Kid A
Radiohead
EMI/Capitol
The National Anthem"--the third song on what would have been, three
or four formats ago, Side A of Radiohead's new record--almost fooled
me into thinking that this album was written and performed by human
beings from the planet Earth. It starts with a heavy fuzz bass riff,
repeated twice before that first cymbal crash, and the song grooves
and boogies (who gave Radiohead a horn section?) and defines its
layers of internal melody just like a regular rock song. When I
saw Radiohead perform it on Saturday Night Live, though they
deployed their array of pedals and computers and synthesizers, it
certainly appeared to be people turning the dials and jabbing at
the buttons.
But listen to Kid A closely and it's harder to say. The
complex three-guitar landscapes
of their first effort, 1993's Pablo Honey, have evolved into
thick textures of electronica: Buzzes and hums, spaceships taking
off and landing, minor chords held indefinitely on keyboards. Except
for the rare rock-out moments, Kid A sounds like beautiful
movie music for very sad robots. The official story is that Radiohead
are five chums who formed a group in the late '80s pop vacuum, friends
who started playing together in Oxford, England a decade and three
records ago; a whiny, distorted pop group from the smartest town on
Earth who earned MTV stardom on the back of "Creep," an agonized love
song sung by the odd man out: "I'm a creep / I'm a weirdo / what the
hell am I doing here? / I don't belong here."
If Radiohead have been replaced by robot clones, they've done their
homework. For all the departures of Kid A, Radiohead have
never been a verse/ chorus/verse outfit. "Creep" was a pop song,
yes, but it was a pop song like "Smells Like Teen Spirit" was a
pop song. The lyrics rise and fall in intensity, the textures shift,
but the chords stay the same throughout: G to B, a hesitant half-tone
up to C, a desperate shift to C minor.
"I'm not here / this is not happening / I'm not here," moans frontman
Thom Yorke on "How To Disappear Completely," a moody march-tempo
ballad midway through Kid A. Radiohead have won a cult following
larger than most band's non-cult followings, and still they are
poets of dissociation, still going on about not being where they
are, about the struggle of the outsider: "Big fish eat the little
ones / big fish eat the little ones / ... try the best you can /
try the best you can."
What's changed for Radiohead is their positioning in the cultural
universe. They have entered that dangerous space for the avant-gardist,
where enough people have signed on to their particular brand of
eclecticism that they can afford to do what they feel like and remain
confident that they will move product. This can be a license for
self-indulgence (see Lou Reed's Metal Machine Music), an
invitation to abandon better instincts and make dull masturbatory
music. Red flags litter Radiohead's recent interviews, statements
about "doing it differently or not doing it at all," avoiding "anything
that smacked of the old route, or of being a rock 'n' roll band."
After 1997's blockbuster OK Computer--harsh and menacing
and electric, but undeniably rock 'n' roll--and the self-pitying
promotional film Meeting People Is Easy, it sounded like
Radiohead were morphing into what David Foster Wallace once called
in a different context "the inward bound."
All the more remarkable that Kid A is a such a fine piece
of work, less immediately accessible then OK Computer but
certainly as rewarding. Dense and marvelously complicated, Kid
A shows all the signs of being a cohesive, careful work of art.
It is at heart a beat record, an inspired combination of programmed
and played percussion, propulsive and imaginative: Drummer Phil
Selway has co-opted the encroaching computerization of his instrument
with sophistication and good grace. Above the drums Kid A
is richly textural, a layering of guitars and howls and blips. Each
song builds up, establishes a particular energy and then floats
away, ceding space to the next one. These songs are like weather
systems: strange and intangible and beautiful, forceful and then
suddenly serene.
Kid A is not a lovable album, not an album for sing-alongs.
The lyrics are often intangible, inscrutable, melting in and out
of the ambience around them, rarely cresting into definable, isolated
hooks. And when they do, Yorke is hitting those improbable super-high
notes, the kind that make your vocal chords tighten and ache when
you try them in the shower. He's like Wilco's Jeff Tweedy imagined
by Philip K. Dick.
Only with "Motion Picture Soundtrack," the warbling dirge that
closes out the album, does it start to feel like Radiohead have
run out of ideas. Besides, we know already that what we're listening
to is inherently visual, the sort of emotion-rich soundtrack music
that creates its own pictures, entirely distinct from what's on
the screen. 
Ben Winters is a playwright in Chicago.
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