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Originally Posted by noisereductions
well, i would've been interested in your feedback, and find it kind of odd that some arbitrary spacing would make you read it. Again - must be a cellphone thing because it's not even that long.
Does this help?
Radiohead
Kid A
2000, I spent the three years between Ok Computer and its follow-up obsessing over Radiohead's every move. I had so many bootlegs from that period that even I thought I could imagine what their next record would sound like. But I was wrong.
From the moment I heard the soothing opening synth notes of "Everything In Its Right Place," I knew that Radiohead had destroyed their own music in order to create it anew. It was astounding in 2000 to hear a new Radiohead album... one that barely had any guitars.
While familiar bootleg tune "How To Disappear" survived only mostly unscathed, the acoustic ballad "Motion Picture Soundtrack" was almost unrecognizable. The title track had vocals - I just couldn't understand them. "Treefingers" was three and a half minutes of ambience. "Idioteque" is like almost really club music.
In hindsight none of this was all that weird: their last album opened with a tribute to DJ Shadow, while its b-sides collaborated with Zero 7 and a remix by Fila Brazillia.
This new sound was also grounded a bit by the urgent acoustic guitars strums of "Optimistic" and the absolutely rocking bassline of "National Anthem."
Kid A was a brave record, but one that makes sense in hindsight. There's no way the band could have made a proper follow-up to OK Computer. So why not just reinvent the band?
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Fixed! See?
Anyway, of course I agree with everything you're saying, and I too remember my first listening experience with Kid A.
I sat at my computer with it playing through headphones and frantically AIMd my friend (who hadn't purchased it yet) with updates. I messaged him the lyrics as they played, like "Yesterday I woke up sucking a lemon" followed by many question marks, and I tried to explain what the album was like.
I failed, but I did say at one point, "this almost sounds like Aphex Twin," which was probably my most on-point comment on the album.
Yeah. I mean, if you can't keep building, at some point you need to burn the fucker down. Kid A is far less experimental sonically than it sounded at the time, but for a #1 record it still shocks me that it hit so big.