In Limbo

Kid A Studio album by Radiohead Released 2 October 2000 Recorded January 1999 - April 2000 Genre Electronica, experimental rock, Alternative rock Length 49:57 Label Parlophone, Capitol Producer Nigel Godrich, Radiohead Radiohead chronology OK Computer, (1997) Kid A, (2000) Amnesiac, (2001) Kid A is the fourth studio album by the English rock band Radiohead, released in October 2000 by the Parlophone label. A commercial success worldwide,Kid A went platinum in its first week of release in the United Kingdom. Despite the lack of an official single or music video as publicity, Kid A became the first Radiohead release to debut at number one in the United States. This success was credited variously to a unique marketing campaign, the early Internet leak of the album, and anticipation after the band's acclaimed 1997 album OK Computer. Kid A was recorded in Paris, Copenhagen, Gloucestershire and Oxford with producer Nigel Godrich. The album's songwriting and recording were experimental for Radiohead, as the band replaced their earlier "anthemic" rock style with a more electronic sound. Influenced by Krautrock,jazz, and 20th century classical music, Radiohead abandoned their three-guitar line-up for a wider range of instruments on Kid A, using keyboards, the ondes Martenot, and, on certain compositions, strings and brass. Original artwork by Stanley Donwood and Thom Yorke, and a series of short animated films called "blips", accompanied the album. The album won a Grammy for Best Alternative Album and was nominated for Album of the Year. It also received praise for introducing listeners to diverse forms of underground music. Despite the band's new direction alienating some fans and critics,Kid A received generally positive reviews from notable music publications. Several publications have rated it as the best album of the 2000s and among the greatest of all time. To date the album has sold over four million copies worldwide. Background edit: Following the critical and commercial success of their 1997 album OK Computer, the members of Radiohead began to suffer psychological burnout; particularly songwriter Thom Yorke, who suffered a mental breakdown. He told The Guardian: "I always used to use music as a way of moving on and dealing with things, and I sort of felt like that the thing that helped me deal with things had been sold to the highest bidder and I was simply doing its bidding. And I couldn't handle that." Troubled by new acts he perceived to be imitating Radiohead's style, he believed his music had become part of a constant background noise he described as "fridge buzz", and became openly hostile to the music media. He began to suffer from writer's block, and said "Every time I picked up a guitar I just got the horrors. I would start writing a song, stop after 16 bars, hide it away in a drawer, look at it again, tear it up, destroy it." Yorke said he had become disillusioned with the "mythology" of rock music, feeling the genre had "run its course". He began to listen almost exclusively to the electronic music of Warp artists such as Aphex Twin and Autechre. He said: "It was refreshing because the music was all structures and had no human voices in it. But I felt just as emotional about it as I'd ever felt about guitar music." Bassist Colin Greenwood said: "We felt we had to change everything. There were other guitar bands out there trying to do similar things. We had to move on." Recording and production edit: See also: Amnesiac recording When Radiohead began work on the album early in 1999, the members had differing ideas as to the musical direction they should take. Guitar player Ed O'Brien wanted to strip the band's style down to direct, three-minute guitar pop songs, while Yorke felt their past efforts with rock music had "missed the point". Yorke said he had "completely had it with melody. I just wanted rhythm". Yorke had been a DJ and part of a techno band at Exeter University, and began to listen almost exclusively to electronic music, saying, "I felt just as emotional about it as I'd ever felt about guitar music". He liked the idea of his voice being used as an instrument rather than having a leading role in the album. Work began on Kid A with OK Computer producer Nigel Godrich, without a deadline from the label. Yorke, who had the greatest control within the band, was still facing writer's block. His new songs were incomplete, and some consisted of little more than a drum machine rhythm and lyric fragments he had drawn from a hat. The band rehearsed briefly and began recording at a studio in Paris, but rejected their work after a month and moved to Medley Studios in Copenhagen for two weeks. Some music from early 1999 was incorporated into the album, often unrecognisable from its original form ("In Limbo", originally known as "Lost at Sea", dates from this time). According to band members, the period was largely unproductive. O'Brien began to keep an online studio diary of the band's progress. In 2003, he told the Chicago Tribune: We had to come to grips with starting a song from scratch in the studio and making it into something, rather than playing it live, rehearsing it and then getting a good take of a live performance. None of us played that much guitar on these records. Suddenly we were presented with the opportunity and the freedom to approach the music the way Massive Attack does: as a collective, working on sounds, rather than with each person in the band playing a prescribed role. It was quite hard work for us to adjust to the fact that some of us might not necessarily be playing our usual instrument on a track, or even playing any instrument at all. Once you get over your insecurities, then it's great. He later described Radiohead's change in style during this period: "If you're going to make a different-sounding record, you have to change the methodology. And it's scary -- everyone feels insecure. I'm a guitarist and suddenly it's like, well, there are no guitars on this track, or no drums". Drummer Phil Selway also found it hard to adjust to the recording sessions. In April 1999 recording resumed in a Gloucestershire mansion before moving to the band's long-planned studio in Oxford, which was completed in September 1999. In line with Yorke's new musical direction, the band members began to experiment with different instruments, and to learn "how to be a participant in a song without playing a note". The rest of the band gradually grew to share Yorke's passion for synthesised sounds. They also used digital tools like Pro Tools and Cubase to manipulate their recordings. O'Brien said, "everything is wide open with the technology now. The permutations are endless". By the end of the year, six songs were complete, including the title track. Early in 2000 Jonny Greenwood, the only Radiohead member trained in music theory, composed a string arrangement for "How to Disappear Completely", which he recorded with the Orchestra of St. John's in Dorchester Abbey. He played ondes Martenot on the track, as well as on "Optimistic" and "The National Anthem". Yorke played bass on "The National Anthem" (known during the sessions as "Everyone"), a track Radiohead had once attempted to record as a B-side for OK Computer. Trying it again for Kid A, Yorke wanted it to feature a Charles Mingus-inspired horn section, and he and Jonny Greenwood "conducted" the jazz musicians to sound like a "traffic jam". Jonny Greenwood and his brother Colin also began experimenting with sampling their own and other artists' music. One such sample yielded the basic track for "Idioteque", which Yorke sang over. Despite their change in direction, Colin Greenwood still described Radiohead as being a rock band. Jonny Greenwood summarised their recording sessions for Kid A: I don't remember much time playing keyboards. It was more an obsession with sound, speakers, the whole artifice of recording. I see it like this: a voice into a microphone onto a tape, onto your CD, through your speakers is all as illusory and fake as any synthesizer--it doesn't put Thom in your front room--but one is perceived as 'real' the other, somehow 'unreal'... It was just freeing to discard the notion of acoustic sounds being truer. Radiohead finished recording during the spring of 2000, having completed almost 30 new songs. Preferring to avoid a double album, the band saved many of the songs for their next release, the 2001 album Amnesiac. Yorke obsessed over potential running orders and the band argued over the track list, reportedly bringing them close to a break-up. It was eventually decided that Kid A would begin with "Everything in Its Right Place". Yorke felt the song, which was written on a piano and computer, was most representative of the new record, and initially wanted to release it as a single. Final mixing was completed by Godrich, and mastering of Kid A took place at London's Abbey Road Studios under Chris Blair. Marketing and release edit: After completing the record, the band, with their label, drew up a marketing plan. One EMI executive praised the music but described "the business challenge of making everyone believe" in it. However, there was considerable media interest; Kid A was described as "the most highly anticipated rock record since Nirvana's In Utero". According to Ed O'Brien, the marketing campaign aimed to dispel hype about the new album. By the late 1990s, Radiohead and their fans had a large Internet presence. As a result, Parlophone (UK) and Capitol Records (US) marketed the album in an unconventional way, promoting it partly through the Internet. Short films called "blips", set to the band's music, were distributed freely online and were shown between programmes on music channels. Capitol created the "iBlip", a Java applet that could be embedded into fan sites, allowing users to pre-order the album and listen to streaming audio before its release. No advance copies were circulated, but the album was played under carefully controlled conditions for critics and at listening parties for fans, and it was previewed in its entirety on MTV2. In a departure from music industry practice, Radiohead decided not to release any official singles from Kid A, although "Optimistic" and promotional copies of several other tracks received some radio play. Yorke explained the decision was not made for reasons of "artistic credibility", but because "the stress of getting into that area at the time was too much, and perhaps too misrepresentive". After the attention for OK Computer had brought him to breakdown, Yorke was hesitant to launch Kid A with too much publicity. He wrote on Radiohead's website: "coming back into the lions den was not easy, especially for me personally. it meant bringing back ghosts that made me shut down in the first place. so a lot of the decisions we made and what we chose to do was to avoid the normal giant cogs turning and crushing." sic He regretted the decision to release no singles in retrospect, as "it meant the only judgement of our music was being made too much by critics opinions, which was ok and everything but there is nothing like the excitement of hearing on the radio." The band made a brief tour of Mediterranean countries in early summer 2000, playing their new songs live for the first time. By the time the album's title was announced in mid-2000, concert bootlegs were being shared on the peer-to-peer service Napster. Colin Greenwood said, "We played in Barcelona and the next day the entire performance was up on Napster. Three weeks later when we got to play in Israel the audience knew the words to all the new songs and it was wonderful." A month before its release, the finished album appeared on Napster. In response, Yorke said "it encourages enthusiasm for music in a way that the music industry has long forgotten to do." Estimates suggested Kid A was downloaded without payment millions of times before its worldwide release, and some expected weaker sales. European sales slowed on 2 October 2000, the day of official release, when 150,000 faulty CDs were recalled by EMI. However, Kid A debuted at number one in the album charts in the UK, US, France, Ireland, New Zealand and Canada. It was the first US number one in three years for any British act, and Radiohead's first US top 20 album. Some have suggested peer-to-peer distribution may have helped sales by generating word-of-mouth. Others credited the label for creating hype. However, the band believed measures against early leaks may not have allowed critics (who were supposed to rely on the CD copies) time to make up their minds. In late 2000, the band toured Europe in a custom-built tent without corporate logos, playing mostly new songs. Radiohead also performed three concerts in North American theatres, their first in nearly three years. The small venues sold out rapidly, attracting celebrities, and fans who camped all night. In October the band appeared on Saturday Night Live. The footage shocked some viewers who expected rock songs, with Jonny Greenwood playing electronic instruments, the in-house brass band improvising over "The National Anthem", and Yorke dancing spasmodically and stuttering in "Idioteque". Radiohead went to the US just after Kid A's chart-topping debut and according to O'Brien, "Americans love success, so if you've got a Number One record they really, really like you." Yorke said "We were The Beatles, for a week." Musical style edit: Sound and influences edit: Kid A is influenced by 1990s IDM artists Autechre and Aphex Twin, along with others on Warp Records; by 1970s Krautrock bands such as Can,Faust and Neu!; and by the jazz of Charles Mingus,Alice Coltrane and Miles Davis. During the recording period Radiohead drew inspiration from Remain in Light (1980) by their early influence Talking Heads, they attended an Underworld concert which helped renew their enthusiasm in a difficult moment and band members listened to abstract hip hop from the Mo'Wax label, including Blackalicious and DJ Krush. "How to Disappear Completely" was inspired by singer Scott Walker, who had previously inspired the band's 1993 hit single "Creep". The string orchestration for "How to Disappear" was influenced by Polish composer Krzysztof Penderecki. Jonny Greenwood's use of the ondes Martenot on this and several other Kid A songs was inspired by Olivier Messiaen, who popularised the early electronic instrument and was one of Greenwood's teenage heroes. "Idioteque" samples the work of Paul Lansky and Arthur Kreiger, classical composers involved in computer music. Thom Yorke also referenced electronic dance music, saying the song was "an attempt to capture that exploding beat sound where you're at the club and the PA's so loud, you know it's doing damage". "Motion Picture Soundtrack" (a song written before "Creep") was an attempt to emulate the soundtrack of 1950s Disney films. Yorke recorded it alone on a pedal organ and other band members added sampled harp and double bass sounds. Jonny Greenwood described his interest in mixing old and new music technology, and during the recording sessions Yorke read Ian MacDonald's Revolution in the Head, which chronicles The Beatles' recordings with George Martin during the 1960s. The band also sought to combine electronic manipulations with jam sessions in the studio, stating their model was the German group Can. Radiohead have stated their lack of identification with progressive rock. As such, Kid A includes no songs longer than six minutes and has been sometimes characterised as post-rock, due to a minimalist style and focus on texture. Jonny Greenwood's guitar solos are less prominent on Kid A than on previous Radiohead albums; however, guitars were still used on most tracks. The instrumental "Treefingers" was at first a guitar solo by Ed O'Brien that was subsequently digitally processed to create an ambient sound. In addition, some of Yorke's vocals on Kid A are heavily modified by digital effects; Yorke's vocal effect on the title song was created with the ondes Martenot, giving an effect comparable to vocoder. The band's shift in style has been compared with U2's Zooropa (1993) and Passengers (1995) projects, and Talk Talk's Laughing Stock (1991). Lyrics edit: Kid A was the first Radiohead album since the band's debut, Pablo Honey (1993), whose lyrics were not officially released or published in its liner notes. Thom Yorke, who wrote all the lyrics, explained this by saying the words could not be considered separately from the music. He said he used a vocal manipulation to distance himself from the title track's "brutal and horrible" subject matter, which he could not have sung otherwise. For at least some of the lyrics, Yorke cut up words and phrases and drew them from a hat.Tristan Tzara's similar technique for writing "dada poetry" was posted on Radiohead's official web site during the recording.Post-punk bands who influenced Radiohead, such as Talking Heads in their work with Brian Eno, were also known to employ the technique. According to Yorke, the album's title was not a reference to Kid A in Alphabet Land, a trading card set written by Carl Steadman dealing with the work of psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan. Yorke suggested that the title could refer to the first human clone, but denied he had a concept or story in mind. On another occasion, Yorke said "Kid A" was the nickname of a sequencer. Yorke said, "If you call it something specific, it drives the record in a certain way. I like the non-meaning". Band members read Naomi Klein's anti-globalization book No Logo while recording the album, recommended it to fans on their website, and considered calling the album No Logo for a time. Yorke also cited George Monbiot's Captive State: The Corporate Takeover of Britain as an influence. Yorke and other band members were involved in the movement to cancel third world debt during this period, and they also spoke out on other issues. Some feel Kid A conveys an anti-consumerist viewpoint, expressing the band's perception of global capitalism. In 2005, music journalist Chuck Klosterman wrote that Kid A was in fact an "unintentional but spooky foreshadowing of the events of the 11 September 2001 attacks" and the world's situation beyond that. Yorke said the album was partly about "the generation that will inherit the earth when we've wiped evrything sic out". However, he has refused to explain his songwriting in political terms. Some songs were personal, inspired by dreams. Other lyrics were inspired by advice Yorke received from friends. The lyric "I'm not here, this isn't happening" in "How to Disappear Completely", were taken from Michael Stipe's advice to Yorke about coping with the pressures of touring. The chorus of "Optimistic", "If you try the best you can, the best you can is good enough", was inspired by Yorke's partner, Rachel Owen. "Everything in Its Right Place" was a result of Yorke's inability to speak during his breakdown on the OK Computer tour. Imagery edit: Videos and blips edit: No conventional music videos were initially released from Kid A, but 30-seconds-long short films called "blips" were set to its music. The blips were shown between segments on MTV, occasionally as TV commercials for the album, and were distributed free from Radiohead's website. Each blip was made by one of two collectives: The Vapour Brothers or Shynola. Most blips were animated, often inspired by Stanley Donwood's album artwork, and have been seen as stories of nature reclaiming civilisation from uncontrollable biotechnology and consumerism. Characters in the blips included "sperm monsters" and blinking, genetically modified killer teddy bears, the latter of which became a self-conscious logo for the album's advertising campaign. A more traditional video was released in late 2000: the band performing an alternate version of "Idioteque" in the studio. Several months later a video was released for "Motion Picture Soundtrack", which entirely consisted of material from the blips. Yorke described it as "the most beautiful piece of film that was ever made for our music". Artwork edit: The cover art, by Donwood and Tchock (an alias for Thom Yorke), is a computer rendering of a mountain range, with pixelated distortion near the bottom. It was a reflection of the war in Kosovo in winter 1999. Donwood was affected by a photograph in The Guardian, saying the war felt like it was happening in his own street. Influenced by Victorian era military art depicting British colonial subjects, Donwood also produced colourful oil paintings, creating a sharp texture with knives and putty. The back cover is a digitally modified depiction of another snowscape with fires raging through fields. Kid A came with a booklet of Donwood and Tchock artwork, printed on both glossy paper and thick tracing paper. Near the back is a large triptych-style fold-out drawing. Some of the artwork was seen to take a more explicitly political stance than the album's lyrics. The red swimming pool on the spine of the CD case and on the disc represents what Donwood termed "a symbol of looming danger and shattered expectations". It came from the graphic novel Brought to Light by Alan Moore and Bill Sienkiewicz, in which the CIA measures its killings through state-sponsored terrorism by the equivalent number of 50-gallon swimming pools filled with human blood. This image haunted Donwood throughout the Kid A project. Early pressings of Kid A came with an extra booklet of artwork hidden under the CD tray. The booklet contained political references, including a demonic portrait of Prime Minister Tony Blair surrounded by warnings of demagoguery. A special edition of Kid A was also released, in a thick cardboard package in the style of a children's book with a new cover and different oil paintings of apocalyptic landscapes and bear images. Although in the same style as the album art, these paintings were without digital distortion. The book included a page with statistics on world glacier melt rates, paralleling the art's themes of environmental degradation. In 2006, Donwood and Tchock exhibited Radiohead album artwork in Barcelona, with a focus on Kid A. An art book documenting the work and Donwood's inspirations, called Dead Children Playing, was also issued. Reception edit: Professional ratings Aggregate scores Source Rating Metacritic (80/100) Review scores Source Rating Allmusic BBC Music (favourable) Robert Christgau (A−) Entertainment Weekly (B+) PopMatters (8/10) Pitchfork Media (10.0/10.0) Rolling Stone The Guardian Record Collector Spin Sputnikmusic 5.0/5.0 Kid A received considerable attention, being greeted with generally favorable critical reaction, but it initially alienated some listeners. Novelist Nick Hornby compared Kid A to Lou Reed's Metal Machine Music, implying that it was an attempt at "commercial suicide" in order to escape from a label contract. He summarised a common source of opposition to the album in a review for The New Yorker, lamenting the change in musical style from The Bends (1995) and OK Computer. In 2001, by contrast, Radiohead appeared on the cover of The Wire, an avant-garde music magazine that usually ignores trends in alternative rock. The band earned a feature interview by Simon Reynolds, championing Kid A and its follow-up, Amnesiac, and dismissing accusations that they lacked originality. Several American critics gave the album positive reviews, with Spin naming Radiohead "Band of the Year" and USA Today calling Kid A "the most eccentric album ever to debut at No. 1, setting Radiohead apart from an army of lock-stepping pop and rock acts."Robert Christgau gave the album an A−; he wrote, "this Kid A is an imaginative, imitative variation on a pop staple: sadness made pretty. Alienated masterpiece nothing- it's dinner music". French publications Les Inrockuptibles and Magic gave Kid A highly favourable reviews. Readers of Les Inrocks also voted it album of the year. However, in the UK, Kid A disappointed and infuriated some critics who expected the band to be "rock saviours".Melody Maker had said months in advance of the album, "If there's one band that promises to return rock to us, it's Radiohead". The album was later given a negative review in the magazine, which ceased publication soon afterwards. NME described the album as "scared to commit itself emotionally", though giving it a 7/10. Despite the lack of consensus, by the end of 2000 the album was appearing frequently in critics' top ten lists as praise for Radiohead's experimentation appeared to outweigh reservations. In 2001, Kid A received a Grammy nomination for Album of the Year and for Best Engineered Album, and it won Best Alternative Album. In 2004, the album was ranked number 428 on Rolling Stone magazine's list of the 500 greatest albums of all time. However, in the updated version, released in 2012, it was moved up to No. 67. In 2005, two popular indie music publications, Pitchfork Media and Stylus Magazine, independently named Kid A the best album of the past five years.Rolling Stone, Pitchfork and The Times would all go on to rank Kid A as the greatest album of the 2000s. In 2006, British Hit Singles & Albums, In 2006, the album was chosen by TIME as one of the 100 best albums of all time. and NME organised a poll of 40,000 people worldwide who voted for the 100 best albums ever and Kid A was placed at No. 95 on the list. Acclaim edit: Publication Country Accolade Year Rank The Guardian UK Albums of the decade 2009 2 Hot Press Ireland The 100 Best Albums Ever 2006 47 Mojo UK The 100 Greatest Albums of Our Lifetime 1993-2006 2006 7 NME UK The 100 Greatest British Albums Ever 2006 65 Pitchfork Media US Top 200 Albums of the 2000s 2009 1 Rolling Stone US The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time 2012 67 The 100 Best Albums of the Decade 2009 1 Spin US Top 100 Albums of the Last 20 Years 2005 48 Stylus US The 50 Best Albums of 2000-2004 2005 1 Time US The All-Time 100 Albums 2006 * The Times UK The 100 Best Pop Albums of the Noughties 2009 1 Sputnikmusic US Top 100 Albums of the Decade 2010 2 (*) designates unordered lists. Track listing edit: All music composed by Radiohead except where noted. No. Title Length 1. "Everything in Its Right Place" 4:11 2. "Kid A" 4:44 3. "The National Anthem" 5:51 4. "How to Disappear Completely" 5:56 5. "Treefingers" 3:42 6. "Optimistic" 5:15 7. "In Limbo" 3:31 8. "Idioteque" (Radiohead, Paul Lansky, Arthur Kreiger) 5:09 9. "Morning Bell" 4:35 10. "Motion Picture Soundtrack" 7:01 , "Special Collectors Edition" Disc 2 No. Title Length 1. "Everything in Its Right Place" (BBC Radio One Evening Session - 11/15/00) 2. "How To Disappear Completely" (BBC Radio One Evening Session - 11/15/00) 3. "Idioteque" (BBC Radio One Evening Session - 11/15/00) 4. "The National Anthem" (BBC Radio One Evening Session - 11/15/00) 5. "Optimistic (Live)" (Lamacq Live in Concert: Victoria Park, Warrington, England - 02/10/00) 6. "Morning Bell (Live)" (Canal+ Studios - 28/04/01) 7. "The National Anthem (Live)" (Canal+ Studios - 28/04/01) 8. "How To Disappear Completely" (Canal+ Studios - 28/04/01) 9. "In Limbo (Live)" (Canal+ Studios - 28/04/01) 10. "Idioteque (Live)" (Canal+ Studios - 28/04/01) 11. "Everything in Its Right Place (Live)" (Canal+ Studios - 28/04/01) 12. "Motion Picture Soundtrack (Live)" (Canal+ Studios - 28/04/01) 13. "True Love Waits (Live)" (I Might Be Wrong (Live Recordings)) "Special Collectors Edition" DVD No. Title Length 1. "The National Anthem" (Later... With Jools Holland - 09/06/01) 2. "Morning Bell" (Later... With Jools Holland - 09/06/01) 3. "Idioteque" (Later... With Jools Holland - 09/06/01) Personnel edit: Radiohead Colin Greenwood , Jonny Greenwood , Ed O'Brien , Phil Selway , Thom Yorke , Additional musicians Andy Bush - trumpet, Andy Hamilton - tenor saxophone (credited as "tenor horn"), Steve Hamilton - alto saxophone (credited as "alto horn"), Stan Harrison - baritone saxophone (etc.), Martin Hathaway - alto saxophone, Mike Kearsey - bass trombone, Liam Kerkman - trombone, Mark Lockheart - tenor saxophone, The Orchestra of St. Johns - strings, Technical personnel John Lubbock - conductor, Paul Lansky - sample of "Mild und Leise" on "Idioteque", Arthur Kreiger - sample of "Short Piece" on "Idioteque", Nigel Godrich - producer, engineering, mixing, Henry Binns - rhythm sampling on "The National Anthem", Chris Blair - mastering, Graeme Stewart - engineering, Gerard Navarro - engineering, Charts edit: Chart (2000) Peak, position UK Albums Chart 1 US Billboard 200 1 Australia 2 Austria 5 Belgium (Dutch) 3 Belgium (French) 4 Canada 1 France 1 German Long-play Chart 4 Ireland 1 Italy 3 Netherlands 4 New Zealand 1 Sweden 3 Switzerland 8 Footnotes edit: ^ While "Motion Picture Soundtrack" has a track length of over six minutes, the song itself is less than three and a half minutes long. See: lacuna (music).

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