Highway23
04-18-2001, 11:43 AM
well, I'm listening to the songs from the new album, and reading a review at the same time, and it's sad that this guy who wrote it is pretty honest about it. /images/frown.gif
Creative Amnesia
Radiohead Extend The Musical Middle Finger On Amnesiac
An NATN Staff Report
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
In case you've been vacationing in Antarctica or your cable modem was in the shop, Radiohead's forthcoming album Amnesiac has hit the Internet two months before its scheduled June 5 release by Capitol. First, some background. After the difficult and often confounding Kid A, which hit No. 1 in the U.K. and the U.S. last fall despite little or no promotion, Radiohead found itself lapping the rest of the rock world in its quest for new sounds.
To be sure, few acts in recent decades have found themselves in such glass houses, having unleashed in succession three albums that ripped up the blueprints for what a 20th-century rock band should sound like. But with such acclaim comes enormous creative pressure, a struggle that is fully audible on Amnesiac. Consisting of songs recorded during the Kid A sessions as well as more recent material, the 11-track album may prove to be the point of no return for Radiohead: this nearly joyless affair sports some of the most abstract music the group has ever produced, with hardly a whiff of the guitar-driven splendor of The Bends and OK Computer.
The problem is that good ideas on paper do not always constitute music worth listening to. Kid A was plagued by this balancing act, but managed to come out ahead more often than not. In contrast, Amnesiac wallows in its own willful obscurity, making appreciation a needlessly frustrating chore of wading through incomprehensible singing, lyric fragments, harsh electronic beats, and clichéd studio trickery.
Without further ranting, below is a track-by-track commentary on Amnesiac:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Packt Like Sardines In A Crushd Tin Box" (3:57):
Not surprisingly, Amnesiac picks up right where Kid A left off, as tinny, hyperactive beats in the vein of the last album's "Idioteque" crowd the mix. A low keyboard rumble follows, before vocalist Thom Yorke enters the fray at the :56 second mark: "I'm a reasonable man / get off my case." After this song, you'd be apt to doubt him. At 2:36, an Aphex Twin-style beat parade and ominous background chattering take over, but the song's main melody returns at 3:04.
"Pyramid Song" (4:49):
Yorke wails about rivers and angels over piano tinklings in a manner reminiscent of the OK Computer B-side "How I Made My Millions" for the song's first two minutes. The vocal performance is one of Yorke’s least muddled -- and consequently, most affecting -- of the album. The full band jumps in on an off-beat at 2:01, accented by the howling wind noise that seems to have become a stock production tactic over the past two albums. Strings add depth near the song's end, culminating in ringing decay tones that lead right into the next track.
"Pulk/Pull Revolving Doors" (4:07):
Clanging, mechanized beats with a clear precedent in the stylings of Bjork or Tricky are about all this track has to offer. Yorke mutters the occasional "word," his vocal effects getting progressively weirder as the song elapses. There's a short reprieve at 3:20, before the beats kick back in, even harder than before. It's the first of many songs that run cool grooves into the ground with little or no regard for melody.
"You And Whose Army?" (3:10):
Finally, some guitar! This one has a gray, old-time feel, embodied by Yorke's monochrome mumblings. He seems to be provoking -- however subtly -- unseen armies ("the Roman Empire," "you and your cronies"), but this sickly-sounding narrator would be beaten to a pulp by the vein-popping protagonist of "Talk Show Host," who awaited the fight with "a gun and a pack of sandwiches." The full band jumps in for the final minute and change, adding much needed polish and power to what is an otherwise undistinguished song.
"I Might Be Wrong" (4:51):
A groove workout from the "The National Anthem" family tree, all dark synth tones, a rocking lead guitar line and an uppity beat. The repetitive guitar riff (which brings to mind Matt Johnson’s The The) stays steady as various background noises rise up to accompany it. Good luck deciphering what, if anything, Yorke is "singing," or why the song comes to a dead stop at 3:50, only to pile on wordless wailing and drum machine accents for the final minute.
"Knives Out" (4:15):
The strum of an acoustic guitar can be heard amid the full band launching into what sounds like an actual song. Very melodically similar to the Bends-era B-side "The Trickster," the piece offers creative vocal hooks that sustain a little longer than the ear would expect. Yorke proves he can still turn an interesting phrase: "look into my eyes / it's the only way to tell the truth." Guitarist Jonny Greenwood highlights an open section at 2:25 with fret runs that make one long for the blissful strains of OK Computer's "Subterranean Homesick Alien."
"Morning Bell / Amnesiac" (3:14):
An utterly pointless re-recording of one of the standout tracks on Kid A. Yorke's lyrics and vocal melody remain intact, but are here grafted atop lo-fi, cacophonous backing that conjures memories of bad symphonic prog rock. Coming off like a primitive demo, this "title track" lends an unwelcome sense of unimportance to Amnesiac.
"Dollars And Cents" (4:52):
Yet another groove-based piece that doesn't move around so much as spasm, as wavy guitars and deep organ tones exchange roles behind an intoxicating beat. Yorke’s detached singing wakes up in time to follow the song’s crescendo, emotionally peaking at the 2:25 mark, only to pave the way to another slow buildup that ends with Yorke chanting "we are the dollars and cents / and the pounds and pence / we’re gonna crack your little souls" Producer Nigel Godrich earns his stripes in the last minute, as the band recedes in the mix amid warped guitar tones.
"Hunting Bears" (2:00):
Perhaps the most ridiculous track Radiohead has ever included on an album, this two-minute instrumental features what sounds like a guitar warm-up exercise being repeated with no rhyme or reason. A total waste of space.
"Like Spinning Plates" (3:57):
Warbling beats swirl noxiously with heavily treated phasing tones, making good on the song’s title. Yorke pours cold water all over the hot coals at 1:47 by breaking into a creepy vocal melody that would make the dwarf in "Twin Peaks" proud. Something more akin to a tangible melody surfaces at 2:30, but Yorke simply refuses to yield one iota of his bizarre inflections.
"Life In A Glass House" (4:35):
Pretty, shimmering synth tones are upended by piano and cymbals. The old-style melody is fresh out of a piano bar in a parallel universe. Indulging the band's newfound fascination with orchestras, jazz trumpeter Humphrey Lyttleton adds Dixieland overtones of nightmarish proportions. Yorke's vocal melody is inscrutable, and his lyrics ("once again, we are hungry for lynchin’ / that's a strange mistake to make / you should have turned the other cheek") are maddeningly opaque, ending Amnesiac on a disconcerting note.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Contrary to the conventional wisdom preceding it, Amnesiac doesn’t sound like a singles record. Its songs are very dense and convoluted, and although they are varied from one another in a number of ways, many appear to be timid experiments rather than confident creations. It’s no secret that most, if not all, of the album’s songs were recorded during the sessions that produced Kid A, and listening to Amnesiac, one gets the idea that it’s a piecemeal record thrown together from the scraps that weren’t deemed fit for its predecessor.
In comparing a couple of the tracks to past Radiohead B-sides, it’s tempting to remember that the band had been known in the past to release bountiful non-album tracks (7-10 decent songs per album) on singles, compilations, and the like. Then, for Kid A, the band made a conscious effort not to release any singles. One can’t help but to wonder if, during the band’s astoundingly prolific past, the material on Amnesiac would have ended up as B-sides for the album gleaned from its sessions.
This is not to say the record can’t be appreciated as its own entity. But as such, it does not fit well at all among the grand, impressive efforts that Radiohead has become known for producing.
http://www.allaboutfrogs.org/gallery/animations/ani/animated-frog-3.gif
Creative Amnesia
Radiohead Extend The Musical Middle Finger On Amnesiac
An NATN Staff Report
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
In case you've been vacationing in Antarctica or your cable modem was in the shop, Radiohead's forthcoming album Amnesiac has hit the Internet two months before its scheduled June 5 release by Capitol. First, some background. After the difficult and often confounding Kid A, which hit No. 1 in the U.K. and the U.S. last fall despite little or no promotion, Radiohead found itself lapping the rest of the rock world in its quest for new sounds.
To be sure, few acts in recent decades have found themselves in such glass houses, having unleashed in succession three albums that ripped up the blueprints for what a 20th-century rock band should sound like. But with such acclaim comes enormous creative pressure, a struggle that is fully audible on Amnesiac. Consisting of songs recorded during the Kid A sessions as well as more recent material, the 11-track album may prove to be the point of no return for Radiohead: this nearly joyless affair sports some of the most abstract music the group has ever produced, with hardly a whiff of the guitar-driven splendor of The Bends and OK Computer.
The problem is that good ideas on paper do not always constitute music worth listening to. Kid A was plagued by this balancing act, but managed to come out ahead more often than not. In contrast, Amnesiac wallows in its own willful obscurity, making appreciation a needlessly frustrating chore of wading through incomprehensible singing, lyric fragments, harsh electronic beats, and clichéd studio trickery.
Without further ranting, below is a track-by-track commentary on Amnesiac:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Packt Like Sardines In A Crushd Tin Box" (3:57):
Not surprisingly, Amnesiac picks up right where Kid A left off, as tinny, hyperactive beats in the vein of the last album's "Idioteque" crowd the mix. A low keyboard rumble follows, before vocalist Thom Yorke enters the fray at the :56 second mark: "I'm a reasonable man / get off my case." After this song, you'd be apt to doubt him. At 2:36, an Aphex Twin-style beat parade and ominous background chattering take over, but the song's main melody returns at 3:04.
"Pyramid Song" (4:49):
Yorke wails about rivers and angels over piano tinklings in a manner reminiscent of the OK Computer B-side "How I Made My Millions" for the song's first two minutes. The vocal performance is one of Yorke’s least muddled -- and consequently, most affecting -- of the album. The full band jumps in on an off-beat at 2:01, accented by the howling wind noise that seems to have become a stock production tactic over the past two albums. Strings add depth near the song's end, culminating in ringing decay tones that lead right into the next track.
"Pulk/Pull Revolving Doors" (4:07):
Clanging, mechanized beats with a clear precedent in the stylings of Bjork or Tricky are about all this track has to offer. Yorke mutters the occasional "word," his vocal effects getting progressively weirder as the song elapses. There's a short reprieve at 3:20, before the beats kick back in, even harder than before. It's the first of many songs that run cool grooves into the ground with little or no regard for melody.
"You And Whose Army?" (3:10):
Finally, some guitar! This one has a gray, old-time feel, embodied by Yorke's monochrome mumblings. He seems to be provoking -- however subtly -- unseen armies ("the Roman Empire," "you and your cronies"), but this sickly-sounding narrator would be beaten to a pulp by the vein-popping protagonist of "Talk Show Host," who awaited the fight with "a gun and a pack of sandwiches." The full band jumps in for the final minute and change, adding much needed polish and power to what is an otherwise undistinguished song.
"I Might Be Wrong" (4:51):
A groove workout from the "The National Anthem" family tree, all dark synth tones, a rocking lead guitar line and an uppity beat. The repetitive guitar riff (which brings to mind Matt Johnson’s The The) stays steady as various background noises rise up to accompany it. Good luck deciphering what, if anything, Yorke is "singing," or why the song comes to a dead stop at 3:50, only to pile on wordless wailing and drum machine accents for the final minute.
"Knives Out" (4:15):
The strum of an acoustic guitar can be heard amid the full band launching into what sounds like an actual song. Very melodically similar to the Bends-era B-side "The Trickster," the piece offers creative vocal hooks that sustain a little longer than the ear would expect. Yorke proves he can still turn an interesting phrase: "look into my eyes / it's the only way to tell the truth." Guitarist Jonny Greenwood highlights an open section at 2:25 with fret runs that make one long for the blissful strains of OK Computer's "Subterranean Homesick Alien."
"Morning Bell / Amnesiac" (3:14):
An utterly pointless re-recording of one of the standout tracks on Kid A. Yorke's lyrics and vocal melody remain intact, but are here grafted atop lo-fi, cacophonous backing that conjures memories of bad symphonic prog rock. Coming off like a primitive demo, this "title track" lends an unwelcome sense of unimportance to Amnesiac.
"Dollars And Cents" (4:52):
Yet another groove-based piece that doesn't move around so much as spasm, as wavy guitars and deep organ tones exchange roles behind an intoxicating beat. Yorke’s detached singing wakes up in time to follow the song’s crescendo, emotionally peaking at the 2:25 mark, only to pave the way to another slow buildup that ends with Yorke chanting "we are the dollars and cents / and the pounds and pence / we’re gonna crack your little souls" Producer Nigel Godrich earns his stripes in the last minute, as the band recedes in the mix amid warped guitar tones.
"Hunting Bears" (2:00):
Perhaps the most ridiculous track Radiohead has ever included on an album, this two-minute instrumental features what sounds like a guitar warm-up exercise being repeated with no rhyme or reason. A total waste of space.
"Like Spinning Plates" (3:57):
Warbling beats swirl noxiously with heavily treated phasing tones, making good on the song’s title. Yorke pours cold water all over the hot coals at 1:47 by breaking into a creepy vocal melody that would make the dwarf in "Twin Peaks" proud. Something more akin to a tangible melody surfaces at 2:30, but Yorke simply refuses to yield one iota of his bizarre inflections.
"Life In A Glass House" (4:35):
Pretty, shimmering synth tones are upended by piano and cymbals. The old-style melody is fresh out of a piano bar in a parallel universe. Indulging the band's newfound fascination with orchestras, jazz trumpeter Humphrey Lyttleton adds Dixieland overtones of nightmarish proportions. Yorke's vocal melody is inscrutable, and his lyrics ("once again, we are hungry for lynchin’ / that's a strange mistake to make / you should have turned the other cheek") are maddeningly opaque, ending Amnesiac on a disconcerting note.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Contrary to the conventional wisdom preceding it, Amnesiac doesn’t sound like a singles record. Its songs are very dense and convoluted, and although they are varied from one another in a number of ways, many appear to be timid experiments rather than confident creations. It’s no secret that most, if not all, of the album’s songs were recorded during the sessions that produced Kid A, and listening to Amnesiac, one gets the idea that it’s a piecemeal record thrown together from the scraps that weren’t deemed fit for its predecessor.
In comparing a couple of the tracks to past Radiohead B-sides, it’s tempting to remember that the band had been known in the past to release bountiful non-album tracks (7-10 decent songs per album) on singles, compilations, and the like. Then, for Kid A, the band made a conscious effort not to release any singles. One can’t help but to wonder if, during the band’s astoundingly prolific past, the material on Amnesiac would have ended up as B-sides for the album gleaned from its sessions.
This is not to say the record can’t be appreciated as its own entity. But as such, it does not fit well at all among the grand, impressive efforts that Radiohead has become known for producing.
http://www.allaboutfrogs.org/gallery/animations/ani/animated-frog-3.gif