Kid A - Why does everyone love it so much? - Page 3

Well put as always, Sherwood. Mainstream is too often used as a Genre, which it is not. When quality music (and this is up to you, I don't pretend to know what makes music quality to others) gets in the mainstream it is usually because it is given a decent spotlight which allows for repeated listens. It is a known fact that the human brain appreciates music it has heard before which is why most musicals have an overture. And sadly most great music rarely gets a repeated listen by the general public.

This theory holds true to Kid A. I first listened to it as a die hard Radiohead fan but was not taken by it immediately. It was so foreign. But I was a fan, so I did not give up. Now I find it as catchy as anything the Beatles have put out. And that is why IMO it is classic. It took something new, odd and foreign and made it familiar- even catchy.

There are plenty of other 'Kid A's' out there, that could be held in the same regard. Unfort. they did not have the notoriety of Radiohead, so they will not have the built in audience to be on any mainstream lists.

If you still struggle with Kid A, and have not listened to it in full more than a handfull of times, I would suggest you do so. Some of my favorite albums have taken quite a while to get used to. The ones that I like immediately usually fade into my collection rather quickly.

If it is still not for you after a dozen listens, well that is why music is an art and not a science. There are plenty of classic albums I do not get, and have certainly tried.

I know, and although I can tend to be quite snobbish about music my remark was at least half in jest. I do consider Coldplay to be little more than muzak, but I do not consider what's 'mainstream' to automatically be of less value than what is not.

Some of my best friends live in the mainstream

The term 'mainstream' means to me roughly the same as what Pop meant before it became a genre of it's own. It's quite simply Popular music, and it has become popular music usually because it is more easily accessible. That's the second hint of mainstream: Accessibility.

And as You mentioned, what is considered mainstream is heavily dependent on the environment (era, age group, social group…). One could argue that Arvo Pärt and Coltrane, both who's music I enjoy greatly, are both in the 'mainstream', you just have to find the right forum.

Often, these are the albums I come to really cherish in later years. I bought "Dark Side of the Moon" and "Kind of Blue" on the same trip to the record store when I was 12. Listened to them, didn't get them, put them away for years. One can assume how I feel about them both now.

Yeah that's true. I don't know how many great bands have been signed to a major label because they seemed to fit some basic concept of some currently popular genre to only be dumped when they didn't catch on with the mainstream right away. I was just recently reading about some fairly popular underground garage rock band that went through that early this decade when garage rock was all the rage. Its a shame really.

I used to go through that faze of having to listen to certain albums a dozen times to really appreciate it. I believe I've personally outgrown that now. I know when something strikes my fancy immediately now. My taste in music is pretty diverse, but then again with a whole forum of music lovers its probably not as diverse as I have myself fooled into believing.

You're probably on to something there. Not sure if this was aimed at me or not. I don't hate the album. As I said before, I appreciate it for what it is. Not in the top of my playlist though, probably not really in the middle either.

Yep.

And Yep.

Good point. That really needs to be added to any definition of "mainstream" we attempt to dream up, here.

Interesting…I'm not gonna say this is inaccurate nowadays, but that was absolutely not true during my college days. If this is currently the case, however, it may explain alot about not just Radiohead's popularity, but also about how un-ambitious the university populace has become. (I choose to blame it on the crushing debt from student loans.) The epitome of college-rock-that-eventually-went-kinda-mainstream when I was in school was Talking Heads, R.E.M. and the B-52s. I would've thought college folk were more into stuff like Animal Collective—which I'm not really sold on, but…

I love T-Bone. Saw him open for Elvis Costello a zillion years ago. However, I must say that this is hilarious coming from the guy who produced that "Album of the Year" for Alison Krauss and Robert Plant.

Not aimed at anyone, in fact to be honest I have not read thru this entire thread. I just wanted to put some input on Kid A. It is a difficult album and I can understand why people have trouble with it. As long as people are not disrespectful of what I like, and are genuine music fans- I appreciate their input.

Have we had any masterpieces in the last past five or ten years? I'm not sure we have. The 90s had Smells Like Teen Spirit, and while not exactly a masterpiece by my standards it does mark some sort of milestone and shift in popular music. Has there been any radical culture shifting albums in popular music since then? I'm not sure Kid A qualifies, but I could be wrong. I think White Stripes Elephant sort of introduced the garage rock sound back into the mainstream, and indie folk bands like Sufjan Stevens or Fleet Foxes maybe reintroduced that sound back into the collective conscious. Possibly Franz Ferdinand brought post-punk back... Maybe, as limpidglitch put it, Kid A made way for wave of lush atmospheric electro-tinged alternative music made more famous by bands like Coldplay.

Not sure.

I know I know. And you're right. Just a guess here, but I think it all started in the early 90s. lol

Haha. yeah, well... I'm not sure pairing up those two is exactly a mainstream concept even if they are mainstream artists. And only T-Bone could probably have made it work.

Yeah as far as introducing industrial to the mainstream I'd definitely agree, but as you noted that was uh... probably 15 years ago.

I'm curious what the next big thing is going to be.