Monday, January 28, 2008
Exhausted by their fame and on the verge of burnout following the end of OK Computer tour in middle 1998, the band spent the next year in relative quiet. Thom Yorke admitted that after the tour the band was really on the verge of splitting up. He also added that he fell into depression, but managed to recover. He especially stressed on his friendship with Michael Stipe (R.E.M.'s singer), whose persona turned to be inspiration on Yorke in both spiritual and songwriting ways. Some of the strongest Radiohead tracks on post-OK Computer albums were noted by Thom as inspiration by Michael's words or by latter's tireless support to his younger colleague.The band only appeared at the Amnesty International Concert in Paris (10 December 1998), and Thom Yorke and Jonny Greenwood performed at the Tibetan Freedom Concert in Amsterdam, where a new song, "Pyramid Song", made its live debut. After O'Brien's collaboration for the BBC drama series "Eureka Street" in middle 1999, the band finally returned to the studio to record Kid A. Radiohead refused to make a follow-up of OK Computer in the same musical vein and choose to be even more ambitious than before, creating a defiantly experimental electronic album with minimal guitar work, that complemented the lyrical and musical hooks of their earlier work with a more minimalist style.
The record was finished in April 2000 and with no singles, yet with promos, the album was promoted mainly on the Internet. This is where Radiohead's infamous relationship with Napster came into play. Three months prior to the release of Kid A MP3 tracks of the entire album made their way onto the file sharing service. As Richard Menta of MP3 Newswire detailed in his essay "Did Napster Take Radiohead's New Album to Number 1?" [1], millions of fans had possession of this music by the time the CD hit stores. The record industry assumed the album was now doomed to failure since fans already had the music for free. Instead the opposite happened and the band, which had never hit the US top 20 before, captured the number one spot in Kid A's debut week. With the record's absence of radio airplay, big time marketing, and any other factor that may have explained this stunning success, Menta declared this was proof of the promotional powers of file trading and of word-of-mouth generated by the Net.
Even Oasis' chief Noel Gallagher admitted that Kid A's great marketing scheme was its lack of any promotion: "If you refuse to talk about your own album, that just stirs the pot and makes everyone else start talking about it." While others agreed with Gallagher's assessment, it ignored any potential effect of Napster despite the fact it distributed Kid A to a huge number of music fans. Whatever the reason for the record's success on the charts, Kid A took the band from indie faves to burgeoning supergroup. The album's arrangements have been likened to a meeting of Pink Floyd and Aphex Twin. Kid A was released in October 2000. The band cited Alice Coltrane, Charles Mingus and Paul Lansky as influences, as well as the entire back catalogue of Warp Records. Kid A received Grammy Award for Best Alternative Album as its predecessor, which fired them to superstardom. The band were accused by some critics for creating a radio-unfriendly record, however most of the band's fans nailed it as a masterprise. And despite, that it's far from their earlier and one of the most acclaimed material, now Kid A is considered as one of the greatest electronic albums made by a rock band and one of Radiohead's finest records.
The follow-up Amnesiac, which was released in June of the following year, comprised further tracks from the same recording sessions as Kid A. Conceived as two separate sequences of songs, the two albums are similar in style and are linked by two different versions of the same song: "Morning Bell." While explaining the decision to release two albums rather than one, Thom illuminated his artistic and musical intentions and further clarifies the relationship between the two records: "They are separate because they cannot run in a straight line with each other. They cancel each other out as overall finished things. They come from two different places, I think ... In some weird way, I think Amnesiac gives another take on Kid A, a form of explanation." He continues: "Something traumatic is happening in Kid A, and this is looking back at it, trying to piece together what has happened. Go back and listen to Kid A after listening to Amnesiac, and I think you'll hear it."
About the differences with the previous record he says: "Kid A was kind of like an electric shock. Amnesiac is more about being in the woods, in the countryside. I think the artwork is the best way of explaining it. The artwork to Kid A was all in the distance. The fires were all going on the other side of the hill. With Amnesiac, you're actually in the forest while the fire's happening. With Kid A, when you sequenced certain tracks together, this play started appearing." Indeed, while Kid A is a more soulful, melodic, and inviting record, albeit slightly dark, Amnesiac is instantly unsettling and more uncomfortable to the listener. Nevertheless the album was received very well and nearly reached Kid A's sales. While most fans tend to like Kid A more than Amnesiac, the latter should be considered as the next successful and experimental chapter of Radiohead expedition in the musical world.
After the release of the album, the band staged their own mini-festival in Oxford's South Park, featuring Sigur Rós, Supergrass, Humphrey Lyttelton (who played trumpet on "Life in a Glass House", the closing track on Amnesiac), and themselves. It was at this concert that the band finally played "Creep," after having refused to perform the song for many years. Initially the band wanted to release "I Might Be Wrong" as their new single after "Pyramid Song" and "Knives Out", but soon the idea expanded into a full-fledged live record. In the fall of 2001, they released their first live album: I Might Be Wrong: Live Recordings, featuring performances from Berlin, Paris, London and a couple of other concerts and also including one unreleased track, "True Love Waits".
http://www.greenplastic.com/band/
The record was finished in April 2000 and with no singles, yet with promos, the album was promoted mainly on the Internet. This is where Radiohead's infamous relationship with Napster came into play. Three months prior to the release of Kid A MP3 tracks of the entire album made their way onto the file sharing service. As Richard Menta of MP3 Newswire detailed in his essay "Did Napster Take Radiohead's New Album to Number 1?" [1], millions of fans had possession of this music by the time the CD hit stores. The record industry assumed the album was now doomed to failure since fans already had the music for free. Instead the opposite happened and the band, which had never hit the US top 20 before, captured the number one spot in Kid A's debut week. With the record's absence of radio airplay, big time marketing, and any other factor that may have explained this stunning success, Menta declared this was proof of the promotional powers of file trading and of word-of-mouth generated by the Net.
Even Oasis' chief Noel Gallagher admitted that Kid A's great marketing scheme was its lack of any promotion: "If you refuse to talk about your own album, that just stirs the pot and makes everyone else start talking about it." While others agreed with Gallagher's assessment, it ignored any potential effect of Napster despite the fact it distributed Kid A to a huge number of music fans. Whatever the reason for the record's success on the charts, Kid A took the band from indie faves to burgeoning supergroup. The album's arrangements have been likened to a meeting of Pink Floyd and Aphex Twin. Kid A was released in October 2000. The band cited Alice Coltrane, Charles Mingus and Paul Lansky as influences, as well as the entire back catalogue of Warp Records. Kid A received Grammy Award for Best Alternative Album as its predecessor, which fired them to superstardom. The band were accused by some critics for creating a radio-unfriendly record, however most of the band's fans nailed it as a masterprise. And despite, that it's far from their earlier and one of the most acclaimed material, now Kid A is considered as one of the greatest electronic albums made by a rock band and one of Radiohead's finest records.
The follow-up Amnesiac, which was released in June of the following year, comprised further tracks from the same recording sessions as Kid A. Conceived as two separate sequences of songs, the two albums are similar in style and are linked by two different versions of the same song: "Morning Bell." While explaining the decision to release two albums rather than one, Thom illuminated his artistic and musical intentions and further clarifies the relationship between the two records: "They are separate because they cannot run in a straight line with each other. They cancel each other out as overall finished things. They come from two different places, I think ... In some weird way, I think Amnesiac gives another take on Kid A, a form of explanation." He continues: "Something traumatic is happening in Kid A, and this is looking back at it, trying to piece together what has happened. Go back and listen to Kid A after listening to Amnesiac, and I think you'll hear it."
About the differences with the previous record he says: "Kid A was kind of like an electric shock. Amnesiac is more about being in the woods, in the countryside. I think the artwork is the best way of explaining it. The artwork to Kid A was all in the distance. The fires were all going on the other side of the hill. With Amnesiac, you're actually in the forest while the fire's happening. With Kid A, when you sequenced certain tracks together, this play started appearing." Indeed, while Kid A is a more soulful, melodic, and inviting record, albeit slightly dark, Amnesiac is instantly unsettling and more uncomfortable to the listener. Nevertheless the album was received very well and nearly reached Kid A's sales. While most fans tend to like Kid A more than Amnesiac, the latter should be considered as the next successful and experimental chapter of Radiohead expedition in the musical world.
After the release of the album, the band staged their own mini-festival in Oxford's South Park, featuring Sigur Rós, Supergrass, Humphrey Lyttelton (who played trumpet on "Life in a Glass House", the closing track on Amnesiac), and themselves. It was at this concert that the band finally played "Creep," after having refused to perform the song for many years. Initially the band wanted to release "I Might Be Wrong" as their new single after "Pyramid Song" and "Knives Out", but soon the idea expanded into a full-fledged live record. In the fall of 2001, they released their first live album: I Might Be Wrong: Live Recordings, featuring performances from Berlin, Paris, London and a couple of other concerts and also including one unreleased track, "True Love Waits".
http://www.greenplastic.com/band/
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