Radiohead - Amnesiac
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Free Music Notes for Amnesiac
Free Music Review: Warning To Trendy People: Avert Your Ears From This Album
Hit: 5 Stars
Undoubtedly one of the most bizarre yet extremely enjoyable CD's I've ever had. The album is definitely a deep shift from what the previous albums. Only on a couple of tracks will you hear the guitars and drums, but the rest are churned out by mechanic appliances, keyboards and synthesizers. In other words, if you thought Kid A was a big change you'll be even more surprised by this.Packt Like Sardines In A Crushd Tin Box- The tune of this song sounds like something from an old arcade machine or game boy as some sort of drumming dies in and out of the track.
Pyramid Song- Slow, emotional and reverant, Thom's sad vocals are accompanied with violins and an overall watery feel. It sings of heading to the afterlife.
Pulk/Pull Revolving Doors- Incessant, pounding beats repeat all throughout the song with a highly distorted Thom Yorke eerily describing the types of doors. Obviously carrying a deeper meaning, it sounds "evil" at the very least.
You And Whose Army?- Thom sounds very drunk in this one. It starts off slow and steady for most of the track and then finishes with a triumphant burst of sounds, symphony and energy.
I Might Be Wrong- A track that has sort of an electronic feel, yet it doesn't. I really don't know how to describe it, except it sounds very clean cut. Perhaps the most "modern" of the tracks.
Knives Out: One of the best tracks on the album. Sweeping melodies cover up disturbing and awkward lyrics. Always carries a strong steady tempo.
Morning Bell/Amnesiac- Fans of the original "Morning Bell" on the Kid A album will be in for a shock. While the lyrics and melody remain the same, it has a more orchestrated sound to it.
Dollars & Cents- This track sounds somewhat jazzy in a sense. It starts off fine and then becomes harsher and harsher while beating it's message into our minds. Clearly, the song is about how money has corrupted us.
Hunting Bears- No vocals. Just the sound of a warped guitar and the ocean droning on and off. Calm and restful at the very least.
Like Spinning Plates- My favorite. The sound is haunting with an eerie melody and Thom spouting the lyrics "While you make pretty speeches, I'm being cut to shreds". My best guess is that the song is about a world crashing and falling to pieces.
Life In A Glass House- Trumpets and horns blair from beginning to end with instruments carrying a dreary and exhausted sound. Whenever I hear it, I think of a drunken sailor.
Free Music Review: The Best of Radiohead?
Hit: 5 Stars
The worst song on the album is undoubtedly Pull/Pulk Revolving Doors. Why it was even allowed onto the album, I don't know. Appart from this and some other moments, Amnesiac is frequently good, and offers some of the best of Radiohead. If Kid A's opener Everything In It's Right Place was a celebration of order and normality, then Packt Like Sardines... is somewhat irritated by it; "After years of waiting/ nothing happens", "I'm a reasonible man get off my case." It's ambient keyboards and glitch beat show that it could have been easily accepted onto Kid A. The other "techno" song from the album is Like Spinning Plates. The tack was recorded entirely backwards, and then reversed for the album version; the end result is moving, if not a little confusing.The two more traditional songs are in the center of the playlist; Knives Out and I Might Be Wrong. Knives Out is the more melodic of the two, with strangely cannabilistic lyrics; "Put him in the pot..." "He's boiled and he's frozen." The guitar effect on I Might Be Wrong is similar to that on the Airbag bassline from OK Computer, though is more sinister. These two tracks could be the selling point for those fans of the more traditional Radiohead.
The remaining tracks are, strangely enough, all piano driven, but in entirely different ways. Morning Bell/ Amnesiac is much different from the Kid A version, and better in different ways. Dropping the ambient keyboards and strong beat from the previous version, Morning Bell has, somewhere in there, a violin, an organ/piano and a choir. The "cut the kids in half" section is much more disturbing, and the chorus (if you could call it that) is strangely uplifting.
You and Whose Army is muffled (by putting egg cartons over the mics) and slow until the band kicks in for the last minute.
The piano on Pyramid Song is hard to pin down until Phil Selway's drum part kicks in. Supposedly about freedom Thom goes from Dante (black-eyed angels) to downright weird (astral Cars?).
By far the strangest is Life In A Glasshouse. Previously an OK Computer-type stadium filler, Thom changed all that by ditching guitars and calling in Humphrey Lyttleton's jazz group.
The end result is a 30's jazz piece about the celebrity lifestyle (someone's looking in the window.)
Overall, Amnesiac isn't as cryptic as was made out to be.
Free Music Review: A Trapdoor You Can't Escape From
Hit: 5 Stars
I got "Kid A" last February, was mesmerized by its bravery and moody, misanthropic lyrics, and got all of their other cd's. Now, only four months after I got "Kid A," Radiohead gave us all a pathologically disturbed cousin of "Kid A" in the darker, more beautiful, and more disconcerting "Amnesiac."Like "Kid A," "Amnesiac" features a lot of synthesizers and organs, and Thom Yourke's voice often sounds as though he had just ingested helium gas. But these work together to give us a moody, creepy, and beautiful dissection of modern-day angst in a society built around technology and the people who have denounced Radiohead as "pretentious and foolish." If you're one of those people, stop reading right now.
Now, for the rest of you, "Amnesiac" is an astonishing work. It requires a few listens before you can truly grasp its messages and beauty, but it's worth it. The first two tracks are alternately moody and heartbreaking (but hopeful). "Pull/Pulk Revolving Doors" is nearly indecipherable, but the hydrogen-bomb bass lines and violin interludes speak volumes. "You and Whose Army?" is a lovely piece of a man frightened by his own defiance, and "I Might Be Wrong" is drenched in computer-generated excess (to the point that we can't understand a word Yourke is saying). "Knives Out" is, with "Pyramid Song," the only radio-friendly song on here. It's the only one even remotely "OK Computer"-esque. "Morning Bell Amnesiac" was disappointing because I didn't like the song any better on "Kid A," and "Hunting Bears" is a blend of guitar riffs trying vainly to unearth a rhythm. But "Dollars and Cents" is a great, if somewhat unnerving, attack on capitalism, with "Like Spinning Plates" providing great relief with sound effects, and the fantastic concluding track, "Life in a Glasshouse," giving us an orchestra of sound, iliciting memories of a New Orleans Street Band with a synthesizer.
In conclusion, "Amnesiac" isn't perfect. But it's so unblinkingly honest, paranoid, and heartfelt, that we're drawn into it anyways. It will leave you moved, shaken, and stirred--but given the saccharin-laced crap dominating music these days, it's a depressing diversion we highly welcome.
Free Music Review: through the night violently
Hit: 5 Stars
Released only seven months before Amnesiac, Kid A is the most cohesive, liquid album to ever come out Radiohead. It is, one could argue, a more pure 'concept album' than 1997's Ok Computer. From first to final track, Kid A throbs with a detatched intelligence, slithering along in increasingly tight downward spirals, gathering momentum until the soberingly icy 'morning bell' and the grandiose, irony-laden love ballad 'motion picture soundtrack' (a prime Radiohead cut). Amnesiac is a companion album, I would maintain, both thematically and technically, though it depicts a deeper slice of the Kid A tableau. Amnesiac sits square in the center of the mad eye of the apocalypse, a troubled voice changing seats frantically.Initally, Amnesiac album feels like a true sequel. 'packt like sardines,' the tremendous 'pyramid song,' and even the terrifying, robotic 'pull/pulk revolving doors' are fueled by a classic Kid A aesthetic: numb, uneasy bewilderment. Things get really strange at 'you and whose army,' a terrific boozy character piece which puts Thom Yorke at a piano in the corner of a dark longue. "Come on," he goads, "you and your cronies," before errupting into the anthemic battle-cry refrain "we ride tonight." At this point, Amnesiac seems to affirm its schizophrenic persona, toppling headlong into a series of nightmarish vingettes - there is a general conveyance of psychological instability not witnessed by Radiohead fans since 'climbing up the walls.' A slow, truly chilly re-working of Kid A's 'morning bell' (here subtitled amnesiac) leads into the dark, pulsing acid-groove of 'dollars and cents,' Amnesiac's most sincerely threatening and confrontational moment.
A surprising moment of clarity arrives with 'like spinning plates,' a tense piece with backwards-mixed vocals and strobing synth-effects - one hears quiet shades of fear, mortification... maybe even regret. It's a fantastic come-down, essentially ending Amnesiac without answering any questions or providing much comfort. The album simply departs. As the credits roll, Radiohead plays a funeral march - the unsettling jazz epilogue 'life in a glass house' - and Thom, suddenly vocal, declares that he'd "love to stay and chat." The unexpected presence of vibrant horns is unnerving; the shaken listener is mocked by the cinematic, smiling turn. It's brilliant.
Free Music Review: A masterwork of "popular" music
Hit: 5 Stars
Let me first say that I find it peculiar that so many people are commenting on an album that came out two weeks ago. While this type of behaviour seems appropriate with say a Destiny Child or Creed album, commenting so prematurely on a Radiohead album seems almost idiotic. Most people here are slamming the album for being to "artsy" and taking the easy way out and slamming the band for having some "ego trip" or something. But the fact is, who or what the band is has nothing to do with the accessibility of their music. I've had the pleasure of owning Amnesiac for about two months now (and yes, i recently PURCHASED the album) and let me tell you, it's an amazing piece of work. Instead of comparing this album to Kid A, or OK Computer, why not look base your judgments on its own merits. Just open the CD, listen to a couple tracks, recognize that it's different and therefore base your critiques on the album itself. When the Strawberry Fields video was played on American Bandstand all the kids in the audience thought they looked weird and they didn't like the song at all. But I can probably tell you that all of those kids soon became fans after they sat down and listenened to Sgt Peppers or Magical Mystery Tour and looked at it on its own merits. Now Sgt Peppers is recognized as one of the greatest albums of all time. I'm not saying that Amnesiac or Kid A are in the same league as The Beatles, I'm just showing how premature judgments can backfire. One persons ability to relate to art relies on who they are and what they are going through (or HAVE gone through). I was going through a pretty strange time and therefore found Kid A and Amnesiac VERY accessible. Almost eerily so. But for someone who's going through a different time the album might be totally inaccessible. So most critiques, at least thoughts expressed here, are from different lifestyles and different pasts. So recognize that just slamming an album for being weird or stupid does not take into account the fact that it is art and that truly great art can not be explained. Try to explain why "A Love Supreme" is such an excellent achievement. It's damn near impossible, but if you listen to it, you know it's amazing.
Not everything can be expressed with words, and some things just shouldn't.