Radiohead - Kid A / Amnesiac Poll

Wait. Why.

EIIRP or GTFO

Which is the one about the trapdoors? I can never remember if that's Pulk/Push or "Pakt Like Sardeeeeeens".

The first one.

I must say, seeing all those lined up and remembering they all came from the same sessions (along w/ the sweet b-sides) makes it pretty clear this was their best era by a long shot.

I don't think I can narrow this down to one song

This would be an incredible single album:

Packt Like Sardines In A Crushd Tin Box
Pyramid Song
Pulk/Pull Revolving Doors
Everything In Its Right Place
Morning Bell
Knives Out
I Might Be Wrong
Optimistic
In Limbo
Idioteque
Life In A Glasshouse

everytime i see 'i might be wrong' i think of 'you know you're right' and then i think of billy joel.

voted 'dollars and scents'.

xxxpost:

'Pulk/Pull Revolving Doors' is the one about the trapdoors.

Started this poll because I've been having a clear out over the last couple of days, and while going through my CD collection and considering which ones I wanted to get rid of and which ones I wanted to keep, I came across Kid A and Amnesiac and decided to listen to both back-to-back. Much has been said regarding these albums, but I was curious to see if these albums had actually been polled together on ILX before, but they don't seem to have done (I searched for a while too). Amnesiac has been polled on its own (started by crut, who managed to not post it on ILM), but it doesn't seem like Kid A has... unless its tucked out of the way somewhere!

torn between pyramid song and knives out. amnesiac is still by far their best album, i find. it is their most intimidating and frightening one as well, i think. so rich and at the same time so much of one piece. a milestone.

I thought it might be that one. (Pulk/Pull) I'm going to have to listen to them both again (quelle imposition!) just to make sure, but the lyrical imagery of that song, combined with all the crazy textural noises, it just hits my personal happy spot.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v165/noodle_vague/plate-spinning_3392074_GIFSoupcom_zps37c84d13.gif

in retrospect I sort of wish "Pulk" had been on Kid A in place of "How to Disappear" just to upset Nick Hornby et al even more, but it's obv a much better fit for Amnesiac.

I'm going to have to give serious thought to which track I choose here. There's a lot spread out over the course of these two albums that I really, really like. In a way, I kinda wish they'd never separated the tracks out into two albums and just thrown the lot together as a double extravaganza.

voted with the sardines of my heart

voted for The National Anthem

it sure would be nice to be able to listen to these like they weren't 'radiohead albums'

This is where Radiohead really started to lose the plot. Fair enough, it was very hard to follow up such a brilliant piece of work as OK Computer. But to screw up everything that they had achieved with that incredible record really took some doing.

uh

maybe I'm just a big weirdo but every Radiohead album from The Bends through Hail To The Thief is incredible

you stopped just before in rainbows!

(which is incredible)

individual songs on In Rainbows are great; as an album, I find it unlistenable

maybe i'm just a big weirdo but Amnesiac and HttT are my favorite ones.

ah, another radiohead thread.

Kid A > Amnesiac > IR > HTTT > TKOL

The four "desert island" Radiohead LP's for me are The Bends, OK Computer, Kid A and In Rainbows. While listening to Kid A and Amnesiac back-to-back tonight it occurred to me that I've seldom listened to Amnesiac on its own... it always tends to be after I've listened to Kid A. I don't think I've ever been able to view it as a standalone album or anything but an extension of Kid A, really.

Kid A's the only one I love.

I feel like at this point I can't have another conversation about how HTTT is my favourite album but In Rainbows is an overlong mess of songs that are fine individually but fail to work together, but because this is an ILM thread I feel compelled to inhabit some Donwood-esque hell where crying minotaurs force me to have that conversation... forever!

isn't IR like 10 songs in 40 min? but yeah, i wasn't crazy about it when it came out but over time i've come to love almost every song after hearing it out of context.

it is, though BB might be lumping in the "bonus" tracks as well.

it sure would be nice to be able to listen to these like they weren't 'radiohead albums'

― j., Wednesday, February 12, 2014 5:01 PM (25 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

otm

It just doesn't work for me, as an album. Then there's TKOL, which is like 25 long and I wouldn't change any if it, it grows more and more cohesive every time I listen to it.

still feel like "in rainbows" is the only radiohead album i have any time for nowadays.

these two are pretty good though, i can imagine a day when i can listen to these and regain some kind of enjoyment out of them. i was a HUGE radiohead stan from ages 17-25 but, i don't know, i just don't get any pleasure out of hearing them anymore

these two albums were the height of my radiohead fandom. can't say i listen to them that often anymore, but that's probably because i listened to them hundreds of times back in the day. i'm not sure which one to pick. Kid A (the song) only gets better and better with time.

I go through phases of listening to nothing but Radiohead intensely for a few months (these tend to be rather emotionally intense/transitional periods of my life) then not feeling the need to hear them at all for another year. It's like it's all or nothing saturation point with them.

xp yea, they were the peak of my fandom too even though nowadays i only want to hear in rainbows

I got off the Radiohead bus with Kid A. Bad songs! Nice production! Got back on the bus with In Rainbows. Great songs! Concise!

Voted for Motion Picture Soundtrack. When the harps come in is one of my favourite musical moments.

Overall In Rainbows is my favourite album of theirs. Love every song on there.

Voted for Kid A. Love the drums. Think King of Limbs is their best since Kid A. But the only one I really care about is Kid A. Kid A.

Frederik I think this is a tracks poll and iirc there are no drums on the title track of "Kid A" but there is some backwards singing and DX-7 bells

there's definitely a rhythmic pulse (especially a synth-BD kind of noise) though

ETIIRP or Pyramid Song.

ah, another radiohead thread.

― festival culture (Jordan), Wednesday, February 12, 2014

wait, there are more . . . ?

HTTT is my favourite album but In Rainbows is an overlong mess of songs that are fine individually but fail to work together

Completely agree with this, but the other way round.

Although the best songs on HttT are definitely better than 'fine', and they don't really fail to work together, but it is overlong. IR on the other hand is the most perfectly formed album they've done.

agree with that except i'd say OKC flowed even better. like melting buttah. so good. but i have a lot more time for IR these days

OKC computer is a moody teenager, IR a philosophical adult.

warm radiohead > icy, cold radiohead

HTTP: I loved the RAINDROPS! part, but couldn't care less about the rest, thought the "Drunken Punch-Up At A Wedding" song was bad-enough to sour the entire oeuvre, like "oh this is what Radiohead must sound like to people who hate Radiohead"

I listened to OK Computer a lot as a teen and never liked the mix, found it rarely transported me away from "men in a room", but the good songs are great enough for me not to care. I love Pablo Honey and The Bends, great albums!

I'm posting in this thread because somebody "accused" me of not liking Radiohead and I do like them, but not enough for some people

you must love them.

only ever heard these round someone else's house, what's the one with the plinky plonky keyboards, woozy vocoder and stop start drumming? i like that one.

No one ever likes Radiohead enough for "some people"! Apparently!

(I thought you told me you weren't a big fan?)

I was laughing at the thought of them swapping the original “Pull/Pulk” with the “True Love Waits” version for the final Amnesiac release and how irate their diehard fans would’ve been with TLW getting officially put out like that.

i actually really like this version of "true love waits" — familiar, yet not, simultaneously.

also agree that this era of b-sides is pretty delicious. in terms of b-side material, i think i prefer only the ok computer era.

“Worrywort” is probably a top 5 song in their discography for me. I don’t think it fits in any of their albums though.

“Kinetic” was always my favorite b-side from that era. Felt completely difficult to pin down compared to the others during those sessions.

my favourites are "cuttooth" and "fog"

While chatting about the experience with a friend tho he tipped me off to what he claims is his favourite RH song, “Worrywort”, which is so lovely, and then I enjoyed the rest of the Amnesiac b-sides, so yeah I agree w you Moka

― flamboyant goon tie included, Friday, November 5, 2021 8:25 PM (two hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

i put this, "transatlantic drawl", and "cuttooth" on my personal kid amnesiac playlist

hearing this early version of "kid a" with piano and live drums opened up this song.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A-oHjLIcPMU

“How to Disappear into Strings” is just incredible. Would love to hear more of just the string arrangements for their other songs.

Jonny Greenwood albums imo

xp that's not actually an "early" version. it's established that it was one of the first tracks finished for the album (by november 1999), but this version is from their summer 2000 tour, not too long before kid a was released. it's just a fairly different arrangement to how they started playing it from the httt tour onwards (though they've tweaked the live arrangement quite a few more times since then). they never played it between kid a's release & the httt tour, so they presumably weren't happy with this particular arrangement at the time.

i think pretty much everything from kid a/amnesiac was finished by the time they went on tour in june 2000, except "life in a glasshouse"

i stand corrected chronologically but i maintain i was otm about it fuckin slapping

yeah it's a great version

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tZhnUWCDuo4

this one's a soundboard recording from that tour, much better quality

thats great!

early “Kid A” live versions were great- think this one is soundboard as well

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8aJQcw2GcCM

In context it’s admirable that they were out of their comfort zone not only on record but adapting it to a live setting.

re the Pulk/Pull TLW, what a weird one. Prefer the released versions of both, but I'm fascinated by the history of TLW as a parallel to the song's subject and its final release on what was basically a divorce record, lyrically.

Man I just listened through to the whole reissue and Amnesiac sounds amazing, even Hunting Bears sounds amazing

hot take: hunting bears has always sounded amazing.

(but yes, this new remaster absolutely rewards headphone listening for longtime fans of the material.)

Pull/Pulk sounded a lot less opaque too. Like, I could hear Thom was saying actual words and not just mumbling through an FX unit

Huh? I thought it was confirmed that these weren’t remastered at all? I think the only change is in the half speed vinyl cut?

maybe i'm just listening more intently this time around? i just assumed these were newly spit-shined or whatever. however the case, these albums have always sounded fantastic and always will.

The radiohead subreddit kind of confirms it:

https://www.reddit.com/r/radiohead/comments/qpwmrs/psa_on_kid_amnesia_neither_kid_a_nor_amnesiac_are/

There’s been dozen of threads confirming it’s the same release. It should sound better in vinyl format either way.

XP ah right I was wondering if it was a remaster or if my ears are just working differently now

Don’t fix what’s not broken imho. The originals still sound great to my ears. There’s very little things I’d change.

I’d definitely remaster Hail to the Thief if they release a 20th anniversary thing for that one.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_xUC-FYazdU

^^^^ This is the very first-ever performance of “How to Disappear Completely” (back when it was known as “How to Disappear Completely and Never Be Found”). I far prefer it to the album version.

it took years of listening to kid a before the album version started to seem like the "real" one

that performance truly was a benefit for the bootleggers, lol!

Ummm... I don't hear how that fuzzy live bootleg is really any better or all that different from the studio version?

must agree, sounds at that point like an ok computer outtake. still quite good, but.

and again: much as i love them, i'm not really at the level of fandom that merits appreciating bootlegs with radiohead.

contradiction: the live performances of the king of limbs era material is the definitive way to hear that stuff, but that's probably the consensus by this point.

it's not about the quality or the composition, it's that it was a very early circulated radiohead bootleg, the highest quality one of an unreleased song. everyone listened to it for years and years before the studio version was released

i think i was afraid that would happen to me with "pyramid song" bc i listened to the bootleg from the tibetan freedom concert that's just thom on piano like, over and over again for a solid year before amnesiac came out. the studio version was better though

The KID A MNESIA exhibition / game is astounding. Makes up for how mildly disappointing the physical release for the anniversary was.

it's pretty good yeah

people are currently working on extracting all the audio from it, there's a lot of interesting stuff found already. looking forward to digging through that

there's a 7 minute "pulk/pull" with the chords from the "true love waits" version but the "pulk/pull" vocals

where do i see / hear / experience this exactly?

https://kida-mnesia.com/
https://www.epicgames.com/store/p/kid-a-mnesia-exhibition

& someone's dumping some of the stems & oddities as they go through them here: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/10FpF2mwKf9ESb8F0OIXOjUplKkOJa49q

but it's very incomplete at the moment, there should be a better collection up within a few days. some of this stuff isn't anywhere (that i could tell anyway) to be found in the exhibition either

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/12lJ23Bobg6qt00Z35vbxf1Fwo3Ez48T-

oh this is apparently all the audio files but there's hundreds of them & they're unlabelled

nice!

this was the hope. Sweet. Can't wait to get into this.

Mailed my vinyl back to Toronto. Kid A was a mess!

I find it hard to listen to scuzzy bootlegs of *any* artist tbh.
But bootleg audio aside, that version is pretty uninteresting compared to the album version. No cross-rhythm with the bassline, boring strummy guitar, no strings. Meh.

The most interesting ones I heard were the vocals from pulk/pull without fx that makes Thom sound like a soulless salesman and an 8 bit optimistic.

the "8 bit optimistic" was just an organ track that must have been absolutely buried in the original version or something

I don't know what I expected but this is all surprisingly expensive imho - https://merch.kida-mnesia.com/

It is. It's cute that QR codes leading to products are scattered around the game... when i exited a place there were bears holding up a sign with a code... leading to their cookies. The bears are aggressive salesmen. 25 quid though, and probably as much again in postage...nuh uh.

The free game is great though.

Kudos to the @LandsEnd designer who got this past corporate. pic.twitter.com/2shIx5fMT5

— Sam Van Hallgren (@samvanhallgren) December 10, 2021

Reminds me of this all-time great ILM thread:

Photoshop/MS Paint Nike and other evil corporations ruining famous album covers

Sadly, most of them are gone forever.