A for effort and a B for delivery

Apathy in the wake of OK

Rock is not dead—will no one believe this? Really now, rock is not even dying. It's not on its last legs, it's not eating itself, it's not not not. OK Computer believed this. Sure, OK Computer had a bleak vision of increasingly totalitarian corporate synergy, but it hollowed out its own space with guitars alternately beautiful and jarring. It was the same old angst, just directed at new authorities. And it was not only human against system, but also music against system.

Boring, right? It seems Radiohead thinks so. With Kid A, the band has completed their dystopian cycle. For the most part, it is neither a progression nor a new tact; it's a resignation. A more appropriate title might be simply Computer, or even, as if it were the next line in a dialogue, OK. It is difficult to say why or how this happened, but after watching Grant Gee's tour documentary, Meeting People is Easy, it's tempting to blame the rock star life itself. In the video, the band drifts through several continents on private jets and Valium 5, competing in front of Gee's camera in aloofness, dazedness, and self-pity. A band member says after a press conference, "I'm talked out; I'm a vacuum- brained bimbo." And it's not even Thom Yorke—it's the shell-shocked bassist, Colin Greenwood.

Or perhaps that tour was just too successful in establishing rock's persistence and relevance, and Yorke took it personally. Kid A, after all, feels like a solo album. A drum machine has all but replaced poor Phil Selway, and stringed instruments have been jettisoned for the most part to make way for the computers. It's quite a shame, since Jonny Greenwood is one of the few innovative rock guitarists left. It's easy to imagine the scene in their ghostly converted studio: Yorke sitting up all night in artificial light, getting up only to record another vocal track or to play a simple tonal progression on a keyboard. The others sulk around elsewhere, getting interviewed by Grant Gee.

Which is not to say Kid A isn't listenable. It's good, in fact, even though much of it borrows shamefully from such ambient classics as Aphex Twin's Selected Ambient Works, Vol. II and Brian Eno's Music for Airports. There is even the rare singable lyric, like "ice age coming, ice age coming" surfacing among other, more concrete touches like the fluttering dis-go beat of "Idioteque." More resonantly, Yorke's emotion feels genuine in songs like "How To Disappear Completely" when he sings repeatedly, "That there/that's not me/I'm not here/this isn't happening." It begs empathy, until you realize that the song is about a Tokyo press conference.

As if to confirm that Kid A is a Yorke side project, Radiohead has promised to release a spring album with the more "commercial" material they've recorded in the past two years. But this might end up being the most depressing thing of all—rock music can only be seen as popular pandering, even in the minds of one of the more talented and influential rock bands. That's not Radiohead/this isn't happening...

—Nathaniel Rich

All's natural in the world of high technology

In the past, Radiohead has had more hands on six-strings than almost any other group in rock. Their three guitarists have given their songs a level of intricacy unmatched by either their idols R.E.M. or dual-axe groups like the Smashing Pumpkins. But with the release of their new album, Kid A, Radiohead declares the guitar band label officially null and void.

1993's "Creep" brought Radiohead stardom, and they have been working their way out of the shadow cast by Jonny Greenwood's distortion-heavy lead ever since. The whirling keyboards and echoes of The Bends led to the fun-with-sampling experiments and chopped drums of OK Computer. Even as the band amassed a rich arsenal of sonic tricks, the foundation of a Radiohead song was always Thom Yorke singing his gorgeous melodies over strummed chords.

But now Radiohead wants us to know that the stylistic touches of their past two albums were not merely gimmicks. While their fans had "Karma Police" perpetually stuck in their heads, the band was busy experimenting. Since OK Computer they developed so much confidence in their keyboards, sampling, and looping that they were willing to abandon the familiar Radiohead format, or at least bury it beyond recognition. On Kid A, the group that NME calls the "most important guitar band on the planet" doesn't touch a guitar for the first third of the album. Yorke's voice, Radiohead's other essential ingredient, is digitally looped, mangled, and mimicked—at times it's uncertain whether we're hearing vocals or just cleverly synthesized sounds.

"Everything in its Right Place," the album's opener, consists only of lush electric piano, simple vocal lines and a synthesized kick drum. The sound is clean and sparkling, as if to cleanse the palette of such past complexities as "Paranoid Android." This leads into the album's intriguing title track, where Yorke's voice is vocoded into an unintelligible hum that is far from his usual clear tenor. In the third track, a pounding bass line and harsh reverb on the vocals leave us on edge enough to ask some obvious questions. Where are Thom and his melodies? Where are the dark ballads? And for a group that usually fronts three guitars, where is the band?

Then comes "How to Disappear Completely," which unfolds with all of the elements of a classic Radiohead song—brilliant vocals, an enduring melody, and blips of sound in all the right places. Radiohead, as it turns out, hasn't disappeared completely—they are just harder to find. Later tracks like "Optimistic" incorporate all the snotty angst and ringing guitars of previous albums. But the more abstruse sounds from the first few tracks keep resurfacing throughout Kid A, and the mix of old and new works. By the second or third listening, the entire album sounds as naturally Radiohead as ever, even the all-out techno drums of "Idioteque." The band has constructed beautifully intricate glass houses, welcoming their listeners inside and daring them to throw stones. And as the album unfurls its glistening design, it appears all is safe in the land of Radiohead.

—Dan Sobo

Yesterday I woke up dabbling on a sampler

"Yesterday I woke up sucking on a lemon...what was that you tried to say?" asks singer/songwriter Thom Yorke in "Everything in its Right Place," the opening track of Kid A. Following the release of two ground-breaking and essential '90s records, The Bends and OK Computer, Radiohead currently finds itself in a more favorable position than ever to challenge the contemporary musical and lyrical establishment. With Kid A, they accomplish just that. Awash in lush synthesizer arrangements, swooning electric piano, broken vocals, and frozen guitar work, it is apparent on first listen that it's not a normal album by any standards. However, it's not a very cohesive album either, leaving us asking Yorke what exactly he's trying to say.

The first two tracks mesh into one, sparse and evasive. Neither contains guitar parts, and both find Yorke's voice sampled and sandwiched to the brink of incoherency. Next comes "The National Anthem," the first outstanding track on the album. Featuring a linear bass line, concise drum work, and a distorted brass section, the song is instantly catchy.

The following three tracks comprise the best of what Kid A has to offer. "How to Disappear Completely," heard first on the OK Computer tour, comes across brilliantly on record. Yorke sighs his disillusionment, repeating the line "I'm not here, this is not happening" over and over. "Treefingers" is a glowing, trance-inducing instrumental that transitions into the sole radio-friendly track on the album, "Optimistic." This may be the only song on Kid A that reaches back to Radiohead's original sound to be with its soaring tenor vocals, jingle-jangle acoustic guitars, and tight rhythmic section. You'll find yourself playing air-guitar along with this one, an easy task compared to the air-sampler that fans are going to have to resort to on the rest of the album. In classic Radiohead form, "Optimistic" is, of course, not very optimistic at all.

The final four tracks of Kid A do their best to leave a lasting impression of the record's elliptical sound. "In Limbo" drowns its guitars under a cascade of delay and "Idioteque" continues the group's adventures in technology with techno drum fills. "Motion Picture Soundtrack," the album's closer, serves as an intoxicating end to an otherwise cool and unemotional record with its sparkling keyboards and Yorke's soothing croon reassuring us, "I will see you in the next life."

One hopes that the band will follow through on that promise and return once they've left the experimentation of Kid A behind. Although the album is original, it doesn't compare to the brilliance of Radiohead's previous two works. The heaps of studio equipment that have twisted Yorke's voice, looped countless keyboards, and tapped out digital drumbeats have filtered out Radiohead's lush melodies in the process. Obscure and lacking coherency in nearly all of its 50 minutes, Kid A sees Radiohead falling into the trap that snares many artists who receive widespread and critical acclaim: complacency. Perhaps the results of their concurrently-recorded album, scheduled for release in early 2001, will be more satisfying. (Capitol)

—Arunav Sen

Graphic by Eugene Wong and Eliot Rose.

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