Everything in
its Right Place
Kid A
The National Anthem
How to Disappear Completely
Treefingers
Optimistic
In Limbo
Idioteque
Morning Bell
Motion Picture Soundtrack
Kid
A
Released 10/02/2000 UK, 10/03/2000 US & Canada
Produced by Radiohead and Nigel Godrich.
The band started work on the follow-up to 1997's critically
acclaimed OK Computer in late 1998 and recently finished up
recording this Spring. They started work at Medly Studios in
Copenhagen, Denmark, and have since spent time in Studio Guillaume
Tell, near Pairs, and then to Gloucestershire, England.
Notes:
Kid A entered the US album charts at #1.
CDNow review
With Kid A, Radiohead has made the ultimate 3 a.m. stoner-headphone
album, one that marks an entirely logical progression from --
if not necessarily an improvement upon -- the techno-but-not-really
O.K. Computer.
Kid A is an airy, concept-heavy work that is at times breathtakingly
lovely, and at times maddeningly obtuse. Occasionally, it feels
less like a rock record and more like a museum piece, and as
a work of art, it's laudable. As an actual, listener-friendly
offering, it leaves something to be desired: It's precisely
the sort of record a band makes when it has endless amounts
of time and money, and has spent long periods of time being
told what geniuses its members are.
That Radiohead is the best band of its generation is hardly
worth questioning, and even considering the frequent grandiloquence
of Kid A, the band's reach never exceeds its grasp. But despite
the longing made real by Thom Yorke's aching vocals, there's
a coldness at the record's bleak, brittle heart. Kid A is sweeping
and gorgeous, and ultimately more admirable than likeable. Much
more dependent on organs and keyboards than its predecessors,
it's filled with long, bleep-and-loop-heavy instrumental suites,
tracks that build to horn- or string-filled crescendos, atmospheric
songs that go nowhere, and others (such as "Ideoteque") that
border on straight electronica, with the occasional rocker (the
chugging, marvelous "Optimistic") mixed in.
In many ways, the masterful Kid A is one of the year's finest
records, but anyone who misses the "Fake Plastic Trees"-era
Radiohead -- back when the band was just an inspired alternative
rock band and not a breathing homage to artistic abstraction
-- won't find much comfort here.
