonably faithfully, whereas Everything In Its Right Place or The Gloaming only got bigger with time.

Having said that the biggest jump in quality between the studio and live versions is probably I Might Be Wrong which really does plod along on Amnesiac and had so much more dynamism live.

I Might Be Wrong which really does plod along on Amnesiac

yeah, the amnesiac version is almost narcotic compared to all the other performances i've ever heard.

Narcotic is good not bad imo.

Limp and plodding never is though. It's one of Thom's weedier vocal performances as well.

live versions of 'i might be wrong' are objectively superior, but i don't think the original version is limp by any means.

agreed. i like the weird dry separated way it’s recorded

Studio version feels more trip-hoppy, which is to my liking. I’ve never thoroughly embraced the live take on the eponymous EP, as it robs the track of some of its mystery.

The studio version was a massive hit with this French skater kid I knew who really liked Korn and Cypress Hill

I like I Might Be Wrong and yeah it has a dry but slightly funky “hip hop” groove I’m into

I also like Punch Up At A Wedding for similar reasons

“I might be wrong” is one of my favorite tracks off Amnesiac. I love how compact it sounds for a “rocking” song, it’s perfectly fine sounding in the context of the sound of Kid A/Amnesiac. I’d trade Optimistic for IMBW any day.

I love how they adapt in live settings too but we’re talking about different sort of beasts here.

This Dublin live show that they quietly resurfaced earlier this year https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gaJKOUQS1T4 is an essential evil twin to the studio album - a band that by all accounts look like they're playing for their absolute lives due to the sheer terror of what they may have actually done to their career that week.

The “I Might Be Wrong” bassline steals the song. One of those songs where Colin’s subtle work comes to the front.

Very short for a Radiohead show!

that video isn't the whole show and it's not in order either

happy birthday thomas

Happy Birthday Thomas.... hope its a beautiful day for you and yours.... Thank you for the deep friendship, the laughs, the love and the inspiration my Brother 🙏❤️❤️this was taken at a band practice at Abingdon Community Centre in April 1986... pic.twitter.com/0WYpK6QKPw

— Ed O'Brien (@EOBOfficial) October 7, 2020

aww, gorgeous

wholesome content!

It looks like The Proclaimers misplaced their glasses!

My brain took much too long to process that Thom's name is Thomas.

OMG Thomas looks weirdly like a young Colin Angus in that photo, like they are both from Aberdeen and had that same haircut in the same era, and suddenly my Colin Angus crush makes 1000x more sense

Lol chap!