FEATURE:
You and Whose Army?
Radiohead's Fantastic and Underrated Amnesiac at Twenty
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THERE are a few Radiohead albums…
PHOTO CREDIT: Danny Clinch
that have revived mixed reviews. I think their debut, Pablo Honey (1993), is one. Hail to the Thief (2003) is another. Amnesiac is twenty on 4th June, and it is an album that got some positive reviews alongside others that were less glowing. I will bring in a couple. Some would argue Amnesiac is a celebrated album and critics were behind it. There are plenty who have pulled certain songs apart. Others have not really got on board with a terrific album. Arriving a year after the huge sonic shift that was Kid A, Amnesiac was not a return to the sounds we heard on The Bends (1995) and OK Computer (1997). Released on 5th June in the U.S., the album was recorded with producer Nigel Godrich in the same sessions as Kid A. The band felt that a double album would be too dense and much. They split it into two. That said, it is hard to compare them both. I think that Amnesiac is a lot different to Kid A. It is clear that Radiohead (especially Thom Yorke) was experimenting more with Electronic textures. Perhaps bored of guitar music or feeling that he was in a rut as a songwriter, it is great to hear Radiohead embracing new directions and not standing still. There are so many different styles and sounds portrayed through Amnesiac. I love the slow and haunting piano of Pyramid Song. Contrast that to the boozy, woozy brass of Life in a Glasshouse, and Amnesiac is a rich and diverse album. It debuted at number-one on the album chart in the U.K. It peaked at number-two on the US Billboard 200.
Even though Amnesiac does not get the same accolades as Kid A, I think the twentieth anniversary warrants respect and focus. I also think the album contains some of Radiohead’s best work. Pyramid Song, You and Whose Army?, I Might Be Wrong, Knives Out, and Life in a Glasshouse are classics. I also really like some of the lesser-highlighted songs such as Dollars and Cents. Before finish up, it is worth bringing together a couple of reviews. There are many hugely positive reviews for Amnesiac, though I feel some are a little unfair or do not give the album the love it deserves. Whilst not entirely positive, AllMusic admire the consistency and quality of Radiohead:
“Faced with a deliberately difficult deviation into "experimentation," Radiohead and their record label promoted Kid A as just that -- a brave experiment, and that the next album, which was just around the corner, really, would be the "real" 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 "Knives Out" and "You and Whose Army?" were nowhere to be seen on Kid A. That, however, ignores a salient point -- 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 didn't make the cut were a little simpler, so it shouldn't 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, it's a hodgepodge with amazing moments: the hypnotic sway of "Pyramid Song" and "You and Whose Army?," the swirling "I Might Be Wrong," "Knives Out," and the spectacular closer "Life in a Glasshouse," 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 -- though it's 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 -- there's 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”.
I also like Pitchfork’s review of Amnesiac. There are a few tracks that they are not keen on. Never ones to give too much praise, they do give the album some applause.
“Similarly disappointing is "Pulk/Pull Revolving Doors." Powered by a gritty industrial beat, the song's intentional abstractness, for the first time ever, seems forced and caricatured. Thom's MacinYorke vocal treatments never seemed terribly groundbreaking, and here, the gimmick has gone utterly limp. Yorke's lyrical content is also at its most unchallenging, as he educates us on the many varieties of doors that exist, over oafish, programmed beats worthy of a Cleopatra Records sampler. Elsewhere, "Hunting Bears" is a two-minute instrumental clip of aimless guitar noodling that shoots for Neil Young's Dead Man soundtrack but comes off as a cutrate Wish You Were Here outtake. A track like this is meant to segue into a related piece of music; instead, we're flung headfirst into the completely dissimilar "Like Spinning Plates."
If nothing else, Radiohead have always realized the emotional impact of a stunning album closer, and Amnesiac offers two. Sitting side by side, "Like Spinning Plates" and "Life in a Glasshouse" are so vastly superior to the album's other tracks that the album's few misteps are easily forgiven. "Spinning Plates," while a much better fit for Kid A, is nonetheless one of Radiohead's most affecting tracks to date. It opens with a digitally simulated "spinning" sound, disorienting reversed keyboard, and subtle keyboard pings. The song hits its peak when Yorke's indecipherable backwards vocals unexpectedly revert to traditional forward singing during the mournful climax, "And this just feels like/ Spinning plates/ My body's floating down a muddy river."
But if "Like Spinning Plates" would have been a fitting apex for Kid A, "Life in a Glasshouse" is entirely suited to the eclectic Amnesiac. Rather than creating a unique, Frankensteinian amalgamation from fragments of other genres, Radiohead instead target a style of music that hasn't been touched for decades: Edison-era big band. In the process of adapting the archaic jazz sound to polyrhythmic piano chords and rock lyricism, Radiohead touch upon an incredibly unique sound that could potentially inspire an entirely new genre.
"Glasshouse" is most easily (and most often) likened to a New Orleans funeral dirge-- probably because it's not far off the mark. Largely inspired by Louis Armstrong's "St James Infirmary," this track is the least like the others on Amnesiac, and easily the record's winning moment. When, amidst rueful trombone, tumbling clarinet, and the crushingly emotive trumpet of longtime BBC session musician Humphrey Lyttelton, Yorke insists, "Of course I'd like to sit around and chat/ Of course I'd like to stay and chew the fat," and follows it with a minute of wailing "only, only, only... there's someone listening in," the intensity is indescribable”.
I definitely feel Amnesiac warrants new focus and investigation. It is an album that would have shocked fans and those expecting Radiohead to produce something more Rock-orientated in 2001. With some brilliant minor cuts and some truly awesome and phenomenal songs, Amnesiac is an album that unfolds and unfurls after a few listens. A happy twentieth anniversary to the fifth studio album from the…
ALWAYS remarkable and innovative Radiohead.