It was the summer after I finished college and I was living in an apartment complex with a buddy of mine. Tight quarters, cookie cutter style, everything smelled like Thai food. I went and purchased Kid A, probably from Best Buy, and at that time I only bought new releases from Pearl Jam, Radiohead, and Stone Temple Pilots. And usually buying one of these new albums was a lone bright point in an otherwise unnoteworthy existence. I came home put Kid A in my stereo and played it loud. Not as loud as I would have liked because of the cubby hole closeness of my neighbors, but loud enough to enjoy. About 2 minutes into Everything In Its Right Place I started to laugh. A laugh similar to the one I project as I am listening to certain Bob Dylan songs (A Hard Rains Gonna Fall, Like A Rolling Stone) or watching certain Wes Anderson flicks (all of them). I am not laughing because it is Richard Pryor funny, but more like I am laughing because only aliens can produce what I am listening to, human beings are incapable. With Bob Dylan it is lyrically, with Wes Anderson it is his ability to create alternate realities, and with Radiohead it is sonically, lyrically, and their ability to create an another world. They do it all.
Then our cable man came to the front door and I went scrambling for the volume knob and ripped it down to almost a whisper. My reaction was that of someone watching scrambled porn with a knock at the door. I felt as though I shouldn’t be listening to this. It took me halfway to my volume knob to realize what I was doing was ridiculous. I don’t really care what my cable guy thinks; the music was just…not what I had ever heard before.
This record is filled with everything you want from a good album; interesting lyrics, more interesting sounds, great energy, and complete originality. I won’t waste everybody’s time by dissecting each song because the thought bores me to death. It’s been reviewed plenty of time by people who know more about music and people who know less about music than me. Most end with the same sentiment. It is amazing.
Although different, this album was not a complete surprise. It wasn’t as if Garth Brooks came out with this album. It was Radiohead and they had just put out an amazing OK Computer album, which served as a nice bridge between the acoustic, rhythmic guitar of The Bends and this extraterrestrial sonic explosion that was Kid A. This record doesn’t sound like anyone. Maybe it does, but that is outside of my knowledge of music. I think the album might be influenced by small green men residing on the planet Thom Yorke, Johnny Greenwood and company call home.
Upon listening to this album in its entirety I realized that this record feels like the end of the world; an apocalypse in a good way, in the way that it might be the end of the world but everything would all come back in due time. In one of my favorite books, Killing Yourself To Live, Chuck Klosterman explains how Kid A is a crystal ball into the horrible events that happen on September 11, 2001, 11 months after its release. Chuck Klosterman may be insane, on drugs, a genius or all three; it is eerily similar.
The first song on Kid A paints the Manhattan skyline at 8:00 A.M. on Tuesday morning; the song is titled "Everything in Its Right Place." People woke up that day "sucking on a lemon," because that's what life normally feels like on the Manhattan subway; the city is a beautiful, sour, sarcastic place. We soon move onto song two, which is the title track. It is the sound of woozy, ephemeral normalcy. It is the sound of Jonny Greenwood playing an Ondes Martenot, an instrument best remembered for its use in the Star Trek theme song. You can imagine humans walking to work, riding elevators, getting off the C train and the 3 train, and thinking about a future that will be a lot like the present, only better. The term KID A is Yorke's moniker for the first cloned human, which he (only half jokingly) suspects may already exist. The consciously misguided message is this: Science is the answer. Technology solves everything, because technology is invulnerable. And this is what almost everyone in America thought around 8:30 A.M. But something happens three and a half minutes into "Kid A". It suddenly doesn't feel right, and you don't exactly know why. This is followed by track three, "The National Anthem"
This is when the first plane slams into the north tower at 470 mph
You see, apocalyptic.
You have probably looked at many end of the year publications ranking the best albums of the decade and more times than not Radiohead- Kid A is tops on the list. You can hardly argue the points they make. What is amazing is the fact this album might be the best of the decade and also the most overrated. This doesn’t stop me from loving this record and placing it at the top of my list for albums of the ‘oughts’. So tonight put on your headphones and close your eyes and listen to Kid A in its entirety. If you don’t feel like picturing the events of 9/11 (and I don’t blame you), just listen to how amazing and detailed the record is. I have a hard time believing that I will hear anything like Kid A ever again. It was completely shocking and still holds up after nearly a decade.
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