Kid A

a review by simon hopkins of
release format Kid A by Radiohead (CD Album)

text

Without wishing to drag up the whole punk vs prog argument, let's begin with this: while punk's positive achievements remain, for me, questionable at best, one of the movement's many downsides is that for years, one thing above all has been verboten in rock music: creative ambition. (Curiously, this kind of ambition has remained unchallenged in dance music, an artform punk has claimed as an offspring. Go figure). Someone forgot to tell Radiohead. Thank Christ.

I'd personally been untouched by Radiohead's first two albums, and consequently took little notice of OK Computer on its release. But I then I kept hearing 'Paranoid Android' and little by little its magic worked its charm on me, what with its anthemic melancholy. Three years on, OK Computer remains the standout 'mainstream' rock album of the 90s, a record unashamed about pushing the envelope, a record that celebrates the arts of arranging and production and, well, playing, as much as that of songwriting. Barely 'mainstream' at all. And barely rock, for that matter.

And somehow, despite a pessimism seemingly out of step with the happy-clappy, feel-good 90s, OK Computer was hugely popular with former fans. For other groups, this might have brought down a great deal of pressure, but Radiohead have the confidence to ignore that, at least on the evidence of Kid A. This is an album plainly unfettered by others' expectations, an album of such forthright self-command that this alone makes it essential.

But then there's the actual music. I've not lived with the album long enough to make any honest comparisons with its predecessor, but my hunch is that its bettered it. It's richer, more diverse, more experimental, more them... and OK Computer was already way ahead in those stakes. The critical word out there is that the album is less 'guitar-based' and more 'electronic' than OK Computer. Well, I'm not sure about that. I'm reminded of John Zorn commenting that English audiences were amused by his claims that Brian Wilson was one of the 20th century's key composers. 'It's not as though I was talking about Ted fucking Nugent.' Quite, and it's not as though OK Computer was AC fucking DC either.

Actually, there's guitar all over Kid A; Jonny Greenwood is undoubtedly one of his generation's most interesting guitarists precisely because he understands the power of the guitar's timbral possibilities. If Kid A doesn't have quite the riff-count of OK Computer, it's nonetheless rich with guitar, from sublime, soaring slide to angular, gnarly rhythm figures. Yes, there's a lot of electronics at work, but only as part of a very wide sonic palette, a palette that includes a fiery avant-jazz brass section, a full string orchestra, harp, church organ... you see where this is heading. And they know how to marshall this stuff so well. A discordant, held violin note kicks an otherwise beautiful ballad completely out of kilter; a whole orchestra appears for single bar only to be pitch-bent into the aether; squelching two-step electronica shapeshifts into odd metre Beefheart riffing.

And then there's Thom Yorke. Much has been written elsewhere about Yorke's lyrics, but I genuinely couldn't give a shit about them. Jesus, I can't even make most of them out. Yet seldom have I heard anyone convey as much emotional information with the sheer sound of their voice. Yorke isn't a singer, he's a vocalist, in the way that someone who plays a saxophone is a saxophonist; he's simply another of the group's instrumentalists. In fact, minute after minute of Kid A go by without a single vocal. When he is there, however, he's devastating. 'I'm lost at sea/Don't bother me/I've lost my way/I've lost my way' Yorke whines at one point, but the despair in his voice goes way beyond the sentiment of those words. It is a sound close to death, on the edge of oblivion.

Oh, and quite a bit's been said about the brevity of the album, which clocks in at about 45 minutes or so. Well excuse me, but didn't albums used to be that length? One of the few other major pop acts I can think of that's unafraid to release albums of this length is Björk (with whom Radiohead share much else - principally that creative ambition - but that's a topic for elsewhere). What both acts have the courage to say is: 'This is it; it's all in here; anything else I've got at the moment isn't up to scratch'. You don't buy music by the second. There's more emotional, musical and intellectual information in here than in your average artist's entire oeuvre. To sit through Kid A in a single, attentive sitting is almost too much. Any more would kill you.

Let's be bold about this, then: Kid A is a masterpiece. Posted by simon hopkins at 00:00, 05 Oct 2000

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