Kid A (lyrics, electronic, rock, album, beatles)

Davey Moore · 04-15-2009, 05:26 AM

Son of a b*tch. Listen to 'Creep' and tell me how we got to this point. I always used The Beatles as the prime example for how far a band's sound can progress. I would say, "Listen to 'P.S. I Love You' then listen to 'Happiness is a Warm Gun'". So tell me, how did we get from 'Creep' to 'Everything in It’s Right Place' or 'Idioteque'? A f*cking mystery. But thank God we got there.

Radiohead have carved out a very unique sound, a sound which I dub 21st Century Cocaine Music. It's electronic, it's frantic, and it's incoherent, like you're speeding down a long tunnel at 2 A.M. in a black Mercedes and two people you just met at the nightclub are doing lines and screwing in the backseat. And yet, for all it's manic anxiety, the core of their sound is numb, like all of this is being broadcasted by a man in a coma, and I say that with all the love in the world. Kid A especially takes on and embraces this tone. It's an album of contradiction and duality, it's electronic yet organic, elusive and fragmented yet precise in the emotion and meanings it evokes.

'Yesterday I woke up sucking a lemon. There are two colors in my head.'

That's the sort of fragmented, detached images we are given right at the start of the album. This album is lyrically populated by the sort of lines that stands on the fence between heavily symbolic and perhaps that joking Dylanesque throwaway that makes the songwriter grin as dipsh*t reviewers like me try and dissect them and find a hidden meaning. The sorts of lines that while being interviewed the songwriter goes 'I don't know where that came from. Your guess is as good as mine.' This is a subconscious album. The purpose of it's lyrics are not to give you concrete meanings but phantom tones and images that evoke whatever feeling that happens to be associated with it. For each listener it's different and that's what makes it so special. And that's also what makes it so frustratingly elusive.

I love the image of the carnival. The symbolism. It's such a bittersweet and perverse sort of atmosphere, it looks flashy and great on the surface but dig deeper and you'll find a rotten underbelly populated by maggots. A carnival is confusing. A carnival is the perfect symbol for a decade of decadence, that's what the 2000s were and right now we're feeling the start of that hangover. We're in the same category as the 20s and the 80s. The last song on this album sounds like a carnival winding down. It's tragic sounding, somehow it sounds whimsical at the same time, and always, numb. It's the greatest song on the album and helps support my little pet theory that this album is a mosaic of the entire decade, prophetically released right at the start of it.
I think you're crazy...maybe
I think you're crazy... maybe

Radiohead fit so uniquely in our decade because they embody that decadence yet they distance themselves from it, and somehow make it beautiful in a tragic sort of way. Think of a Great Gatsby sort of beautiful decadence.

How the f*ck did we get to this point? How did we get to a point where the government we thought would be our salvation is a giant beast gasping for life smashing things up trying to solve an unsolvable problem and probably just making it worse? How did we get to a point of such moral bankruptcy and excessive shallowness, where the highest rated TV shows show graphic murders, and flashy reality shows where we see broken celebrities humiliate themselves for us like those monkeys with a little hat and cymbals, and they desperately cling to the hope that they can get on top again, yet, as we watch them, we all know that isn't gonna happen...I ask you, how did we get to this point?

I don't know, and Radiohead doesn't know either. But I guarantee you they will make beautiful music about it, asking that very same question.

10/10

simplephysics · 04-15-2009, 06:32 AM

I do enjoy reading your reviews Davey. Kid A is nothing short of amazing.

4ZZZ · 04-15-2009, 06:47 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by dreadnaught

I do enjoy reading your reviews Davey.

So do I and I have never even heard Kid A

.

I have only ever heard OK Computer and then only 2 or 3 times. What is it that makes me back off listening to Radiohead? If Davey had written this about some obscure post rock band I would have been searching the www for a taste but for some reason I just am unable to join the masses when Radiohead is concerned. Why? Subconscious rejection

? I wish someone would tell me!

dac · 04-15-2009, 06:54 AM

A very interesting take, to say the least, on my favorite album.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Davey Moore

'Yesterday I woke up sucking a lemon. There are two colors in my head.'

That's the sort of fragmented, detached images we are given right at the start of the album. This album is lyrically populated by the sort of lines that stands on the fence between heavily symbolic and perhaps that joking Dylanesque throwaway that makes the songwriter grin as dipsh*t reviewers like me try and dissect them and find a hidden meaning. The sorts of lines that while being interviewed the songwriter goes 'I don't know where that came from. Your guess is as good as mine.' This is a subconscious album. The purpose of it's lyrics are not to give you concrete meanings but phantom tones and images that evoke whatever feeling that happens to be associated with it. For each listener it's different and that's what makes it so special. And that's also what makes it so frustratingly elusive.

That section sums up what I've been trying to say about the album for a long time. It's not something straightforward and obvious, or with clear intent, and that's why it's great. I'd have no problem calling this the greatest album of all time if they had subbed out Optimistic for Pyramid Song or Like Spinning Plates.

lucifer_sam · 04-15-2009, 07:25 AM

i don't mind the 'Head but i've always found their influences far more interesting than they could ever be. i'd love to hear your take on Can's Tago Mago, Davey Moore. you obviously know your way around a pen (scratch that, a keyboard) and it might be interesting to see what analogies you can scrape out of THAT album.

dac · 04-15-2009, 07:37 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by lucifer_sam

i don't mind the 'Head but i've always found their influences far more interesting than they could ever be. i'd love to hear your take on Can's Tago Mago, Davey Moore. you obviously know your way around a pen (scratch that, a keyboard) and it might be interesting to see what analogies you can scrape out of THAT album.

I liked Tago Mago. I fucking loved Ege Bamyasi. Can's influence on Radiohead is very apparent, but the experience you get from the two, while both amazing, is very different.

jackhammer · 04-15-2009, 12:41 PM

Never heard (of) it

dac · 04-15-2009, 06:50 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by jackhammer

Never heard (of) it

I still can't believe you haven't listened to this album

jackhammer · 04-15-2009, 06:53 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by dac

I still can't believe you haven't listened to this album

Why not? Radiohead are not my world. Shocking I know.

**Janszoon** · 04-15-2009, 06:55 PM

It's actually been kind of a long time since I've listened to Kid A. I remember thinking it was decent when it came out but I wonder what I'd think of it now.

04-15-2009, 05:26 AM	#1 (permalink)
Davey Moore The Great Disappearer Join Date: Apr 2008 Location: URI Campus and Coventry, both in RI Posts: 462	Kid A Son of a btch. Listen to 'Creep' and tell me how we got to this point. I always used The Beatles as the prime example for how far a band's sound can progress. I would say, "Listen to 'P.S. I Love You' then listen to 'Happiness is a Warm Gun'". So tell me, how did we get from 'Creep' to 'Everything in It’s Right Place' or 'Idioteque'? A fcking mystery. But thank God we got there. Radiohead have carved out a very unique sound, a sound which I dub 21st Century Cocaine Music. It's electronic, it's frantic, and it's incoherent, like you're speeding down a long tunnel at 2 A.M. in a black Mercedes and two people you just met at the nightclub are doing lines and screwing in the backseat. And yet, for all it's manic anxiety, the core of their sound is numb, like all of this is being broadcasted by a man in a coma, and I say that with all the love in the world. Kid A especially takes on and embraces this tone. It's an album of contradiction and duality, it's electronic yet organic, elusive and fragmented yet precise in the emotion and meanings it evokes. 'Yesterday I woke up sucking a lemon. There are two colors in my head.' That's the sort of fragmented, detached images we are given right at the start of the album. This album is lyrically populated by the sort of lines that stands on the fence between heavily symbolic and perhaps that joking Dylanesque throwaway that makes the songwriter grin as dipsht reviewers like me try and dissect them and find a hidden meaning. The sorts of lines that while being interviewed the songwriter goes 'I don't know where that came from. Your guess is as good as mine.' This is a subconscious album. The purpose of it's lyrics are not to give you concrete meanings but phantom tones and images that evoke whatever feeling that happens to be associated with it. For each listener it's different and that's what makes it so special. And that's also what makes it so frustratingly elusive. I love the image of the carnival. The symbolism. It's such a bittersweet and perverse sort of atmosphere, it looks flashy and great on the surface but dig deeper and you'll find a rotten underbelly populated by maggots. A carnival is confusing. A carnival is the perfect symbol for a decade of decadence, that's what the 2000s were and right now we're feeling the start of that hangover. We're in the same category as the 20s and the 80s. The last song on this album sounds like a carnival winding down. It's tragic sounding, somehow it sounds whimsical at the same time, and always, numb. It's the greatest song on the album and helps support my little pet theory that this album is a mosaic of the entire decade, prophetically released right at the start of it. I think you're crazy...maybe I think you're crazy... maybe Radiohead fit so uniquely in our decade because they embody that decadence yet they distance themselves from it, and somehow make it beautiful in a tragic sort of way. Think of a Great Gatsby sort of beautiful decadence. How the fck did we get to this point? How did we get to a point where the government we thought would be our salvation is a giant beast gasping for life smashing things up trying to solve an unsolvable problem and probably just making it worse? How did we get to a point of such moral bankruptcy and excessive shallowness, where the highest rated TV shows show graphic murders, and flashy reality shows where we see broken celebrities humiliate themselves for us like those monkeys with a little hat and cymbals, and they desperately cling to the hope that they can get on top again, yet, as we watch them, we all know that isn't gonna happen...I ask you, how did we get to this point? I don't know, and Radiohead doesn't know either. But I guarantee you they will make beautiful music about it, asking that very same question. 10/10 __________________ The Edge... there is no honest way to explain it because the only people who really know where it is are the ones who have gone over.

04-15-2009, 07:25 AM	#5 (permalink)
lucifer_sam Unrepentant Ass-Mod Join Date: Jun 2008 Location: Pennsylvania Posts: 3,921	i don't mind the 'Head but i've always found their influences far more interesting than they could ever be. i'd love to hear your take on Can's Tago Mago, Davey Moore. you obviously know your way around a pen (scratch that, a keyboard) and it might be interesting to see what analogies you can scrape out of THAT album. __________________ first.am

04-15-2009, 12:41 PM	#7 (permalink)
jackhammer Ba and Be. Join Date: May 2007 Location: This Is England Posts: 17,331	Never heard (of) it __________________ It be my music and film collection. “A cynic by experience, a romantic by inclination and now a hero by necessity.”

04-15-2009, 06:55 PM	#10 (permalink)
Janszoon Mate, Spawn & Die Join Date: May 2007 Location: The Rapping Community Posts: 24,593	It's actually been kind of a long time since I've listened to Kid A. I remember thinking it was decent when it came out but I wonder what I'd think of it now. __________________ A Night in the Life of the Invisible Man Time & Place 25 Albums You Should Hear Before the Moon Crashes into the Earth and We All Die last.fm