Albums That I Liked (in 2000): Kid A

Ahoy! This is the start of a music feature (finally!) that will be ongoing. Essentially, it's a sort of "best-of the last decade" thing, but instead of doing a list or anything I'm just going to go through each year and talk about whichever albums I want. So I'll be on the year 2000 for a bit, then 2001, and so on and so forth.




The year is 1997. Radiohead have just released their revolutionary album OK Computer to deafening critical praise. The album is an extremely complicated piece of music, mixing their previous mainstream alt-rock appeal with thick, experimental soundscapes, and trading in teen angst and heartbreak for complex lyrical themes of consumerism, social corruption, and alienation. In the public eye, they have finally reached their full potential, and have established themselves as a band important to the present and future of rock music.

The question, of course, remained: Now what? Well, for Radiohead, the answer was to take away anything resembling an electric guitar and create one of the best electronic albums of all-time. Kid A is a huge stylistic change from their earlier work; one that, in my opinion, payed off in spades. From the opening descending synth run in Everything in It's Right Place to the organ and harp fade-out of Motion Picture Soundtrack, this album grips you with a feeling of oppressiveness and paranoia. The world of Kid A is cold and emotionless; everything seems eerily sterile and programmed to perfection.

Most of the music perfectly exemplifies this feeling with tons of synthesizers and strange sound effects, but what's great about the album is that almost every song stands out on its own while still working perfectly with the overall feel of the album. Only two of the ten songs here don't immediately stand by themselves; the ambient interlude Treefingers is really just that, and the OK Computer-esque Optimistic (the only track where the guitar is the dominant instrument), while actually a really nice, well-written song, doesn't really fit with the rest of the album. Regardless, these are still good songs, and serve to break up the oppressive nature of the album.

Something else pretty neat about Kid A is that it was one of the first largely-pirated albums ever, debuting on Napster a month before it's release - and yet, it debuted at number one on the album charts in the UK, US, France, Ireland, New Zealand, and Canada. Just sayin'.

I've always said that, as a real ALBUM, as in a cohesive musical work and not just a collection of songs, Kid A is maybe my favourite album ever. You need to be in a specific mood to listen to it, but there just aren't any other albums that can so totally express such a feeling of dread and paranoia of the surrounding world. It's a breathtaking piece of music and one that should not be missed by anyone who consider themselves fans of music in general.



Suggested Songs:
- Everything In Its Right Place
- How To Disappear Completely
- Idioteque

Agree? Disagree? Questions? Comment!

-Daniel

Stuff That I Saw: I Am Trying To Break Your Heart

I Am Trying To Break Your Heart is a documentary about the creation of the band Wilco's monumental album Yankee Hotel Foxtrot. Sort of. What's interesting about the documentary is that it isn't so much about the recording of the album itself as it is about the problems Wilco faced getting the record actually released. In fact, by the halfway point of the movie, the album is already completely finished.

It's a really great movie, filmed in stark black-and-white and showing a band who is at a turning point in their career (which certainly ended up being true; Yankee Hotel Foxtrot shot Wilco to alt-rock superstar status, and is generally considered their finest hour). What the film ends up really being about is the music business itself, and a band's unwillingness to compromise their artistic integrity in the face of label pressures.

What's cool about this documentary (and I guess Wilco as a band) is that you can tell everyone in the band is basically normal. Nobody in the band seems to be an eccentric genius, alcohol/drug abuser, or ladies' man (though there is one hilarious scene where a bunch of girls ask bassist John Stirrat to sign their asses). Jeff Tweedy especially, the guitarist, singer and main songwriter of the band, is a perfectly normal guy; he's married with two kids, is a little shy and awkward around fans, and just generally seems like a really dedicated, hard-working guy.

Director Sam Jones keeps the pace at a steady clip throughout the brisk hour and a half runtime. Peppered between interviews is footage of the band rehearsing, recording, and mixing the songs and some very nicely-shot live performance clips. The DVD itself is a really nice package, containing a bunch of extra performance clips and deleted, as well as some live Jeff Tweedy solo tunes and a short making-of feature (which, yes, seems a little bit odd, but it's very short and gives some interesting insight about the documentary-filming process and why Jones decided to make Wilco his first project).

This film is a real treat for Wilco fans; we get to see a band actually recording their magnum opus! That's incredible! Can you imagine how cool it would be to, say, see Radiohead make OK Computer (or, in my opinion, Kid A, but that's another post altogether)? Or The Beatles make Abbey Road? It's amazing that the creation of such a seminal album is documented here, and the best part is that seeing this film actually adds a layer of depth to the album, making it even more enjoyable. So, in short: cool band, interesting predicament, great performance clips and a higher understanding of the context in which the album was created, making an already deep album even deeper. Really, what more could you ask from a music documentary?

-Daniel