Amnesiac is the fifth studio album by the English rock band Radiohead, released in June 2001 by Parlophone. Recorded with producer Nigel Godrich during the same sessions as Radiohead's previous album Kid A (2000), Amnesiac incorporates similar influences of electronic music, 20th-century classical music, jazz and krautrock. Only one track was recorded after Kid A: 'Life in a Glasshouse', a collaboration with the Humphrey Lyttelton Band.
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After having released no singles from Kid A, Radiohead released three from Amnesiac, accompanied by music videos: 'Pyramid Song', 'Knives Out' and the radio-only single 'I Might Be Wrong'. Amnesiac debuted at number one on the UK Albums Chart and number two on the US Billboard 200. By October 2008, it had sold over 900,000 copies worldwide. Though it disappointed some hoping for a return to Radiohead's earlier rock sound, Amnesiac was named one of the best albums of 2001 by numerous publications. It was nominated for the Mercury Prize and several Grammy Awards, winning for Best Recording Package for the special edition. 'Pyramid Song' was ranked one of the best tracks of the decade by Rolling Stone, the NME and Pitchfork. In 2012, Rolling Stone ranked Amnesiac number 320 in their updated version of The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time.
Recording[edit]
The Humphrey Lyttelton Band performed on 'Life in a Glasshouse'.
See also: Kid A § Recording
Radiohead and producer Nigel Godrich recorded Amnesiac during the same sessions as its predecessor, Kid A, released in October 2000.[1] The sessions took place from January 1999 to mid-2000 in Paris, Copenhagen, and in Radiohead's Oxfordshire studio.[2][3] Radiohead incorporated influences from electronic music, 20th-century classical music, jazz and krautrock, using synthesisers, ondes Martenot, drum machines, strings and brass.[1] Strings, arranged by guitarist Jonny Greenwood, were performed by the Orchestra of St John's and recorded in Dorchester Abbey, a 12th-century church close to Radiohead's studio.[4][5] Drummer Philip Selway said the sessions had 'two frames of mind .. a tension between our old approach of all being in a room playing together and the other extreme of manufacturing music in the studio. I think Amnesiac comes out stronger in the band-arrangement way.'[5] The sessions produced more than 20 finished tracks. Radiohead considered releasing them a double album, but felt the material was too dense.[6] Singer Thom Yorke said Radiohead split the work into two albums because '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.'[7] The band stressed that they saw Amnesiac not as a collection of B-sides or 'leftovers' from Kid A but an album in its own right.[8] Only one track, 'Life in a Glasshouse', was recorded after Kid A was released. In late 2000, Greenwood wrote to jazz trumpeter Humphrey Lyttelton to ask the Humphrey Lyttelton Band to play on the song, explaining that Radiohead were 'a bit stuck'.[9] Greenwood told Mojo: 'We realised that we couldn't play jazz. You know, we've always been a band of great ambition with limited playing abilities.'[10] Lyttelton agreed to help after his daughter showed him Radiohead's 1997 album OK Computer.[9] Music and lyrics[edit]
'I read that the gnostics believe when we are born we are forced to forget where we have come from in order to deal with the trauma of arriving in this life. I thought this was really fascinating. It's like the river of forgetfulness. [Amnesiac] may have been recorded at the same time [as Kid A] .. but it comes from a different place I think. It sounds like finding an old chest in someone's attic with all these notes and maps and drawings and descriptions of going to a place you cannot remember.'
âSongwriter Thom Yorke[11] Amnesiac incorporates experimental rock,[12]electronica,[13] and alternative rock.[14] Bassist Colin Greenwood said it had 'more traditional Radiohead-type songs together with more experimental, non-lyrical based instrumental-type stuff as well'.[15] 'Packt Like Sardines in a Crushd Tin Box' is an electronic song built from compressedloops,[16] with vocals manipulated with the pitch-correcting software Auto-Tune to create a 'nasal, depersonalised sound'.[1] 'Pyramid Song' was inspired by the Charles Mingus song 'Freedom',[17] with lyrics inspired by an exhibition of ancient Egyptian underworld art Yorke attended while the band was recording in Copenhagen[8] and ideas of cyclical time discussed by Stephen Hawking and Buddhism.[8]Selway said the song 'ran counter to what had come before in Radiohead in lots of ways .. The constituent parts are all quite simple, but I think the way that they then blend gives real depth to the song.'[18] 'Pulk/Pull Revolving Doors', an electronic track, was built on a Roland MC-505groovebox.[16] It incorporates loops recorded in the OK Computer sessions,[16] including elements of a version of 'True Love Waits',[19] a song Radiohead did not complete until their ninth album, A Moon Shaped Pool (2016).[20] The band disabled the erase heads on the tape recorders so that the tape repeatedly recorded over itself, creating a 'ghostly' loop.[16] They used Auto-Tune to process Yorke's speech into melody; according to Yorke, the software 'desperately tries to search for the music in your speech, and produces notes at random. If you've assigned it a key, you've got music.'[1] Yorke said 'You and Whose Army?' was 'about someone who is elected into power by people and who then blatantly betrays them â just like Blair did'.[17] Attempting to capture the 'soft, warm, proto-doowop sound' of the 1940s harmony group the Ink Spots, Radiohead muffled microphones with eggboxes and used the ondes Martenot's resonating palme diffuseur loudspeaker to treat the vocals.[1]
'I Might Be Wrong' combines a 'venomous' guitar riff with a 'trance-like metallic beat'. Colin Greenwood's bassline was inspired by Chic bassist Bernard Edwards.[17] The lyric 'never look back' came from advice given to Yorke by his partner, Rachel Owen: 'Be proud of what you've done. Don't look back and just carry on like nothing's happened. Just let the bad stuff go.'[17] According to a studio diary kept by guitarist Ed O'Brien, 'Knives Out' took 373 days to record, 'a ridiculously long gestation period for any song.'[2] It was influenced by the guitar work of Johnny Marr of the Smiths.[21] 'Morning Bell/Amnesiac' is an alternative version of 'Morning Bell' from Kid A. O'Brien said that Radiohead often record and abandon different versions of songs, but that this version was 'strong enough to bear hearing again'.[22] On Radiohead's website, Yorke wrote that 'Morning Bell/Amnesiac' was included on Amnesiac 'because it came from such a different place from the other version. Because we only found it again by accident after having forgotten about it. Because it sounds like a recurring dream. It felt right.'[23] 'Dollars and Cents' was edited down from an eleven-minute jam, using an editing approach inspired by krautrock band Can.[1] Colin Greenwood played a record by jazz musician Alice Coltrane over the recording, inspiring his brother Jonny to write a 'Coltrane-style' string arrangement.[16] Yorke said the lyrics were 'gibberish', but inspired by the notion that 'people are basically just pixels on a screen, unknowingly serving this higher power which is manipulative and destructive'.[17]
Jonny Greenwood used the ondes Martenot, an early electronic instrument. Its resonating palme diffuseur loudspeaker (pictured centre) was used to treat the vocals on 'You and Whose Army?'.
'Hunting Bears' is a short instrumental on electric guitar and synthesiser.[24] 'Like Spinning Plates' was constructed from components of another song, 'I Will', which Radiohead had tried to record in the same sessions. Unsatisfied with the results, which Yorke described as 'dodgy Kraftwerk',[25] the band reversed the recording and used it to create a new track. Yorke said: 'We'd turned the tape around, and I was in another room, heard the vocal melody coming backwards, and thought, 'That's miles better than the right way round', then spent the rest of the night trying to learn the melody.'[1] Yorke sang the lyrics backwards; this recording was in turn reversed, creating vocals with lyrics that sound reversed.[16] 'I Will' was released in a new arrangement on Radiohead's subsequent album Hail to the Thief (2003).[26] 'Life in a Glasshouse' features jazz band the Humphrey Lyttelton Band. After listening to a demo of the song, trumpeter and bandleader Humphrey Lyttelton suggested arranging it in a New Orleans jazz funeral style.[27] He described the song as starting 'with me doing a sort of ad-libbed, bluesy, minor-key meandering, then it gradually gets so that we're sort of playing real wild, primitive, New Orleans blues stuff'. According to Lyttelton, Radiohead 'didn't want it to sound like a slick studio production but a slightly exploratory thing of people playing as if they didn't have it all planned out in advance'.[9] The lyrics were inspired by a news story Yorke read of a celebrity's wife so harassed by paparazzi that she papered her house windows with their photographs.[17] Artwork and packaging[edit]Amnesiac's cover art was created by Yorke and longtime Radiohead collaborator Stanley Donwood.[28] It depicts a weeping minotaur of Greek mythology on the cover of a book.[29] Donwood said the artwork was inspired by 'taking the train to London, getting lost and taking notes'. Likening London to the mythological labyrinth, he saw the city as 'an imaginary prison, a place where you can walk around and you are the Minotaur of London, we are all the monsters, we are all half-human, half-beast'.[29] Donwood also designed a special edition package with a hardback CD case in the style of a mislaid library book. He imagined that 'someone made these pages in a book and it went into drawer in a desk and was forgotten about in the attic .. And visually and musically the album is about finding the book and opening the pages.'[29] The special edition won a Grammy Award for Best Recording Package at the 44th Grammy Awards.[30] Promotion and release[edit]Radiohead announced Amnesiac on their website in January 2001, three months after the release of Kid A.[31] It was released on 5 June 2001 by Parlophone in the United Kingdom and a day later by Capitol Records in the United States.[citation needed][31] After having released no singles from Kid A,[5] Radiohead released three from Amnesiac: 'Pyramid Song' in May,[32] followed by 'I Might Be Wrong' (radio only) in June[33] and 'Knives Out' in July,[34] backed by music videos.[5] In June 2001, Radiohead began the Amnesiac tour, incorporating their first North American tour in three years.[35] Recordings from both the Kid A and Amnesiac tours are included on the EP I Might Be Wrong: Live Recordings, released in November 2001.[24] Amnesiac debuted at number two on the US Billboard 200 with sales of 231,000, surpassing Radiohead's 207,000 first-week sales of Kid A.[36] It was certified gold by the Recording Industry Association of Japan for shipments of 100,000 copies across Japan.[37] By October 2008, it had sold over 900,000 copies worldwide.[38] Reception[edit]
After Radiohead's previous album, Kid A, had divided listeners, many hoped for a return to their earlier rock sound for Amnesiac.[50][45]Pitchfork wrote that many wanted another album similar to Radiohead's 1995 album The Bends.[51] The Guardian titled its review 'Relax: it's nothing like Kid A'.[50] However, Rolling Stone saw it as a further distancing from Radiohead's earlier, 'Britpop-like' style,[47] and Pitchfork found that 'Amnesiac is about as close to The Bends as Miss Cleo is to Jamaican'.[45]Stylus critic Mike Powell wrote that although Amnesiac was 'slightly more straightforward' than Kid A, it 'solidified the postmillennial model of Radiohead: less songs and more atmosphere, more eclectic and electronic, more paranoid, more threatening, more sublime'.[52] Robert Hilburn of the Los Angeles Times felt that Amnesiac, compared to Kid A, was 'a richer, more engaging record, its austerity and troubled vision enriched by a rousing of the human spirit'.[43]Guardian critic Alex Petridis, who had disliked Kid A, felt Amnesiac was superior, writing that it 'strikes a cunning and rewarding balance between experimentation and quality control. It's hardly easy to digest but nor is it impossible to swallow.'[50] He criticised the electronic tracks 'Pulk/Pull Revolving Doors' and 'Like Spinning Plates' as self-indulgent, but felt they were 'overshadowed by haunting musical shifts and unconventional melodies'.[50] The Guardian named Amnesiac 'CD of the week'.[50] Several critics felt Amnesiac was less cohesive than Kid A. AllMusic critic Stephen Thomas Erlewine felt that 'Amnesiac often plays as a hodgepodge', and that the two albums 'clearly derive from the same source and have the same flaws .. the division only makes the two records seem unfocused, even if the best of both records is quite stunning'.[40]Pitchfork wrote that 'the questionable sequencing of Amnesiac does little to hush the argument that the record is merely a thinly veiled B-sides compilation', though its 'highlights were undeniably worth the wait, and easily overcome its occasional patchiness'.[45]Stylus critic Powell wrote that 'it stands as an excellent disc', but was not as 'exploratory or interesting' as Kid A.[52] Accolades[edit]Several publications named Amnesiac one of the best albums of 2001, including Q,[53]The Wire,[54]Rolling Stone,[55]Kludge,[56] the Village Voice, Pazz and Jop,[57] the Los Angeles Times, and Alternative Press.[58] In 2005, Stylus named it the best album of the decade that far.[52] In 2009, Pitchfork ranked Amnesiac the 34th best album of the 2000s[59] and Rolling Stone ranked it the 25th.[60] It is included in the 2005 book 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die,[61] and in 2012, Rolling Stone included it at number 320 in its updated list of The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time.[62] Amnesiac was nominated for the 2001 Mercury Music Prize, losing to PJ Harvey's Stories from the City, Stories from the Sea, for which Yorke provided guest vocals.[63] It was the fourth consecutive Radiohead album nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Alternative Music Album,[64] and the special edition won a Grammy Award for Best Recording Package in the 44thGrammy Awards.[30] 'Pyramid Song' was ranked one of the best tracks of the decade by Rolling Stone,[65] the NME[66] and Pitchfork.[67] Reissues[edit]After a period of being out of print on vinyl, EMI reissued a double LP of Amnesiac on 19 August 2008 along with Kid A, Hail to the Thief and OK Computer as part of the 'From the Capitol Vaults' series.[68] On 31 August 2009, EMI reissued Amnesiac in a two-CD 'Collector's Edition' and a 'Special Collector's Edition' containing an additional DVD. The first CD contains the original studio album; the second CD collects B-sides from Amnesiac singles and live performances; the DVD contains music videos and a live television performance. Radiohead, who left EMI in 2007,[69] had no input into the reissue and the music was not remastered.[70] In Pitchfork's review of the reissue, Scott Plagenhoef wrote: 'More than Kid A â and maybe more than any other LP of its time â Amnesiac is the kickoff of a messy, rewarding era .. disconnected, self-aware, tense, eclectic, head-turning â an overload of good ideas inhibited by rules, restrictions, and conventional wisdom.'[71] The 'Collector's Editions' were discontinued after Radiohead's back catalogue was transferred to XL Recordings in 2016.[72] In May 2016, XL reissued Radiohead's back catalogue on vinyl, including Amnesiac.[73] Track listing[edit]All tracks written by Radiohead (Colin Greenwood, Jonny Greenwood, Ed O'Brien, Philip Selway, Thom Yorke).
Personnel[edit]Adapted from the Amnesiac liner notes.[74]
Chart positions[edit]
Certifications[edit]
References[edit]
External links[edit]
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Radiohead have become the kings of the unexpected album release. Not only does the album itself often come as a bit of a shock, but the method of its delivery tends to be a surprise. Put it this way: the first person to buy a new Radiohead album isnât someone at their local Tesco with a crisp new tenner in their hand. So how have their releases evolved over the years? Hereâs your album-by-album guide to Radiohead â not the music but the way it came out. Radiohead erase internet presence â is it a cryptic message?
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Pablo HoneyWhen? 22 February 1993. How? Conventional physical release on EMI. What else? The recording industry was still in rude health when Radiohead released their first album. Leaking, filesharing, streaming and downloading were things of the future. Pablo Honey was released exactly as the debut album by a young alt-rock band would usually be. It was preceded by a single, Creep, that did nothing (Radio 1 found it too depressing to play). But then radio stations in other countries started playing it â Israel, New Zealand, Spain â until finally it became a radio hit on the US west coast, eventually reaching No 34 in the Billboard chart. At which point it was rereleased in the UK, reaching No 7 and getting the band on Top of the Pops. Pablo Honey peaked at No 22 in the UK, but eventually went double platinum. What the critics said: âBritish teenagerhood has never been grumpier .. the best bits rival Nirvana, Dinosaur Jr and even the mighty Sugar.â (Q) The BendsWhen? 13 March 1995. How? Conventional physical release on EMI. What else? The short and highly partial story: Thom Yorke gets sick of being rock star travelling the world with people screaming out for Creep. Makes album that consists of 48 minutes of him being fed up. Thatâs an oversimplification of course, but The Bends was the point when Radiohead went from being a mid-level alt-rock band to an art-rock band with Something To Say. The album was preceded by the My Iron Lung EP in October 1994, which did badly enough that EMI insisted that The Bends, which had been produced by John Leckie, be remixed by Sean Slade and Paul Q Kolderie. Did the band revolt at this label interference? No. Because they realised it sounded better. Itâs easy to forget that Radiohead are very good at the business bit of âmusic businessâ as well as the music bit. The Bends reached No 4 in the UK, and though it went no higher than No 88 in the US, it paved the way for what was to come. What the critics said: âThe album mostly reminds me of Suede trying to rock like Sparks but coming out like U2, or (more often) that hissy little pissant in Smashing Pumpkins.â â Spin OK ComputerWhen? 16 June 1997. Jun 27, 2013 - evaluate the VPN Client professional edition features as new releases are made available but still require a license key for long term use. Shrew soft vpn linux. Solved: Hi, I have lost the serial number for my Netgear VPN client lite v5.1. I have been unable to locate it within the software's about dialogue. Jan 27, 2018 - How to set up Shrew Soft IPSec VPN Client for WatchGuard This guide will show you how to enable Mobile VPN with IPSec for WatchGuard. The Shrew Soft VPN Client for Windows is an IPsec Remote Access VPN Client for. Has expired, a client license may be purchased from the Shrew Soft Shop. How? Conventional physical release on EMI. What else? Radioheadâs US label, Capitol, took one listen to OK Computer and decided the band had delivered their commercial suicide record. It lowered its sales forecast from 2m to 500,000, leaving Parlophone â the EMI imprint that released Radiohead in the UK â as the only ones to offer unequivocal support. The lead single, released a couple of weeks before the album, was a six-and-a-half minute, multi-sectioned epic, that the band said was a bit of a joke, really. But Paranoid Android became the defining moment of the new Radiohead â a creation myth for the Worldâs Most Earnest Band. It was premiered on Radio 1âs Evening Session a month before release, and when it came out it was hailed as a new Bohemian Rhapsody. A performance on Later ⦠With Jools Holland on 31 May sealed the deal: this was the future of rock music. When OK Computer followed, it was received like the second coming of the Beatles, with sales to match â No 1 in the UK and many other countries. A placing at No 21 in the US, and platinum status, suggested Capitol had been wrong. What the critics said: âWhere Radiohead might go from here is anyoneâs guess, but OK Computer is evidence that they are one rock band still willing to look the devil square in the eyes.â â Rolling Stone Kid AWhen? 2 October 2000. How? Conventional physical release on EMI, accompanied by iBlip. (This was also the last Radiohead album released on MiniDisc.) Radiohead's corporate empire: inside the band's dollars and cents
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What else? By now, Radiohead were firmly in control. Kid A was not promoted with albums or singles, but 30-second animated âblipsâ. Once again, this was an album made in reaction to the music industry rather than in conjunction with it. Thom Yorke told the Guardian â and this theme might sound familiar: âI always used to use music as a way of moving on and dealing with things, and I sort of felt like that thing that helped me deal with things had been sold to the highest bidder and I was simply doing its bidding. And I couldnât handle that.â And so, one of the most anticipated rock records in years was another left-turn, inspired by electronica rather than rock, and accompanied by the minimum amount of promotion by the band. Here, though, was the first of the big Radiohead release innovations: the band released the iBlip â a Java proto-app that allowed people to preorder and stream the album, and access artwork and links. The result was that the album was streamed 400,000 times â nothing now, but a landslide then. The album was the bandâs first US No 1, though it didnât come close to matching OK Computerâs sales. What the critics said: âIt is the sound of Thom Yorke ramming his head firmly up his own arse, hearing the rumblings of his intestinal wind and deciding to share it with the world.â â Melody Maker AmnesiacWhen? 4 June 2001. How? Conventional physical release on EMI. What else? Recorded during the same sessions as Kid A, Amnesiac was a little more of a band record than Kid A had been, and was more warmly regarded by many fans as a result. Again, though, Radiohead were wrongfooting the music industry: a big band releasing an album less than a year after their last one, and again shifting styles. This bucked conventional wisdom, but yet again the album was a hit: No 1 in the UK, No 2 in the US. Radiohead were proving that artistry trumped accountancy. The lead single, Pyramid Song, was beaten to No 1 by Do You Really Like It? by DJ Pied Piper and the Master of Ceremonies. What the critics said: âWith the benefit of hindsight, Kid Aâs wilful racket now recalls the clatter of a rattle being thrown from a pram. Tantrum over, Radiohead have returned to their role as the worldâs most intriguing and innovative major rock band.â â The Guardian Hail to the ThiefWhen? 9 June 2003. How? Conventional physical release on EMI, accompanied by radiohead.tv. (This was also the last Radiohead album released on cassette.) What else? Radioheadâs last album for a major label leaked, in unfinished form, 10 weeks before its release. Radiohead were unhappy but EMI were far from displeased, given that what came out wasnât the actual version of the album, and still gave the group more than two months of free promotion. This was backed by an official promotion campaign that vastly exceeded those for the bandâs previous few records â planes with banners flying over Coachella; promotional posters for a fake talent show, with lyrics from the song We Suck Young Blood. There were two major innovations this time, though: the promotion of a phone hotline connecting callers to the âHail to the Thief customer care hotlineâ and the launch of radiohead.tv, a site with short films, music videos and live webcasts from the recording studio. If you missed the webcasts, you saw a test card. What the critics said: âThatâs not to say thereâs not some exceptional music on this record, itâs just once again the impact of the best moments is dulled by the inclusion of some indifferent electronic compositions.â â NME In RainbowsWhen? 10 October 2007. How? Direct to the public via inrainbows.com, on a pay-what-you-like model. What else? Radioheadâs contract with EMI had expired after Hail to the Thief, and when the private equity firm Terra Firma acquired the record company in August 2007, the band decided to strike out on their own. That summer, they set up their own company, Xurbia Xendless Ltd, which eventually released In Rainbows. The album wasnât a surprise, though: Jonny Greenwood announced the record on 1 October, with a link to preorder the MP3 version. Yorke explained the logic to David Byrne in Wired: âWe were trying to avoid that whole game of who gets in first with the reviews. These days thereâs so much paper to fill, or digital paper to fill, that whoever writes the first few things gets cut and pasted. Whoever gets their opinion in first has all that power. Especially for a band like ours, itâs totally the luck of the draw whether that person is into us or not. It just seems wildly unfair, I think.â This time, the world really took notice of the release strategy â in some ways it rather overshadowed the actual music. Thereâs little doubt that this was the release that made other superstar acts realise the benefits they could accrue â both in terms of finance, and control of the discussion about their record â by self-releasing their records under strictly controlled conditions. Radiohead simultaneously ensured they would have the kudos of getting their music out to fans who couldnât or didnât want to pay much, while shoring up revenue streams by releasing a deluxe box set with additional music and vinyl at a premium price. The giveaway worked, too â most downloaders paid a normal retail price, according to the bandâs management. A retail release followed, enabling Radiohead to get the No 1 that their own release was ineligible for. What the critics said: âLiberated from their self-imposed pressure to innovate, they sound â for the first time in ages â user-friendly; the glacial distance that characterised their previous records melted away by dollops of reverb, strings, and melody.â â Pitchfork The King of LimbsRadiohead Hail To The ThiefWhen? 18 February 2011. How? Direct to the public to download via their website. What else? Once again, Radiohead set up a company â Ticker Tape Ltd, in December 2010 â to look after the self-releasing of their new album. Again, they only gave a few daysâ notice, though they ended up putting The King of Limbs out a day earlier than they had said. Again, it was available to download from a website, though this time there were fixed prices. Again, there was a deluxe edition available at a premium price. Again, it was later released in conventional retail form later on. (Thom Yorke would later take the instant-download release to its logical conclusion by releasing his solo album, Tomorrowâs Modern Boxes, through BitTorrent.) The release of The King of Limbs was promoted with a 12-page newspaper, The Universal Sigh, given away in record stores. This time, retail sales were down â the album peaked at No 7 in the UK and No 3 in the US. But when you have been selling direct to fans with sales that donât count towards the chart, those placings look like something of a triumph. What the critics said: âYouâre reminded that Radiohead are the only band of their size and status that seem driven by an impulse to twist their music into different shapes. As The King of Limbs proves, when it works itâs glorious, but that impulse doesnât always yield perfect results.â â The Guardian Album No 9 (no title known as yet)When: Rumoured to be this week. How: Your guess is as good as mine. Torrent legend tom hardy. What else? We know something is in the works. The band have spoken about having recorded a new album. They released a James Bond theme that the makers of Spectre didnât want. Theyâve announced headline shows for this summer. And then a member of their management company, Brian Message, said the album would be coming out in June. That was hastily reconsidered by observers on Sunday, when the band erased their internet presence. Their website is blank, as is their Twitter feed (along with Thom Yorkeâs), as is their Facebook page. Hereâs a thought, though: over the past couple of years, members of Radiohead and their management team have been seen at shows by the 1975 and visiting the younger bandâs dressing room. Last year, the 1975 deleted their social media for 24 hours before returning with the build up to their second album. Is it possible Radiohead have been looking at and adapting some of the methods tried by a band who are very good at using social media to their own advantage and communicating with their fans? Radiohead â Amnesiac (2001) {2006, Japanese Edition} Faced with a deliberately difficult deviation into âexperimentation,â Radiohead and their record label promoted Kid A as just that â a brave experiment, and that the next album, which was just around the corner, really, would be the ârealâ record, the one to satiate fans looking for the next OK Computer, or at least guitars. At the time, people bought the myth, especially since live favorites like âKnives Outâ and âYou and Whose Army?â were nowhere to be seen on Kid A. That, however, ignores a salient point â Amnesiac, as the album came to be known, consists of recordings made during the Kid A sessions, so it essentially sounds the same. Since Radiohead designed Kid A as a self-consciously epochal, genre-shattering record, the songs that didnât make the cut were a little simpler, so it shouldnât be a surprise that Amnesiac plays like a streamlined version of Kid A, complete with blatant electronica moves and production that sacrifices songs for atmosphere. This, inevitably, will disappoint the legions awaiting another guitar-based record (that is, after all, what they were explicitly promised), but what were they expecting? This is an album recorded at the same time and Radiohead have a certain reputation to uphold. It would be easier to accept this if the record was better than it is. Where Kid A had shock on its side, along with an admirably dogged desire to not be conventional, Amnesiac often plays as a hodgepodge. True, itâs a hodgepodge with amazing moments: the hypnotic sway of âPyramid Songâ and âYou and Whose Army?,â the swirling âI Might Be Wrong,â âKnives Out,â and the spectacular closer âLife in a Glasshouse,â complete with a drunkenly swooning brass band. But, these are not moments that are markedly different than Kid A, which itself lost momentum as it sputtered to a close. And this is the main problem â though itâs nice for an artist to be generous and release two albums, these two records clearly derive from the same source and have the same flaws, which clearly would have been corrected if they had been consolidated into one record. Instead of revealing why the two records were separated, the appearance of Amnesiac makes the separation seem arbitrary â thereâs no shift in tone, no shift in approach, and the division only makes the two records seem unfocused, even if the best of both records is quite stunning, proof positive that Radiohead are one of the best bands of their time. ~ Allmusic Additional Info: Tracklist:
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