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Radiohead - Kid A
Music CD CoverArtist: Radiohead Edition: Music CD Format: Enhanced 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 AFree Music Review: ...I see where you're all coming from...but this isn't shocking and inaccessible... Hit: 4 Stars...well it happened in the end didn't it? Radiohead wanted to change their sound and I really don't blame them...they are a really talented bunch of musicians (yes not just Greenwood and Yorke) and I find this change in direction very refreshing...although there are some issues I have with the complainers of this album...
..."Ooh it's just electronic and static noise...how does anyone listen to this?" You really need to listen to some real static noise then...bands like Wolf Eyes and Merzbow make their living out of this kind of noise...now spot the diference...what is it? Yes this is melodic and listenable...so please stop complaining...
...the plus sides of this album I'd have to say is the new use of synths and new instruments...for the most part the electric guitar is left in the cupboard to gather dust as they try synthed voices in the song "Kid A" mixed with the Xylophone on the keyboard...combining a hypnotic bassline with a brass ensemble in "National Anthem"...and electronic drums with a synth in the (in)famous "Idioteque"...these ideas prosper within the album as long as you have an open mind (within reason)...
...and the downside...well...the problem is it's completely overshadowed...if they started with this as their debut instead of "Pablo Honey" they probably would have had more prestige success instead of being known as the band that played "Creep" and annoyed half of the population...but because "OK Computer" came first the die hard fans will always say it's not good enough and push it aside...
...my advice? Give this album a chance...it's not as abstract as everyone says it is...merely in contrast to their other albums...and if you don't enjoy it...fine...just don't call it abstract...because it isn't...oh yeah and the rumour that the whole record company lost their christmas bonus after the manager heard this...not true...
Kid A PosterHow 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 Radiohead Photos More from Radiohead  OK Computer |  The Bends |  Hail To The Thief |  Pablo Honey |  Amnesiac |  Airbag/How Am I Driving? |
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