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Kid A at 16

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Curious Hair

Post subject: Kid A at 16

Posted: Mon Oct 03, 2016 4:20 am

Joined: Thu Nov 16, 2006 6:29 pm
Posts: 55783
pizza_Place: Barstool One Bite Frozen

Happy birthday, one of the best albums of all time! Here's one of the worst pieces of writing of all time.

Quote:

I had never even seen a shooting star before. 25 years of rotations, passes through comets' paths, and travel, and to my memory I had never witnessed burning debris scratch across the night sky. Radiohead were hunched over their instruments. Thom Yorke slowly beat on a grand piano, singing, eyes closed, into his microphone like he was trying to kiss around a big nose. Colin Greenwood tapped patiently on a double bass, waiting for his cue. White pearls of arena light swam over their faces. A lazy disco light spilled artificial constellations inside the aluminum cove of the makeshift stage. The metal skeleton of the stage ate one end of Florence's Piazza Santa Croce, on the steps of the Santa Croce Cathedral. Michelangelo's bones and cobblestone laid beneath. I stared entranced, soaking in Radiohead's new material, chiseling each sound into the best functioning parts of my brain which would be the only sound system for the material for months.

The butterscotch lamps along the walls of the tight city square bled upward into the cobalt sky, which seemed as strikingly artificial and perfect as a wizard's cap. The staccato piano chords ascended repeatedly. "Black eyed angels swam at me," Yorke sang like his dying words. "There was nothing to fear, nothing to hide." The trained critical part of me marked the similarity to Coltrane's "Ole." The human part of me wept in awe.

Possibly the funniest part of this is that once you strip away all the purple prose -- and I mean all of it -- this whole time he's been talking about a song off Amnesiac.

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W_Z

Post subject: Re: Kid A at 16

Posted: Mon Oct 03, 2016 6:23 am

Joined: Tue Oct 10, 2006 7:56 pm
Posts: 37790
Location: ...

i was working at amazon.com at the time and it was extremely hyped when it came out. i was one of two people i worked with that liked it immediately. i would listen to it on my way to work every morning, which was perfect because i'd be on the right at 5:30am, in complete darkness. the album was all atmosphere. everybody else i knew hated it and thought it was pretty much the end of radiohead.

i knew it was ahead of its time but that review is absolutely the reason why people hate radiohead and people who call them "important". i'm almost positive that writer didn't even listen to "kid a" until told how important it was to, and then learned in college how to write like that.

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ZephMarshack

Post subject: Re: Kid A at 16

Posted: Mon Oct 03, 2016 6:39 am

Joined: Thu Dec 09, 2010 1:30 am
Posts: 4113
pizza_Place: Palermo's 95th

Amnesiac is better anyway. Also DiCrescenzo at his self-indulgent worst could still never compare to Schreiber when it comes to bad Pitchfork writing.

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Curious Hair

Post subject: Re: Kid A at 16

Posted: Mon Oct 03, 2016 7:57 am

Joined: Thu Nov 16, 2006 6:29 pm
Posts: 55783
pizza_Place: Barstool One Bite Frozen

Amnesiac isn't better, but it's still really, really good. I've been spending a lot of time with that one lately and really appreciating it. "Life in a Glasshouse" was actually the first song of theirs I ever heard after finally ending my Radiohead embargo after high school (my neighbor loved them and I hated my neighbor for putting me in a serious chokehold once when I was a kid). The only tracks I don't like are "Hunting Bears" and "Morning Bell/Amnesiac," which doesn't hold a candle to the 5/4 version on Kid A.

Contrary to the people who write it off as outtakes, I think the band did a good job partitioning the two albums from the session, putting pretty much all the jazzy stuff on Amnesiac and the electronic/contemp-classical stuff on Kid A. The actual outtakes, for that matter, are among my favorite Radiohead B-sides: "Worrywort," "The Amazing Sounds of Orgy," "Cuttooth," and "Fog."

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Molly Lambert wrote:

The future holds the possibility to be great or terrible, and since it has not yet occurred it remains simultaneously both.

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ZephMarshack

Post subject: Re: Kid A at 16

Posted: Mon Oct 03, 2016 8:09 am

Joined: Thu Dec 09, 2010 1:30 am
Posts: 4113
pizza_Place: Palermo's 95th

Since I've now spent a good portion of my morning reading terrible old Pitchfork reviews, I feel this column comparing Kid A and Finnegans Wakedeserves special mention as well.

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ZephMarshack

Post subject: Re: Kid A at 16

Posted: Mon Oct 03, 2016 8:13 am

Joined: Thu Dec 09, 2010 1:30 am
Posts: 4113
pizza_Place: Palermo's 95th

Oh and I've just always liked Amnesiac more because it feels more like a cohesive album to me than Kid A (or any of their other albums for that matter). I agree that the "Morning Bell" on it isn't as good as Kid A's, which might be my favorite song across both albums, but that version really works for me on the heels of Knives Out.

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Curious Hair

Post subject: Re: Kid A at 16

Posted: Mon Oct 03, 2016 8:14 am

Joined: Thu Nov 16, 2006 6:29 pm
Posts: 55783
pizza_Place: Barstool One Bite Frozen

FUCK YEAH CHUCK KLOSTERMAN ON KID A

Quote:

Which leads into track four, "How to Disappear Completely." This is the point where it feels like the world is possibly ending. People try to convince themselves that they are not there. People keep repeating: "This isn't happening". People are "floating" (read: falling) to the earth.

I too like to read verbs as the opposite of what they mean.

_________________

Molly Lambert wrote:

The future holds the possibility to be great or terrible, and since it has not yet occurred it remains simultaneously both.

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Curious Hair

Post subject: Re: Kid A at 16

Posted: Mon Oct 03, 2016 8:19 am

Joined: Thu Nov 16, 2006 6:29 pm
Posts: 55783
pizza_Place: Barstool One Bite Frozen

ZephMarshack wrote:

Oh and I've just always liked Amnesiac more because it feels more like a cohesive album to me than Kid A (or any of their other albums for that matter).

It's cohesive but it isn't. I feel like whereas Kid A was sequenced to flow perfectly from beginning to end, Amnesiac was all about making transitions as jarring as possible ("Pyramid Song" into "Pulk/Pull Revolving Doors" being the most obvious). It's episodic instead of serial. Hail to the Thief is the same way, where almost all the songs are good, they all belong together, but you'd never think of the whole gestalt of it being a Great Album.

"How to Disappear Completely" and "Idioteque" are my favorites from the Kid Amnesiac sessions, incidentally. Love those atonal strings. I went to a performance of Messaien's Quartet for the End of Time a few weeks ago. If anyone's doing any Penderecki any time soon, I'll have to get to that too.

_________________

Molly Lambert wrote:

The future holds the possibility to be great or terrible, and since it has not yet occurred it remains simultaneously both.

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SpiralStairs

Post subject: Re: Kid A at 16

Posted: Mon Oct 03, 2016 8:33 am

Joined: Thu Oct 18, 2012 9:33 pm
Posts: 19017
pizza_Place: World Famous Pizza

Read David Cross' overwrought pitchfork reviews. good stuff.

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