Radiohead - Amnesiac

I'm a reasonable man; get off my case.

While Radiohead's 2000 album Kid A was already a shocking experience, nothing could have possible prepared fans for what would proceed the album in only a year, the vastly obscure Amnesiac. Written as a parallels to one another, the two albums fit together like pieces of an obscure and disturbing, yet ultimately ingenious puzzle. Kid A had it's fair share of uplifting moments throughout the paranoia and gloom, but Amnesiac pulled no punches, and searched for an answer in the same vein as Kid A. Both albums share some specific themes, as evidenced by the two separate versions of the song Morning Bell, but both have very different personalities. It seems as if both started in the first place, a single point of birth, and spiraled off spontaneously in opposite directions. Kid A made the climb ad infinitum, and Amnesiac dug into deeper ground and swam into darker water. The album is largely a disturbing search for some kind of resolution to life's angst and internal pain, and the trip it takes to the answer is nothing short of astounding. But let's not kid ourselves, the chances that any album after Kid A would have been an easy listen is zero to none. That's not to say that this album is completely unaccessible. You have heard weirder music, but sometimes it feels like the emotional bomb is being dropped track after track, and the only thing that seems traditional are time signatures which aren't even always present. Upon first listen, the record will mostly likely sound distant and unapproachable, but once the listeners ears decide to take the wheel and drive the music home, a beautiful flower blooms and things start to make sense. Each song is hand crafted in this way, to reap rewards over time, and only time will do this work. Most of the songs, such as Knives Out and Pulk/Pull Revolving Doors meander with no real resolution, perhaps representing some kind of ongoing search. There is some accessible material here, namely I Might Be Wrong, an electronic groove which builds itself fantastically into catchy layers which build and then destroy themselves to a wonderful effect. Many Radiohead fans also cite Pyramid Song as the bands best song. But simple lack of accessibility leads many to believe that the album is at fault despite how much someone can enjoy it in the end. Radiohead know that how much one wants to make a record that can tear down doors won't necessarily make them deliver. While at first it may seem like a collection of songs that simply weren't strong enough for Kid A, Amnesiac actually has more structure than it's predecessor, and is just as enthralling when one finally comes to understand it's ins and outs. While this is easily Radiohead's most difficult, jarring, and wildly experimental album, it is also the most engaging, rewarding, and to some, the best. November 4, 2008

Get off "Amnesiac"'s case.

A lot of people hate this record and its predecessor, "Kid A". I mean, they really HATE them. I know Radiohead fans who threw them out after a week. That's understandable, if rather drastic. In the '90s, Radiohead were dependable for a great alternative rock anthem. They were good at it -- maybe too good. "Pablo Honey" is a good (not great) record and "The Bends" is better still. But when "OK Computer" hit, everyone went crazy. It got saddled with "Best Album of the Decade" tags. It mixed Radiohead's established strengths with considerably better lyrics and just enough experimentation to please those who were bored with the more conventional formulas of the band's previous two albums. No doubt about it, "OK Computer" is a master piece of an album. It's rare that a record can have twelve songs that are all memorable, potential singles even, and still retain as much artistic merit as "OK Computer" did. But with a pedigree like that, who can blame Radiohead for maybe freaking out a little when it came time to do a follow-up?

So they retreated into the studio and came out in 2000 with "Kid A", embraced by critics as another masterpiece and dividing the fan base straight down the middle. On one side: the people who liked Radiohead as they were, and wanted more standard Brit rock-pop. On the other: the people who recognized the merit of the first two Radiohead records but felt that the experimental flourishes of "OK Computer" were a step in the right direction. Given that "Kid A" eschewed traditional rock structure and instrumentation in favor of dense electronics, atonal horns, and eerie, filtered falsetto vocal work, you can guess which side love dit and which despised it. Personally, I fall into the second camp, those who embraced it. It's my favorite Radiohead record -- not as immediately awesome as "OK Computer", but over time revealing its beauty, intricacy, and poignancy.

Which brings us here, to the much-maligned "Amnesiac". I get the hating on "Kid A", but to be honest, I'm surprised that this record hasn't gotten more love. It's pretty much a compromise for everyone -- still very experimental, but bringing back the elements many missed most on "Kid A": more conventional song structure and, um, you know, guitar. Opener "Packt Like Sardines in a Crushd Tin Box" sets this tone well, as Radiohead openers tend to do, composed mainly of electronics but following traditional structure (and featuring an addicitve refrain of "I'm a reasonable man, get off my case"). The strings-n'-piano number "Pyramid Song" is beautiful enough to mesmerize the less adventurous Radiohead lover, but the real fun lies in its weirder side, especially the way the piano swaggers drunkenly around, trying and failing to find a steady beat until the drums come in and help it out. The rest of "Amnesiac" mostly follows these songs' lead. "You and Whose Army?" is a lovely cut that expands from paino ballad to full-band rocker. "I Might Be Wrong" is the closest Radiohead has come to a dance song, and is very accessible, and "Knives Out" is a standard rock number that plays like a direct bid to regain fans lost as a result of "Kid A". All of these songs find middle ground between the divided fan base, applying the electronics found on "Kid A" to more accessible song structures.

But there are other songs that inspire as much division as anything on "Kid A", suggesting that Radiohead, while recognizing that some fans wanted easier-to-digest alt-rock, intended to keep moving forward with their experimentation. "Pulk/Pull Revolving Doors" is one of these, and although it might seem forbidding to some, it's actually a pretty awesome song, blending elements of techno and industrial music to a great drum-and-bass combo line, and featuring weird but not grating treated vocals reminscent of "OK Computer"'s most experimental track, "Fitter Happier". Closer "Life in a Glasshouse" is a piano ballad tricked out with a very drunken horn section, furthering the forays into jazz begun on "Kid A" songs like "The National Anthem". It's a great song, unexpected but not out of place.

Then there's "Hunting Bears" and "Morning Bell/Amnesiac". I really like this record a lot. It's pretty great in my opinion, up there with "Kid A" and "OK Computer". I like rock music as much as the next guy, and as much as I love "Kid A" is still appreciate the effort Radiohead put into making these songs more accessible. But these two tracks are serious detriments. "Amnesiac" is comprised of tracks from the "Kid A" sessions, but these are the only two moments where you'd know it. It's a solid record but for them. "Hunting Bears" is a reprise of "I Might Be Wrong", except that it's just Jonny Greenwood on the guitar and nothing else. It's given grating production treatment and doesn't do anything "I Might Be Wrong" doesn't do. In fact, it does a lot less and is no fun to listen to. "Kid A" had an interlude called "Treefingers", and I get the impression that this song is trying to do the same thing, but where that track was beautiful and a great segue, this one is annoying, dull, and doesn't connect the songs bookending it. "Morning Bell/Amnesiac" is just a new version of "Morning Bell" from "Kid A" with a short intrumental appended to the outro, but the production is messy and lacks the grace of the earlier version. This cut and "Hunting Bears" cause "Amnesiac", an otherwise excellent batch of Radiohead tunes that show them blending their experimental tendencies and their songwriting skill, to feel a bit like a "Kid A" B-sides collection when it deserves to be heard as a beautiful, complex, and just plain awesome piece of music in its own right. September 12, 2008

WOW! AMAZINGAMAZINGAMAZING.

I rarely give ANY product this kind of review - but Amnesiac is one of those rare CD's that can be listened to in entirity. Moody, extremely layered, sad, whistful.

Listen to it once and you will be hooked. June 18, 2008

INCREDIBLE!

THIS IS AN INCREDIBLE CD AND THESE GUYS ARE AWESOME LIVE!
LIKE SPINNING PLATES!!!!!!!!!!!!!! June 13, 2008

The Art of Despair

Rock music does a lot of things extremely well, but one emotion that it seems to have difficulty capturing is despair. I'm not talking about the blues. The blues involves reveling, often in a kind of self-satisfied way, about one's awareness of how badly one's life is going. There's nothing smug or self-satisfied about despair: it is a prelude to the death of hope, the reaching of a point from which one can't "come back." "Amnesiac" captures despair better than just about any rock album I can think of (another great entry in this abject sweeptakes would be Fleetwood Mac's masterpiece "Then Play On").

"Amnesiac" is to most music dealing with misery as opening up a bottle of whiskey in a darkened room with a loaded gun on the table, alone and with the phone disconnected, is to a bragging drunkalogue delivered to a crowded AA meeting. If you don't understand what I'm talking about consider yourself fortunate. If you do, get "Amnesiac." It does perfectly what it sets out to do, with no compromises or gratuitous bows to commercial acceptance or normal rock and roll conventions. It couldn't be the high art that it is if it had been done in any other way. June 8, 2008

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