Taking Sides - Amnesiac vs. Kid A

if you were an ignorant moron listening to shitty music all the time, yes

i think they made this more likely! 'kid a' was a Big Event not just because of the media and public but because it was released without singles and with these weird eco-shows (iirc) instead of a regular tour. that looked far more arrogant, in its way, than doing a patchy double-LP.

doglatin on this thread is like some kind of armando ianucci bot spouting out ridiculous ill thought out opinons with no link to reality.

Electroclash was spawned and then Girls Aloud and stuff etc.

LOLOLOLOLOLOL

maybe fandango you're right but i don't think Radiohead ever wanted to shoot themselves in the foot. In a way by releasing two albums they made their experiments easier to swallow for the Mondeo-generation whereas I think a double-album in the style of say The White Album full of dibs and dabs and experiments and a reprise of one of the main tracks appearing on each side would have kept their integrity without alienating their fanbase.

LOLOLOLOLOLOL

Less of this kind of thing please. Say what you mean, because that's even more ill thought out than anything I've contributed to this thread.

1) Tanked their whole career with the backlash (bloated, "too experimental" etcetera) if it didn't work.
2) Made Thom the new John Lennon with Kid Amnesiac as their White Album if it did.

I don't blame them for letting some pressure off personally. But then I don't really like sprawliing double albums much either!

you don't get big without wanting it; moreoever it takes hard work. oasis didn't put the effort into the states that radiohead did.

LOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLLOL

but really

WTFWTFWTFWTFWTFWTFWTF

Of course most of that was just a fond reference, and not the actively despicable nostalgia for "better times" when you had "real music" men were men and women were in the kitchen, NME-jackboot encouraged conservative shite you got with the arrival of the Britpop branding.

Pretty much OTM. If they had released Kid A and Amnesiac together it would have had a smaller-scale version of the effect that The Fragile and Tusk had on NIN and Fleetwood Mac sales.

idk if anyone GAF about another person trying to make this a double album BUT *i* dont GAF and did it anyway! never really liked the sequencing of this that much tbh, and still do wish it was a big fuck off double when they released it, but hey.

treefingers, idioteque, morning bell, everything in its right place, hunting bears, i might be wrong, pulk/pull revolving doors, dollars and cents, pyramid song, kid a, natiuonal anthem, packt like sardines, like spinning plates, optimistic, in limbo, how to dissapear completely, you and whose army, life in a glasshouse, motion pic soundtrack, untitled.

Having them be separate albums was the right choice. This way you get one great album and a not so good one instead of a double not so great album with some great songs in it.

he's really done it this time

The great album is Amnesiac, right?

(btw Moka, does your ilx email work?)

No "Knives Out" or "Morning Bell (Amnesiac)"? Both versions of the latter are essential to me.

I’m not sure? Did you send me an email recently?

Oh I just found one from you! I think it sends all the “robot” mails to spam... damn now I’m wondering if there’s other ilxors whose mails I never replied to :/

Let me write you!

I was trying to do a combination of both albums, where disc 1 is comprised of the “electronic” songs (turns out only 1/3 of each album counts as such) and disc 2 is the jazzy / rock thing and it sucks so hard this way. Without the contrast of one another it becomes two bad albums.

Eg:

DISC 1

Everything in its right place
Kid A
Packt like Sardines
Pulk/pull
Idioteque
Treefingers
Like Spinning Plates

DISC 2

The National Anthem
How to disappear completely
Pyramid Song
Optimistic
Knives Out
You and whose army
In limbo
Dollars and cents
I might be wrong
Morning Bell
Life in a glasshouse
Motion Picture Soundtrack

You’d think that for all that talk about Radiohead “going electronic” those would be the dominating sound.

Xpost knives out is just a wall of dreariness to me. And one version of morning bell is enough on a (fake) double album. These two tracks would be decent b sides.

"You’d think that for all that talk about Radiohead “going electronic” those would be the dominating sound."

I was surprised to find this too. Bit yeah, you cant really make a clean separation between the different modes as there are no neat separations.

kid a is the greatest album

OF ALL TIME

honestly, it is pretty great, still. i gave it a really good listen last week for the first time in forever and was still enthralled by just about everything

I liked Kid A a lot when it came out, but got sick of it real quick. Amnesiac I didn’t like at all, apart from “Pyramid Song.” The second half was so boring! Haven’t heard either album in years. Thom after Kid A was released going “Don’t worry if you’re not into the electronic avant-garde stuff, our next album is gonna be more guitar-oriented and accessible” was an A+ troll.

i remember that troll, and i'm 99% that was just ed talking about how that's what he wanted

candyman, there's two things I particularly like in your running order: the very chilly start with "Treefingers" and "Idioteque", and "Dollars and Cents" as a palate-cleanser for "Pyramid Song".
I can't see "Knives Out" as more dreary than "Life in a Glasshouse" though.

use some of the b-sides in your resequencings u cowards

Knives Out always sounded like a poor man's reprise of Karma Police to me. Complaining that Radiohead songs are dreary is a bit... something, mind. Life In A Glasshouse is great and remarkable for the New Orleans funeral brass though

that's funny, to me Knives Out sounds like a poor man's reprise of Paranoid Android. Or is that what you meant?

In my resequencing I was thinking of doing actually 3 10 track albums and “worrywort” and “kinetic” were going to go in the “electronic” album but stopped completely because I thought it sounded off. Might retake it.

Didnt include b sides in mine, as that would make it too complicated, and LONG!. But I like a challenge...

I can’t even remember how knives out goes, I keep thinking of morning bell for some reason

oh right... “catttttt mousssse” that’s a good one yeah

So knives out
Catch the mouse
Don't look down
Cut the kids in half

Revisiting these albums and then thinking about moon shaped pool, you can see how they got from songs like knives out to MSP

There’s always a part of me that wishes they’d taken the DNA of “kinetic” and mined that vein for an album or three.

optimistic and i might be wrong are so great.

Kinetic is imho more successful at nailing an experimental electronic song than songs like pulk/pull, like spinning plates.

id like a version of national anthem without the slightly wonky jazz freakout at the end which is cool but doesnt seem totally convincing.