The Brute's Records of the 2000's

First, we deal with that which cannot be ignored. When Radiohead delivered Kid A to the masses, they not only gave us the musical yin-yang of electronic rock. They also gave the post-industrial world a glimpse into its own future. Kid A begins with Thom Yorke singing "There are/two colours in my head./What was/that you tried to say?" on "Everything In It's Right Place." Here, Yorke is admitting that he has decided to swim with the tide of binary messages, sending off a warning to those that may want to see grey in a world of black and white (or, better put, to see purple in a world of red and blue). "Just pick a side and stay alive," Yorke seems to be saying. This, in the same year that Fox News rose to power and the presidency was usurped.

Meanwhile, this is a record that gauchely embraces technology to make a point. It's not that Radiohead and producer Nigel Godrich didn't professionally manicure and polish Kid A, it's that they overdubbed and produced certain sections to make them unbearable. Try to read an in-depth Paul Krugman commentary while listening to the horn jam on "The National Anthem", and you'll find that Radiohead take umbrage with your other pastime. Also, Yorke's voice is ethereal to the point of near non-existence. He wavers in and out of tunes, sometimes barely creating melody, dropping lines like "I got a message I can't read/another message I can't read." His frustration seems equally birthed out of getting spam in his inbox and lies on cable news. 

Radiohead imply all this and more in Kid A's surprisingly minimalist landscape. Sure, the album has its bursts of ambient soundscapes and even some angry, British guitars (hey, remember those?), but Kid A isn't nearly as dense as it is spherical, making it both a smaller and bigger a record than OK Computer. Radiohead have said a career's worth of musical commentary in Kid A by scarcely saying a word. That is the record's greatest accomplishment.

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This post marks the beginning of a series that may take some time. I'll be delivering an album a week, for, perhaps, 30 weeks. Valete.