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.

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!