Taking Sides - Amnesiac vs. Kid A

I prefer Amnesiac - I don't really enjoy Kid A that much. It does annoy me that they were recorded together as Amnesiac sounds to me so much like a progression from Kid A, or at least a consolidation of the territory it sketched out.

OK Computer is better than both, tho!

Amnesiac sounds like a step forward (except the Dullsville "Knives Out").

KA's the only album of theirs that i've bothered to own, so i have a bit of preference toward it, but Amnesiac does have its moments. i initially really liked the idea of them making 2 shorter albums from the sessions instead of one big overblown one, but in retrospect now, they both seem like somewhat slight albums, like they didn't have quite as much top shelf material as they'd expected to.

and no, i'm not going to harp on Amnesiac as a glorified b-sides collection, because I know it's not, mainly because the 'Pyramid Song' b-sides are the worst shit i've ever heard and make Amnesiac sound really fabulous by co

Then I went back and listened to Kid A a few more times. And I realized that it _wasn't_ a minor consideration that Kid A works better than Amnesiac as a one whole piece. "Motion Picture Soundtrack," for example, is certainly a nice track on it's own -- but only in the context of the peaks and valleys of the album does it feel like a cathartic resolution. As that "mind journey" feeling you get when you listen to an album from cover-to-cover. Considered on a whole, it may be better even then OK Computer.

So, the final verdict: Taken track by track, Amnesiac is the stronger work. Taken as a whole, Kid A totally smacks up on it's antecessor.

On a related note, I finally saw Radiohead on TV the other night, playing "The National Anthem" on Saturday Night Live (it was a rerun). Dang, they're good live. Such energy, such excitement -- Jonny Greenwood was really ripping on his oscilliator, or whatever the hell he was playing, and Phil Selway really is a force to be reckoned with. He was really keeping down a solid, infectious groove, and the drums & bass were tight as hell.

As has been verified all around, Kid A was a rather deliberate attempt to dabble in the sorts of techniques most of us sum up with a reference to Warp. It's turned out that Radiohead are actually quite good at this sort of thing, which we can all be glad about -- and it's turned out, more importantly, that the combination of these inclinations with their more conventional rock impulses has been a good, good thing. But Kid A also demonstrated that Radiohead are actually still quite bad at one particular aspect of the Warp standard, the thing that draws a huge line between good Warp- type records and great ones, and that thing is: dynamics. This is abundantly clear from the first few tracks of Kid A. "Everything in its Right Place" is amazing, tense, a little foreboding, refusing to shift gears and instead just humming ever more ominously -- and then it goes away. And then we're left floating in the air for 4 minutes of "Kid A." Then the emergence of solidity with "National Anthem" -- which I'll come back to in a second -- but after that, good as the songs may be, it's just a murky even plod all the way through "Idioteque." The overall effect is something like trudging through a bog -- a beautiful bog, but a bog nonetheless -- without landmarks. This metaphor explains the post- "Everything..." bits that tend to get mentioned most: the horns at the end of "National Anthem" as the highest, driest land in that bog, a climactic little promontory from which you can look down on the vast stretch ahead of you; "Idioteque," a jittery little distraction purely because of its sequencing toward the far end of the bog; and "Motion Picture Soundtrack," the shimmery cathedral you have to assume was the reason for your journey through all that muck.

Amnesiac, on the other hand. You can call it scattered, or a glorified b-side collection, or what have you, but it's precisely that quality that makes it work for me. I don't think the band would be able to put together a completely non-rock Warpish record that had the dynamics to make it interesting -- I think if they tried, they'd come up with static, 4-minute snippets like "Everything...," laid end to end until they seemed meaningless. The beauty of Amnesiac is not only that it wins on the song front -- even though the songs here really are less plodding, more clever, more memorable -- but that the song selections and the sequencing create dynamics between the songs, so that "I Might be Wrong" suddenly firms up into the clear arpeggios of "Knives Out," which shatters into the fragments of "Morning Bell." This is no bog -- this is like stepping out of the bog into a city and being overwhelmed by the sheer stimulus of it, walking from corner to corner and seeing something new at each one. (Forgive me for just turning the two records into some sort of science-fiction epic, in which our heroes travel across the bog to the cathedral and the crystal city beyond. But these are my gut reactions, really: Kid A = mud, Amnesiac = crystal.)

So ... I think that's my reasoning ...

Sez who? The only thing they do worse is the free jazz thing.

My bet is one day we'll look back at both of them as being as windy and foolish as "Wish You Were Here", let's say.

Fun way to waste time -- interweave the songs of the two albums without changing the running order.

Good comparison, they're also adjacent fantastic albums.

Radiohead is the Alan Parsons project. Mournful sub-Floyd ruminations on technology and dehumanization.

Umm, okay, if you insist. I don't see the similarity myself. The Project's early output was decent, nothing to get excited about. Radiohead is definitely worth getting excited about, but sub-Floyd is correct, they're not to the level of Pink Floyd, one of their many influences. Release two more excellent albums in a row, boys, and then we'll talk. I'm hoping these tags work

It's nice to see not many of these patterns developing here. Still...........

I have a hard time comparing those albums, but I LOOOOOOOOVE that song.

I agree w.DQ abt Radiohead subject topics — modern technology and "dehumanisation" done better by Numan-Foxx, as all know — but not abt Alan Parsons LP covers.

Jack R likes the Tull!! Do a thread, Jack. Ronan to Radiohead = me to Tull, but I am punk-damaged bigtime,and not to be trusted.

in fact as a lyric writer generally, waters is borderline illiterate — i don't think he wrote an insightful line in his life, tho i've never bothered pursuing the solo LPs — but i don't listen to songwords anyway, so that doesn't worry me especially: what i find tiresome about dark side is the way a weakness — its extreme textural monotony — is proclaimed as a strength

As for being Roger Waters being "functionally illiterate," well, nicely inflammatory but obviously not true. I think even a non-believer could see the care and thought put into most of his lyrics. That's _my_ problem with his lesser lyrics, that they're far too obvious and belabored (while I also like the totally preconceived and over-the-top riddles of someone like Peter Gabriel *scratch head*). For myself, most of the lyrics on the Pink Floyd albums _Dark Side Of The Moon_, _Wish You Were Here_, _Animals_ are deeply emotionally and intellectually satisfying.

Yes, the production has something of a uniform sound, but it's _designed_ as one long experience, an album length work -- there's a reprise, for Allah's sake, and quotes from past songs. If you categorically don't like "concept albums," (that's a nebulous phrase), "suites" or long-form works in general, well, that's your own choice. Personally, I think it would do us all well to develop a musical attention span.

The Easer is much better than both though.

FIXED.

But RH are very much a guilty pleasure.

whatever guy, it's like normal 'hip-hop' speed.

you gotsta be kidding.

I still stand by my "In Limbo" statements upthread, although I'd change the caveat to say the "Pyramid Song" surpasses it.

Mix and master your records right, kids.

I think these two are arguing about two differing performances, not recordings.

ding the money. it gets good again at the end too, blud.

'kid a' easy anyway. 'amnesiac' has its moments. am an uneasy radiohead fan. i mean, uneasy to BE one, not the other thing.

lol was in indie club at xmas, they played 'idiotheque'.

Kid A and Amnesiac and HTTT are all too loud and not dynamic enough, thus they will sound better live wgere you have more variation in volume and thus excitement. EIIRP is HUGELOUD and yet it's meant to be this delicate electronic whimsy thing.

I don't buy the idea that x is meant to be this/that/other = exact reproduction of live performance.

Optimistic is the worst offender here, they should have made more out of the big thuddy incessant drums that characterised the live version.

I liked Amnesiac best for a long time, and I still think it's great. The electronic stuff sounds the most convincing on that record, plus Pyramid Song, Life in a Glass House, etc.. I definitely listen to HttT more these days, though.

Kid A has great moments (EIIRP, National Anthem, Idioteque), but I rarely listen to it all the way through.

Hmmm. No. I mean, no such thing as "perfection" obviously, because it's subjective, but... oh bollocks to it, I have a car to buy.

Amnesiac on the other hand sounds like the whiny Floydy wankery that I normally associate Thom and chums with.

The first half of Kid A is pretty uneven - I don't particularly enjoy The National Anthem, Kid A, or Treefingers, and they seem totally ignorant of any electronic music that came before them. However, I think the sequence of songs starting with Optimistic is the best thing on either of these two albums.

Kid Amnesiac

I mean, all that bass and drums and brass... Can't get much more electronic than that.

Hmmmm.. I think I can see where you're going with this. I'd been a seriously rabid Warp fan for some time before Kid A came out and on hearing it I couldn't decide whether it was good that they'd gone down this path or whether they had created some kind of Blue Nun of electronic music. Treefingers works as a mood piece or just as basic ambient music but it doesn't really do very much and its attempt to ape SAWII just seems tokenistic.
Kid A sounds and the National Anthem also sound a little immature. It sounded like Thom had picked up on Windowlicker then bought the entire Warp catalogue and thought "I want to sound like this now" but not really known how to go about it.
How To Disappear Completely just hangs in the air quite pleasantly but Thom's self indulgence starts to bleed through.

The second half of the album is much better and tracks like Optimistic and Idiotheque are much more realised.

I think if I'd have been about 16/17 when Kid A came out I'd have been amazed with it in the same way I fell in love with Giant Steps for being an eclectic rock album. Sadly I'd already started reading ILM so there was no going back.

On Amnesiac, yes it has some very good tracks "You And Whose Army?", "Pyramid Song" and "Life In A Glasshouse" particularly. "Knives Out" sounds like a boring retread of "Karma Police" with a very shit video to boot. Never liked the album version of "Spinning Plates" and yeh the album seems to lose itself quite quickly on the second half, only being resolved with the last song.

If Kid A and Amnesiac had been released as a double album I'd say it was Radiohead at their most adventurous and that they'd made some kind of sprawling prog-epic up there with the White Album and Mellon Collie. With double albums you can get away with a few experiments. But somehow splitting them in two cheapens them and shows up the less succesful moments on the album. This is because if you've spent £13.99 on an eleven track rock album and four of those tracks are IDM experiments, ambient mood pieces and dubious filler then you're going to feel ripped off. If you buy a rock double album for £16.99 and it's abrim with new and exciting ideas from rock to electronica, brass bands, dixie horns, bells and whistles, you'd hail it as an epic.

I wish I had these albums on me now, they remind me of university.

Does that make sense? I'm not feeling too literate this morning.

Shame both years were shite though.

A double-album of both records would make no difference. One single album, with the best of both and all the filler trimmed off, would rule. (Like everyone else in the world I compiled my own one in like 2001).

xpost - dudes, we are already having a trance revival only four or five years on. Stop trying to impose systems thinking on all this.

I think that's down to super-retroism on the part of ILM. It's ten years since 1996 and so the ten-year anniversary of albums like If You're Feeling Sinister are being drawn attention to. If you read the 1996 thread there are just as many people hating on it as they are loving it. The rest of the world is not ready to start getting misty-eyed about the post-Britpop heyday as it's too recent in the minds of those who were there at the time and those who weren't there are too busy discovering their own music to take much notice. In another ten years time the mid nineties'll be really fashionable again and everyone'll want to look like Alex James.

i am buying my gatecrasher kid redux outfit today.

i think of RAZORLIGHT as a britpop revival band innit.

is electro big?

i have been wondering this elsewhere. rihanna convinced me maybe it is.

xpost

Electro
Electroclash
Electronic Synth-Pop
ElectroHouse???

Enrique, I think you discredit the kind of impact Electroclash did have, although you're right about it being a part of the 80s revival which is what I've also been saying. While Electroclash was only seen as a significant movement among the dance cogniscienti (and even they saw it as a fad before it had even begun), I think it had a much bigger impact on the mainstream in the long run.

Getting back to the Radiohead subject, I don't think a track like Idioteque would have been realised without an electro revival. Elsewhere you can compare the sound of the Spice Girls with Girls Aloud and the latter have a distinct electro flavour as opposed to the comparably polished sound of the Spice Girls.

A revival in the Electro sound is just reinforcing the trend that things happening roughly 20-25 years ago tend to get romanticised and revived in a mainstream way whereas stuff that came out 10-15 years ago is seen as embarassing and untrendy. This is not really news, it's just typical of what happens. The 90s were all about the 60s (Oasis, Britpop in general) and 70s; the 80s were all about the 50's (Shakin Stevens, The Stray Cats) and 60's (The Specials, The Jam)

I don't think a track like Idioteque would have been realised without an electro revival.

Despite pre-dating electroclash by a year or two? What nonsense.

I don't think a track like Idioteque would have been realised without an electro revival.

Despite pre-dating electroclash by a year or two and sounding sonically completely different? What nonsense.

fandango, they're all the same thing really aren't they? just from different years. Like all styles of dance music, Electro has had to evolve over time. It's like saying "When people say 'I like House' I don't know what they mean".

What year was Kid A? 2001? Two Lone Swordsmen's "Tiny Reminders" from 2000 was a keystone in the Electro revival and it turned a lot of people onto that sound, especially Warp fans of the time, like Thom Yorke and myself. Before that album I didn't really know what Electro was supposed to be. Idioteque is more than a passing nod to that album.

what's more 'radical' though, doing no singles ('kid a') or releaseing 'pyramid song' as a single ('amnesiac')?

Jedi Knights 'New School Science' >>>>>>>>>>>>>>> 'Tiny Reminders', and guess the year it came out

fucks sake...

if you were an ignorant moron listening to shitty music all the time, yes

i think they made this more likely! 'kid a' was a Big Event not just because of the media and public but because it was released without singles and with these weird eco-shows (iirc) instead of a regular tour. that looked far more arrogant, in its way, than doing a patchy double-LP.

doglatin on this thread is like some kind of armando ianucci bot spouting out ridiculous ill thought out opinons with no link to reality.

Electroclash was spawned and then Girls Aloud and stuff etc.

LOLOLOLOLOLOL

maybe fandango you're right but i don't think Radiohead ever wanted to shoot themselves in the foot. In a way by releasing two albums they made their experiments easier to swallow for the Mondeo-generation whereas I think a double-album in the style of say The White Album full of dibs and dabs and experiments and a reprise of one of the main tracks appearing on each side would have kept their integrity without alienating their fanbase.

LOLOLOLOLOLOL

Less of this kind of thing please. Say what you mean, because that's even more ill thought out than anything I've contributed to this thread.

1) Tanked their whole career with the backlash (bloated, "too experimental" etcetera) if it didn't work.
2) Made Thom the new John Lennon with Kid Amnesiac as their White Album if it did.

I don't blame them for letting some pressure off personally. But then I don't really like sprawliing double albums much either!

you don't get big without wanting it; moreoever it takes hard work. oasis didn't put the effort into the states that radiohead did.

LOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLLOL

but really

WTFWTFWTFWTFWTFWTFWTF

Of course most of that was just a fond reference, and not the actively despicable nostalgia for "better times" when you had "real music" men were men and women were in the kitchen, NME-jackboot encouraged conservative shite you got with the arrival of the Britpop branding.

Pretty much OTM. If they had released Kid A and Amnesiac together it would have had a smaller-scale version of the effect that The Fragile and Tusk had on NIN and Fleetwood Mac sales.

idk if anyone GAF about another person trying to make this a double album BUT *i* dont GAF and did it anyway! never really liked the sequencing of this that much tbh, and still do wish it was a big fuck off double when they released it, but hey.

treefingers, idioteque, morning bell, everything in its right place, hunting bears, i might be wrong, pulk/pull revolving doors, dollars and cents, pyramid song, kid a, natiuonal anthem, packt like sardines, like spinning plates, optimistic, in limbo, how to dissapear completely, you and whose army, life in a glasshouse, motion pic soundtrack, untitled.

Having them be separate albums was the right choice. This way you get one great album and a not so good one instead of a double not so great album with some great songs in it.

he's really done it this time

The great album is Amnesiac, right?

(btw Moka, does your ilx email work?)

No "Knives Out" or "Morning Bell (Amnesiac)"? Both versions of the latter are essential to me.

I’m not sure? Did you send me an email recently?

Oh I just found one from you! I think it sends all the “robot” mails to spam... damn now I’m wondering if there’s other ilxors whose mails I never replied to :/

Let me write you!

I was trying to do a combination of both albums, where disc 1 is comprised of the “electronic” songs (turns out only 1/3 of each album counts as such) and disc 2 is the jazzy / rock thing and it sucks so hard this way. Without the contrast of one another it becomes two bad albums.

Eg:

DISC 1

Everything in its right place
Kid A
Packt like Sardines
Pulk/pull
Idioteque
Treefingers
Like Spinning Plates

DISC 2

The National Anthem
How to disappear completely
Pyramid Song
Optimistic
Knives Out
You and whose army
In limbo
Dollars and cents
I might be wrong
Morning Bell
Life in a glasshouse
Motion Picture Soundtrack

You’d think that for all that talk about Radiohead “going electronic” those would be the dominating sound.

Xpost knives out is just a wall of dreariness to me. And one version of morning bell is enough on a (fake) double album. These two tracks would be decent b sides.

"You’d think that for all that talk about Radiohead “going electronic” those would be the dominating sound."

I was surprised to find this too. Bit yeah, you cant really make a clean separation between the different modes as there are no neat separations.

kid a is the greatest album

OF ALL TIME

honestly, it is pretty great, still. i gave it a really good listen last week for the first time in forever and was still enthralled by just about everything

I liked Kid A a lot when it came out, but got sick of it real quick. Amnesiac I didn’t like at all, apart from “Pyramid Song.” The second half was so boring! Haven’t heard either album in years. Thom after Kid A was released going “Don’t worry if you’re not into the electronic avant-garde stuff, our next album is gonna be more guitar-oriented and accessible” was an A+ troll.

i remember that troll, and i'm 99% that was just ed talking about how that's what he wanted

candyman, there's two things I particularly like in your running order: the very chilly start with "Treefingers" and "Idioteque", and "Dollars and Cents" as a palate-cleanser for "Pyramid Song".
I can't see "Knives Out" as more dreary than "Life in a Glasshouse" though.

use some of the b-sides in your resequencings u cowards

Knives Out always sounded like a poor man's reprise of Karma Police to me. Complaining that Radiohead songs are dreary is a bit... something, mind. Life In A Glasshouse is great and remarkable for the New Orleans funeral brass though

that's funny, to me Knives Out sounds like a poor man's reprise of Paranoid Android. Or is that what you meant?

In my resequencing I was thinking of doing actually 3 10 track albums and “worrywort” and “kinetic” were going to go in the “electronic” album but stopped completely because I thought it sounded off. Might retake it.

Didnt include b sides in mine, as that would make it too complicated, and LONG!. But I like a challenge...

I can’t even remember how knives out goes, I keep thinking of morning bell for some reason

oh right... “catttttt mousssse” that’s a good one yeah

So knives out
Catch the mouse
Don't look down
Cut the kids in half

Revisiting these albums and then thinking about moon shaped pool, you can see how they got from songs like knives out to MSP

There’s always a part of me that wishes they’d taken the DNA of “kinetic” and mined that vein for an album or three.

optimistic and i might be wrong are so great.

Kinetic is imho more successful at nailing an experimental electronic song than songs like pulk/pull, like spinning plates.

id like a version of national anthem without the slightly wonky jazz freakout at the end which is cool but doesnt seem totally convincing.

That’s like the best part of the song wtf!

use some of the b-sides in your resequencings u cowards

it would have been extremely funny if "trans atlantic drawl" had made it onto either album, all that clamoring for guitar heroics and you get them....for about a minute, and then--

most days I'd rather hear "fog" or "worrywort" than "knives out" or "I might be wrong"

Cut tooth is better than its a side, knives out.

"cuttooth" genuinely my favorite radiohead song? sure

So knives out
Catch the mouse
Don't look down
Cut the kids in half

They out-Coldplay’d Coldplay with “cuttooth”

KID A

1. Everything in its right place
2. Kid A
3. Treefingers
4. Idioteque
5. Kinetic
6. Pulk/Pull Revolving Doors
7. Worrywort
8. Packt Like Sardines
9. Like Spinning plates
10. Untitled (Genchildren)

KID B

1. The Amazing Sounds of Orgy
2. In Limbo
3. Dollars & Cents
4. Pyramid Song
5. Fast-Track
6. The National Anthem
7. Morning Bell
8. Motion Picture Soundtrack
9. Life in a Glasshouse
10. Extended Life in a Glasshouse Reprise

KID C

1. Hunting Bears
2. I might be wrong
3. Optimistic
4. Knives Out
5. How to Disappear Completely
6. You and Whose Army
7. Trans-atlantic drawl
8. Morning Bell Amnesiac
9. Cuttooth
10. Fog

Divided as KID A ("electronic"), KID B ("jazzy") and KID C (Post-rock)

triple album baby

Sequencing could use a second pass but some parts of it work. That said they don't feel as adventurous or exciting to me when split into similar moods/sounds. Kid B would be the one I'd probably like the best out of these.

I love worrywort. Such an earworm!

Idk about separating them like that though it's cool to do as a way to contrast and compare. Maybe people would have preferred it actually. They could have released one electronic and one rock/jazz one on the same day.

Knives Out always sounded like a poor man's reprise of Karma Police to me.

Chord sequence-wise it's more of a reprise of the opening section of Paranoid Android... I like it though, there's a loose, jagged feel to the playing and it's pretty catchy (I get the chorus stuck in my head every time I see the title of the film Knives Out).

This thread made me revisit 'Ed's Diary' again. http://www.greenplastic.com/coldstorage/articles/edsdiary/ Some very honest lines such as
"working on 'up the ladder'. 30 seconds into it & it sounds utter shite. thom stops it" lol.

Ha, I remember that. EOB always seemed like a super chill dude to me, I guess his pretty-boring-but-nice-sounding solo music more or less confirmed that

that's funny, to me Knives Out sounds like a poor man's reprise of Paranoid Android. Or is that what you meant?

― Lavator Shemmelpennick, Monday, March 8, 2021 7:33 PM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

Huh, yeah I guess you're right there. It's a bit of a mash up of a few if their songs. Even has a little bit of Creep in there "I want you to no..."

Here's my shot at a 13-track, 56-minute album pulling from both albums and the Amnesiac b-sides. I would be very happy with this tracklist, though I know I left off a few fan favorites:

1. Pyramid Song
2. Kid A
3. Everything In Its Right Place
4. You And Whose Army?
5. The Amazing Sounds Of Orgy
6. I Might Be Wrong
7. Packt Like Sardines In A Crusht Tin Box
8. In Limbo
9. Idioteque
10. Morning Bell
11. Like Spinning Plates
12. How To Disappear Completely
13. Fog

i like the b sides a lot, and in a more directly emotional way than the actual album tracks, which are a lot more worked on, thought about, and treated. theres a spontaneity in songs like fog and worry wort you dont get in the proper albums.

if i was to make it one single 45-50 min album, then id make it like this. side one: packt like sardines, idioteque, everything in its right place, i might be wrong, pyramid song. side two: national anthem, optimistic, kid a, you and whose army, life in a glasshouse, motion picture soundtrack.

also how good is that bassline on i might be wrong?

The EOB diary weirdly doesn't really mention much about the electronic things going on, guessing because he wasn't that involved on those. The song he seems to be more excited about is "Optimistic", I guess because that's the one where he contributed to the most.

We didn't get a KID A 20th Anniversary in 2020. Hope we get a KID A / Amnesiac one. Judging by Ed's diary there's many different takes of each song and lots of early tests of songs that didn't make it in here (Up on the Ladder, Neil Young*9 / Bombers (4 minute warning), Innocent Civilians (sit down stand up), A wolf at the door, gagging order, true love waits...) + probably many more that ed doesn't mention

I think these KID A/AMNESIAC might have been the most productive Radiohead sessions, there must be a treasure trove of unreleased material and demos in there.

i think some word leaked out that they were preparing something... Maybe for the 25th at this point

iirc most of the songs of HTTT were actually leftovers from these sessions.

xpost: amnesiac was released in June 2001 so I'm guessing if they're actually doing a 20th anniversary for both albums we'll hear news before march/april.

I have probably said this elsewhere on ILM but for my nobody GAF opinion: Kid A is far and away the better album, the best in their catalog, and probably one of the 3 or 4 best rock albums of the 21st century if we're being honest here. And yet, I still listen to Amnesiac 2x as often, especially in winter. It's become my favorite of theirs even though it objectively falls short of at least a few others. It's got the closest thing to the Radiohead atmosphere I want to hear most often 20 years on.

Cognitive dissonance. Amnesiac is at least as good as Kid A and you know it.

Amnesiac seems to be tougher, a bit greyer. I'd love a good set of outtakes from this period. It's weird as I've mot really listened to this stuff in a decade but now I think I like it even more. Lockdown has somehow made it seem better too maybe.

Hey I just made a list of these the other day in reply to a similar question! All these songs that I've listed are ones that were worked on (written, recorded, or experimented with) during the Kid A sessions. A lot of these songs that didn't make it onto Kid A, Amnesiac, the Pyramid Song single, or the Knives Out single later turned into a large portion of Hail to the Thief. If they were to do an OKNOTOK release for Kid A, I'd imaging we'd get a lot of early versions of these songs in addition unreleased ones.

Sit Down. Stand Up
Backdrifts
Where I End and You Begin
We Suck Young Blood
The Gloaming
There There
I Will
A Wolf at the Door
Gagging Order
I am a Wicked Child
I am Citizen Insane
Feeling Pulled Apart by Horses (Reckoner)**
Up On the Ladder
4 Minute Warning
True Love Waits
Lift
Say the Word*
Follow Me Around*
I Froze Up*
Whatever Happens*
Ed's Scary Song*
"Jonny Scott Walker Song"***
* Unreleased

** The version of Reckoner/Feeling Pulled Apart by Horses that was around at this time is way different from the version of both songs we ended up getting so I'd consider it still unreleased.

*** That's just what Ed called this song. It either had its name changed and was released or it remains on the pile to this day.

https://www.reddit.com/r/radiohead/comments/8vg7ig/what_songs_are_unreleased_from_the_kid_aamnesiac/

Found this post on reddit. Not sure about the source but if true 11 tracks from HTTT - 8 if we only go for actual album cuts - were actually started during the Kid A period.

Maybe it's just me but I don't really want to know how the sausage gets made. Kid A as released, Amnesiac as released, etc., is the be-all and end-all as far as I'm concerned. I feel this way about all the music I love.

I dont want alt takes unless they're exceptionally diff, but I would like unreleased songs.

the source for that reddit post would mostly be ed's diary & anything that wasn't mentioned in it was played in one of their webcasts from the time.

feeling pulled apart by horses changed significantly but the final version of the song is clearly the thom solo version so i wouldn't count it as an unreleased song. lots of their songs existed in radically different arrangements before their final version

xps Very good. Me and my mixtape of highlights from the 17hr OK Computer demo leak are here for it!

That’s like the best part of the song wtf!

I find the brass kind of poorly attached to the song. It just sounds like a mot entirely succesful/coherent experiment. The live version on the IMBW ep is better for my money.

Oops meant to put that first line in quotation marks

i have made a kid amensiac playlist also, altho its meant to be just one beefier album as opposed to a double/triple! its my go-to when i want to listen to radiohead these days. it keeps certain sequences intact.

case in point:
1. everything in its right place
2. kid a
3. national anthem

but then
4. transatlantic drawl

which i feel carries on the chaotic energy from natl anthem b4 settling it down v quickly for

5. pyramid song
6. pulk/pull revolving doors

which have to stay together bc they both slap and also because they are stitched together.

then the acoustic-y stuff
7. optimistic
8. in limbo
9. cuttooth

before the more electronic/ambient stuff again
10. worrywort
11. packt like sardines in a crushd tin box
12. idioteque
13. like spinning plates
14. treefingers

clocks in at just over an hour.

lol. i ended up making two diff playlists. after going back to this, i dont think all the instrumental/more warp-aspiring pieces work that brilliantly, and are better as b-side material or if you really make it a proper double album. so i made a single lp playlist thats: packt like..., idioteque, everything in its..., i might be wrong, fog, kid a, worrywort, you and whose army, life in a glashouse, motion pic soundtrack.

thinking about this material, there is something just really tightly clenched about a lot of it, like it was just too worked on maybe? (really does remind me of dangelos voodoo in that sense). if they do release something this year with outtakes, if they are like the b sides, i think they will be much more enjoyable to listen to.

the relative looseness of a song like fog really works as a bit of a release in comparison to the other songs.

actually listening to those songs with the other album tracks, they sound like they are from different sessions entirely.

Mark - Sean -- I love Wish You Were Here!

moka i like your kid a/b/c sequences! any one of the three looks great; i may cue one up for later

this one, especially

KID C

1. Hunting Bears
2. I might be wrong
3. Optimistic
4. Knives Out
5. How to Disappear Completely
6. You and Whose Army
7. Trans-atlantic drawl
8. Morning Bell Amnesiac
9. Cuttooth
10. Fog

i have done numerous attempts at re-sequencing KidA/Amnesiac for lord knows how many years and i've always ended up in that immediate realization that i would never change anything about the opening 4 songs of Kid A, which, then based on my love of the songs on the latter half of the album, has left me not changing anything on it.

try the best you can, the best you can is re-sequence Amnesiac with that eras b-sides.

I'm not bothering anymore. Got to take it as is.