Word: radiohead
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Although Kid A is indeed a testament to the triumphs and pitfalls of ever-changing, ever-challenging human/technology symbioses, it is also an autobiographical benchmark on Radiohead's evolutionary path. 1993's Pablo Honey saw the Oxfordians feel their way through the essence of being a so-called alternative band in a glut of Seattleites. Zeitgeist-capturing grunge-guitar riffs, perennial themes of love and loss, and charmingly obtuse self-loathing (remember "Creep?") earmarked the band for their potential in the mainstream music scene, and, more importantly, heralded the band's existence as a self-aware musical entity...
...Radiohead's sophomore release, the 1995 album The Bends, left previously skeptical critics pleasantly surprised. Having graduated from the mere thrills of self-aware existence and loud guitars, Radiohead used The Bends to explore themes of suburban ennui through subtler means. Chilling ballads and tortured rock songs backed with acoustic and electric instruments proved Yorke and the boys to be prolific musicians, while the album's commercial success established Radiohead as one of the most creative and experimental mainstream bands of the mid-nineties, not applicable to the Blur-vs.-Oasis Battle of the Brit Bands. "High and Dry," "Just...
...praise heaped upon 1997's OK Computer reached the asymptotic limit. No longer bored with pedestrian first-world existence, Radiohead's third album conveyed disgust with the selfish misuse of technology for self-improvement. Lucid lullabies ("Airbag," "No Surprises"), Kafkaesque visions ("Paranoid Android"), obligatory condemnatory ballads ("Karma Police," "Lucky") and a pleasingly incongruous-yet-wicked-good rock song ("Electioneering") assembled a musical line-up so good that one instantly forgave the band for the tiresome poem "Fitter Happier" occupying the seventh track of the album. The unanimous acclaim OK Computer received and subsequent appearance on every music magazine...
...electronic will. However, interspersed throughout the album are electronic baby babble and lullaby-like fragments-poignant moments that reminds the listener that the Kid A of the album's title, although a triumph of technology, is still a human being-an element of hope that has been lacking in Radiohead's previous releases. The struggle in the album reaches an ambiguous end in a setting where nothing is as it seems...
...first listen, "Idioteque" is easily the most bizarre song on the album. A comment on one Radiohead website called the track "a blatantly stupid attempt at making a cheesy dance song." The song, however, is intensely aware of its own artificiality, as given in the title. The lyrics make repeated references to "bunkers," and the counterpoint of Thom Yorke's bare voice against the drum machine conjures images of confinement...