limited edition |
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. |
