foray
Rock n' Roll Doggie
more found at http://www.daydreamnation.co.uk/theexpressway/radiohead.html
Kid A (2000, Parlophone)
It only really recently occurred to me exactly how big Radiohead are; all of the other bands I listen to (with the exception of maybe Nirvana) are very rarely even considered when the wankers at 'Q' magazine are making their stupid charts of the 'best' (i.e.. most overrated) albums of all time. But it's true that despite being one of 'my' bands, Radiohead are, like, massive, innit.
So, with the weight of the world on his poor little shoulders, it's pretty inevitable Thom Yorke would go crazy. True, they couldn't have released this album at a worse time; with the music press suddenly becoming very conservative and supporting hideous thinly veiled cock-rock like Limp Biscuit (unlike them, I can SPELL), not to mention to resurgence of arch-shitheads AC-fucking-DC. Meanwhile underground 'dance' music (which is usually impossible to dance to, that's how you can tell it's 'underground') is as vibrant as ever, so it's pretty inevitable that Thom Yorke would find his solace there; and make no mistake, Thom Yorke really is running the show here.
But the other surprise about this album is that it's good in the way the last two Radiohead albums, and parts of the first one, were good; not really original, except in a cosmetic sense, but still held firmly within the sphere of genius by the quality of the music.
Not that 'Kid A' doesn't have it's bad points, but then 'OK Computer' did have the eminently pointless 'Fitter Happier'. But nothing can detract from this being a really good album; true, my taste in music does veer a bit to the leftfield, and therefore there's nothing here which I find particularly odd or out of place. It's true it doesn't prostrate itself at the altar of the holy guitar, which appears to be the main criticism the music press have for it, but do we really need more bloody bands who sound like Radiohead, even if it is the masters themselves doing the self-parodying? The answer is no, incidentally.
It's a bit weird, yeah. But pretty much all of the tracks on this album have a definite purpose, and there're even a couple of tracks which have obvious guitar bits on them.
But there are some major criticisms; the lyrics, which were always Radiohead's most unique feature, haven't exactly got more sophisticated, as it appears Thom Yorke has fallen into the trap of thinking he can get away with repeating 'Yesterday I woke up sucking a lemon' a few times rather than thinking up anything interesting to say. And it's really here that the album falls down when compared to 'OK...' or 'The Bends'- the music's there, but the words just aren't, not to the same degree; there's nothing as lyrically brilliant as 'Paranoid Android', 'Subterranean Homesick Alien' or 'Let Down' (or the rest of their albums, for that matter), and it's that, and NOT the lack of guitars which makes this not as good as what has come before.
Thom Yorke is probably the best single lyricist of his generation. Perhaps he's been told this too many times, and he's had enough of vacuous praise. Which is a shame.
foray
Kid A (2000, Parlophone)
It only really recently occurred to me exactly how big Radiohead are; all of the other bands I listen to (with the exception of maybe Nirvana) are very rarely even considered when the wankers at 'Q' magazine are making their stupid charts of the 'best' (i.e.. most overrated) albums of all time. But it's true that despite being one of 'my' bands, Radiohead are, like, massive, innit.
So, with the weight of the world on his poor little shoulders, it's pretty inevitable Thom Yorke would go crazy. True, they couldn't have released this album at a worse time; with the music press suddenly becoming very conservative and supporting hideous thinly veiled cock-rock like Limp Biscuit (unlike them, I can SPELL), not to mention to resurgence of arch-shitheads AC-fucking-DC. Meanwhile underground 'dance' music (which is usually impossible to dance to, that's how you can tell it's 'underground') is as vibrant as ever, so it's pretty inevitable that Thom Yorke would find his solace there; and make no mistake, Thom Yorke really is running the show here.
But the other surprise about this album is that it's good in the way the last two Radiohead albums, and parts of the first one, were good; not really original, except in a cosmetic sense, but still held firmly within the sphere of genius by the quality of the music.
Not that 'Kid A' doesn't have it's bad points, but then 'OK Computer' did have the eminently pointless 'Fitter Happier'. But nothing can detract from this being a really good album; true, my taste in music does veer a bit to the leftfield, and therefore there's nothing here which I find particularly odd or out of place. It's true it doesn't prostrate itself at the altar of the holy guitar, which appears to be the main criticism the music press have for it, but do we really need more bloody bands who sound like Radiohead, even if it is the masters themselves doing the self-parodying? The answer is no, incidentally.
It's a bit weird, yeah. But pretty much all of the tracks on this album have a definite purpose, and there're even a couple of tracks which have obvious guitar bits on them.
But there are some major criticisms; the lyrics, which were always Radiohead's most unique feature, haven't exactly got more sophisticated, as it appears Thom Yorke has fallen into the trap of thinking he can get away with repeating 'Yesterday I woke up sucking a lemon' a few times rather than thinking up anything interesting to say. And it's really here that the album falls down when compared to 'OK...' or 'The Bends'- the music's there, but the words just aren't, not to the same degree; there's nothing as lyrically brilliant as 'Paranoid Android', 'Subterranean Homesick Alien' or 'Let Down' (or the rest of their albums, for that matter), and it's that, and NOT the lack of guitars which makes this not as good as what has come before.
Thom Yorke is probably the best single lyricist of his generation. Perhaps he's been told this too many times, and he's had enough of vacuous praise. Which is a shame.
foray
