Album: Kid A
In a long tradition of pop musicians embracing the avant-garde, Radiohead's change of approach after OK Computer is one of the more notable examples. Not quite as dramatic and wholehearted as Scott Walker's metamorphosis, Radiohead's musical conversion was more akin to Bowie's transition from Station To Station to Low, an embrace of krautrock, avant-garde classical and ambient music. Thom Yorke also admits to listening to a lot of Aphex Twin in the years before Kid A's release, inspiring him to drop the guitars in favour of beats. That's not to say there's anything overwhelmingly experimental about Kid A, but the record did stretch the horizons of lots of Radiohead fans like myself. For me, Kid A is forever associated with my last year of university and sitting in my comfy red chair at my antique wooden desk writing essay after essay, with this record and copious cups of tea as company. Like many fans, I was more than a little bemused after the first few listens, but very quickly came to love this record much more than OK Computer. What's so significant about Kid A is that Radiohead, in the same way as Björk, managed to fuse experimental sounds with pop music to sell millions of records and reach a wide audience, a rare feat in any era. In fact, very few songs on the album have a conventional pop structure, but Optimistic is a rare exception, with its crunching guitars and mournful chorus, "Try the best you can / the best you can is good enough".
Kid A opener, Everything In Its Right Place, makes for an incredibly atmospheric start to the album, the synths creating a lush harmonic noise that's quickly disrupted by clicks, Yorke's computer-processed voice and off-kilter drum machine fills. "There are two colours in my head," sings the Rothko fan. Aphex Twin's influence is clearly audible on the title track, but the vocoder-distorted lyrics are impossible to decipher. The National Anthem is one of the record's highlights, featuring brilliant krautrock-style drumming from Phil Selway, a murky bass and a highly infectious groove. The use of horns at the end of the song is inspired. How to Disappear Completely marks a comedown from the previous song's peak, with its weird and weepy strings, soothing acoustic guitars and lyrics reminiscent of Pink Floyd's Comfortably Numb ("In a little while, I'll be gone / the moment's already passed, yeah it's gone"). Johnny Greenwood, whose guitar work on the previous two Radiohead records was one of the standout elements, instead took responsibility for the string arrangements on Kid A, using unusual instruments like the Ondes Martenot (a bit like the theremin and used for the Star Trek and Ghostbusters soundtracks). Treefingers is eerie Brian Eno-esque ambient music, while the band also pay homage to Sigur Rós on closing track, Motion Picture Soundtrack. I can also hear the influence of Portishead in Morning Bell's military trip hop beats and haunting organ sound. Idioteque is another of the record's highlights, creating the same sense of future-rush that I got listening to Homogenic at the time. The lyrics summon up a sense of impending doom related to climate change ("Ice age coming", "We're not scaremongering / this is really happening"). Radiohead were ahead of their time in many ways.
Artist: Radiohead
Born: Abingdon, Oxfordshire
Released: October 2000
Genre: Electronic
Kid A opener, Everything In Its Right Place, makes for an incredibly atmospheric start to the album, the synths creating a lush harmonic noise that's quickly disrupted by clicks, Yorke's computer-processed voice and off-kilter drum machine fills. "There are two colours in my head," sings the Rothko fan. Aphex Twin's influence is clearly audible on the title track, but the vocoder-distorted lyrics are impossible to decipher. The National Anthem is one of the record's highlights, featuring brilliant krautrock-style drumming from Phil Selway, a murky bass and a highly infectious groove. The use of horns at the end of the song is inspired. How to Disappear Completely marks a comedown from the previous song's peak, with its weird and weepy strings, soothing acoustic guitars and lyrics reminiscent of Pink Floyd's Comfortably Numb ("In a little while, I'll be gone / the moment's already passed, yeah it's gone"). Johnny Greenwood, whose guitar work on the previous two Radiohead records was one of the standout elements, instead took responsibility for the string arrangements on Kid A, using unusual instruments like the Ondes Martenot (a bit like the theremin and used for the Star Trek and Ghostbusters soundtracks). Treefingers is eerie Brian Eno-esque ambient music, while the band also pay homage to Sigur Rós on closing track, Motion Picture Soundtrack. I can also hear the influence of Portishead in Morning Bell's military trip hop beats and haunting organ sound. Idioteque is another of the record's highlights, creating the same sense of future-rush that I got listening to Homogenic at the time. The lyrics summon up a sense of impending doom related to climate change ("Ice age coming", "We're not scaremongering / this is really happening"). Radiohead were ahead of their time in many ways.
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