CK Retro Review: Kid A by Radiohead
Posted: April 22, 2013 Filed under: Radiohead, Retro Reviews | Tags: Colin Greenwood, Ed O' Brien, Jonny Greenwood, Kid A, OK Computer, Phil Selway, Radiohead, Thom Yorke 3 Comments(The quotes below are excerpted from my new E-book, No Surprises: Radiohead’s 100 Best Songs. You can order it in the link below:
Following up their breakthrough album OK Computer, Radiohead easily could have churned out similar-sounding material ad infinitum and still been the darling of the music world. Instead, they challenged critics and fans with the strange, icy music of 2000’s Kid A and still came away with a triumph that many feel is their masterwork. Here is a track-by-track review:
TWO STARS
10. “Treefingers”- “In its place as the fifth song on Kid A, which rivals OK Computer as the band’s most coherent and complete artistic statement when gobbled up in one listen, it serves as an ambient segue between the haunting wail of Thom Yorke on “How To Disappear Completely” and the crunching thunder of “Optimistic.” You can also view it as the line of demarcation between the first and second half of the album, a little palette-cleanser that gives your senses a rest before diving back into this heady world.”
9. “Kid A”- “That squashed voice is the most memorable thing about the song. After what sounds like a spaceship landing to start, the rest is just some computer twitching and Jonny Greenwood’s noodling on the Ondes Martenot, an instrument resembling a theremin on which the band has leaned heavily for their more outré sound explorations since Kid A. Phil Selway’s kicky drum beat seems almost out of place, but then again, disjointedness seems to be the feeling “Kid A” wants to convey. That it does, almost too well for it to be anything more than a dark curiosity.”
THREE STARS
8. “In Limbo”- “Thom Yorke once stated that he felt that this song sounded like The Police. Indeed “In Limbo” has some of the knotty textures of that legendary trio’s more complicated compositions from the early 80’s. This track from Kid A ultimately track veers away from Sting and the boys in the way that a haze hangs over the entire affair, signifying the song’s themes of displacement and bewilderment almost too well.”
7. “Morning Bell”- “You can interpret them about a hundred ways if you choose, but these lyrics do seem to be set right in the middle of a marriage’s disintegration. The gallows humor of lines like “Cut the kids in half” and “Clothes are on the lawn with the furniture” gets even blacker when sung by Yorke in his zombiefied falsetto. Only when he gets to the refrain of “Release me” does he seem like a human being asking for sympathy.”
FOUR STARS
6. “Everything In Its Right Place”- ““Everything In Its Right Place” is the sound of a man trying to connect directly but constantly being filtered and interrupted. And it’s the sound of the band taking a huge risk trying to fix something that wasn’t broken, and coming out on the other side with a finished product as influential as it was invigorating. In that respect, at least something ended up in its right place after all, in that Radiohead came out about a million miles ahead of the curve.”
5. “Idioteque”- “The beat in “Idioteque” is too fast for dancing; you could have a seizure to it, perhaps. Coupled with those digitized chords, playing over and over (courtesy of a sample from 70’s electronic music purveyor Paul Lansky,) the whole thing sounds icy and barren, the soundtrack of a post-apocalypse wasteland.”
4. “Optimistic”- “Leave it to Radiohead to include lines about flies, vultures, cannibalistic fish, and dinosaurs in a song called “Optimistic.” There is great courage to the refrain, “If you try the best you can/The best you can is good enough,” especially considering the not so pretty picture Thom Yorke paints in the verses. For us “nervous messed up marionettes,” trying is worthwhile, even if we’re doomed to fail.
3. “Motion Picture Soundtrack”- “The Beatles once closed out their weirdest album with “Good Night,” which featured Ringo Starr softly whispering a farewell to all the listeners as harps and strings played the song out. Radiohead takes a similar tack on “Motion Picture Soundtrack,” wrapping up the defiantly untraditional Kid A with a song that sounds like Walt Disney in a dour mood.”
FIVE STARS
2. “The National Anthem”- “All the weird bursts of sound at the start of the track that sounds like someone’s changing the radio stations in hell; the ondes martenot weaving around hypnotically into the few open spaces allowed it; the horns, insanely idiosyncratic, blasting away with seemingly no regard for what the others are doing or even for how they sound within the song itself: All of it somehow coheres, somehow makes sense in spite of itself.”
1. “How To Disappear Completely”- “Yorke apparently borrowed the refrain from something Michael Stipe told him to help his deal with the stress. But Radiohead turns that line into something more profound, a futile attempt at peaceful sanity in an increasingly intense world. Yorke’s falsetto cries at the end of “How To Disappear Completely” cathartically cut through the fog, a moment of triumph over the claustrophobic clutter. It’s just a moment though, because, no matter what the song’s title promises, you can never disappear enough.”
(E-mail me at countdownkid@hotmail.com or follow me on Twitter @JimBeviglia. E-books and books based on material that originated on this blog can be found in the link below.)
http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=jim+beviglia
CK Retro Review: Hail To The Thief by Radiohead
Posted: April 19, 2013 Filed under: Radiohead, Retro Reviews | Tags: Colin Greenwood, Ed O'Brien, Hail To The Thief, Jonny Greenwood, Phil Selway, Radiohead, Thom Yorke Leave a commentIt might be the most polarizing album in the career of Radiohead. At the time it came out in 2003, Hail To The Thief was almost universally lauded, but many folks, including some of the band members themselves, have expressed reservations in the ten years since its release about the album’s length (fourteen songs, by far the band’s longest album) and quality. Here is a song-by-song review.
(All quotes following the songs are excerpted from the essays in my upcoming e-book No Surprises: Radiohead’s 100 Best Songs.)
TWO STARS
14. “The Gloaming”- “If you could separate the words from the music here, I think that they’d both work just fine on their own. Taken together, “The Gloaming” doesn’t quite connect. It sounds like a distant plea for help, when a more clarion call might have been far more affecting.”
13. “Go To Sleep”- “There are a few moments when this Hail To The Thief number gels, specifically during Yorke’s hauntingly helpless benediction at the end: “May pretty horses come to you as you sleep/I’m gonna go to sleep/And let this wash all over me.” Still, despite all of the quirkiness the band tries to imbue, “Go To Sleep” remains one of their least memorable songs.”
12. “Sit Down. Stand Up”- “The Rwandan genocide apparently inspired the sparse lyrics, and you can glean that from the chilling line “We can wipe you out anytime.” Yorke’s vocal is up front in the mix, with an itchy computer beat and a muffled riff (can’t even tell if it’s a guitar or keyboard) in the background. The music rises subtly before finally busting out into a techno freakout, with Yorke intoning the words “The Raindrops” some 47 times.
Just reading that last paragraph back to myself, I can see again how “Sit Down. Stand Up.” could be a hard sell. Complex? Yes. Impressive? Certainly. Approachable? Maybe not so much.”
11. “We Suck Young Blood”- “This song deserves special mention, because it might be the creepiest song in the band’s repertoire. That’s saying something, because Radiohead has released more than their fair share of dark and disturbing tracks. “We Suck Young Blood”, with its dirge-like beat that sounds like a chain-gang in hell and Jonny Greenwood’s Ondes Martenot conjuring up spirits best left in the underworld, is so studiedly spooky that it could make John Carpenter flinch.”
THREE STARS
10. “I Will”- “The chief selling point of this track off Hail To The Thief is Thom Yorke’s voice, mutitracked and harmonizing with itself to chillingly beautiful effect. Eventually another track of Thom comes in with a countermelody. With all voices coming in from every direction, the song is a bit like Brian Wilson and Freddie Mercury’s love-child.”
9. “Scatterbrain”- “Maybe Hail To The Thief is a shade too long, but I liken it to The Beatles White Album in that it allows us to hear some songs that otherwise would have been relegated to B-sides or bootleg limbo. I have a feeling that “Scatterbrain” is one of those songs, because it feels unfinished, almost like the sketch of an idea not totally fleshed out. And yet it works in its own modest and mysterious way.”
8. “Sail To The Moon”- “This lovely, melancholy number was written by Thom Yorke as a kind of lullaby to his son Noah (which would explain the lines about ark-building.) Unlike other rock-song lullabies that seek to comfort their children or give advice, “Sail To The Moon” is an almost desperate plea from a father to a son to avoid the mistakes of the past and forge a better future.”
7. “Where I End And You Begin”- “A song like this gem off Hail To The Thief would be nothing without the drumming of Phil Selway and the bass of Colin Greenwood. Greenwood’s playing here is propulsive, pogoing around in directions that make this one of the more danceable Radiohead songs. The song has a feel not unlike classic Depeche Mode or New Order thanks to his work on it.”
FOUR STARS
6. “There There”- “Proving they can be endlessly inventive even within the confines of a conventional rock song, “There There” is one of the most instantly memorable tracks on Hail To The Thief, which the band clearly realized since they chose it as the lead single. The song’s tribal rhythm is just irresistible, an alluring foundation from which all of the song’s other delights spring.”
5. “Backdrifts”- “My favorite moment of “Backdrfits” comes when the beat and the synth squiggles fall away for a moment and Thom Yorke lets out with an “Oh-oh-oh” exclamation. It has the feel of a live performance at that point, as if the frontman got completely caught up in the breathless music. That cry, part-anguished, part-cathartic, gives this Hail To The Thief song a beating heart to go alone with its shaking rump.”
4. “2+2=5”- ““You have not been paying attention,” Thom Yorke intones throughout this furious track. One of the cool things about a band like Radiohead is that they don’t have their heads in the sand, and they’re more than willing to expose the warts of the world for their audience to hear even when it might be easier to sing love songs. And yet it never goes down like medicine, because they can present tough material in such a vibrant way that the message slides smoothly into the audience’s subconscious.”
3. “A Punchup At A Wedding”- “This is the band at its most funky, achieving a groove with Colin Greenwood’s slinking bass and some downbeat piano chords not unlike something you would hear from mid-period Steely Dan. Static-charged blasts of guitar add some spunk to the later verses. And I love the “no, no” part at the start and conclusion, the way they’re all overdubbed on top of each other to make it sound like about a thousand Thom Yorkes have formed a melancholy mob.”
FIVE STARS
2. “Myxomatosis”- “There’s a perverse sense of humor that runs through “Myxomatosis,” making it, pound-for-pound, one of the most flat-out fun Radiohead tracks. That’s not to say it’s frivolous; I don’t think the band could ever go down that avenue. But there’s still something tongue-in-cheek about it, as if the band is having a laugh at the perception that they’re a morose bunch. Name-checking a rabbit disease is just another curve ball to send the obsessive fans diving for clues, but I think this is the band at its most off-the-cuff and irreverent, taking the piss out of their own somber image.”
1. “A Wolf At The Door”- “Release, relative release anyway, comes in the form of the chorus, as Yorke sings in a lilting melody how hard it is to keep the “wolf at the door” at bay. “A Wolf At The Door” represents the dark side in everyone’s psyche that can get loose when all of the external forces become too overbearing. We’ve all got one, and it’s important to find outlets for such possibly destructive energy. I would recommend Radiohead’s ridiculously amazing music as just such an outlet.”
(E-mail me at countdownkid@hotmail.com and follow me on Twitter @JimBeviglia. E-books and books based on material that originated on this site are available via the link below.)
Countdown Kid 