Amnesiac - Radiohead

During the recording stage of Kid A, Radiohead produced well over 30 songs and rather than releasing a double album, which none of the band members were in favour of, they released their fifth studio album just sixth months after the release of their fourth.

Amnesiac is therefore very much a continuation of what the band did on Kid A; the album is for the most part dominated by electronically produced music and ambient sounds, as Kid A was. Jazz influences are also evident, most obviously in the album closer Life in a Glass House which Thom Yorke (on piano) recorded with British trumpeter Humphrey Lyttelton, along with a clarinet and trombone, producing a funereal, New Orleans jazz-style number.

As with Kid A the band continued to experiment with the way they made their music and what they used to do so. Songs such as Packt like Sardines in a Crushd Tin Box and Pulk/Pull Revolving Doors are made up of different electronic textures and sounds and Yorke’s lyrics are cryptic and mysterious. Challenging songs have become a facet of a Radiohead album and Amnesiac is no exception, however there are more radio friendly tracks.

I Might Be Wrong despite its electronic feel revolves around a jazzy guitar riff written by Jonny Greenwood and is one of, if not the most impressive tracks on the album. Knives Out is also a more guitar dominated track, sharing a similar chord progression to arguably the band’s most well-known song, Paranoid Android.

Despite these brief glimpses back to the band’s old style, there can be no doubt that both Amnesiac and Kid A are more about experimenting and trying new things. Songs such as Dollars & Cents, which are dominated by a string arrangement written by Greenwood and a simple bass melody and little else, would never have been found on their 90s LPs. The same can be said of the ominous, bluesy guitar instrumental Hunting Bears which follows. The epitome of Radiohead’s invention though, comes with the penultimate track Like Spinning Plates, a song which is built up over a reversed electronic version of an unreleased track, and also sees one of Yorke’s most hypnotic vocal performances.

Amnesiac is a hard album to sum up. While not as musically accomplished as Kid A, in each track there is something to treasure, whether it be the wailing ondes martenot on Pyramid Song or the Release Me refrain of the new version of the Kid A track, Morning Bell. It is clear that both albums were part of the same project and it seems that the material on Kid A is the best of what was produced from this period – the stuff they had to produce to follow up OK Computer, while the material on Amnesiac is rawer, more organic– the stuff that they simply, produced.

8