Radiohead - Kid A
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Music CD Cover
Artist: RadioheadEdition: Music CD
Audio: English (Original Language)
CD Release Date: 2000-10-03
Music Label: Capitol
Soundtracks:
- Everything In Its Right Place
- Kid A
- The National Anthem
- How To Disappear Completely
- Treefingers
- Optimistic
- In Limbo
- Idioteque
- Morning Bell
- Motion Picture Soundtrack
Free Music Notes for Kid A
Free Music Review: Scrap Your Preconceptions and Open Your Ears...
Hit: 5 Stars
...And you might fall in love with "Kid A". Maybe. It's a love it or hate it album. But I can unconditionally recommend giving it at least one try, especially if you're a fan of "OK Computer" or "Hail to the Thief".
Why? Because "Kid A" is Radiohead's true masterpiece, that's right, even more so than "OK Computer". It takes the rulebook and rips it clean in two, managing to be so many different things in so many ways that it's almost indescribable. Thus, this "review" will really wind up being a short guide to listening to "Kid A", then a track-by-track overview to give the reader some concept of what experiencing the album feels like.
How To Listen to "Kid A":
1) Expect the Unexpected
As many shocked listeners discovered when "Kid A" was released, it is NOT "OK Computer". It is a Radiohead album, make no mistake, but it sounds like nothing you've ever heard before. In a good way. Do yourself a favor and leave any concept of what you might hear at the door. Form your own experience of what you hear, and allow yourself to be startled by it. It's OK, the water's warm.
2) Listen to the Entire Album
At least once. "Kid A" flows more than any previous Radiohead work - it's supposed to be experienced as a single, cohesive whole, the only possible break being "Treefingers", which acts as an intermission of sorts. It's shorter than "OK Computer" - you can do it, set aside 49 minutes and do the album justice.
3) Give it Time
"Kid A" is an album that absolutely refuses to give everything up on first listen. You'll need to engage it actively if you want to enjoy it completely. Does music always have to be work? No, but in this case it's well worth the trouble.
Track By Track:
NOTE: This is for those who are still unsure that they will like the album, and are skittish about making the initial investment. It's a brief overview, done mostly for my own pleasure. Expect spoilers.
01) Everything In Its Right Place
This is actually a typical Radiohead opener in its own way: completely different from the rest of the album, it nevertheless launches you instantly into the proper context for hearing everything else. Beginning with a single synth line that ascends upwards towards an uneasy, apprehensive standoff that somehow reminds me of "Thus Spake Zarathrustra", the listener then encounters the first "new" element on this album: Thom's vocal track has been put through a blender, then reconstituted into something that's part human, part jigsaw puzzle. As these hacked-up bits of sound are dubbed over the normal vocals, there's an odd sense of both tension and stasis. It's the traumatic shock in the immediate aftermath of a great tragedy, and Thom can't find the words to describe it. As the tension and volume builds, the mangled tracks multiplying, the song suddenly resolves into the same synth line with which it began, adding some modulation/pitch bending in the right channel. The track is both calming and disturbing, two seemingly opposing traits that will continue to mingle throughout the album.
02) Kid A
The title track opens with a sound like a UFO slowly coming to hover above the ground, only to be replaced by a nursery-rhyme melody played on what could be tubular bells. This mix of the earthly and unearthly is what defines the song. When deep, reverb-laden synths and muted, 808-ish bass drums kick in, the effect is something like being transported back to the womb, only to find it completely alien. The vocals have once again been altered - this time, strained through a distorted vocoder that makes them sound like a cross between an old analog recording and some extraterrestrial along the lines of E.T. The song is almost lulling and comforting, except for some odd squeaks that sound like dissipating air, and one single, jarringly dissonant sample in the middle, carefully calculated to throw the listener off his/her guard. Then, just as the song sounds its most innocent and hopeful, a sample fades in of a baby crying, which in turn crossfades to a single, eerie high-pitched note. This is counterbalanced by a guttural synth sound that leads directly into the next track:
03) The National Anthem
This is where the album begins to sound slightly more like traditional Radiohead - that is, until the brass section enters! It begins with a simple, antagonistic bassline, gradually adding drums, odd samples, ambient noise, a high-pitched synth and a brief vocal track. Then, out of nowhere, a low brass rhythym enters, eventually rising into squalling trumpet, and finally a chorus of different brass instruments all playing in different keys at different times. Imagine John Coltrane, Miles Davis, Charles Mingus and a number of other notable brass soloists blasting away at the same time on their respective instruments without any regard for what one another is playing, and you begin to get the idea. The track is eaten alive by the brass section, only to briefly echo in a distorted orchestral arrangement that ends on a minor chord, setting the stage for the album's early climax.
04) How to Disappear Completely
Those who study Radiohead will notice a pattern emerging - The fourth track is always a slow, haunting ballad which usually winds up being one of the album's most powerful tracks. "How to Disappear Completely" is the culmination of a number of studies in creepily beautiful ballads. It begins with almost inaudible strings playing an unresolved minor key - almost subconsciously setting your teeth on edge. Gradually, an arrhythmic acoustic guitar fades in, meandering down minor progressions which heighten the uneasy mood. Thom enters quietly, in the lower part of his falsetto range, as heart-stopping downward glissandos provoke palpitations. "I'm not here/This isn't happening" he sings quietly. From there, the track slowly crescendos, by turns achingly beautiful, heart-rending and nerve-wracking. It's equal parts crisis and catharsis, revelling and worrying over one terrible moment. If "Kid A" is, as Yorke puts it, "something traumatic", then this is the definitive moment of trauma. All those who accuse "Kid A" of being inhuman, listen carefully. Radiohead have never been more fully committed, spiritually and emotionally, than in this song.
05) Treefingers
After the intense ordeal of the last two songs, the listener is confronted with long, rounded, synth-like sounds (actually played on guitar, then cut-and-pasted in post-production). It reminds me of sunlight glinting through the branches of underwater trees (kelp or coral, I don't know). Yet even this ambient work, so soothing, is slightly troubling as well. In the end, "Treefingers" serves as a full-stop, a brief intermission between first and second acts, a chance for the listener to catch his/her breath.
06) Optimistic
This track is a somewhat startling jolt after the ambient nature of the last one. The listener is immediately launched into the most satisfyingly "normal" song on the album - if anything sounds like "OK Computer" on "Kid A", this is it: specifically, it's the best parts of "Electioneering", rearranged to form an even more biting and sarcastic song. "Try the best you can/Try the best you can/The best you can is good enough" Thom taunts sardonically after commenting on how "the big fish eat the little ones". It's the bitter medicine to the "everyone is special" method of child rearing that has infected the world today. The track is mostly powered by the five-piece guitar-driven dynamic that made Radiohead famous, although towards the ending it dissolves towards an interesting jam with jazz-rock tendencies. It ends with a crash cymbal, segueing directly into the next track.
07) In Limbo
After a brief, stuttering synth intro, tumbling drums and unsettling guitar arpeggios set up a chaotic composition. The vocals, wailed over these tides of instrumentation, only increase the feeling of unease. This was one of the most disturbing songs on the album for me. Between the creepy intonation "You're living in a fantasy world" (reminiscent of the "Dream on" line from the film "Jacob's Ladder") and the howls of "GO AWAY" that are distorted into meaninglessness at the song's end, it's pretty frightening.
08) Idioteque
Combine a moody ambient synth with stuttering, Aphex Twin beats and challenging vocals, and you have the ultimate feel-bad, anti-Dance electronic track. Given all that, "Idioteque" is still pretty entertaining (and surprisingly singable/danceable during some bits) in its own morbid, apocalyptic way. One could spend ages simply dissecting the intricacies of the squeaks and scratches that form the song's beat. The lyrics are mostly oblique, although some say that they deal with the threat of global warming. The only thing that's really clear is that this song is the foretelling of the inevitable apocalypse that gives the album its name ("Kid A" is the term for the first child born after an apocalyptic event). The track ends on a prolonged dissonant chord, which dissolves into the next song.
09) Morning Bell
If you oversimplified "Kid A" down to just a concept album (with the title track representing birth, "How to Disappear Completely" representing teenage years, "Optimistic" being the greedy beginnings of adulthood and "Idioteque" being the concerned years of middle age), then this song would most likely deal with the central character's old age or senility. That's not to say that it sounds aged or senile - it just seems to express the ramblings of a senile mind. Between the disjointed, nonsensical lyrics (mumbled by Yorke in a nervous falsetto whisper) the shredded guitar peals in the background and the splintered drums, there's a general impression of disorder, briefly shattered by a sudden crescendo halfway through the song where suddenly all the disparate elements of the song seem united in a single purpose, only to evaporate back towards minimalist unrest, finally fading to just a synth chord and a groping, muted bassline.
10) Motion Picture Soundtrack
"Kid A"'s grand finale starts with just an old organ, pumping away at chords that sound older and wiser than time. The vocals come slowly, patiently, heart-breaking in their steady intensity. "I think you're crazy," Thom sings in a manner that sounds like anything but disapproval. There's a brief measure of rest, then unearthly sounds, like a child's toy or an alien spaceship, trickle upwards and downwards over the vocal track, eventually supplemented by an equally ethereal, operatic voice, rising upwards into oblivion (To some, it may be slightly reminiscent of the soundtrack at the very end of "The Elephant Man"). It drives me to tears almost every time I listen to it, the unlikely duet straining upwards towards the heavens as Thom sings "I will see you in the next life." The tinkling, jack-in-the-box-like instrument then slides from the top to the bottom of its range, before spiraling off in random tangents, slowling fading into silence.
This silence lasts for roughly a minute before it slowly fades into feedback, replaced by the sound of strings tuning and the lifts of an enormous choir, collapsing into cheerful electronic beeps. Perhaps this is the "next life" of which Yorke sings. If so, we only glimpse it for thirty seconds before there are two more minutes of silence, and the album repeats.
Kid A Poster
Radiohead Photos
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More from Radiohead
 OK Computer |  The Bends |  Hail To The Thief |
 Pablo Honey |  Amnesiac |  Airbag/How Am I Driving? |
How is it that Kid A's opening track, laden with an electronic vocal stuttering "bleh, bluh-bleh bleh bluh" is the most fascinating statement made in rock & roll this year? Because somehow, even when Radiohead blathers and blips nonsense, it's profound. The band's future-perfect musical grammar may be hard to decipher, and the melody is even more subliminal, but the journey traveled with Radiohead reveals them to be not only rock music's greatest adventurers in 2000, but teachers as well. --Beth Massa
With every record, Radiohead jump off higher and higher cliffs, daring fans to take the plunge in their artistic feats of derring-do. The journey from that scratchy bit of raw guitar angst in "Creep" (from 1993's Pablo Honey) to any song on Kid A amounts to a high-wire act that few, if any, bands in popular music have ever attempted. It's hard to believe both records come from the same planet, much less the same band. Likewise, the grandiose, Pink Floyd-esque thematic scope of 1997's extraordinary OK Computer is nowhere to be found here. Quiet, contemplative, and less confrontational, it opens with a lack of bombast, as "Everything in Its Right Place" builds tension with ghostly voiceovers, a dry pulse, and a shadowy organ motif. That tension appears over and over on Kid A. On "How to Disappear Completely," the unsettled, atonal keyboard waxing in the background offsets the plaintive Thom Yorke vocal, and on "Idioteque," detached, inorganic rhythms make the melody's despondent aimlessness that much more nerve-racking. Throughout, Radiohead fearlessly explore dissonance and structure, melding twisted, Brian Eno-meets-Aphex Twin sonic landscapes with utter discontent in the world around them. They may sometimes overreach, letting artsy ambition prevent them from giving us the arena rock-god goodies. But their commitment to restless creativity also yields pleasures that don't fade but instead become more resonant upon repeated listenings. If OK Computer was rock's most relevant expression of millennial angst, Kid A is the opposite; it's the 21st century's first record that sounds like the future, barely caring what that Y2K fuss was all about and much more worried about what the hell we're all supposed to do now. --Matthew Cooke
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