RADIOHEAD: KID A (2000)
1) Everything
In Its Right Place; 2) Kid A; 3) The National
Anthem; 4) How To Disappear
Completely (And Never Be Found Again); 5) Treefingers; 6) Optimistic; 7) In Limbo; 8) Idioteque; 9) Morning Bell; 10) Motion Picture Soundtrack.
General verdict: An innovative,
challenging, yet ultimately unengaging experience. Indifferent respect.
History repeating itself works just
as fine for music as it does for... history. With OK Computer gaining
the critical status of a Dark Side Of The Moon for the Nineties and
easily making Radiohead the #1 Band That Matters in the whole wide world, they must
have found themselves in the same type of crisis as Floyd in 1974: exhausted from
all the hype, yet unavoidably obliged to eventually come up with something
comparable in ambition, execution, and impact. Just as The Bends was a
major creative leap over Pablo Honey, and the scope and pretense of OK
Computer, in its turn, put The Bends to shame, so the next album had
to represent yet another step forward. But in the year 2000, it was not at all
clear whether a huge step forward within the confines of rock music (or traditional
genres of music as a whole) was even possible, let alone whether Radiohead had
enough genius left to make it.
So, sometime around 1998-99, rumors
began to circulate that Thom Yorke pretty much «had it» with rock music,
particularly guitar-based rock music, and that even the concept of a clearly
defined «melody» as such began to feel alien to him — a clear sign that he was
looking for an answer well beyond the expectable and predictable, and that the
band's (or at least, Yorke's personal) spirit of adventure had not yet run its
course. During those years, he claims to have mostly listened to electronic
artists like Autechre and Aphex Twin, sensing that it was them, with
their totally different, but no less meaningful, sounds, rather than anybody
else, who truly represented the music of tomorrow; and indeed, Radiohead's
movement into the direction of computer software and IDM now seems an
inevitable part of their destiny, the only thing they could do at the time in
order to avoid the demon of stagnation. Not that they were alone in this enterprise
or anything: on the whole, the revival of «raw» guitar rock, spurred on by the
grunge movement at the beginning of the decade, was already winding down, and
in the 2000s, only the laziest (or the most religiously conscious) bands would
resist the temptation of merging their guitar playing with some
computer-generated sound loops. Arguably, though, it is Kid A, and
nothing else, that would become the symbolic flagship of the whole movement.
The album
took almost a year and
a half to complete (almost twice as much as OK Computer), as the band
members never set themselves a specific deadline and had quite a few
disagreements over particular ideas and directions, as well as a specific
problem related to Yorke's temporary writer's block; nevertheless, not only did
the band not break up (which was a real threat at some time), but they
ended up delivering, escaping the creative breakdown trap of such infamously
exploded projects as Smile and Lifehouse. Nobody jumped ship in
the interim; even Nigel Godrich returned to the producer's seat, although now
he had to guide the band through a completely different type of journey. Electronic
embellishments, however, were not the only new element in the reformed sound:
for one thing, there is also a huge brass section on board (mostly for the
purposes of adding an extra dimension to ʽThe National Anthemʼ), and then there
is the Orchestra Of St. John's, providing strings for ʽHow To Disappear
Completelyʼ. Talk about the benefits of a bigger budget...
Usually, the farther away we move
from the peak years of a musical era, the more difficult it becomes to find an
artist who can consistently up the antes and reinvent, redefine, or at least
shake himself up, intensely peering with one eye into the deep past and another
in the distant future. The rut eventually found Radiohead like it finds
everybody, but Kid A was like that last extra challenge before you are
welcomed to the rank of the true Immortals: «to achieve immortality, you must
defeat yourself». In terms of general mood and atmosphere, Kid A is easily
perceived as a sequel to OK Computer, but it still steps all the way out
of that album's boundaries, and not just by adding electronic
patterns: ʽNational Anthemʼ shows a strong avantgarde jazz influence, and
Yorke's singing style on this album moves ever more in the direction of
free-form revolutionaries like Tim Buckley (that is not to say he sounds much
like Tim Buckley, which would not have been revolutionary at all; it is more a
matter of allowing himself the same ample freedom with vocal modulations that
Buckley had wrestled for himself decades ago). In a way, this is the first
Radiohead album where lyrics almost do not matter (unless you want to
spend useless hours trying to decode the Transcendental Meaning of lines like
"there are two colours in my head / what is that you tried to say?"
or "we've got heads on sticks, you've got ventriloquists"); what
matters is the timbre and oscillation pattern of the vocalist, whose primary
task is to contribute to the atmosphere.
Although Kid A has been
called a «difficult album», many times over, I do not find it any more «difficult»
than its primary electronic or avantgarde influences. For sure, its songs are
more ambiguous than anything Radiohead had ever done before, but essentially it
explores the exact same themes — loneliness, alienation, fear, paranoia,
disillusionment, all the standard ingredients that Radiohead kept on their
shelves since 1993; heck, if it didn't, it probably would not have caught on so
easily with the general public. And for all its «progress», it has a number of
very firm links with Radiohead's past that greatly assisted the public with
catching on. ʽThe National Anthemʼ, for instance, despite all the infamous «jazz
cacophony» created by a swirl of brass overdubs, rides atop a firm, solid,
decisive bass groove that sounds not unlike the main riff of ʽParanoid Androidʼ.
ʽOptimisticʼ is a clearly guitar-based pop-rocker that would have easily fit on
The Bends (just throw in a
bit of distortion, and you're done); ʽIn Limboʼ has the
guitars-and-keyboards-floating-in-space aura of ʽSubterranean Homesick Alienʼ;
and even if ʽMorning Bellʼ is completely dependent on a
primarily electronic keyboard melody, it still sounds like one of
Radiohead's traditionally soulful pleas to the Great God of Mercy. All the more
respectable are the many ways in which these traditional elements interact with
the novelty stuff — ranging from pure instrumental ambience (ʽTreefingersʼ) to
psychedelic orchestral arrangements (ʽHow To Disappear Completelyʼ). In short,
it is a dang clever album, regardless of how the listener might feel
about it on the proverbial gut level.
Which inevitably brings us to how this one particular listener feels about
it on the proverbial gut level. Or, rather, how he does not feel about
it — because, in all honesty, I am so coarse that I do not genuinely feel anything
about it, and have never been able to (for about 10 years since I first heard
it, to make the perspective more clear). From what I have witnessed, there are
usually two perspectives on Kid A: the 5-star and the 1-star perspective
— one of those records where you either get it or you don't, and if you don't,
there is no way to help you. My own ears are big fans of the 1-star perspective,
suggesting that, for all of its innovative/creative thoroughness, Kid A
is easily the most boring and inefficient «great» album ever released, and the
fact that it has been symbolically called the greatest album of the 2000s by so
many people can only reinforce the bitter irony encased in the equally symbolic
question of «where have all the good times gone».
One does not really need to advance
far beyond the first track of Kid A
to form a general perspective on the whole thing. There are people out there
who find ʽEverything In Its Right Placeʼ the perfect epitome of all the
bleakness and desperation that accompanies Radiohead wherever they go. The deep
keyboard tone, the repetitiveness, the somnambulant-depressive voice, the whispery
overdubs, the electronic crescendos, all working towards that goal...
...alas, divisive opinion coming up:
all I manage to hear is a repetitive, deeply annoying whine that hints
at bleakness and desperation, but never goes for the real thing — working at
best on a symbolic level, as if Yorke and his pals were staging a traditional
Chinese theater play (which, I must stress, they are not). I mean, I get
Michael Stipe, I get Lou Reed, I get Robert Smith, I get Portishead, I even get
Radiohead themselves, of the ʽLuckyʼ variety, but this sounds
tedious and annoying, and Yorke's mantra-like vocalizing eventually becomes a
buzzing fly effect that simply shots my nerves (it gets even worse on ʽIdiotequeʼ,
though). Mostly, though, it is a matter of that keyboard melody — I have
no idea whatsoever how it could cause even the slightest emotional ripple in
anybody. Apparently, it does, leaving me stumped. At best, I can visualize
somebody holding his breath for about four minutes and taking a relaxed swim
right under the water's surface — a tad psychedelic, but hardly a cathartic
experience.
Over the years, I have sincerely
and desperately tried to find even one song on this album that would
properly connect on an emotional level. The closest I ever got was with ʽOptimisticʼ,
since, as I already said, it is the only song here clearly reminiscent of «old
school» Radiohead, when they were content with writing real instrumental and
vocal melodies, and it has got some really lovely vocal harmonies that offer a
brief respite from the usual Thom Yorke caterwauling. It is still not a
masterpiece, though, and it hardly compensates for the complete hollowness of
everything else, and I literally mean everything. At best, they just
sound derivative (ʽTreefingersʼ, an experiment in turning your guitar into an
ambient organ, is listenable but hardly improves upon anything Brian Eno had
done — heck, anything Adrian Belew
had done), and at worst you get ʽIdiotequeʼ, easily the most irritating
song in Radiohead's entire catalog — at least because of my urgent need to
physically strangle Mr. Yorke for his, perhaps somewhat authentic, but irredeemingly
ugly attempt at impersonating a crazy person announcing the coming of the ice
age.
That said, if this was all just a
matter of an annoying vocalist... but I do not think Kid A would have
worked for me as a purely instrumental album, either. Again, for all of its
experimentation, I have no idea what it is exactly that should place it in the collective
critical mind above all those 1990s masterpieces by the likes of Portishead or
Björk. Most of the melodies here revel in minimalism while forgetting that good
minimalism has to strive to place emotionally meaningful content into
minimalistic note sequences — certainly not something the presence of which I
could ever suspect in the title track. Test situation: take the minimalistic
electronic keyboard melody of ʽEverything...ʼ or ʽMorning Bellʼ, compare
it with, say, the similarly minimalistic (even similarly-toned) electronic
keyboard of Portishead's ʽRoadsʼ, then tell me the difference. It
is my firm conviction that the boys were so deeply entrenched in
intellectual experimentalism here that they completely forsook substance for
style.
It goes without saying that this
whole judgement is a very subjective matter, and that Kid A may produce
very different effects on people depending on their age, social and cultural
background, and, perhaps most importantly, individual listening experiences.
But in my personal case, changes in age and listening experience have had no
effect whatsoever: from the beginning, I was certain that with Kid A,
Radiohead completed the process of «losing the way» which was surreptitiously
initiated with the still great OK Computer, and time, life, and
supernatural spirits did nothing to clear me of that conviction, even though
God knows I have tried groping for the album's hidden charm every now and then.
No dice.
It also goes without saying that
this review should not be taken too «prohibitively». Regardless of what this
author has to say, Kid A has firmly gone down in musical history as an «Important
Album», and any music lover / connoisseur needs to hear it at least once,
preferably twice or more even if the initial reaction is negative. I am not
quite sure of how influential it has been on the subsequent evolution of music
(except, naturally, on Radiohead's own future career), but it has certainly
been influential on the minds of music theorists and rock critics... and, well,
it sold quite a bit, too. (And I am not even mentioning the details of the «leaking
on Napster» story, which may have been the most influential aspect of
the record, indeed).
Yet, as of now, I also strongly
suspect that the success of Kid A is largely due to extra-musical
considerations. What would be an objective definition of Kid A? «Most
significant rock band in the world circa 1997-99, instead of making a carbon
copy of its biggest success or commercializing its music for a bigger
audience, bravely marches off in an experimental direction with a record that
preserves their core values but presents them in a completely new set of
musical textures». How could a thing like this not be successful? It simply
couldn't. A simple alternative is that Kid A is truly musically
brilliant, and it takes a different psychological constitution from mine to see
it. But I am very wary of those perceptional bifurcations — being picky-picky, any
time I have to choose between «brilliance» and «bullshit», I refuse to trust
analytical judgements and place my full trust in intuition. In the case of
Björk's Vespertine, for instance,
intuition tells me to rationalize that album's nature as artistic genius. In
the case of Kid A, intuition demands
rationalizing things in the opposite direction. We could write papers and books
a-plenty on the symbolic artistic meanings of everything going on here, but
attuning your heart to this particular vibe is a different matter altogether.
For that matter, it might be useful
to note that, upon release, reviews for Kid A were fairly mixed:
Radiohead's newly-improved electronic textures displeased and perturbed quite a
few of the critics, even if the band's overall reputation at the time was so
high that the album still topped the charts both in the UK and in the US.
Eventually, even most of the harsh-hearted critics relented, so today Kid A
is generally regarded as an artistic triumph. In agreement with its reputation,
the album has been re-released multiple times in various editions, the most
comprehensive of which so far is the Special Edition from 2009 (not that it's a
must-have or anything: where Special Editions of earlier albums are valuable
because the bonus CDs throw on various B-sides and EPs that are otherwise
unavailable, the Kid A era yielded no singles or EPs, and so all the
bonus tracks there are just various live performances of Kid A
material).
Bah! General Verdict in illegible yellow again...
ReplyDeleteClick on the first word, drag and watch the magic!
DeleteThere's an interesting point never stated but seemingly submerged in these reviews - when the Beatles' music changed, their themes changed, but Radiohead's stayed the same.
ReplyDeleteAnyway, this is a pretty good aphorism: 'any time I have to choose between «brilliance» and «bullshit», I refuse to trust analytical judgements and place my full trust in intuition'
I completely understand where you're coming from, and on my first few listens I was in the same boat. But eventually I hit upon an interpretation of the album that helps me enjoy it immensely- I enjoy it as a cautionary tale about emotional repression. Thom Yorke, or whomever the protagonist is, has undergone some serious trauma, and attempted to shut out all emotion, kind of like Sarah Nixey on "England Made Me", or Beck on "Sea Change" (even if these three albums are extremely different). This is why the album sounds so cold- he's trying not to feel anything. And there's nothing bleaker or more depressing than that. That keyboard melody of "Everything in Its Right Place"? A cold acknowledgement, with no sympathy.
ReplyDeleteHowever, the difference is that it doesn't totally work with this protagonist. His emotions bubble up within anyway, and end up spurting out in unhealthy ways, like the paranoid screaming in "Idioteque", or the psychedelic breakdown near the end of "How to Disappear Completely" (one of the best Radiohead tracks ever, I was grateful you put it in red text this time, I always deeply connect with this one), or the nightmare of "Treefingers" (I've always pictured an astronaut floating away into the void, untethered to anything, and resigned to his fate), or the vortex at the end of "In Limbo", and so on, all the way until he dies at the end of "Motion Picture Soundtrack". Emotional repression is bad, and this is what the dangers of it look like.
Not that I expect this will change your opinion on this album or anything. That's just the way I like to listen to it.
I agree with most of this - the "avant-garde" aspects of this mainly consist of carrying over various sounds from Warp Records to the world of big-budget rock (in particular the title track is a total Aphex Twin imitation, albeit a skillful one), and many of the songs don't really have any musical content ("Idioteque," "Treefingers" etc.). I do think that about half of the album generally follows the strong songwriting of OK Computer ("Optimistic," "How To Disappear Completely," "Everything In Its Right Place"), so in that sense I am a bit more positive about it.
ReplyDeleteNonetheless, I am also unable to relate to the willful alienation of this album. I always thought the "two colors" bit in the first song was evocative of someone who was fixated on every minute detail of their own emotional state and completely unwilling to attempt any communication with the outside world. In a way, this is evoked brilliantly, but to me it is just plain unpleasant - to be honest, I would not want to communicate with such a person and I think that at some point it's their own responsibility to come out of their shell, so likewise I do not really feel compelled to listen to a whole album of their feelings.
I dig Kid A (and all their records up to Thief).
ReplyDeleteI relate with Ross' assessment. Every time I put on Kid A, I hear a post-traumatic record, purposefully detached and exactly why it's depressing at the same time.
I'll give you Idioteque though. Thom's vocal is really grating at that one.
what the hell? 'Idioteque' is the best Radiohead song, easily! Madness!
ReplyDeleteYep! At least best on Kid A, I would agree.
DeleteI like Radiohead a whole lot, but I never got the indie intelligentsia claiming this was their masterpiece. I like it well enough, although Treefingers is still maybe my least favorite RH song, but to me Ok Computer, In Rainbows and the Bends are all quite a bit better (I doubt you like the new one George, but I also think it's maybe a little bit better than Kid A)
ReplyDeleteI think the album is a mess, a melange of ambient, experimental, riff-based, random musings. There's nothing wrong with departing from the conventions of pop songwriting - it had been done before many times, albeit not by such a "big" band. Maybe the defining feature of this album is that it is critic-proof. You can't really criticise it based on conventional criteria like poor melodies or lyrics because neither is relevant here.
ReplyDeleteAnd in answer to the question about "what do you do when you've written a critically acclaimed album of good songs"... write some more!
I do think it may have something to do with "timing." This was essentially DARK SIDE OF THE MOON to everybody I knew in high school. My memories of it run deep. To this day I think it's still their most consistent and elegant mood piece: it plays front to back as a sustained song cycle just like the aforementioned 70s classic. That alone renders it unique from all the other Radiohead records, which are usually more fractured. And also - it was a jolt of experimental bliss coming out of the mainstream at a time when things were rather bleak on that front. It really blew some minds in 2000 - that emotional impact upon nearly an entire generation of "smart" music fans helps explain why its so beloved today.
ReplyDeleteYes ! To me and my music loving friends, this album was huge when it came out. I was 20 at the time and it was the first time that I heard a new album that was as bold, audacious and powerful as the 60s and 70s stuff that I listened to. I thought it was the beginning of a new musical revolution. Unfortunately the revolution never happened, and Rock continued to die slowly with the next big trend, the ultra-boring garage rock revival of the early 2000s. Radiohead, however, made even better records the following years, and is still making great stuff (their last album is insane).
DeleteTo me this is based on Krautrock. An omage to the great German rock - I can imagine them playing somewhere in Berlin early 1970s.
ReplyDeleteMr Only Solitaire - the best music reviewer in the entire World. Like mental Therapy.
Nesho