the brilliance of Kid A is that its a cohesive
album, not a collection of songs. when i think of radiohead its the three middle albums that make it special: the bends hit an emotional note, ok computer blew my mind, kid a ties it all together... idioteque or the national anthem and all that don't cut it as singles (nor do i think they were meant to) put them around the other tracks and the album as a whole and there's a pretty interesting (if challenging) picture to digest. probably why so many people gave up on it after a few spins...
take any track away from kid a and the album loses something significant. the story gets broken up and the pace loses its magic - its like a movie or a book, best experienced from beginning to end with nothing else between (a paraphrase of lou reed's feelings about his "new york" album, which incidentally is no kid a
), whats special is that its so damned good. i agree with toaster, its easily one of the 20 best albums.
re: the electronica debate - i love aphex twin as much as the next guy, and kid a is so obviously inspired by his sounds that he deserves a credit on the back jacket, but kid a isn't really an electronica album. not in any traditional sense anyway - listen to "kid a" (the second track) and how instruments straddle the line between electronic and organic, don't tell me those notes don't fade away or give a sense of decaying in space. ****'s mind blowing, like greenwood and yorke and the rest used a black canvas and just added layers upon layers of thick paints. there is depth here, there's ambience. and, through solid equipment in a proper room, a startingly detailed sense of space, location, and soundstage.
as for amnesiac it took me a
long time to appreciate it. its as fractured as kid a is balanced, in the end it falls a big step behind radiohead's holy trilogy
)
