Review Summary: For Tomorrow: A Guide to Contemporary British Music, 1988-2013 (Part 56)
In 2001, Radiohead were double screwed. The rapturous reception of 1997’s
OK Computer was supposed to give way to the disappointment of it’s coattail riding follow-up. That didn’t happen. Instead, Radiohead pulled a change-up on the world with 2000’s script flipping
Kid A which may have gotten an even
more rapturous reception than its predecessor. Radiohead now had a double backlash bearing down on them. Whatever followed
Kid A was going to get critically nuked into oblivion. Sensing the oncoming storm, Radiohead undermined the backlash by releasing a collection of songs from the same sessions as
Kid A only one year after that album. By following
Kid A so quickly the hype machine didn’t have enough time to build up steam. There was no time for anticipation to brew, for impossible standards to be set, for the critical echo chamber’s volume to escalate. Even though
Amnesiac received a cool response, it would have been far worse had Radiohead held onto the record for another few years. Instead,
Amnesiac's speedy rush to shelves lends it a looseness that makes it Radiohead's most human album and, in a strange way, their most relatable.
Top to bottom,
Amnesiac seems to have been designed to mirror the pre-emptive disappointment it was destined to inherit. Thom's opening statement "After years of waiting/Nothing came" makes him sound like he's as disappointed as anyone. There’s a desolate guitar instrumental, a vocoded musing on the different types of doors, and a reworking of a song off
Kid A, all of which made
Amnesiac wide open to criticism.
Amnesiac was the fall guy, the one that was going to take the heat so whatever came next could survive. The plan worked swimmingly as
Amnesiac’s follow-up
Hail to the Thief was hailed as Radiohead’s return-to-form on arrival but in recent years critical opinion on
Hail to the Thief has waned while
Amnesiac’s critical stature has only grown.
Amnesiac isn’t an evolution from
Kid A but a branching out from it. This makes sense.
Kid A had sonic landscape to burn so Radiohead’s continued exploration is welcome. So if
Kid A was a series of tightly confined, linear hallways for you to travel down,
Amnesiac more closely represents a trip through Central Park. The big city claustrophobia of its predecessor is always close but
Amnesiac’s escape routes are more unabashed about being big and beautiful. “You and Whose Army?” features a go-for-broke climax that harkens all the way back to “Fake Plastic Trees”. “Pyramid Song” and “Knives Out” are both no excuses necessary pop songs that were even released as singles, and, as singles do, are both easily accessible, revealing their pleasures right away.
Because
Amnesiac isn’t nearly as tightly sequenced as
Kid A it also surprises in ways that
Kid A never could have.
Kid A incorporating a reworked version of “Climbing Up the Walls” or closing with a New Orleans blues number is unimaginable but the relaxed structure of
Amnesiac allowed Radiohead to really try things that they would never try again. “Pull/Pulk Revolving Door” steals Thom Yorke’s voice and feeds it through an ATM Machine speaker as the pummeling production collapses around it. The “Hunting Bears”/”Like Spinning Plates” duo find Radiohead seeing how loosely they can hold onto a song while still creating something compelling and the exciting thing about both is that they almost fail. "Hunting Bears" nearly dissipates into a cloud of atmosphere while "Like Spinning Plates" only becomes coherent in the wake of it's climax. Both songs are risks, both succeed.
Even the positive reviews for
Amnesiac feel wildly out of sync with their scores. Witness Ryan Schreiber's 9.0 review containing such phrases as “segues awkwardly”, “not-too-tasteful”, “Similarly disappointing”, and “I prefer Kid A for a number of reasons”. Pretty harsh for an album that’s one point away from perfection. Still, it’s not hard to understand why the reaction to
Amnesiac was so confused. With Radiohead’s legacy being all but canon now, it can be difficult to remember that when
Amnesiac arrived Radiohead had never released a difficult album before. The preceding albums were taught and virtually fillerless, now everyone had to contend with weird instrumentals and jagged sequencing. But in time
Amnesiac has become untangled and it’s lack of on impact critical fawning has made it something special among the Radiohead catalogue. It’s the one we run to when we're tired of listening to Radiohead’s music and grappling with their legacy at the same time.
Amnesiac is only now letting people inside of it and it sounds like it could have came out yesterday.
