metaphours
cast shadows
- Joined
- Jun 16, 2009
- Messages
- 1,194
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- INFP
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- 4w5
as i've stated before, i love to write and i felt like writing this piece for a long time. kid a by radiohead is my favorite album ever and i've always felt like writing a review piece on it. well today i finally felt like i should and i did, and now i'm uploading it on typoc for all you gaiz to see 
enjoy...
In the year 2000, in the aftermath of the Y2K craze and ultimate dissipation, Radiohead dropped a bombshell. After 3 years of intense speculation and anticipation, the band released their fourth and possibly greatest album, Kid A. The album, arguably the greatest of all time, polarized and divided fans and critics alike and by the end of the year nearly everyone had thrown in their two cents worth of criticism and analysis. And now 9 years later, it's Metaphours turn:
Within the first few seconds of the bleeps and ominous blips and snippets of Thom Yorke's beautiful crooning voice of the first track "Everything in It's Right Place" you know what your listening to is near sacred. With "Kid A" you begin to second guess yourself as to whether or not the album was made by humans or a super intelligent race of robots with amazing musical skill and sensibility. On "The National Anthem" you're immediately hooked with Colin Greenwood's repetitive and amazing bass riff (quite possibly the greatest bass riff ever, ironically the riff heard on the album was not played by Colin but by Yorke) and Phil Selway's hardcore, yet on time drumming. By the time this blows your mind to a truly explosive level, Radiohead shows their amazing and perfect ability to top themselves by throwing in a powerful and catchy tuba-riff which makes this song unforgettable. On the fourth track, "How to Disappear Completely" the ruckus of the previous track comes to a screeching halt and suddenly the listener is left alone with Thom Yorke's quiet acoustic strumming soon accompanied with Jonny Greenwood's amazing multi-instrumental abilities on the ghostly, yet gorgeous-sounding ondes Martenot.
Halfway through the album, we are greeted with the ambient track, "Treefingers" originally a guitar solo written by Ed O'Brien which was reversed and digitally processed, soothing the listener and guiding them through the halfway point of the album with ethereal soundscapes and lovely digital work. The soaring guitar hailing from OK Computer makes a daring return with the next song, "Optimistic." In this song Yorke croons poetic soliloquies while Jonny jams away on his guitar. Selway's drumming, loud and spacious completes the song, the only true glimpse of what Radiohead formerly was. Next up is "In Limbo," spooky yet charming, Yorke sings of being lost at see while presumably Colin plays a jazzy lick on a Rhodes piano.
Next is fan-favorite, Idioteque. A glitch/computer music inspired song, Idioteque effectively uses a sample from Paul Lansky's Mild Und Liese, which serves as the bumping basis for the entire song. Yorke and Greenwood's beats blirp and bleep through the song creating a deep atmosphere perfectly set for Yorke's beautiful voice. The penultimate track, "Morning Bell" is a culmination of everything that was built up over the course of the album: sparse guitar, visceral keyboards, amazing god-like vocals, and fantastic electronic and real life beats. "Motion Picture Soundtrack" the final song the album is a quiet and beautiful song which gloriously ends the album. Soothing harps build upwards in correlation to Yorke's vocals as horns sparsely accompany them in the background, eventually fading out slowly and gorgeously.
No matter how you feel about the album or the band itself, no one can deny that Kid A definitely made an impact on the music industry and introduced fans and easy-music-goers alike to a kind of underground music that was not being advertised mainstream-wise at the time. It's definitely made an impact on my life and I listen to the whole album once through at lease once or twice a day. Kid A is the album that firmly cemented my dreams of being a musician at some point in my life and has managed to crawl it's way into the center of my musical-heart.
enjoy...
In the year 2000, in the aftermath of the Y2K craze and ultimate dissipation, Radiohead dropped a bombshell. After 3 years of intense speculation and anticipation, the band released their fourth and possibly greatest album, Kid A. The album, arguably the greatest of all time, polarized and divided fans and critics alike and by the end of the year nearly everyone had thrown in their two cents worth of criticism and analysis. And now 9 years later, it's Metaphours turn:
Within the first few seconds of the bleeps and ominous blips and snippets of Thom Yorke's beautiful crooning voice of the first track "Everything in It's Right Place" you know what your listening to is near sacred. With "Kid A" you begin to second guess yourself as to whether or not the album was made by humans or a super intelligent race of robots with amazing musical skill and sensibility. On "The National Anthem" you're immediately hooked with Colin Greenwood's repetitive and amazing bass riff (quite possibly the greatest bass riff ever, ironically the riff heard on the album was not played by Colin but by Yorke) and Phil Selway's hardcore, yet on time drumming. By the time this blows your mind to a truly explosive level, Radiohead shows their amazing and perfect ability to top themselves by throwing in a powerful and catchy tuba-riff which makes this song unforgettable. On the fourth track, "How to Disappear Completely" the ruckus of the previous track comes to a screeching halt and suddenly the listener is left alone with Thom Yorke's quiet acoustic strumming soon accompanied with Jonny Greenwood's amazing multi-instrumental abilities on the ghostly, yet gorgeous-sounding ondes Martenot.
Halfway through the album, we are greeted with the ambient track, "Treefingers" originally a guitar solo written by Ed O'Brien which was reversed and digitally processed, soothing the listener and guiding them through the halfway point of the album with ethereal soundscapes and lovely digital work. The soaring guitar hailing from OK Computer makes a daring return with the next song, "Optimistic." In this song Yorke croons poetic soliloquies while Jonny jams away on his guitar. Selway's drumming, loud and spacious completes the song, the only true glimpse of what Radiohead formerly was. Next up is "In Limbo," spooky yet charming, Yorke sings of being lost at see while presumably Colin plays a jazzy lick on a Rhodes piano.
Next is fan-favorite, Idioteque. A glitch/computer music inspired song, Idioteque effectively uses a sample from Paul Lansky's Mild Und Liese, which serves as the bumping basis for the entire song. Yorke and Greenwood's beats blirp and bleep through the song creating a deep atmosphere perfectly set for Yorke's beautiful voice. The penultimate track, "Morning Bell" is a culmination of everything that was built up over the course of the album: sparse guitar, visceral keyboards, amazing god-like vocals, and fantastic electronic and real life beats. "Motion Picture Soundtrack" the final song the album is a quiet and beautiful song which gloriously ends the album. Soothing harps build upwards in correlation to Yorke's vocals as horns sparsely accompany them in the background, eventually fading out slowly and gorgeously.
No matter how you feel about the album or the band itself, no one can deny that Kid A definitely made an impact on the music industry and introduced fans and easy-music-goers alike to a kind of underground music that was not being advertised mainstream-wise at the time. It's definitely made an impact on my life and I listen to the whole album once through at lease once or twice a day. Kid A is the album that firmly cemented my dreams of being a musician at some point in my life and has managed to crawl it's way into the center of my musical-heart.
