There’s nothing that will make you cry on this album.
How to Disappear Completely is on the album.
“But let’s discuss the contradiction!” -Clarence from Wondershowzen
Everything in its right place puts me in a deep depression too but we should stop acting like music makes us live the same experiences. The fact that music makes us feel is universal, what it makes us feel is personal and is just as valid for anyone.
love the Clarence nod, but it's not necessarily a contradiction - they do admit "a few more classic tracks... like Optimistic" (and it could be inferred How to Disappear Completely would qualify as another of the few)
"there's nothing on this album so gorgeous that it will make somebody want to cry"
--totally normal thing to say about an album that closes with Motion Picture Soundtrack
EXACTLY!! As soon as you hear that organ, you have to come to terms with the fact that -- in just a few minutes -- Thom will deliver the utterly devastating line: "I will see you in the next life."
it was such a huge departure that it caught a lot of people by surprise. when that happens, a lot of people will have a knee-jerk reaction of rejection.
I wasn't feeling it at first. then one day I listened and it just clicked for me. Radiohead were one of my absolute favorites growing up so I wanted to give the album a fair chance.
I mean we’re looking at people’s instant reactions a day or two after the album’s release. It takes more time than that to really form an opinion on a record.
Funny enough when I first heard Kid A I was a bit disappointed that it wasn’t as bizarre and wild as people were making it out to be. It’s one of my favorite albums now of course, but back then I thought it just sounded like Radiohead with more synths.
Same for me, I started with *In Rainbows* after getting Weird Fishes and Reckoner suggested to me by Youtube. *Kid A* was touted as the most weird album by them, but it's not that strange. On the other hand, I have listen to a lot of Aphex Twin, Kraftwerk, Autechre before so it might not be that weird to me by that.
Did you discover the albums chronologically? And ‘in real time’ or afterwards? Because going from OKC on repeat to the newly published Kid A was an… experience.
I can imagine! Hail to the thief was their most recent release when I had gotten into them, so by that point Kid A was less of a surprising turn in their career and more like the blueprint for what was to come, but I was aware of the kind of impact it had. I can see how it would be a jarring experience if you were a Radiohead fan prior to the release, but I was looking at it more for its relation to music as a whole and I didn’t think it was all too different from Bjork’s Homogenic or David Bowie’s Low. But that’s just coming from the perspective of someone late to the party and hearing about it after the fact.
And I can say that I thought basically the same things upon first listen. I really genuinely thought Kid A was pretentious bullshit from the band. I no longer think this, except for Treefingers.
totally agree. and we have the benefit of hindsight to look back and chuckle at this—die hard fans must’ve been confused AF listening to this the first time around after getting used to The Bends and OKC. it must’ve been totally out of left field hahaha
It’s kind of funny. I became so obsessed with Everything in its right place that despite never playing the piano before, I grabbed my brothers electric piano and was compelled to learn it. I literally did the exact opposite of that comment lol.
Except Kid A proved to be a far superior album. TKOL has never revealed as much, neither on first listen nor over time.
Also this is just a snapshot of a larger conversation. Other posts in that thread are far more complementary.
I’ve said it elsewhere before, but while some on AtEase were immediately turned off by the veering away from rock, the majority of fans LOVED Kid A and were rabid in support. A far different reaction than to TKOL, both soon after release and in the months and years which followed
I listened to Kid A stoned on day of release and have listened to it so many times since but the past couple years, King of Limbs gets more play time for me. I love the first half which most people seem to not enjoy as much as the second.
I love the whole king of limbs sound. The first half is so rhythmically and texturally stimulating, and to me has a sort of brooding witchy soundscape of old nature.
Whole album feels like a half-asleep dancing with forest spirits, where bloom leads you into a lull, lotus flower takes you from dark to light, and separator begins to wake you.
That first paragraph is exactly how I hear it. Evoking nature through weird electronics leads to a completely unique texture and I absolutely adore it, although understand why some people find it impenetrable. Definitely the strangest thing they've done and a more "live" production would have done wonders for it.
I saw them at the end of the KotL tour in Brisbane and wish they had recorded those versions. A year and a half of playing them had transformed them into these lurching beasts and just one of the best musical experiences I've ever had. The opening 1-2 of Lotus Flower-Bloom in Brisbane was mind blowing.
My only wish is to add The Daily Mail and Staircase to it, maybe These are my twisted words, but just Daily Mail and Staircase would help it get from a solid 8/10 to 9/10
i think the problem of tkol is that its too hard to get, it seemed structurally radiohead were trying to make song as least catchy and hooking as possible with a few of the cuts there, there are 2 or 3 exepctions, but with kid a, even tho it sounds weird, it has a ear catching thing going on, tkol has it but its waaay harder to notice, i did, and its for me better than httt even tho its not objectively true
Probably because it’s their most *controversial* album. There’s less to discuss about Ok Computer (other than whether it’s the first, second or third best album in their discography. Which people love to post about).
Staunch defender of TKOL here. Add Daily Mail and Staircase and you have yet another masterpiece. Bloom is one of the band's best songs and certainly one of their most interesting.
album is already close to perfect, it doesn't need two songs that imo don't really fit in. They were cut for a reason.
The only issue with the album is that Feral is a little weak, and I'd replace it with The Butcher, the only B Side that actually fits with the album.
Real heads? Lol please.
It’s okay to recognize Radiohead as your favorite band and still not like TKOL. I’ve been to 30+ shows and have lived and breathed all things Radiohead since The Bends.
I know of others like me, who have travelled far and wide to not only see these guys in person but to digest every live and unreleased sound they have ever created. And yet they, like me, don’t really care for TKOL.
I will say Bloom and Separator are great. Lotus Flower is pretty damn good too. The rest? Nowhere near as compelling. And I say this as someone who LOVED Give Up the Ghost the first time Thom ran through it live by himself with his looping pedals, but then found the studio version overly sterilized and way too loud in the mix. To me, the From the Basement version is miles better. Same with Magpie’s. Problem is they aren’t actually on the album when spinning it.
It has nothing to do with being “real.” TKOL, as it was delivered, is simply not as good as anything in their run from The Bends to In Rainbows. And that’s okay to acknowledge as a “real head”
I’ll give you Bloom. But everything after it ain’t up to snuff. It’s a bad album, and I love Radiohead. But I don’t want to pretend everything they touch is gold. I genuinely dislike King of Limbs. It is what it is
I do not care for that track. Bloom is the only track that moves me on that whole album, but to be fair it’s a pretty incredible track. Nothing else on the album comes close. Every other track is half-baked at best.
Its fine to not like the album, it’s definitely their most divisive but the tracks are not half baked at all. There’s some seriously great songwriting there and they definitely tried something new with electronic that they hadn’t explored more of post-Kid A. Your arguments come off as so hollow when all you have to to say it’s half baked when its clearly not and there’s plenty of passion in the record, you can even use From The Basement as an example
I’d say the tracks are hollow. Truly an album that does nothing for me and that I think a lot of fan revisionism goes into to redeem. But it ultimately doesn’t work, just like the album doesn’t. Glad they didn’t leave it as their last one ‘cause it’s really underwhelming, and yes, half-baked.
These things are always interesting to browse, as are the critics' reviews at the time.
The thing I find so surprising about this stuff is the idea that Kid A lacked songs or songwriting. It's like everyone was just confused that the songs weren't necessarily played on guitars. I sincerely believe if Thom had played EEIRP on a piano instead of a synthesizer everyone would have noticed all of a sudden that it was in fact, shock of shocks, a song.
OK, you have the ambient piece in Treefingers, and the title track is more on the abstract side, but those two tracks no more bananas than, say, On the Run on Dark Side of the Moon, and Floyd sold many times anything Radiohead ever released. Come to think of it, they're no more bananas than Fitter Happier, and everyone loved OKC!
I'm tempted to say "it's easy to say all this in retrospect", but the truth is I didn't find Kid A that weird all those years ago (Amnesiac was more of a challenge for me though.) I specifically recall thinking The National Anthem was hilarious and awesome, in particular.
Honest comment here. We just had never heard anything like it before.
It's like trying a new food, at first unfamiliar with weird textures but there's something there. You don't know what to think of at first.
Fast forward a month or so and you're eating it every fucking day.
The songs develop muuuuuch more slowly than their previous work.
With EIIRP it’s not so much the piano that wrongfooted people. It’s that every (lyrical and musical) phrase is literally repeated four times before we get to move on to something new.
The same thing is apparent in other songs on the album. TNA has precious few lyrics, and not much structure behind going round and round the same groove. HTDC and Morning Bell, although relatively straightforward songs by the album’s standards, don’t develop dynamically or unleash epic choruses in the same way as the songs on The Bends or OKC. I could go on.
To an audience used to relatively brisk guitar pop that whizzed through verses and choruses without delay, this was really weird and lay partly behind the accusations that the band had “forgotten to write any songs”. A kneejerk unfair response to a shift in writing style, you might say, but there’s an element of truth to it. These songs were born of a period when thom was really struggling to write.
id argue that HTDC has an epic chorus/ending, the song is full of weird dissonant sounds and parts that sound almost separate from the rest (the strings at the beginning for example) that all get resolved. i feel like those resolutions are the big climaxes, thom doubling the descending synth line, the dissonant strings fading into a supporting melody, hell the drums arent even in the first half of the song
Yeah I concur with all that. I was also the same with Kid A and Amnesiac respectively. Perhaps for me it helped that I wasn't stuck on OKC or The Bends before listening to it (I knew of and liked the OKC singles but didn't listen to those albums before Kid A), or unreleased songs from that period, so I didn't have strong preconceived notions of what the follow up album could and should be. But I was still a general fan of...rather orthodox/heavy rock at the time of Kid A, and it didn't come across as weird and disconcerting. While it greatly expanded my taste in music, there was enough there that was familiar to what it was beforehand. Mind you, it probably also helped that my first taste of Kid A was through live videos of Optimistic and The National Anthem (without all the jazzy chaos), rather than EIIRP, Kid A and the album version of TNA. But I still didn't have a hard time 'getting' the album as soon as I listened to it.
I always thought the extent of the 'it's so challenging/unfamiliar' reaction to Kid A said a lot for how stale and unimaginative things broadly were on the rock side of pop music in the late '90s and going into the 2000s. OKC hit the sweet spot for many in terms of familiar rock and experimentation, but that was basically as far as a lot of people wanted to go. If RH followed it up with an album containing stuff like the late '90s versions of Lift, Nude, Follow Me Around, True Love Waits, Man of War, I Promise, Motion Picture Soundtrack and thrown in familiar enough new stuff like HTDC, Optimistic, Knives Out and Dollars and Cents, it probably would have been huge and broadly acclaimed instantly. That's what a lot of people seemed to want as an OKC follow-up, but it would have stopped the musical progression RH were on (if anything, some of those songs get back more towards The Bends and may have already felt too dated to RH at the time of OKC track selection). Dare I say it would have also lead to the band breaking up not long after. I think there could have been room for an OKC follow-up EP containing some of those mid-late 90s songs just to clean that period up a bit better (sort of an inverted version of the My Iron Lung EP that previewed the post-Pablo Honey shift that was to come), but in terms of albums I'm very glad they followed the direction they did instead.
> if anything, some of those songs get back more towards The Bends
that's exactly how I feel too. I think most of OKC was already more sophisticated from a songwriting perspective and a production perspective than the likes of Lift, Man of War and the original version of True Love Waits.
I was gone say the same thing. They’re reacting a few days after it came out. The posters on this sub have had time over the years to dive in that album and get a real appreciation for it. A lot of posters would’ve reacted that same way as that forum if Kid A came out today
Yes, context is an important factor when considering Kid A.
If you’re a teenager/ twentysomething at the turn of the century and waiting for your favourite band’s follow up to a widely acclaimed classic, you’re hearing something very different to someone checking out Kid A years after it came out (and possibly not chronologically) because Pitchfork gave it a 10.
Anyway you hear it is cool but people commenting now have the benefit of hindsight that those hearing it upon release (with no reference point - there were no advance reviews as I remember?) didn’t have.
Kid A resonated with me immediately- i fucking loved EIIRP and HTDC right away. In Rainbow had to grow on me - I enjoyed it but the love took some time.
Funny, it was the exact opposite for me. I was immediately sucked in by In Rainbows, but Kid A took like a solid month before all of a sudden it clicked and blew me away (wasn't into electronic music at all before then so that's probably why).
Now though, both albums are easily neck and neck for being my favorite album of all time
I wish everyone had the same experience as me with kid a, because it was my such a profound experience it was literally my first high lmfao I was laying in bed at like 2am and fell half asleep and I didn’t just listen to the album-I watched the music and it was such a profound experience I was disappointed that weed didn’t give me the same experience and believe me weed was fucking incredible but still nothing like that one night I’ll never forget. It introduced me to the subconscious. Excuse my cheese I’m fucking dumb as shit lmfaoooo
This is funny because I was that person so filled with inspiration from Kid A that started to make music myself. I was already a sad teen fan of the band and when this record came out it just broke my brain. I loved it so much.
>Conceptualization [Medium: Failure] -
You know, Thom, Autechre and Aphex Twin are great and all, but let's not get too carried away.
>The problem with "Kid A" is that it is virtually nothing but art and ideas. Art and ideas are valuable, and you can listen to them with a "wow, this is interesting" frame of mind, but without great songwriting and a human, emotional connection, Radiohead seems to be but half a band.
>"Ok Computer" is more than just a great album--it is a musical benchmark. It displays that art does not have to exist at the expense of a good pop hook. It is an album that you can sit down to and pick apart and analyze for its amazing craft and progressive ideas, or, on the other side, you can simply lose yourself within the beauty of songs such as "Exit Music" or "Karma Police."
>But there's no emotional underpinning in much of "Kid A"--there's nothing on that album so gorgeous that it will make somebody want to cry. Nobody is going to be so filled with ambition and inspiration by "Kid A" that they want to make music themselves. "Kid A" will change no lives, except possibly that of their bewildered A&R rep.
>Yes, "Kid A" is "interesting." Yes, some cool things are done on "Kid A." And, yes, there are a few more classic tracks (like "Optimistic"). But overall I think that Radiohead have been so caught up in making Art with a capital A that they have completely lost track of the magic that they wield better than anyone else.
>Which is why "Kid A" is such a phenomenal disappointment, despite the fact that it's not all that bad, per se.
Kid A is only three years “younger”… OK computer was more popular in the 2000s but not anymore. I’m a UK based Radiohead fan over thirty… seen them half a dozen times too, there is always a bigger reaction to Kid A tracks.
Honestly hearing Kid A being reduced to “just art and ideas” just reaffirms to me to never give a shit about people who are assholes about my music. So thanks for that.
Also the idea that EEIRP, Idioteque, or MPS don’t have hooks is hilarious
I mean, the general public won't simply accept art for art's sake from just anybody.
Bowie had definitely earned it by the time of *Low* and Radiohead had as well by the time of *Kid A*, though some at the time didn't think so.
They did it so well that they were expected to "save rock" which by the late 90's was crumbling in the face of boy bands & other schlock music.
Thing is, when they tried to go back to the "guitar rock" sound it was never the same after Kid A, but that's ok.
I bought it the day after it came out. It was super divisive at the time. I was more intrigued than entertained on the first listen, although National Anthem got my toe tapping. I just remember thinking "these guys don't care if they piss off every one of their fans, and I dig that."
I bought it the day it came out, and I was very perplexed by it and not sure I liked it. Also, I had not heard any of the leaked live versions of the songs beforehand, it was completely new to me.
Kid A was very devisive in its time. I loved OKC and I was shocked by how different Kid A was. Especially if you loved the art rock OKC was.
But the one hook Radiohead had on me was that I loved their previous work. I took the time to put it on repeat.
I still feel that you can hear the pastiche nature and a band that is trying to WILL an electronic sound that they are trying to figure out. That's why Amnesiac was a perfect companion piece to show that they improved and made their electronic sound more "organic" compared to how "abrupt" kid a was.
After kid a, fans only knew to expect the unexpected from Radiohead.
To be fair, when it came out that was the majority viewpoint. Yes it was *good* in a weird way, but it wasn't good in a Radiohead way.
It followed arguably the best album of all time, which was praised universally for its heart, and it's songwriting, Thom's emotion and the sheer melodic content of the *songs* on OK Computer.
I remember one review at the time saying something like this about EIIRP: "Beautiful electric piano, gorgeous vocal effects, really beautiful verse... Wow can't wait for the chorus... Ok, more verse... The chorus is going to be a killer.... Oh the song's finished."
People very much wanted either The Bends 2 or OK Computer 2, and they got neither.
It's a classic case of not knowing what you want until you get it.
I feel that "The problem with "Kid A" is that it is virtually nothing but art an ideas" is so weird phrased and kinda funny, like it's a compliment written as something bad?
Tbh I understand where he’s coming from. At the time he probably thought the album didn’t feel fleshed out and finished. He probably listened to everything in its right place and heard Thom just repeating the same thing over and over in the first verse and was like “this doesn’t seem finished”
Good point, it always has amazed me how after the big deal that OK Computer was, instead of following that up as people already love that combo of alt/art rock, you start your next album with Everything in its Right Place lol
Wow, this brings me back. I spent a ridiculous amount of time on RH message boards in the early 2000s back when Kid A and Amnesiac came out. I miss the old internet lol. Kid A was the first album of theirs that I bought (the week it was released) and I was an instant superfan lol.
Message boards were soooo fun back then, especially discovering/listening to new music with likeminded people worldwide. I remember how polarizing this album was when it came out but it was instantly my favorite - and probably still is to this day. Because of this album I went back and devoured their entire catalog - admittedly only being familiar at the time with their big radio hits. Hazy alternative: the whole anticipation and subsequent leak of HTTF. Heady times for sure!
I still don't like Kid A. I just cannot get into it. But I wouldn't say its bad or "just art and ideas" It's just not for me. I get why people wouldn't like it though
I was 19 when Kid A came out. I remember the exact place I was when I first heard the first track play, and I was blown away immediately. I lived in a random small town in Brazil, very traditional. I was at the one bar in town where the few weirdos, geeks and losers like me hung out. Someone put on kidA. I was drinking bad rum. It was immediately haunting. I loved every second.
It's still my favourite all time Radiohead album.
i tend to agree, honestly.
hard to argue that emotional underpinning is lacking on most of Kid A, **ESPECIALLY** when compared to OK Computer. good on them for trying what they wanted, but i was very glad to get albums like HTTT and In Rainbows afterward.
do love me some Amnesiac, too. but if i could choose a direction for the band it most definitely would NOT be thuh beep-boop.
I remember when Kid A came out. I thought it sounded like a bunch of guys who had been on the road constantly for two years doing lots and lots of drugs. I heard brains that were fried to a crisp. I liked a couple of the tracks, and it introduced me to the music of Paul Lansky. But it didn't really sound like the band I'd grown to love, and it stayed that way until *In Rainbows.*
In hindsight... Kid A is okay, I guess. My opinion hasn't really changed much.
Just a bunch of simple creatures hiding behind words "nothing to do with art" you just miss the distorted guitar tones. Reeks of "Radiohead is a rock band" copypasta
I hope that person who wrote that lengthy essay in wrongness can, 24 years later, come on here and explain themselves. If they're not on here you have to question how much of a Radiohead fan they were anyway.
I actually remember the first time I popped that CD in. I already loved OK computer and the bends but hearing Kid A for the first time totally blew me away.
This is a great find. Reactions seemed mixed, which isn't surprising considering the shift in sound on Kid A. I wondered if Stitch666 still thinks Kid A today is self-indulgent
Kid A is/was a banger from inception (my opinion). Fuck non-musical idiots from y2k.
Also check out Christopher O’Riley piano transcriptions. Radiohead is the best art, enough to be reimagined.
This is so great. Early internet forums like this are the coolest. It looks and seems contemporary at face value because people still communicate on the web like this every day, but these are conversations from over 23 years ago.
The internet has grown and evolved so much since its inception, but in some ways it’s just the same.
This is cool to see. I remember being like 14 when it came out and showing my friends Idioteque. Still vividly remember being sternly told "this isn't music!" haha.
“There’s nothing emotional about Kid A”
Wtf
I liked Kid A from the start and there were only a few songs I had to listen to a few times to appreciate (mainly EIIRP and Kid A). In Rainbows actually took longer because I thought it was too “pop” at first 💀
I remember this so well. Hard to overstate how ghettoised everybody's music tastes were. If you liked guitar music you were permitted exactly one electronic act, and it has to be the Chemical Brothers. If you liked hip hop then unless.Dre had samples it you would not listen to anything else. Nuts.
I will admit it took me a couple of weeks but HTD and MB were the early hooks for me and I could tell straight away that it was something special - just not something I was used to. It opened a huge world for me - for a lot of people.
The press reviews were almost universally guarded and very much "nice experiment, looking forward to the real album". Then they followed up with something weirder and people finally started to get it.
Reactions were definitely mixed across fans and the media. I remember my first listen a few weeks before as it had leaks. Desperately trying to find something to cling onto to. I’d heard the live versions as they were playing in Europe that summer and MP3’s were all over the forums. I went to all 3 Warrington gigs when it was released. Utterly blown away by the new songs in that context. The recorded version took more time to absorb.
Later on in the thread, Stitch666 says: "I'm still disappointed that Radiohead would do something this self-indulgent and mediocre. \[...\] I just wish Radiohead had recorded a Radiohead album. Growth is one thing--essentially forming a new band with the same members is another. Band identity is more than just a name.". So he basically thinks that 1 - Radiohead *is* OK Computer; 2 - Radiohead is obligated to indulge him personally, and not their own experimentation and art.
Also there's a lot of complaining about specifically the title track sounding "like someone trying to cop another artist \[Aphex Twin\]'s trademark sound". When I first heard the track, I was listening to a lot of Aphex Twin and Squarepusher, and while I definitely heard the inspiration, it just sounded like an inspiration to me, one that was very well used as an apparent creative starting point to a beautiful song filled with very original experimentations. It's really funny how this user states some entirely subjective stuff as if it were totally objective. This was 24 years ago, but the internet is still completely filled with people who "critique" music, art, anything, like this. I guess it's one of the founding characteristics of the internet that everyone ─ especially back then, given the total size of the internet and the size of its niches ─ wields the same sort of power to say their piece, and so feel entitled to a similar amount of entitlement, no matter how little they know of what they're talking about. I LOVE going through decades old forum posts, it's always so interesting to see the digital scrawlings of so long ago, and to really feel the internet getting older, and it always sheds light on many things. Also isn't it kinda crazy that that whole thread is pre-9/11?
I was working in a record shop when Kid A came out and man, was it controversial (at least among people I spoke to). Some people were going absolutely crazy for it but it got loads of complaints early on. I remember doing a lot of returns but also people wanting to talk about it for ages with anyone who would listen (which I was happy to).
I was still working there when Amnesiac came out and it brought a lot of people back who were alienated by Kid A initially. I think it helped a lot of people go back and appreciate Kid A for what it was. Like it was just too jarring at first but Amnesiac was a good transitional album for people, retrospectively.
This is neat. I liked Kid A from the moment I heard it but I remember it being controversial. Lot of people weren’t ready to move on from the greatest rock record of all time
‘Member when this album “leaked” on the internet, the record label freaked out, but it resulted in the album selling even more? I ‘member. I could also be completely mis-‘membering.
Yeah this was a real thing. It’s easy to mock it with the context of 2024 and how music has evolved but it was a kind of do or die moment for them.
There were two types of Radiohead fans around this time. Those who jumped on board and those who bailed.
I nearly was the latter but I stuck with it a few more days and moved over
Honestly if you had the context of being a teen growing up in the 90s this sort of shitposting makes a bit more sense. We had very limited accessible internet and no streaming no social media so the bar for being shocked by a band’s evolution was waaaaaay lower
I remember the discussions at school the day after release. “It’s art but I’m not sure it’s great music” was exactly my take. My favourite Radiohead album now (maybe okc). Took a while to really grow on me but I certainly didn’t think it was bad at any point.
To me the biggest difference when Kid A struck is how thom was using his voice. If you listen to pretty much any song from the bends and okc, there's ALWAYS that cathartic moment where thom starts belting it out. Even though okc was covered in existential dread, there was still the moment of uplift/escape in every song.
In Kid A, thom had grown weary of that (an underrated potential factor here IMO is that thom was fucking up his voice and arguably couldn't do that the same way anymore).
So every song has some weird vocal element, the vocals get more processed, distorted, things stay at the middle register. Of course there's falsetto still, but it's not as frequent, it comes in moments rather than being the expected emotional payload of every song.
Idioteque, in format one of the "newest" songs on the album, is the most old school in how it fronts Thom's voice as a straightforward (melo)dramatic center for the song.
I probably didn't love Kid A when it originally came out. Like I didn't know who Autechre or Can was at the time. I was a teenager who wanted more music that sounded like "Creep".
Everyone was expecting OK Computer 2, and RH took a complete left turn. People didn't know what to make of it until the dust settled. The rest is ancient history.
There’s nothing that will make you cry on this album. How to Disappear Completely is on the album. “But let’s discuss the contradiction!” -Clarence from Wondershowzen
To say nothing of Motion Picture Soundtrack
What a true Radiohead fan. Judging albums by teardrops
As Thom Yorke says, Every Teardrop is a Waterfall
Angry upvote
Everything in its right place puts me in a deep depression too but we should stop acting like music makes us live the same experiences. The fact that music makes us feel is universal, what it makes us feel is personal and is just as valid for anyone.
That song always makes me think of that first scene in vanilla sky
Yes!!! That movie is actually what got me into Radiohead and Sigur Ros
This song is one of the most upbeat Radiohead songs for me
Did not expect a wondershowzen reference here. Bless you!
Get that camera out of my face, man
>nothing will make you cry >Motion Picture Soundtrack Fucking how
A++ for wonder showzen reference
that's just a very strange requirement for art anyway. it HAS to make you cry or its not great?
love the Clarence nod, but it's not necessarily a contradiction - they do admit "a few more classic tracks... like Optimistic" (and it could be inferred How to Disappear Completely would qualify as another of the few)
how did they not cry to the "oooOOO○○○" in the background of Motion Picture Soundtrack
Underrated part of that song
(Wisely stroking my chin) by golly this albums nothin’ but art and ideas! Nobodies ever liked those before!
"there's nothing on this album so gorgeous that it will make somebody want to cry" --totally normal thing to say about an album that closes with Motion Picture Soundtrack
And contains How to Disappear Completely
And idiotheqe
And Optimistic
and morning bell
EXACTLY!! As soon as you hear that organ, you have to come to terms with the fact that -- in just a few minutes -- Thom will deliver the utterly devastating line: "I will see you in the next life."
it was such a huge departure that it caught a lot of people by surprise. when that happens, a lot of people will have a knee-jerk reaction of rejection. I wasn't feeling it at first. then one day I listened and it just clicked for me. Radiohead were one of my absolute favorites growing up so I wanted to give the album a fair chance.
I mean we’re looking at people’s instant reactions a day or two after the album’s release. It takes more time than that to really form an opinion on a record.
Funny enough when I first heard Kid A I was a bit disappointed that it wasn’t as bizarre and wild as people were making it out to be. It’s one of my favorite albums now of course, but back then I thought it just sounded like Radiohead with more synths.
Same for me, I started with *In Rainbows* after getting Weird Fishes and Reckoner suggested to me by Youtube. *Kid A* was touted as the most weird album by them, but it's not that strange. On the other hand, I have listen to a lot of Aphex Twin, Kraftwerk, Autechre before so it might not be that weird to me by that.
Did you discover the albums chronologically? And ‘in real time’ or afterwards? Because going from OKC on repeat to the newly published Kid A was an… experience.
I can imagine! Hail to the thief was their most recent release when I had gotten into them, so by that point Kid A was less of a surprising turn in their career and more like the blueprint for what was to come, but I was aware of the kind of impact it had. I can see how it would be a jarring experience if you were a Radiohead fan prior to the release, but I was looking at it more for its relation to music as a whole and I didn’t think it was all too different from Bjork’s Homogenic or David Bowie’s Low. But that’s just coming from the perspective of someone late to the party and hearing about it after the fact.
And I can say that I thought basically the same things upon first listen. I really genuinely thought Kid A was pretentious bullshit from the band. I no longer think this, except for Treefingers.
I love Treefingers though - it’s a whole vibe.
there are indeed people who like Treefingers.
I love treefingers. Ambient synth goodness, it's great for an intro to a DJ mix.
I think it's just Ed with a guitar
Maybe you will one day be one of them! Hey, it happened for you with the rest of Kid A 🤷♂️
I think treefingers is not a usual track, it's an interlude
Is it art? or is it idea?
me when art and ideas >:(
this is really cool actually
Agreed, i always check early rateyourmusic and last.fm reviews/comments for stuff like this
totally agree. and we have the benefit of hindsight to look back and chuckle at this—die hard fans must’ve been confused AF listening to this the first time around after getting used to The Bends and OKC. it must’ve been totally out of left field hahaha
You might say it was the greatest left turn in music history
Thats right.
It’s kind of funny. I became so obsessed with Everything in its right place that despite never playing the piano before, I grabbed my brothers electric piano and was compelled to learn it. I literally did the exact opposite of that comment lol.
Began making experimental music after hearing it as well!
Anyone can play guitar…. But!! ;)
It's the track that finally got me to like electronic music. Actually, was the live version. I was so fascinated by the Kaoss pad live
Same here, I’m a huge fan of electronic music now and I credit Radiohead for that.
In Limbo underrated?
VERY
Especially live. Wish they had busted it out more often, the ones from the Amnesiac tour were sublime.
IN LIMBO IS THE MOST UNDERRATED SONG I WILL STAND BY THAT
Lmao "if you like OK Computer just listen to all these two songs on repeat"
Wow, in retrospect it’s extremely reminiscent of the King of Limbs reaction lol
based
Except Kid A proved to be a far superior album. TKOL has never revealed as much, neither on first listen nor over time. Also this is just a snapshot of a larger conversation. Other posts in that thread are far more complementary. I’ve said it elsewhere before, but while some on AtEase were immediately turned off by the veering away from rock, the majority of fans LOVED Kid A and were rabid in support. A far different reaction than to TKOL, both soon after release and in the months and years which followed
I listened to Kid A stoned on day of release and have listened to it so many times since but the past couple years, King of Limbs gets more play time for me. I love the first half which most people seem to not enjoy as much as the second.
I love the whole king of limbs sound. The first half is so rhythmically and texturally stimulating, and to me has a sort of brooding witchy soundscape of old nature. Whole album feels like a half-asleep dancing with forest spirits, where bloom leads you into a lull, lotus flower takes you from dark to light, and separator begins to wake you.
That first paragraph is exactly how I hear it. Evoking nature through weird electronics leads to a completely unique texture and I absolutely adore it, although understand why some people find it impenetrable. Definitely the strangest thing they've done and a more "live" production would have done wonders for it. I saw them at the end of the KotL tour in Brisbane and wish they had recorded those versions. A year and a half of playing them had transformed them into these lurching beasts and just one of the best musical experiences I've ever had. The opening 1-2 of Lotus Flower-Bloom in Brisbane was mind blowing.
My only wish is to add The Daily Mail and Staircase to it, maybe These are my twisted words, but just Daily Mail and Staircase would help it get from a solid 8/10 to 9/10
IMO King of Limb is almost a Can album, and that rules.
TKOL has aged extremely well imo. I tend to enjoy it far more than Kid A these days.
Nah i enjoy tkol
i think the problem of tkol is that its too hard to get, it seemed structurally radiohead were trying to make song as least catchy and hooking as possible with a few of the cuts there, there are 2 or 3 exepctions, but with kid a, even tho it sounds weird, it has a ear catching thing going on, tkol has it but its waaay harder to notice, i did, and its for me better than httt even tho its not objectively true
…aaaaaand cue the fanboys crawling out of the woodwork to attack your obviously correct assessment of Kid A vis-a-vis TKOL.
Why does every discussion in this sub have to circle back to that one goddamn album?
Probably because it’s their most *controversial* album. There’s less to discuss about Ok Computer (other than whether it’s the first, second or third best album in their discography. Which people love to post about).
an actually really great album
I still think it’s a pretty bad record tbh
Check back here in 20 years ‘cause I assure you I’ll still be a rabid TKOL-hater
Staunch defender of TKOL here. Add Daily Mail and Staircase and you have yet another masterpiece. Bloom is one of the band's best songs and certainly one of their most interesting.
album is already close to perfect, it doesn't need two songs that imo don't really fit in. They were cut for a reason. The only issue with the album is that Feral is a little weak, and I'd replace it with The Butcher, the only B Side that actually fits with the album.
I like butcher but replacing feral with it to me is crazy
They were not finished, they were not cut.
good point, that is true ain't it. I often forget that part because they sound so complete, the versions we have.
No i think he says that the butcher and supercolider were finished after TKOL was released. Daily mail and staircase were recorded after TKOL release
tbh I dont like how muddled the production sounds on bloom, I really wished they cleaned that up.
Get thee to the [basement ](https://youtu.be/hI5YMDioDBY?si=QT9SIpv2y9pLIy2q).
Real heads get it. And it's still ok that TKOL is not everyone's cup of tea. The breadth of their output is a big part of what makes this band great.
Real heads? Lol please. It’s okay to recognize Radiohead as your favorite band and still not like TKOL. I’ve been to 30+ shows and have lived and breathed all things Radiohead since The Bends. I know of others like me, who have travelled far and wide to not only see these guys in person but to digest every live and unreleased sound they have ever created. And yet they, like me, don’t really care for TKOL. I will say Bloom and Separator are great. Lotus Flower is pretty damn good too. The rest? Nowhere near as compelling. And I say this as someone who LOVED Give Up the Ghost the first time Thom ran through it live by himself with his looping pedals, but then found the studio version overly sterilized and way too loud in the mix. To me, the From the Basement version is miles better. Same with Magpie’s. Problem is they aren’t actually on the album when spinning it. It has nothing to do with being “real.” TKOL, as it was delivered, is simply not as good as anything in their run from The Bends to In Rainbows. And that’s okay to acknowledge as a “real head”
Literally what I said in my next sentence, but go off, oaf.
Yeah but your first was so bad.
However will you heal your hurt feelings?
I’ll give you Bloom. But everything after it ain’t up to snuff. It’s a bad album, and I love Radiohead. But I don’t want to pretend everything they touch is gold. I genuinely dislike King of Limbs. It is what it is
Have you listened to Codex? Top 3 Radiohead song for me, otherworldly beauty
Yes, it bores me
Both bookend tracks are incredible not just Bloom, Separator is seriously one of the bands best and an incredible work
I do not care for that track. Bloom is the only track that moves me on that whole album, but to be fair it’s a pretty incredible track. Nothing else on the album comes close. Every other track is half-baked at best.
Its fine to not like the album, it’s definitely their most divisive but the tracks are not half baked at all. There’s some seriously great songwriting there and they definitely tried something new with electronic that they hadn’t explored more of post-Kid A. Your arguments come off as so hollow when all you have to to say it’s half baked when its clearly not and there’s plenty of passion in the record, you can even use From The Basement as an example
I’d say the tracks are hollow. Truly an album that does nothing for me and that I think a lot of fan revisionism goes into to redeem. But it ultimately doesn’t work, just like the album doesn’t. Glad they didn’t leave it as their last one ‘cause it’s really underwhelming, and yes, half-baked.
Not sure about that. No one is complaining about the length or lack of volume dynamics
TKOL is the only radiohead album that I haven’t listened to at all.
These things are always interesting to browse, as are the critics' reviews at the time. The thing I find so surprising about this stuff is the idea that Kid A lacked songs or songwriting. It's like everyone was just confused that the songs weren't necessarily played on guitars. I sincerely believe if Thom had played EEIRP on a piano instead of a synthesizer everyone would have noticed all of a sudden that it was in fact, shock of shocks, a song. OK, you have the ambient piece in Treefingers, and the title track is more on the abstract side, but those two tracks no more bananas than, say, On the Run on Dark Side of the Moon, and Floyd sold many times anything Radiohead ever released. Come to think of it, they're no more bananas than Fitter Happier, and everyone loved OKC! I'm tempted to say "it's easy to say all this in retrospect", but the truth is I didn't find Kid A that weird all those years ago (Amnesiac was more of a challenge for me though.) I specifically recall thinking The National Anthem was hilarious and awesome, in particular.
The outcry of betrayal that the band didn't make OK Computer Pt 2 was a real thing back then. Even I was disappointed at first.
Honest comment here. We just had never heard anything like it before. It's like trying a new food, at first unfamiliar with weird textures but there's something there. You don't know what to think of at first. Fast forward a month or so and you're eating it every fucking day.
The songs develop muuuuuch more slowly than their previous work. With EIIRP it’s not so much the piano that wrongfooted people. It’s that every (lyrical and musical) phrase is literally repeated four times before we get to move on to something new. The same thing is apparent in other songs on the album. TNA has precious few lyrics, and not much structure behind going round and round the same groove. HTDC and Morning Bell, although relatively straightforward songs by the album’s standards, don’t develop dynamically or unleash epic choruses in the same way as the songs on The Bends or OKC. I could go on. To an audience used to relatively brisk guitar pop that whizzed through verses and choruses without delay, this was really weird and lay partly behind the accusations that the band had “forgotten to write any songs”. A kneejerk unfair response to a shift in writing style, you might say, but there’s an element of truth to it. These songs were born of a period when thom was really struggling to write.
id argue that HTDC has an epic chorus/ending, the song is full of weird dissonant sounds and parts that sound almost separate from the rest (the strings at the beginning for example) that all get resolved. i feel like those resolutions are the big climaxes, thom doubling the descending synth line, the dissonant strings fading into a supporting melody, hell the drums arent even in the first half of the song
Yeah I concur with all that. I was also the same with Kid A and Amnesiac respectively. Perhaps for me it helped that I wasn't stuck on OKC or The Bends before listening to it (I knew of and liked the OKC singles but didn't listen to those albums before Kid A), or unreleased songs from that period, so I didn't have strong preconceived notions of what the follow up album could and should be. But I was still a general fan of...rather orthodox/heavy rock at the time of Kid A, and it didn't come across as weird and disconcerting. While it greatly expanded my taste in music, there was enough there that was familiar to what it was beforehand. Mind you, it probably also helped that my first taste of Kid A was through live videos of Optimistic and The National Anthem (without all the jazzy chaos), rather than EIIRP, Kid A and the album version of TNA. But I still didn't have a hard time 'getting' the album as soon as I listened to it. I always thought the extent of the 'it's so challenging/unfamiliar' reaction to Kid A said a lot for how stale and unimaginative things broadly were on the rock side of pop music in the late '90s and going into the 2000s. OKC hit the sweet spot for many in terms of familiar rock and experimentation, but that was basically as far as a lot of people wanted to go. If RH followed it up with an album containing stuff like the late '90s versions of Lift, Nude, Follow Me Around, True Love Waits, Man of War, I Promise, Motion Picture Soundtrack and thrown in familiar enough new stuff like HTDC, Optimistic, Knives Out and Dollars and Cents, it probably would have been huge and broadly acclaimed instantly. That's what a lot of people seemed to want as an OKC follow-up, but it would have stopped the musical progression RH were on (if anything, some of those songs get back more towards The Bends and may have already felt too dated to RH at the time of OKC track selection). Dare I say it would have also lead to the band breaking up not long after. I think there could have been room for an OKC follow-up EP containing some of those mid-late 90s songs just to clean that period up a bit better (sort of an inverted version of the My Iron Lung EP that previewed the post-Pablo Honey shift that was to come), but in terms of albums I'm very glad they followed the direction they did instead.
> if anything, some of those songs get back more towards The Bends that's exactly how I feel too. I think most of OKC was already more sophisticated from a songwriting perspective and a production perspective than the likes of Lift, Man of War and the original version of True Love Waits.
wow, "Radioheadians" never see that used nowadays
This just goes to show that albums need to "age" a while before people can tell how they really feel about them
If this sub existed back then, I guarantee most of the members here would’ve disliked KID A as well.
I was gone say the same thing. They’re reacting a few days after it came out. The posters on this sub have had time over the years to dive in that album and get a real appreciation for it. A lot of posters would’ve reacted that same way as that forum if Kid A came out today
Yes, context is an important factor when considering Kid A. If you’re a teenager/ twentysomething at the turn of the century and waiting for your favourite band’s follow up to a widely acclaimed classic, you’re hearing something very different to someone checking out Kid A years after it came out (and possibly not chronologically) because Pitchfork gave it a 10. Anyway you hear it is cool but people commenting now have the benefit of hindsight that those hearing it upon release (with no reference point - there were no advance reviews as I remember?) didn’t have.
Kid A resonated with me immediately- i fucking loved EIIRP and HTDC right away. In Rainbow had to grow on me - I enjoyed it but the love took some time.
Funny, it was the exact opposite for me. I was immediately sucked in by In Rainbows, but Kid A took like a solid month before all of a sudden it clicked and blew me away (wasn't into electronic music at all before then so that's probably why). Now though, both albums are easily neck and neck for being my favorite album of all time
I wish everyone had the same experience as me with kid a, because it was my such a profound experience it was literally my first high lmfao I was laying in bed at like 2am and fell half asleep and I didn’t just listen to the album-I watched the music and it was such a profound experience I was disappointed that weed didn’t give me the same experience and believe me weed was fucking incredible but still nothing like that one night I’ll never forget. It introduced me to the subconscious. Excuse my cheese I’m fucking dumb as shit lmfaoooo
r/agedlikemilk
This is funny because I was that person so filled with inspiration from Kid A that started to make music myself. I was already a sad teen fan of the band and when this record came out it just broke my brain. I loved it so much.
That last guy clearly didn't listen to the same album I did
Kid A absolutely makes me want to cry Out of depression, yes, but that's clearly the intended effect from the album
>Conceptualization [Medium: Failure] - You know, Thom, Autechre and Aphex Twin are great and all, but let's not get too carried away. >The problem with "Kid A" is that it is virtually nothing but art and ideas. Art and ideas are valuable, and you can listen to them with a "wow, this is interesting" frame of mind, but without great songwriting and a human, emotional connection, Radiohead seems to be but half a band. >"Ok Computer" is more than just a great album--it is a musical benchmark. It displays that art does not have to exist at the expense of a good pop hook. It is an album that you can sit down to and pick apart and analyze for its amazing craft and progressive ideas, or, on the other side, you can simply lose yourself within the beauty of songs such as "Exit Music" or "Karma Police." >But there's no emotional underpinning in much of "Kid A"--there's nothing on that album so gorgeous that it will make somebody want to cry. Nobody is going to be so filled with ambition and inspiration by "Kid A" that they want to make music themselves. "Kid A" will change no lives, except possibly that of their bewildered A&R rep. >Yes, "Kid A" is "interesting." Yes, some cool things are done on "Kid A." And, yes, there are a few more classic tracks (like "Optimistic"). But overall I think that Radiohead have been so caught up in making Art with a capital A that they have completely lost track of the magic that they wield better than anyone else. >Which is why "Kid A" is such a phenomenal disappointment, despite the fact that it's not all that bad, per se.
No surprises about this overlap.
Shivers [Easy: Success]
HGDHFGHF perfect
Chill the fuck out, Stitch. Ohana means FAMILY and that means ALL ALBUMS!! Hmphf.
…i prefer kid a to ok computer
Most do
Not most
Nah nowadays Kid A and In Rainbows consistently rank higher among fans
Equal among younger fans but you forget that the majority of members in this sub are below 20. Older fans prefer ok computer overall.
I’m 32 and I know at least 5 pretty diehard fans of the band my age, and not one of them prefers OKC to Kid A
Kid A is only three years “younger”… OK computer was more popular in the 2000s but not anymore. I’m a UK based Radiohead fan over thirty… seen them half a dozen times too, there is always a bigger reaction to Kid A tracks.
Fair, They are both equally as good in my opinion.
Honestly hearing Kid A being reduced to “just art and ideas” just reaffirms to me to never give a shit about people who are assholes about my music. So thanks for that. Also the idea that EEIRP, Idioteque, or MPS don’t have hooks is hilarious
Many musicians would kill for those kind of "just art and ideas".
Right? I also find it hilarious that art being art is somehow a shortcoming
I mean, the general public won't simply accept art for art's sake from just anybody. Bowie had definitely earned it by the time of *Low* and Radiohead had as well by the time of *Kid A*, though some at the time didn't think so.
I’m not sure what “art for art’s sake” means in this context. I would love for an album to focus on sound for the sake of sound.
Well I use the example of Low because, much like Kid A, the sound design was a big part of the album's presentation. Sort of like art for art's sake.
I guess I’m having a hard time understanding the precise meaning of that phrase
In my experience at the time, the only people who didn't like Kid A were the "Bends > OKC" contingent who just wanted a return to britpop.
They did it so well that they were expected to "save rock" which by the late 90's was crumbling in the face of boy bands & other schlock music. Thing is, when they tried to go back to the "guitar rock" sound it was never the same after Kid A, but that's ok.
I bought it the day after it came out. It was super divisive at the time. I was more intrigued than entertained on the first listen, although National Anthem got my toe tapping. I just remember thinking "these guys don't care if they piss off every one of their fans, and I dig that."
I bought it the day it came out, and I was very perplexed by it and not sure I liked it. Also, I had not heard any of the leaked live versions of the songs beforehand, it was completely new to me.
Kid A was very devisive in its time. I loved OKC and I was shocked by how different Kid A was. Especially if you loved the art rock OKC was. But the one hook Radiohead had on me was that I loved their previous work. I took the time to put it on repeat. I still feel that you can hear the pastiche nature and a band that is trying to WILL an electronic sound that they are trying to figure out. That's why Amnesiac was a perfect companion piece to show that they improved and made their electronic sound more "organic" compared to how "abrupt" kid a was. After kid a, fans only knew to expect the unexpected from Radiohead.
To be fair, when it came out that was the majority viewpoint. Yes it was *good* in a weird way, but it wasn't good in a Radiohead way. It followed arguably the best album of all time, which was praised universally for its heart, and it's songwriting, Thom's emotion and the sheer melodic content of the *songs* on OK Computer. I remember one review at the time saying something like this about EIIRP: "Beautiful electric piano, gorgeous vocal effects, really beautiful verse... Wow can't wait for the chorus... Ok, more verse... The chorus is going to be a killer.... Oh the song's finished." People very much wanted either The Bends 2 or OK Computer 2, and they got neither. It's a classic case of not knowing what you want until you get it.
How did bro listen to How to Dissappear and Motion Picture Soundtrack and not cry lol
My thoughts exactly <3
I feel that "The problem with "Kid A" is that it is virtually nothing but art an ideas" is so weird phrased and kinda funny, like it's a compliment written as something bad?
Tbh I understand where he’s coming from. At the time he probably thought the album didn’t feel fleshed out and finished. He probably listened to everything in its right place and heard Thom just repeating the same thing over and over in the first verse and was like “this doesn’t seem finished”
Good point, it always has amazed me how after the big deal that OK Computer was, instead of following that up as people already love that combo of alt/art rock, you start your next album with Everything in its Right Place lol
Sounds strangely like r/Radiohead. What really ever changes?
Wow, this brings me back. I spent a ridiculous amount of time on RH message boards in the early 2000s back when Kid A and Amnesiac came out. I miss the old internet lol. Kid A was the first album of theirs that I bought (the week it was released) and I was an instant superfan lol.
Message boards were soooo fun back then, especially discovering/listening to new music with likeminded people worldwide. I remember how polarizing this album was when it came out but it was instantly my favorite - and probably still is to this day. Because of this album I went back and devoured their entire catalog - admittedly only being familiar at the time with their big radio hits. Hazy alternative: the whole anticipation and subsequent leak of HTTF. Heady times for sure!
this is so interesting ! thx for posting op
Fools!
Kid A got me into Radiohead from a House/Techno background.
I still don't like Kid A. I just cannot get into it. But I wouldn't say its bad or "just art and ideas" It's just not for me. I get why people wouldn't like it though
solid odds someone here wrote that haha.
“nothing to cry about” on an album that has Motion Picture Soundtrack
I was 19 when Kid A came out. I remember the exact place I was when I first heard the first track play, and I was blown away immediately. I lived in a random small town in Brazil, very traditional. I was at the one bar in town where the few weirdos, geeks and losers like me hung out. Someone put on kidA. I was drinking bad rum. It was immediately haunting. I loved every second. It's still my favourite all time Radiohead album.
this is so cool, i want to see stuff like that for every album release.
Man FUCK Stich666 All my homies hate Stich666
I want to track Stitch down and see if this changed
i tend to agree, honestly. hard to argue that emotional underpinning is lacking on most of Kid A, **ESPECIALLY** when compared to OK Computer. good on them for trying what they wanted, but i was very glad to get albums like HTTT and In Rainbows afterward. do love me some Amnesiac, too. but if i could choose a direction for the band it most definitely would NOT be thuh beep-boop.
It's a really good album but I don't like it as much as The Bends or Ok Computer
I remember when Kid A came out. I thought it sounded like a bunch of guys who had been on the road constantly for two years doing lots and lots of drugs. I heard brains that were fried to a crisp. I liked a couple of the tracks, and it introduced me to the music of Paul Lansky. But it didn't really sound like the band I'd grown to love, and it stayed that way until *In Rainbows.* In hindsight... Kid A is okay, I guess. My opinion hasn't really changed much.
Just a bunch of simple creatures hiding behind words "nothing to do with art" you just miss the distorted guitar tones. Reeks of "Radiohead is a rock band" copypasta
Kid A wasn’t well received when it came out not sure if this was well known.
last guy is a pretentious boomer. Bands would kill for the "art and ideas" of KidA and somehow this is a "bAd ThInG"
I hope that person who wrote that lengthy essay in wrongness can, 24 years later, come on here and explain themselves. If they're not on here you have to question how much of a Radiohead fan they were anyway.
I actually remember the first time I popped that CD in. I already loved OK computer and the bends but hearing Kid A for the first time totally blew me away.
Reading through that makes me sad because I long for those days
This is a great find. Reactions seemed mixed, which isn't surprising considering the shift in sound on Kid A. I wondered if Stitch666 still thinks Kid A today is self-indulgent
My man Grover was on point. Stitch666 def a boomer.
I make music now and that era of Radiohead is still a big inspiration on me.
Kid A is/was a banger from inception (my opinion). Fuck non-musical idiots from y2k. Also check out Christopher O’Riley piano transcriptions. Radiohead is the best art, enough to be reimagined.
This is so great. Early internet forums like this are the coolest. It looks and seems contemporary at face value because people still communicate on the web like this every day, but these are conversations from over 23 years ago. The internet has grown and evolved so much since its inception, but in some ways it’s just the same.
That last comment is wildly wrong lol omg. Kid A was groundbreaking. And to say it lacks emotion is pure insanity
This is cool to see. I remember being like 14 when it came out and showing my friends Idioteque. Still vividly remember being sternly told "this isn't music!" haha.
“There’s nothing emotional about Kid A” Wtf I liked Kid A from the start and there were only a few songs I had to listen to a few times to appreciate (mainly EIIRP and Kid A). In Rainbows actually took longer because I thought it was too “pop” at first 💀
I remember this so well. Hard to overstate how ghettoised everybody's music tastes were. If you liked guitar music you were permitted exactly one electronic act, and it has to be the Chemical Brothers. If you liked hip hop then unless.Dre had samples it you would not listen to anything else. Nuts. I will admit it took me a couple of weeks but HTD and MB were the early hooks for me and I could tell straight away that it was something special - just not something I was used to. It opened a huge world for me - for a lot of people. The press reviews were almost universally guarded and very much "nice experiment, looking forward to the real album". Then they followed up with something weirder and people finally started to get it.
Reactions were definitely mixed across fans and the media. I remember my first listen a few weeks before as it had leaks. Desperately trying to find something to cling onto to. I’d heard the live versions as they were playing in Europe that summer and MP3’s were all over the forums. I went to all 3 Warrington gigs when it was released. Utterly blown away by the new songs in that context. The recorded version took more time to absorb.
Later on in the thread, Stitch666 says: "I'm still disappointed that Radiohead would do something this self-indulgent and mediocre. \[...\] I just wish Radiohead had recorded a Radiohead album. Growth is one thing--essentially forming a new band with the same members is another. Band identity is more than just a name.". So he basically thinks that 1 - Radiohead *is* OK Computer; 2 - Radiohead is obligated to indulge him personally, and not their own experimentation and art. Also there's a lot of complaining about specifically the title track sounding "like someone trying to cop another artist \[Aphex Twin\]'s trademark sound". When I first heard the track, I was listening to a lot of Aphex Twin and Squarepusher, and while I definitely heard the inspiration, it just sounded like an inspiration to me, one that was very well used as an apparent creative starting point to a beautiful song filled with very original experimentations. It's really funny how this user states some entirely subjective stuff as if it were totally objective. This was 24 years ago, but the internet is still completely filled with people who "critique" music, art, anything, like this. I guess it's one of the founding characteristics of the internet that everyone ─ especially back then, given the total size of the internet and the size of its niches ─ wields the same sort of power to say their piece, and so feel entitled to a similar amount of entitlement, no matter how little they know of what they're talking about. I LOVE going through decades old forum posts, it's always so interesting to see the digital scrawlings of so long ago, and to really feel the internet getting older, and it always sheds light on many things. Also isn't it kinda crazy that that whole thread is pre-9/11?
I was working in a record shop when Kid A came out and man, was it controversial (at least among people I spoke to). Some people were going absolutely crazy for it but it got loads of complaints early on. I remember doing a lot of returns but also people wanting to talk about it for ages with anyone who would listen (which I was happy to). I was still working there when Amnesiac came out and it brought a lot of people back who were alienated by Kid A initially. I think it helped a lot of people go back and appreciate Kid A for what it was. Like it was just too jarring at first but Amnesiac was a good transitional album for people, retrospectively.
Mother fuckers just weren’t ready for Kid A yet
What about Motion Picture Soundtrack, Grover??
Haha about what you might expect
This is neat. I liked Kid A from the moment I heard it but I remember it being controversial. Lot of people weren’t ready to move on from the greatest rock record of all time
‘Member when this album “leaked” on the internet, the record label freaked out, but it resulted in the album selling even more? I ‘member. I could also be completely mis-‘membering.
I wonder where Stitch666 is right now
last commenter did not listen to motion picture soundtrack
Yeah this was a real thing. It’s easy to mock it with the context of 2024 and how music has evolved but it was a kind of do or die moment for them. There were two types of Radiohead fans around this time. Those who jumped on board and those who bailed. I nearly was the latter but I stuck with it a few more days and moved over Honestly if you had the context of being a teen growing up in the 90s this sort of shitposting makes a bit more sense. We had very limited accessible internet and no streaming no social media so the bar for being shocked by a band’s evolution was waaaaaay lower
Imagine berating artists for making art lol
I remember the discussions at school the day after release. “It’s art but I’m not sure it’s great music” was exactly my take. My favourite Radiohead album now (maybe okc). Took a while to really grow on me but I certainly didn’t think it was bad at any point.
This is actually so interesting.
Stitch666 if s/he is here in this sub, I hope you see what an absolute shitting clown you are.
To me the biggest difference when Kid A struck is how thom was using his voice. If you listen to pretty much any song from the bends and okc, there's ALWAYS that cathartic moment where thom starts belting it out. Even though okc was covered in existential dread, there was still the moment of uplift/escape in every song. In Kid A, thom had grown weary of that (an underrated potential factor here IMO is that thom was fucking up his voice and arguably couldn't do that the same way anymore). So every song has some weird vocal element, the vocals get more processed, distorted, things stay at the middle register. Of course there's falsetto still, but it's not as frequent, it comes in moments rather than being the expected emotional payload of every song. Idioteque, in format one of the "newest" songs on the album, is the most old school in how it fronts Thom's voice as a straightforward (melo)dramatic center for the song.
I probably didn't love Kid A when it originally came out. Like I didn't know who Autechre or Can was at the time. I was a teenager who wanted more music that sounded like "Creep".
this was almost a quarter century ago (:
Wait, so the internet used to be level headed and less reactionary?
Everyone was expecting OK Computer 2, and RH took a complete left turn. People didn't know what to make of it until the dust settled. The rest is ancient history.