Radiohead -- Kid A

10/10

Where's the guitar? If there's a joke to be made at the "listen to the album once while texting someone, then write a definitive review of the entire album" mentality's expense--and there are even more jokes to be made at that mentality's expense than there are words in this sentence--it's in the groupspeak reevaluations that invariably occur ten years after any truly great album was initially greeted lukewarmly. Then again, we are reaching peak mass to a degree that I wonder if any album released after 2010 is ever going to be reevaluated. There are too many of them, and genres have splintered and sub-splintered to a degree that the only people posting retrospectives will be blogs like this one visited only in the thousands per-month, all retrospecting different things so that it all only adds up to so much noise. Yep, I, the Nicsperiment, am noise. I just admitted it...
But of course, I love the sound of my own voice, and I set up this review with that lumbering intro simply to point out the fact that critics largely dismissed Kid A at the time of its release, wondering what happened to the old alternative rock band, confused by this experimental entity in its place. Then, all of a sudden, it's the greatest album of the 00's. My own nearly eight-year-old "HOT TAKE!!!" best albums of the 00's list put it at number one, as well. Now that I am older (I could be President now!) and considerably less hot-takey, I'd love to make a new best albums of the 00's list. However, I am not sure if I would replace the album in the top spot. Do I hate that I posted an opinion agreed upon by Pitchfork? Does Pitchfork even still exist? I'd type in the URL to check, but I didn't sleep well last night, and I don't feel like it. But yes, I do hate that not only did I post an opinion similar to Pitchfork's, but also that I cannot make fun of them for suddenly changing their minds about Kid A. They always thought it was perfect. However, I must say, I did, too.

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Before Blockbuster Video became obsolete, Blockbuster Music became obsolete. Actually, our Blockbuster Music become Wherehouse Music, and then FYE, and now it's an empty building with a FOR SALE sign in front, which really makes me miss the 90's and 00's, random college nights digging through CD racks with friends. I also miss seeing posters of gorgeous album artwork plastered on Blockbuster/Wherehouse/FYE walls, which, if it was good enough, could coerce me into buying an album I'd never heard a song from. This happened one beautiful spring afternoon when I purchased a double-whammy of The Flaming Lips' Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots and Radiohead's Kid A, Kid A's jagged, forlorn, majestic mountain peaks rising on the store wall, Yoshimi a marvel of graphic design. I dig that Flaming Lips album...at least the first half of it, but that drive home, and my subsequent hours of music listening were dedicated to Kid A. I felt transported. The gorgeous, dense CD booklet, full of incredible artwork heightened the experience even more--it was like I was unearthing artifacts from another world--you can even remove the back of the CD jewel case to see secret messages! Yes, jewel case! This really is an artifact from another world!
And get this: the CD version is actually the definitive one--the vinyl has a minimalist version of the original artwork, missing its secret messages and most key image. But what about the music?

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I'll do a breakdown of song emotions, as I did for OK Computer, in a moment. First, I'd like to say something about the album as a whole, and why it checks off my boxes, but may not check yours.
World-building and musical storytelling are extremely important to me in an album. By that, I mean that I like albums that exude a cohesive tone and feeling, and that follow some kind of consistent emotional arc--the first track sounds like an opening, the last track sounds like a closer, and what comes in between follows a natural path from the first point to the last. Surprisingly, few albums actually do this. In fact, you could just shuffle most of them and never know the difference. They're more a collection of songs. A bunch of random Polaroids instead of photographs ordered deliberately to tell a story. I don't mean that I only like concept albums, but albums with a cohesive emotional flow. Kid A's got a Nile's worth of that. Again, as Kid A has been pontificated about to a great degree in a great degree of groupspeak, I feel it will be more worthwhile to break the album down by my emotional reactions to each of the ten tracks, particularly as those reactions have changed little in the last fifteen years:
1. "Everything in Its Right Place" From the icy, isolating opening keyboard tones, this album immediately envelops you. Even though this song is barely more than Thom Yorke's vocals, haunted by distortions of itself over the aforementioned keyboard and cold electronics, the listener is plunged into a unique aural dimension, continued with...
2. "Kid A" This song starts off like a suddenly come to life late-night railroad crossing in a mountainous, alien, blue-ice-toned landscape, as strange aurora blossom overhead. One can easily picture that landscape dotted by enormous, incomprehensible glacial shapes, as the floating train of Thom Yorke's nearly illegible computerized vocals cheerfully tell a story of horror over a glitchy, ice-tapped beat.
3. "The National Anthem" The best proof that this is a completely transportive dive into a fully-realized world of Radiohead's creation: The first song to sound anything like a "full band" song is the most unsettling yet, even though it's one of the most fun songs the band ever recorded. A propulsive bassline and funky drumbeat highlight the band's newfound reliance on rhythm, with atmospheric, space-filling spectral sweeps in the place of guitars, punctuated by a funky, insane chorus of horns, and strange radio snippets.
4. "How to Disappear Completely" A terrifying, acoustic-guitar-based track, pierced by the album's secret all-star, a Johnny Greenwood played ondes Martenot. The ondes Martenot is an ancient electronic instrument. It sounds like a jar full of ghosts. Thom Yorke's repeated utterance of "I'm not here. this isn't happening" is his quintessential alienation and depersonalization lyric.
5. "Treefingers" I love how this electronic instrumental is so warm, comforting, and organic, after the coldness and discomfort of the first four tracks. It's like a breather. It reminds me of NIN's "A Warm Place" in that way.
6. "Optimistic" Perhaps the only true full band song on the album, with jangly guitar, earth-rumbling drums, and everyone playing a rather normal part, even as Yorke's "You can try the best you can, the best you can is good enough" sounds about as sincere as a Presidential handshake, especially when he follows it up with "...dinosaurs roaming the Earth," further bringing home the apocalyptic feeling I keep mentioning. There's a picture in the CD booklet that looks like future humans marveling at the detritus of our current civilization, which fits this album just perfectly.
7. "In Limbo" A really beautiful song with some gorgeous, circular, atmospheric guitar lines, evoking a feeling of getting lost in the woods...
8. "Idioteque" And what do you find there but this icily beautiful electronic nightmare, Yorke howling "women and children first" over a savage beat and creepy drones. This song sold me on Radiohead, and for all its insanity, even my seven-year-old thinks it's a really fun song.
9. "Morning Bell" I love the fact that, though this song is an intentional come-down from "Idioteque," it still keeps the momentum going. I also love how spaced-out, disconnected, yet strangely emotional and urgent Yorke makes the lyrics feel, juxtaposing the "women and children first" line of the previous song with this one's "cut the kids in half."
10. "Motion Picture Soundtrack" A bizarro closer, with harps and organ, like having a depressing meal in a 1940's restaurant while an unconvincing friend tells you everything is going to be okay. I love the silence afterward before the short hidden track. Hidden sound might be more apt, a gorgeous electronic object streaking through the sky, crashing into the ocean, and then illuminating the surface, promising some new and beautiful change.


2000 Parlophone/Capitol
1. Everything in Its Right Place 4:11
2. Kid A 4:44
3. The National Anthem 5:51
4. How to Disappear Completely 5:56
5. Treefingers 3:42
6. Optimistic 5:15
7. In Limbo 3:31
8. Idioteque 5:09
9. Morning Bell 4:35
10. Motion Picture Soundtrack 7:00