Review Summary: Disjointed, cacophonous blends of sound somehow come out sounding beautiful.
Kid A is a somewhat polarizing album. Upon its release in the year 2000, people were caught off guard by the electonics after expecting a more rock-oriented follow up to the commonly-regarded masterpiece of OK Computer; some of them embraced the sound as daringly artistic and others rejected it as electronic noodling and selling out the core of the bands sound in order to be seen as different. Over time, however, the album has become more warmly regarded as something of a classic, with some even saying it rivals its predecessor. Meanwhile, Radiohead have continued to mix heavy electronics into their sound, with mixed results over subsequent releases, and Thom Yorke has embodied this change over time by growing a beard and long hair. I'm pretty sure that's why he did that....absolutely.
Luckily, I missed out on the release of OK Computer and Kid A, and all of the bands back catalogue for that matter, until within the past year. I knew nothing of the mythos of OK Computer being considered the 90's equivalent of Dark Side of the Moon, or The Bends exemplifying the band's particular brand of rock, or of the tantalizingly controversial Kid A. I was a fan of Jeff Buckley, and was just getting immersed into the vast world of electronic music via one Aphex Twin, and heard Radiohead's Kid A was strongly influenced by the latter while the band was influenced initially by the former in the 90's, and like the foolish, naive person I am, dove straight into the album that has become what it is today.
The first thing worth saying is that this album is more of a grower. Listening to it once is fine and dandy, but there's a high chance of missing the subtlety in the songs, and hence not getting as much out of it. From the opening bars of the song Everything in its Right Place, we're brought into this soundscape that the band constructed almost exclusively with computers. The lyrics are less fleshed out and more like sketches, as though whenever Thom felt a particular emotion he jotted down what was on his mind and cobbled it into the songs. This gives a very disjointed feel, which paints the picture of the feeling behind the music more accurately than any passage of pretty poetry could.
It should be said that Radiohead doing electronic is not like U2 attempting hip-hop. The band are very skilled at it, as much as they are with their regular instruments, and the electronics are a wonder to listen to, comparable to the best electronic artists I've heard. The variety of styles used (shout-out to Treefingers, inserting a drone piece was nothing if not bold) is impressively well-handled, and it only adds to the great atmosphere of the whole album. That said, it wasn't particularly out of line with the band's past releases, or at least not as much as the negative press made it out to be. Radiohead's production was quite electronic-heavy going back to The Bends, with odd effects frequently being employed to add to the core of the band's sound marked by typical rock instruments. Kid A can be seen as something of a reversal in which the rock instruments are supplemental to the electronics, which wasn't nearly as out of place as, say, Jeff Mangum doing a Bulgarian folk album for his own amusement.
As much as the atmosphere contributes to the album, I'd like to give a special mention to the title track, How to Disappear Completely (And Never Be Found), and Optimistic. These songs all stand on their own and are among the band's best songs, with the previous two being in this one's humble opinion among the most beautiful songs ever recorded. How to Disappear Completely may be the single most profound description of dealing with stress while depressed in rock, and the biting sarcasm and irony of Optimistic clash deliciously with the absurd up-beatness of the track; as much as the whole album succeeds, it simply doesn't surpass these songs.
The album is tremendous, no doubt. But it's not perfect. Not by a lot, actually. The aforementioned lack of cohesiveness and disjointedness works at times, but sometimes leaves you wishing for tighter songwriting. The sonic experimentation may sound good, or even great, but the songs under them are a little bare at times. When stretched to the length of a whole song, it starts to drag a little and become hard to listen to without your hand itching for the skip key. The National Anthem was a great idea for a song, and the band nearly pulled it off, but I'm not going to pretend it didn't start to lose it's grip after a couple of minutes, and tracks like In Limbo and Motion Picture Soundtrack just didn't have the same power as the others. In addition, Thom Yorke is something of a one-trick pony as a singer, so enjoyment of his singing depends strongly on how much one likes his voice. But overall, while I understand the polarization of the music, it never particularly bothered nor influenced me, and I loved the album anyway. Highly recommended for anyone who likes electronic music, or experimental rock, but perhaps needs a bit of buffering for people who aren't used to the general style.
