It’s been two years since fans were blessed with a collection of O.K. Computer B-sides in the form of Airbag: How Am I Driving. It’s been three years since the music world was turned on its ear in brilliantly grandioso style by the epic work of a one quarter-Beatles, one quarter-Pink Floyd, one quarter-Led Zepplin, and one quarter-Pixies band. Three years since the greatest rock album of the 1990’s, or if you read Q magazine, the best album of all time, O.K. Computer, made one million people take listen and be shocked and amazed by an English group of Jehovah’s Witnesses. It’s been five years since arena rock fans were blessed with hardcore, incendiary guitar playing and whiny, almost eunuch-sounding vocals from the always passionate Thom Yorke in the form of a polished hard rock album named The Bends. And it’s been seven years since we, the people, were introduced to the group I’m talking about now in the form of a hit single, an ode to self-loathing named Creep.
October 3, 2000 was marked on many calendars in America as the day of the reckoning, the second coming of Radiohead. According to Green Plastic Radiohead, the band has close to 30 songs recorded, mixed, and ready to be released. It’s a crying shame only 10 of them made the final cut. What really makes this hard to write though, is the fact that the ten songs selected weren’t the best ten in the Radiohead arsenal. O.K. Computer is a damn hard act to follow, and the band hits I suppose, the senior slump big time. On this long awaited, much anticipated endeavor, Thom Yorke, Jonny Greenwood, Colin Greenwood, Ed O'Brien, Phil Selway, and Nigel Godrich all try a bit too hard to be groundbreaking. They’ve always teetered on the thin line between pretentiousness and brilliance. However, on this album they make the crossover.
It’s been writ ad nauseam that Radiohead is an avant-garde band well ahead of their time. Here, their experimental, abstract technique does go slightly overboard, most conspicuously on Treefingers. The arrhythmic, atmospheric, ambient instrumental is excursive with random sound effects added here and there throughout the track’s soundscape. I give the band props for trying something this daring, however, this sci-fi track is the kind of song that indy rock bands like Slint and For Carnation perfected long ago. And as long as this song is nothing more than an exercise in how to do nifty tricks with your sampler, it’s the kind of track that DJ Shadow, DJ Spooky, or any of the other musicians on the labels Mo’ Wax, Ninja Tune, and Asphodel could have done blindfolded.
Radiohead defies listeners to realize ahead of time that Kid A is nothing like what their first three previous efforts were with the first song off the album, Everything In Its Right Place. A looped organ line that sounds like it’s from a wake plays in the background as Thom Yorke’s vocals are repeated and played backwards over the track. After listening to the first four minutes of this album, I came to realization that the band planned on abusing the cut and paste benefit of ProTools. And abuse it they did with mixed results.
The second track on Kid A, Kid A, is slightly more upbeat, sounding almost like a lullaby. Jonny’s soothingly hypnotic xylophone and keyboard playing allow the instrumental to overshadow the manufactured drums and annoying ProTools use of Yorke’s vocals. Never fret though, the band redeems themselves with the chaotic third track off the LP, The National Anthem. An infectiously catchy bassline from Colin sets the song off, then in comes some up-tempo drumming courtesy of Phil Selway followed by haunting singing by Thom. The cherry on top and the best saved for last though is when finally, all hell breaks loose. A barrage of In The Company of Men sounding horns assault the listener’s senses in atypical Radiohead fashion. The National Anthem is the best song off the album.
Next off Kid A is How To Disappear Completely, a track that most resembles one of those Sounds of Nature relaxation tapes, namely, one of those ocean ones. This symphonic piece, reminiscent of U.N.K.L.E.’s collaboration with Thom Yorke and David Axelrod, Rabbit In Your Headlights (Suburban Hell Remix), is yet another one of the highlights of the album. It’s moody and it creates the illusion of space much the same way a painter would. Notes seem to float dare I say it, magically across the soundscape here.
Those looking for the traditional Radiohead rocker will find the closest thing to that would be the lucid and escalatingly upbeat Optimistic. It’s about the only mainstream listener-friendly song on the album, but it’s a damn good one at that, made all the more amiable for laymen with its laid back coda.
This track is followed by In Limbo, a song that would seem at home in Jean-Luc Godard’s Alphaville with its video game sound effects and seemingly malleable soundscape. Despite my praising of it however, the song grows annoyingly tiresome as it drags on (Even if it is the shortest song on the album next to Motion Picture Soundtrack). A welcome change of pace though is Idioteque. Thom Yorke seems to be singing his heart out on this endeavor, a throwback to disco and a more successful attempt at the ambient Apex Twins effort that was Treefingers, and I’ll be damned if this song isn’t infectiously catchy.
The penultimate track on this album, Morning Bell is another Treefingers, a drum loop from Selway plays as haunted house effects play over this strangely eerie song. This is another example of in my humble opinion (Which I’ll no doubt be castrated for), Radiohead trying too hard to be groundbreaking and unless my ears deceive me, it’s another failed stab at it, coming off as ostentatious.
Motion Picture Soundtrack is Kid A’s finale. What was an awesome acoustic cut from the band played only at concerts, a sequel of sorts to the equally outstanding Exit Music (For A Film) with dispiriting lyrics that deserved laudation and a chorus that I absolutely adored, has now been cut down by a verse and has Yorke's vocals drowned out by a pump organ, an enchanting harp, and an angelic choir. With these additions, the tone of the song has completely changed from brilliantly disturbing to Prozac uplifting, not that that's a bad thing, I just prefer darker works.
In New Jersey Online David Chase said, “he'd like to see some admission that even if a particular episode of "The Sopranos" isn't quite up to snuff for a particular viewer, it's still special. In other words, a C+ episode of "The Sopranos" is equivalent to a B+ for most shows, and more people should acknowledge that.” The same standard must be attributed to a band like Radiohead as well. Despite Kid A’s shortcomings, it’s still a hell of a lot better than the TRL-endorsed tripe out nowadays and of course, a hell of a lot more thought-provoking about the apocalypse.
Kid A is Radiohead s fourth studio effort. Radiohead s third album, OK Computer, was released in June 1997 and immediately hit No. 1 on the British al...More at Buy.com Marketplaces
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