Kid A

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Kid A
Studio album by Radiohead
Released	October 2, 2000
Recorded	January 1999 – April 2000
Genre	Art rock Electronic music
Length	49:51
Label	Parlophone Capitol
Producer(s)	Nigel Godrich, Radiohead
Professional reviews
All Music Guide link The A.V. Club (Favourable) 3/29/2002 Entertainment Weekly (B+) 10/6/2000 NME (7/10) link Pitchfork (10.0/10.0) link Robert Christgau (A-) link Rolling Stone 10/12/2000
Radiohead chronology
OK Computer (1997)	Kid A (2000)	Amnesiac (2001)
Alternate cover
Limited edition promo cover

Kid A is the fourth studio album by the English band Radiohead, released in 2000. The album had chart success worldwide^[1] and platinum sales in its first month, becoming the only Radiohead release to debut at #1 on the US Billboard 200, despite the lack of an official single or video as publicity.^[2] Some credited the album's unique marketing campaign or its leaking on the Internet,^[3] while others attributed its chart success to anticipation after the band's 1997 release OK Computer.^[4]

Kid A's music was the result of an experimental recording and songwriting process. Radiohead were widely seen as having abandoned the expansive "art rock"^[5] sound of OK Computer just as they had moved on from their early hit "Creep",^[6] this time producing minimalist electronic soundscapes with abstract lyrics; taking influence from Krautrock, avant-garde jazz and 20th century classical music; and changing their three-guitar lineup to more obscure instruments, notably the Ondes Martenot.

As a result, some saw Kid A as one of the most challenging pop records to achieve such commercial success.^[7] The album also inspired controversy, polarising many, including some of the band's old fans.^[8] Kid A received a Grammy for Best Alternative Album and a nomination for Album of the Year. It has been critically acclaimed and has also received some praise in experimental music circles, being noted for introducing mainstream listeners to diverse forms of underground music.^[9] According to singer Thom Yorke, "We write pop songs. As time has gone on, we've gotten more into pushing our material as far as it can go. But there was no intention of it being 'art.' It's a reflection of all the disparate things we were listening to when we recorded it."^[10]

Contents 1 Track listing 2 Credits 2.1 Production 2.2 Musicians 2.3 Other 3 Recovering and recording 3.1 Post OK Computer (1997-1998) 3.2 'How to be a participant in a song without playing a note' (1999) 3.3 'You use what works' (2000) 4 Marketing and release 5 Reception 6 Sound and influences 7 Lyrics and meaning 8 Blips and artwork 8.1 Blips 8.2 Art 8.3 Video 9 Live performance 10 See also 11 References 12 External links

[edit] Track listing

All tracks written by Radiohead except "Idioteque" by Radiohead and Paul Lansky.

1. "Everything in Its Right Place" – 4:11
2. "Kid A" – 4:44
3. "The National Anthem" – 5:50
4. "How to Disappear Completely" – 5:55
5. "Treefingers" – 3:42
6. "Optimistic" – 5:16
7. "In Limbo" – 3:31
8. "Idioteque" – 5:09
9. "Morning Bell" – 4:29
10. "Motion Picture Soundtrack" – 7:01

[edit] Credits

[edit] Production

• Recording directed by: Nigel Godrich with Radiohead
• Assistant to the directors: Gerard Navarro
• Engineered and mixed by: Nigel Godrich
• Additional engineering: Gerard Navarro and Graeme Stewart
• Rhythm sampling by: Henry Binns
• Mastered by: Chris Blair at Abbey Road Studios.

[edit] Musicians

• Radiohead: Colin Greenwood, Jonny Greenwood, Ed O'Brien, Phil Selway and Thom Yorke.
• Hook horns on "The National Anthem": Andy Bush (trumpet), Steve Hamilton (alto), Martin Hathaway (alto), Andy Hamilton (tenor), Mark Lockheart (tenor), Stan Harrison (baritone), Liam Kerkman (trombone) and Mike Kearsey (bass trombone).
• Strings on "How to Disappear Completely": The Orchestra of St. Johns, conducted by John Lubbock and scored by Jonny Greenwood.
• Samples on "Idioteque": "Mild und leise" by Paul Lansky and "Short Piece" by Arthur Kreiger, both from First Recordings- Electronic Music Winners (1976) on Oddyssey label. Permission of Sony Music Corporation.

[edit] Other

• Gaffer: Plank
• Landscapes, knives and glue: Stanley & Tchock
• The album is dedicated to Phil Selway's son Leo, born since the release of OK Computer

[edit] Recovering and recording

[edit] Post OK Computer (1997-1998)

The multi-platinum 1997 release of OK Computer had received critical acclaim, and the band had toured extensively in Europe, Australia, Japan, and North America. However, by 1998, the attention and fame had become difficult for the band, particularly singer Thom Yorke.^[11] Yorke said, "It was necessary to go away and glue back the pieces. In a way in order to survive we had to stop being answerable".^[10]

The band members' sense of global dislocation and speed^[12] that had inspired some of the songs on OK Computer had intensified on the "Running From Demons" world tour. This was documented by Grant Gee in his 1999 documentary Meeting People Is Easy. Radiohead unveiled several new songs on the tour, including "How to Disappear Completely And Never Be Found" in which the lyrics referenced Yorke's experience looking into a sea of fans at Glastonbury Festival.^[13]Yorke, who had never been comfortable with the media^[14] now became openly hostile, in spite of the praise he was receiving for his music. When questioned by a journalist, he called the constant level of innocuous noise, "fridge buzz", of which his songs were now popular enough to form a part.^[15] As a result, according to bassist Colin Greenwood, "After the OK Computer tour we felt we had to change everything. There were other guitar bands out there trying to do similar things. We had to move on."^[16]

The band played only twice in public in 1998 after the tour ended — the Tibetan Freedom Concert and a concert for Amnesty International. Yorke later said he suffered depression during this period: "I felt like I was going fucking crazy. Every time I picked up a guitar I just got the horrors. I would start writing a song, stop after 16 bars, hide it away in a drawer, look at it again, tear it up, destroy it... I was sinking down and down."^[17]

[edit] 'How to be a participant in a song without playing a note' (1999)

When Radiohead reconvened in early 1999 to begin work on the album that would become Kid A, they found that not all members had the same ideas. Guitarist Ed O'Brien, for instance, wanted to strip down the band's style to direct, three minute pop songs. Said O'Brien, "I was fed up with all the prog-rock analogies, particularly because I hate all that music anyway. I thought the only way that we could do the antithesis to OK Computer was to get rid of all the effects, have really nice-sounding guitars and do something really snappy."^[17]

Yorke, however, wanted to simplify in another direction. He had lost all interest in rock music, feeling the band's previous albums had "missed the point".^[17] Yorke had once been a DJ and a member of a techno band at Exeter University,^[11] and became obsessed again with electronic music. "The first thing I did after the tour was buy the whole Warp back catalogue," he said. "I started listening to John Peel and ordering records off the Net. It was refreshing because the music was all structures and had no human voices in it. But I felt just as emotional about it as I'd ever felt about guitar music." Yorke also began to feel disconnected from his own singing voice. "Whatever I did with my voice, it had that particular set of associations, and there were lots of similar bands coming out at the time, and that made it even worse. I couldn't stand the sound of me... I got really into the idea of my voice being another one of the instruments, rather than this precious thing all the time," he said.^[9]

Work began again with OK Computer producer Nigel Godrich, but in a disorganized fashion, with no deadline from the label and Yorke suffering from writer's block. Yorke's new songs were incomplete, often without verses and choruses. Some consisted of little more than a drum machine rhythm and fragmented lyrics he had cut up and drawn from a hat,^[17] dada-style. The band rehearsed briefly and then began recordings at a studio in Paris, but scrapped work after a month and moved to Medley studios in Copenhagen, for two more unproductive weeks. According to O'Brien, "At the end of it we had about 50 reels of two-inch tape, and on each of those tapes was 15 minutes of music. And nothing was finished." Still, some of the music recorded in early 1999 was later incorporated into the album, often unrecognizable from its original form. The disorienting guitar song "In Limbo", originally known as "Lost at Sea", dates from this time.^[17]

Yorke said, "We operate like the UN, and I'm America". According to O'Brien, "Thom drove the album, more so than any other album", but the other band members eventually came around to the band's new musical direction.^[17] O'Brien said, "If you're going to make a different-sounding record, you have to change the methodology. And it's scary - everyone feels insecure. I'm a guitarist and suddenly it's like, well, there are no guitars on this track, or no drums. Jonny [Greenwood], me, Coz [Colin], and [drummer] Phil [Selway] had to get our heads round that. It was a test of the band, I think. Would we survive with our egos intact?" All Radiohead members, even Yorke, began to work out "how to be a participant in a song without playing a note"^[17] on some songs, at least not on their usual instruments.

Radiohead moved to a mansion in Gloucestershire in April 1999. The band continued to record, often drawing influence from the improvisation of Krautrock bands. During this period, Ed O'Brien began to keep a studio diary of Radiohead's progress,^[18] which was available on the band's website. The band stayed in Gloucestershire until September 1999, when their own studio in Oxford, long in the planning stages, was finally complete. By the end of the year, the band had completed six songs including the title track, a song written by computer which Radiohead members jammed over, and they began to feel they might be getting somewhere.^[17]

[edit] 'You use what works' (2000)

When Radiohead started work again in 2000, the band members had begun to share Yorke's passions for synthesised sounds, and experimentation with different instruments.^[19] They also started to realise the technological possibilities of digital tools like Pro Tools and Cubase. O'Brien said, "With all the technology and software now available, you can take things and manipulate them in ways that you've never been able to do before. That's definitely something that we're going to get more and more into... the permutations are endless. Completely and utterly endless."^[17]

Jonny Greenwood, the band's lead guitarist and its only member with classical training, took a central role in the recording, even though guitar solos were to be much less prominent on Kid A. Without the involvement of other band members, and inspired by his favourite 20th century composers, he arranged strings for "How to Disappear Completely", recorded them with the Orchestra of St. John's in Dorchester Abbey,^[20] and played Ondes Martenot on the track,^[13] as well as on "Optimistic" and "The National Anthem". Thom Yorke was also getting inspiration from jazz, and decided the band should reimagine "The National Anthem" - a track they had once attempted to record as a b-side for OK Computer - with a horn section inspired by Charles Mingus. Thom and Jonny "conducted" the jazz players to sound like traffic gridlock, and Thom also played bass on the track.^[21] Jonny and his brother Colin, Radiohead's usual bassist, also began experimenting with sampling, cutting up and layering fragments of their and other music.^[22] One such sample yielded the basic track for "Idioteque", which Yorke then sang over. According to Colin, "it's not a traditional rock and roll band's approach." But he said, "I feel we'll always be a rock band and we'll be proud of being a rock band. We're not 'post' anything. We're not a pin-up poster-boy kind of band, and we're not a post-rock band."^[16]

Finally, in early spring 2000, the band had almost 30 new songs, enough for two records, but wanted to make the strongest possible statement rather than spreading them across a sprawling double album. Intra-band fights erupted over the track list.^[11] As with OK Computer, Yorke obsessed over different running orders. The band ultimately decided to relegate the half of the songs that didn't seem to fit together in the same way, to a later EP or album, which ultimately became Amnesiac. It was decided, however, that Kid A, would begin with Everything In Its Right Place a song with heavily processed rhythm and vocals. Yorke felt the track was representative of the new record and initially wanted to release it as a single.^[23]

[edit] Marketing and release

After nearly 18 months of recording sessions, Kid A was finished in April 2000. Shortly thereafter, Radiohead departed on a small-scale concert tour, their first in two years, traveling to ancient amphitheatres in France, Spain, Italy, Greece and Israel. Meanwhile, final mixing on the new album was completed by Nigel Godrich and mastering took place at Abbey Road Studios under veteran Chris Blair, as a marketing plan was drawn up by the band and their label. According to Ed O'Brien later, "one of the big things [with Kid A] was trying to dispel all the hype...We live in a ridiculous time where people in the entertainment business get stupid amounts of coverage for what they do...You just have to try to work within that whole area without frying your brains up."^[14] However, a media whirlwind was imminent. According to one journalist, the band now stood to have "the most highly anticipated rock record since Nirvana's In Utero."^[24] Yorke described the situation at the time, "I'm terrified. The wheels start turning again... the industry starts moving again. This time bigger, more terrifying. It's out of our control."^[10]

Some EMI staff members had been wary with the band's past releases, trying and failing to convince Yorke to approve more commercial singles from The Bends and initially unsure of the commercial potential of OK Computer. By this time, however, the band had their supporters and no convincing at the label was needed. Upon first hearing of Kid A, one executive said, "it was an amazing piece of work", but a "business challenge [to make] everyone believe in the album".^[25] Nevertheless, although the song "Optimistic" ultimately received some radio play on alternative rock stations and promos of several other tracks on Kid A were distributed, the band opted to release no official singles to promote the album. This was a departure from standard music industry practice, as well as from Radiohead's first three albums, which had all featured singles and music videos. Instead, Kid A was promoted, directly and indirectly, through the Internet.^[25]

Radiohead and their fans had an active Internet presence by the late '90s,^[26] including the band's official website and message board, as well as a number of unofficial sites which stepped into the void to provide "news". By the time the album's title was announced in mid-2000, live bootlegs of the band were already being shared by fans on the peer-to-peer service Napster, including concerts from the brief Mediterranean tour of that summer, previewing the new songs (see Live performance section). Radiohead publicly embraced this file sharing. "We played in Barcelona and the next day the entire performance was up on Napster. Three weeks later when we got to play in Israel the audience knew the words to all the new songs and it was wonderful," Colin Greenwood told the BBC.^[3] A month prior to the release of Kid A, MP3 audio tracks of the entire finished album mysteriously made their way onto the file sharing service. In response, Thom Yorke said of Napster, "it encourages enthusiasm for music in a way that the music industry has long forgotten to do. I think anybody sticking two fingers up at the whole fucking thing is wonderful as far as I'm concerned."^[27] Millions of fans had apparently downloaded the album for free by the time it was officially released in stores that October, something highly unusual at the time. Music industry watchers expected weaker sales as a result.

The opposite occurred. Radiohead, who had never hit the US top 20 before, captured the number one album spot in Kid A's debut week.^[28] It was a rare success, the first #1 in three years for any British act on the US charts.^[29] In the UK, Kid A also debuted at #1, as had their previous album.^[30] Kid A debuted equally high in many countries around the world, such as France, Ireland, New Zealand and Canada.^[1] Some have suggested the Internet distribution may have helped sales and word of mouth.^[31]

Others credited Radiohead's record label EMI for effectively creating hype.^[32] With Kid A, however, the major marketing muscle of Parlophone (in the UK) and Capitol Records (in America) was employed in a more under the radar way. A series of "blips" had been produced for the band, rather than conventional videos (see below). These mostly 30-second films set to fragments of songs were freely available on the Internet and designed to be shown between programmes on music channels. In addition, Capitol created the "iBlip", an unrelated Java-based promotional tool which could be embedded into the multitude of fan sites on the web, allowing users to pre-order the album, and eventually, to stream it before the release.^[25] The album was also played in advance of release for rock critics and at "listening parties" for fans, but only under carefully controlled conditions.^[33] According to Billboard magazine, "no advance copies were circulated and journalists were required to listen to [it] at the office of the band's publicist".^[34] Kid A was previewed on MTV2, but only played through as a whole.^[35] Major interviews were done by the band, contrary to some reports, but a limited number, often with other members of the band besides Thom Yorke.

In the fall of 2000, the band toured Europe in a custom-built big-top tent free of all corporate logos, playing mostly Kid A and soon-to-be Amnesiac songs (see section Live performance). The famous "tent tour" was confined to Europe, but Radiohead did perform three concerts in North America, their first in nearly three years. As the venues were theatres rather than stadiums, they sold out instantly, attracting fans who camped all night^[14] and celebrities. In October the band also appeared on Saturday Night Live to perform two of their most uncompromising new songs, "The National Anthem" and "Idioteque". The performance was a shock to much of the TV audience, with closeups on guitarist Jonny Greenwood's twiddling of electronic knobs, the in-house brass band freely soloing over "The National Anthem", and Thom Yorke's spasmodic dancing and vocal stuttering in "Idioteque," signifiers that lacked all familiarity for those expecting pop/rock songs.^[36] According to Ed O'Brien, Radiohead went to America just after Kid A's top debut and "were feted and taken places... Americans love success, so if you've got a Number One record they really, really like you. The shows in New York and LA were just surreal." The release had been in a "soft week", only moderately competitive, but at least for Ed, "it was still brilliant."^[14] According to Yorke, "We were the Beatles - for a week."^[37]

To some extent the album was seen as different enough from every other high profile release at the time that it could market itself. Even Oasis's Noel Gallagher admitted that Kid A's great marketing scheme was its lack of conventional market saturation: "If you refuse to talk about your own album, that just stirs the pot and makes everyone else start talking about it."^[38]

[edit] Reception

Kid A received considerable attention, but it divided listeners.^[39] While the album was critically acclaimed, many criticized it as an intentional commercial suicide. Nick Hornby, writer of the rock-themed novel High Fidelity and a self-described fan of Radiohead's earlier material, compared their new work to Lou Reed's Metal Machine Music, an instrumental album of guitar feedback issued - according to legend - to get out of a label contract. Hornby summed up the opposition to the album and unintentionally added to its myth^[40] in a review for The New Yorker, lamenting the change in musical style from Radiohead's earlier work: "Kid A demands the patience of the devoted; both patience and devotion become scarcer commodities once you start picking up a paycheck."

Indie critics, though generally favourable,^[41] sometimes cited lesser known albums that were similar to what Radiohead was doing but supposedly much more interesting, Hood's Cold House for example.^{[citation needed]} Radiohead's own musical influences received wide attention. The band was criticised by some for appropriating innovative styles of electronic music and claiming the credit themselves (although the band cited their influences in nearly every interview). These views, however, appeared to reflect the minority of people who already listened to music further off the radar than Kid A, and perhaps only some of that group. In 2001 Radiohead appeared on the cover of The Wire, an experimental music magazine that usually ignores trends in alternative rock, and earned a feature interview by noted critic Simon Reynolds, championing Kid A and its follow-up Amnesiac and dismissing accusations that they lacked originality.

Critical notices varied in different regions of the world. American critics tended to be highly positive,^[14] with Spin naming Radiohead "Band of the Year" and USA Today calling Kid A "the most eccentric album ever to debut at No. 1, setting Radiohead apart from an army of lock-stepping pop and rock acts."^[42] One French magazine said, "A commercial suicide? Giving up? An arty and pretentious work? None of that, in fact. Kid A is just an album of a freewheeling group, ready to leave the traveled road for its aspirations, and its inspirations. A group whose goal is certainly not to disarm its listeners and fans at all costs, much less to "disgust" them, but which seeks first of all to give pleasure. And which succeeds, in the end, at giving us pleasure."^[43] However, at home in the UK, Kid A disappointed and infuriated a large number of critics and fans^[9] who had expected the band to live up to the role the press had assigned them, "rock saviours". (Melody Maker had said months in advance of the album, "If there's one band that promises to return rock to us, it's Radiohead".^[20] The album was later slated in the magazine.) NME called it "a lengthy and over-analysed mistake" and "scared to commit itself emotionally", though awarding it a 7/10. Band members later regretted that draconian measures to prevent early leaks may not have given critics enough time to make up their minds.^[14]

Despite the lack of consensus, by the end of 2000 the album was appearing frequently in critics' top ten lists^[44] as praise for Radiohead's "experimentation" appeared to outweigh reservations. Among those who didn't particularly like it, Kid A sometimes garnered respect simply for not being "manufactured" pop, though ironically it was Radiohead's most self-consciously manufactured, technology-based album to date. Billy Corgan cited Kid A as an inspiration at the time he decided to break up The Smashing Pumpkins because he was tired of competing with what he called the "Britneys" of the world. A cautiously positive review by David Fricke for Rolling Stone took the same line. Those who did like the album were often effusive. Kid A was described by one journalist as the first defining album of the millennium, before the second millennium had even officially ended.^[45] In 2001 Kid A received a Grammy nomination for Album of the Year, and won Best Alternative Album and Best Engineered Album. In subsequent years as Radiohead's style has continued in a straight line from Kid A and the band has performed many of its songs as a core of their live concerts, some fans who dismissed the album as a publicity stunt have come to appreciate it.^{[citation needed]} In 2003, the album was ranked number 428 on Rolling Stone magazine's list of the 500 greatest albums of all time. In 2005, two touchstones of the indie music press, Pitchfork Media^[46] and Stylus Magazine,^[47] each separately named Kid A the best album of the past five years.

[edit] Sound and influences

Kid A may have been considered a "difficult" album,^[30] but it offers a relatively pop-accessible melange of experimental music styles, at least in comparison with the original sources cited by the band. Major influences come from glitch and ambient electronica (or so-called IDM) as typified by many artists on Warp Records in the 1990s,^[17] and from the free jazz, hard bop and fusion styles of Charles Mingus, Alice Coltrane, Ornette Coleman and later Miles Davis.^[9] Other influences came from the German Krautrock bands of the 1970s, among them Can, Neu!, Kraftwerk, Faust, and Tangerine Dream;^[49] and even from one of Radiohead's earliest influences, Talking Heads, whose 1980 Remain in Light album the band was "obsessed" with during this period. Thom Yorke said, "its a record I can dance to. No-one is humbly strumming a guitar. The words speak to me about my life. It's about rhythm. It's all improvised. It was composed using the mixing desk bringing things in and out. There are no loops but its all loops."^[50] Another favourite at the time was the Mo'Wax label,^[51] purveyors of "abstract hip hop" with such artists as Blackalicious and DJ Krush.

"How to Disappear Completely" was inspired by singer Scott Walker, who had also inspired the band's early hit "Creep", and the song's string orchestration was influenced by Polish composer Krzysztof Penderecki, while the album's use of the Ondes Martenot on "How to Disappear" and several other songs was an homage to Olivier Messiaen, one of guitarist Jonny Greenwood's musical heroes. Greenwood said, "I love the ondes martenot. It's the most expressive electronic instrument that's ever been invented, I think, just so natural to play... it's like someone singing."^[52] Yorke's own oddly manipulated singing in the song "Kid A" was created by running his vocals through the ondes martenot output, giving an effect comparable to vocoder. Yorke said the vocals were his way of distancing himself from "brutal and horrible" subject matter of the song, which he could not have sung otherwise.^[9] "Idioteque" actually uses samples from the work of two "classical" composers involved in computer music: Paul Lansky (see Trivia) and Arthur Kreiger. However, according to Yorke it was also "an attempt to capture that exploding beat sound where you're at the club and the PA's so loud, you know it's doing damage".^[9]

For "Motion Picture Soundtrack", a song written before "Creep"^[4] that nearly made the track list for OK Computer, Greenwood said "the atmosphere we were trying to get was one of Disney films of the '50s where the colour fades slightly. I think one of the regular introductions included the fairy spinning around, a blue jay and the sparks coming from behind. It was all a bit faded and watery - that was the kind of music we wanted to copy." Thom recorded the song alone on a pedal organ and didn't think it merited inclusion on Kid A, but other band members "imagined it having harps and double basses. So late one night we tried to do a version - tried to disguise the fact we don't have any harps and we are cutting up all these samples and make it all fit together."^[53] Yorke said Ian MacDonald's Revolution in the Head, chronicling The Beatles' recording techniques with George Martin during the late 1960s, was "my bedside reading all through the sessions for the album".^[9] Björk,^[20] PJ Harvey, R.E.M. and Beck's then-recent genre-bending albums may also have been influential; all were close to the band or personal friends of Yorke. Greenwood said, "I really like mixing old technology and new. The ondes martenot is Twenties technology, the vocoder is Sixties/Seventies technology, and the string quartet is an even older idea. Putting them all together is what I'm most excited about."^[52]

The album's style as a whole has been characterized sometimes as post-rock,^[54] a term popularized by Simon Reynolds in the 1990s to describe a new generation of bands whose experiments with ambience, orchestral music and jazz were inspired more by the spirit of punk and post-punk than by progressive rock. Radiohead, like these bands, tended to prefer evoking a mood with a minimalist groove to displays of technical virtuosity. Kid A was a distinct change from Radiohead's first three albums in that it featured less of Jonny Greenwood's guitar solos, instead using guitars as if they were synths, in order to build a texture. This led some to inaccurately characterize the album as having "no guitars," but they are present on most tracks (though Greenwood was so excited about playing ondes that the band "had to beg him to play guitar on 'Morning Bell'"^[9]). In addition, some of Thom Yorke's vocals had been treated or distorted by digital effects, mostly lacking the impressive falsetto runs for which he was known; Yorke said he wanted his voice on Kid A to be just another instrument. While it disappointed some fans, Kid A deployed these diverse sounds in an often melodic way,^[9] bringing Radiohead acclaim from those attracted to the band's musical direction, while drawing mainstream attention to their influences, particularly ambient techno artists Aphex Twin and Autechre.

Some saw the album as a parallel to U2's Zooropa and Passengers projects, in terms of the band's radical evolution in musical style,^[55][56] although at least one track - "Treefingers," which manipulated a guitar sound to create ambient music - was more often compared to the pioneering solo work of Brian Eno, who was also the producer of Zooropa, Passengers and Talking Heads' Remain in Light. A more fruitful point of comparison for some was Talk Talk,^[57] a band that abandoned their success with mainstream pop to explore texture with albums such as 1991's Laughing Stock, which helped inspire the creation of the term "post-rock" in the first place. However, the comparison only went so far. Talk Talk became more and more acoustic while Radiohead became more electronic as each band's musical complexity increased, while Radiohead's "uncommercial" music met with far greater commercial success than did Talk Talk's.

Radiohead's previous album OK Computer had been much-compared to Pink Floyd,^[9] and to many Kid A also had antecedents in progressive rock. Then-cutting edge bands like King Crimson had produced blends of jazz and rock as early as the late 1960s which were in many ways similar to "The National Anthem", while others had experimented with electronic sounds, though without the modern digital technology from which Radiohead could benefit.

To some, Radiohead seemed to move toward a similar crossroads, but its members continued to voice little affinity for most of the progressive rock genre. When asked in 2000, "What is it about prog-rock that still appeals, despite it being widely treated as a genre for losers, geeks, whathaveyou?", Yorke said: "Prog rock is sad. And krautrock is not prog rock is more punk... Certain areas of electronica smell of prog occasionally, I try not to notice. Those who thought prog rock was like jazz are deluded. I dont know what prog rock is, never did. Just because you change time signature a couple of times doesn't mean you is singing about the fairies in the woods does it? When Peter Gabriel put a flower round his head and kicked a bass drum was that prog? I have no connectivity with anything prog whatsoever except maybe that last bit about the flower and the kick drum and Peter Gabriel".^[50]

Radiohead's lack of identification with progressive rock has been noted in their relatively concise song lengths. Kid A includes no track over 6 minutes, with the exception of album closer "Motion Picture Soundtrack", which is an approximately three minute song, four minutes of silence and a brief hidden track. Said Jonny, "When the Kid A reviews came out accusing of us being wilfully difficult, I was like, 'If that was true, we'd have done a much better job of it'. It's not that challenging--everything's still four minutes long, it's melodic."^[9]

[edit] Lyrics and meaning

Some felt Kid A hinted at an anti-consumerist viewpoint in its music, portraying the alleged evils of global capitalism and demagoguery of Western leaders obliquely in some of its lyrics, and directly in a booklet hidden under the CD tray in early pressings (see artwork section). Members of the band had read Naomi Klein's bestseller No Logo while recording the album, recommended it to fans on the band's website, and were influenced by it to the point of considering calling the album "No Logo" for a time.^[17] The band also cited George Monbiot's Captive State: The Corporate Takeover of Britain as an influence.^[9]

However, in the 2000s, Radiohead has been active in environmental and anti-war causes, but has never articulated a specific agenda such as anarchism. The band also deny being luddites, describing aspects of technology as being worrying but embracing it for their own albums at the same time.^{[citation needed]} In some cases, the technological manipulations may have helped the singer express a point. Yorke said, "Even now, most interviews you do, there's a constant subtext: 'Is this you?' By using other [processed] voices, I guess it was a way of saying, 'obviously it isn't me'."^[9]

Chuck Klosterman's 2005 book Killing Yourself To Live presents a theory that Kid A is a soundtrack to the events of September 11 and beyond, despite the fact that Kid A was recorded over a year before the attacks, with some songs having been written in the early '90s. However, Kid A's artwork was influenced by the 1999 Kosovo war^[58] (see next section). The album's apparently increased critical reputation since its initial release may have been due to the shadow cast by the events of "9/11" and their aftermath. Whereas beforehand the mood of Kid A seemed to point to an apocalyptic future out of science fiction to most listeners (its evocation of chaos and violence only applying literally to the "third world"), its lyrics now seemed frighteningly current, even prophetic to some listeners (this was cited as a reason for its placement atop several lists of the best albums of the 2000s so far).

According to Thom Yorke, the title "Kid A" refers to "the first human clone. I bet it has already happened."^[59] Some reviewers tried to piece together a concept or narrative between the songs, involving such a character.^[60] However, in the same interview Yorke mentioned the clone, he also denied any such serious subtext for the whole album, calling it just one of many possible ideas: "Often, if you call it something specific, it drives the record in a certain way. I like the non-meaning."^[11] Yorke agreed with his friend Björk that "my songs are my kids and some of them stay with me. Some others I have to send out, out to the war",^[48] providing another possible explanation. Yorke and his partner's own first child was also born shortly after the album's release, perhaps inspiring its title and some of its lyrics. He has also said "Kid A" was the nickname of one of the synthesisers used on the album.^[61]

Yorke once denied Kid A's lyrics had any meaning beyond their sound,^{[citation needed]} claiming to have drawn many of them from a hat, and even hosting Tristan Tzara's instructions for making dada poems on Radiohead's official website for a time.^[62] Many of Radiohead's post-punk ancestors, including Michael Stipe of R.E.M., were known to intentionally slur their words and alter lyrics live so as to frustrate attempts at literal interpretation. Yorke said, "There is no point in taking the lyrics alone, apart from the music. That's one of the reasons why we won't have a lyric sheet with the album. You just can't separate it."^[48] Kid A is the first Radiohead album since Pablo Honey whose lyrics were not printed in its liner notes, nor were they made officially available in any other form (Amnesiac's were available from Radiohead's website). From listening and with reference to tab books and live performances, fans have transcribed the words of the Kid A lyrics, which can be accessed from unofficial online sites such as Green Plastic and At Ease Web.

Yorke rarely comments directly on the meaning of Kid A-era songs. Often, when he does comment on the ideas behind his work, he cites war, inequalities, climate change, and a fear of no future for his children. This became slightly more explicit on later albums, but "Idioteque" has been seen by some to presage it with lyrics such as "who's in a bunker / women and children first" and "ice age coming"^{[citation needed]} (some scientists suggest current warming trends could trigger a catastrophic ice age in Europe,^[63] though the line has also been seen as an allusion to words of The Clash's 1979 song "London Calling"), as well as in the artwork showing iced over landscapes and forests consumed by fire. Graphic artist Stanley Donwood, who with Tchock (Yorke) designed and painted the album's cover and booklet, has described his work as conveying environmental disaster (see below). Themes of genetic modification, rather than cloning, are also present, with Radiohead's ironic logo during this "no logo" period being a "modified bear" with preternatural blinking eyes. Yorke is both a vegan and an opponent of agricultural bioengineering.^{[citation needed]}

There was also early speculation that the title referred to a set of trading cards and website entitled "Kid A in Alphabet Land", created by Carl Steadman, which draws on the concepts of Freudian philosopher Jacques Lacan. Child imagery has been increasingly noted on recent Radiohead albums, and in interviews, though it's found as far back as their early days. The title track of Kid A alludes to the Pied Piper of Hamelin story, ending with "rats and children, follow me out of town, come on kids". The song "Optimistic" directly references Animal Farm by George Orwell, a favourite author of the band. The song "In Limbo" references the British shipping forecast. Some have seen religious and spiritual allusions, including the possible Biblical allusion "cut the kids in half" in "Morning Bell",^{[citation needed]} a song which is widely interpreted to be about divorce, though Yorke alternately said it was about "ghosts" or "amnesia". Yorke described himself as "a shameless dabbler in Buddhism".^[64] He read the Bardo Thodol while recording Kid A and Amnesiac, and some have seen spiritual allusions to concepts within Tibetan Buddhism, as well as parallels between Kid A and Dante's The Inferno. Yorke's longtime partner Rachel is a Dante scholar, and he has said it was her own words to him that inspired the chorus of "Optimistic": "If you try the best you can, the best you can is good enough".^[17]

[edit] Blips and artwork

[edit] Blips

No singles were released from Kid A, and hence no conventional music videos. Rather, Radiohead commissioned a series of 30 second films set to music from the album, dubbed "blips". The blips were shown occasionally on MTV as between-segments programming, but mostly distributed free on the Internet. They were originally available on Radiohead's official website, and as of 2007, are still available from a variety of unofficial fan sites such as those listed at the bottom of the Radiohead article.

Mostly animated, the blips were either made by two collectives, The Vapour Brothers and Shynola. One blip showed footage of geese being demolished by life size papier maché bears set to "The National Anthem", while another had bucolic, animated images of a snow covered valley for "How to Disappear Completely".

As expressed in one essay,^[65] the blips continued from Stanley Donwood's album artwork (which often directly inspired the blips' look and imagery, if not including his own collaboration) to tell fragmented, allegorical stories of global capitalism gone wrong and nature reclaiming civilization from out of control biotechnology, represented often by "sperm monsters" and genetically modified killer teddy bears. Ironically, the bears ended up being a sort of commercial "logo" for the album and the band, appearing at the end of the blips and on official T-shirts and posters. Also ironic is the animated version of the bear which has been a part of Radiohead's online store W.A.S.T.E.: after blinking several times, his eyes briefly show a dollar-bill sign.

[edit] Art

The Kid A cover art itself, by Donwood and Tchock (an alias for Thom Yorke), is a computer rendering of a mountain range, with some pixelated distortion near the bottom of the image. The stark cover art was a reflection of the war in Kosovo in winter 1999. Donwood was affected by a photograph printed in The Guardian: "It was of a square metre of snow and it was full of the detritus of war, all military stuff and fag stains. I was upset by it in a way war had never upset me before. It felt like it was happening in my street."^[58] Influenced by triumphalist Victorian era military art depicting British colonial subjects,^[66] Donwood produced colourful oil paintings as well, creating a sharp texture with knives and putty.^[67] The back cover of the album depicts another snowscape with fires raging through fields, the whole thing tarnished by digital effects. Kid A came with a CD booklet containing various drawings and other art in the same vein, printed on both glossy paper and thick tracing paper; near the back there is also a large triptych-style foldout drawing. Many of the drawings and digital affects on the paintings were by Tchock, who was co-credited with Donwood.

The image of the "red swimming pool" that is shown on the spine of the CD case and on the disc itself (and in the picture to the left on this page) was to represent what Donwood termed "a symbol of looming danger and shattered expectations". It came from the graphic novel Brought to Light by Alan Moore and Bill Sienkiewicz, in which they assert the CIA measures the numbers it kills through state-sponsored terrorism, by the number of 50-gallon swimming pools filled with human blood (the human body holds roughly a gallon of blood). Donwood explained that this image "haunted me throughout [the Kid A] project".^[68]

The first million or so copies of Kid A came with a small "hidden" booklet of artwork underneath the CD tray (which was also made available as a PDF and can now be found online at some unofficial fan sites). The booklet was seen to have a more explicitly political tone, with direct references to the World Trade Organization and Tony Blair.

In December 2000, several months after the general release, a "special edition" package of Kid A was released, containing the same music but encased in a thick cardboard "children's book" with a unique cover and different oil paintings of apocalyptic landscapes and "modified bears." Although in the same style as the album art, this time Donwood's paintings were without digital manipulation by Yorke. An essay on these 10 paintings from the special edition book, and possible implications, is in the book The Music and Art of Radiohead (2005). In 2006, Stanley Donwood and Tchock exhibited paintings and other artwork originally created for Radiohead albums, with a large focus on Kid A, at a gallery in Barcelona. An art book documenting the exhibit and inspirations on the work, called Dead Children Playing, was made available through Donwood's website.

[edit] Video

No videos other than "blips" were widely released to promote Kid A, and music television outlets that wanted them to play were stuck with either blips or filmed concert performances. However, the band did film a sort of video featuring a performance of "Idioteque" in a studio. This is not to be confused with either the Saturday Night Live version, or the version found on Kid A, as it is a different recording, neither "live", nor the album version. An official, but not widely released, video was also made several months later for "Motion Picture Soundtrack". Yorke described it as "the most beautiful piece of film that was ever made for our music",^[50] although it was made up entirely of edited together Kid A blips.

Several unofficial videos have been aired for songs on Kid A, such as a fan-made video for "The National Anthem" chosen by contest of MTV Latin America.

[edit] Live performance

For specific information, see articles for each song.

Kid A and its successor Amnesiac are unique among Radiohead albums in that their songs were created in the recording studio without live concerts in mind. Both previously and after Kid A, the band wrote songs on the same instruments they would use to perform them live, and often performed songs before live audiences of fans before completing them in the studio. Many of the songs of Kid A were also introduced to the public on the band's tour in summer 2000, before the album's release, but the band had already finished recording them at that time.

To prepare for their tours in 2000, Radiohead had to re-learn how to play the songs live, and in some cases invent an entirely new arrangement. The complex soundscapes they had created digitally or by collaborating with jazz and string players were often impossible to duplicate with five live musicians, but the band did not want to simply play back their recorded music for audiences. Thus some tracks were altered so much for live performance that many see them as different songs entirely, or effectively, cover versions of the band's own work in the studio. By the time of the album's release, Kid A material had become a major part of Radiohead's setlist, and many of the reimagined Kid A songs in the live set continue to be fan favourites at concerts.^{[citation needed]}

Some of these Kid A songs were released on the I Might Be Wrong: Live Recordings CD in 2001. The album includes live versions of "The National Anthem," "Morning Bell," "Idioteque," and "Everything in Its Right Place," as well as songs from sister album Amnesiac and an acoustic version of the previously unreleased song "True Love Waits", which was worked on but scrapped during Kid A sessions.

[edit] See also

• List of cover versions of Radiohead songs

[edit] References

[edit] External links

• Green Plastic Radiohead: Kid A lyrics
• Ed's Diary: Ed O'Brien's studio diary from Kid A/Amnesiac recording sessions, 1999-2000 (archived at Green Plastic)
• Kid A "Blips" or "Anti-Videos" (archived at Pulk-Pull.org)
• A collection of artwork from Kid A
• New York Times feature/interview: "The Post-Rock Band". October 1, 2000. by Gerald Marzorati.

v • d • e Radiohead
Thom Yorke • Jonny Greenwood • Ed O'Brien • Colin Greenwood • Phil Selway
Discography
Albums: Pablo Honey • The Bends • OK Computer • Kid A • Amnesiac • Hail to the Thief • TBA
EPs: Manic Hedgehog • Drill • Itch • My Iron Lung • No Surprises/Running from Demons • Airbag/How Am I Driving? • I Might Be Wrong: Live Recordings • COM LAG
Singles: "Creep" • "Anyone Can Play Guitar" • "Pop Is Dead" • "Stop Whispering" • "My Iron Lung" • "High and Dry"/"Planet Telex" • "Fake Plastic Trees" • "Just" • "Street Spirit (Fade Out)" • "Lucky" • "Paranoid Android" • "Karma Police" • "No Surprises" • "Pyramid Song" • "Knives Out" • "There There" • "Go to Sleep" • "2 + 2 = 5"
DVDs: Live at the Astoria • 7 Television Commercials • Meeting People Is Easy • The Most Gigantic Lying Mouth of All Time
Related articles
Nigel Godrich • Stanley Donwood • Dead Air Space • Covers of Radiohead songs • Rare songs • Trivia
Other projects
Bodysong • The Eraser • Spitting Feathers
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Preceded by Let's Get Ready by Mystikal

Billboard 200 Number-one Album October 21, 2000 - October 27, 2000

Succeeded by Rule 3:36 by Ja Rule