You are not you're fucking khakis
It's cold, it's dark, and it's not the same as it used to be. That's the weather in LA for me, and in the rest of the world as well. The caps melt, the summers are hotter, the winters colder every year. And in the lyrics of Idioteque, Yorke belts out with a nervous fever, Ice age coming, ice age comin' / throw it in the fire… this is really happening.
In the leaflets of the collector's edition of Kid A, there is a list of 8 glacier melts in the world, all which have happened in the last 150 years. These listed glaciers of ice are melting fading away, and if you follow up on the consequences of the huge glacier melt going on, one will see the ultimate change of the whole world in a few thousand years.
Radiohead, who released this album a year later than the difference of their other three, Pablo was 93, bends 95, and Computer 97, took their time on this one. An unreleased track called Knives Out reportedly took over 300 days, and didn't make on the album. The tracks closer, motion picture soundtrack, has been played in an acoustic form since 93. This album is a result of hard work, patience, and dedication. This is not the music BSB or N'sync, Britney, or Limp who have only had a year between releases. Then again, no one ever accused Radiohead of being poppy sensations. The album is a masterpiece, an A, an is a good choice for album of the year. It holds amazing music, like computer and the bends before it, though not quite at that level, or at least, not yet, Radiohead albums only get better with age. It's great compared to what's out there today, though it's not as terrific as Radiohead's last 2, it still is a substantive album. But the grade and rating aren't really the point of this review.
Kid A, like the other great album of 2000 so far, D'angelo's Voodoo, needed time to develop. This is an album about change, in more ways than one. And they needed to take their time to get it done.
First of all, Radiohead is THE best guitar band out today, no argument. They do things that only Jimi or SRV and Clapton could pull off, and they do it in triplicate. There are three amazing guitarists in this band, see the bends Sulk or Computer's tourist for proof. But tired of being pinned this way, they moved away from the traditional "rock" sound. It takes 4 tracks to guitars to appear in any normal fashion. And for all of the hip hop influences in Airbag and Climbing up the walls (CUTW), trip-hop for the latter, nothing in the whole back catalogue could prepare you for some of the tracks of Kid A. Idioteque, like the suffix would suggest, has a dance beat to it. But this is no dance song you have ever heard before.
"If I had to choose
between the continued possibility of nothing happening
and doing nothing
I would unquestionably choose the latter
… or the former --- writings from the booklet of Kid A
OK Computer was about the loss of control (No Surprises), the hatred of the rubbish of it all (subterranean homesick alien), the dependency of machines (Fitter Happier), the failed trust (electioneering), and fear of all sorts (CUTW and Lucky). It is the ultimate statement about life in the nineties made in music. Everything is now packaged, politicians included, into little bits for us to absolve.
Everywhere I travel, tiny life. Single-serving sugar, single-serving cream, single pat of butter. The microwave Cordon bleu hobby-kit. Shampoo-conditioner combos. Sample-packaged mouthwash. The people I meet on flights? They're single-serving friends.
Narrator - Fight Club
Fight Club would be the movie equivalent. Both remind you that you should not be your possessions, they both have notions against high fashion "kicking screaming Gucci little piggy" Tyler and the Narrator laugh at the ads of Calvin Klein.
Whereas Fight Club suggested trying to make something of your life thru nihilist like views about possessions, fighting to feel alive, or re-leveling the playing field, Ok computer was too drenched in fear. The last track, the tourist had the chorus "hey, man, slow down" screaming for it to stop. The song however, moves along at this nightmarish pace, it's slow, but at the same time, its faster than could be comprehended. It's like Radiohead is being pulled, kicking and screaming into the 21st century, and they fear what's coming.
In many ways, that time has come. And Kid A, represents a lot about that. It's now the new "millennium," though the change doesn't really take place till Jan 2001, the whole mentality has already come because it's 2000. The Tourist, now more than ever, seems like the perfect closer for computer, because it seems to carry unto, and lead into Kid A. You wake up, and it's 2000. You're here, but the world is the same as it was, or is it? On deeper investigation, nothing is right. The title too, alludes to this, Kid A, in some interviews, is the first human clone. Something like a human, but not quite the same. And that's precisely where Radiohead come in, and as with everything in their music, the irony is heavy as an anvil.
Everything In Its Right Place starts off Kid A. And of course the title is not the truth, but its not a lie. Everything is where it is supposed to be, but everything is changing beneath the very foundation of our life.
You wake up at O'Hare. You wake up at SeaTac. Pacific, Mountain, Central. Lose an hour, gain an hour. … You wake up at air harbor international. If you wake up at a different time in a different place, could you up as a different person? Narrator
The most repeated line of the first track is Yesterday I woke up sucking on a lemon. It has been referenced in near every review. It's inescapable. It doesn't make sense. That's precisely the point.
Near the end of the song, Thom Yorke's voice is taken and looped over and over again, on top of the main lyrics. It's sonically amazing, and it in a distant logical way, makes sense. And just as the album's message bursts open with this track, though not as conceptual as Computer, there are underlying themes, so does the music. When performed live, it's an amazing experience. Whether live or on the album, it hits hard. Reminiscent of the way both Airbag and Planet Telex did for their albums. And just as Telex and Airbags had the sound of the album captured and presented within them could be seen as litmus tests for the rest of the album. The sonic softness of Telex is seen throughout The Bends, and the guitar driven, overpowering force of airbag is precisely like the rest of Computer. Everything is driven by Electronic sounds, just like the rest of the album. Interesting too, is the opening words. Though not intelligible at first, Yorke repeats the words Kid A, introducing the album without really announcing it like Hip-hop singles. Which, in the norm now, seem to tell the point of the song at the beginning, an intro for a single, to inform you of what you may already know. Radiohead, however don't tell you as much as they subtlety remind you, this isn't as it used to be.
The second track is the title track, just as it was with the bends. Kid A is kind of a lost melodic pondering. The lyrics are meant to be difficult to hear. But they are as follows:
I slipped away
I slipped on a little white lie
We got heads on sticks
You got ventriloquists
We got heads on sticks
You got ventriloquists
Standing in the shadows at the end of my bed (x4)
Rats and children follow me out of town
Rats and children follow me out of town
Come on kids...
The line about Standing in the shadows seems to follow me wherever I go now. Are you really here, well you may be, but are you really involved? Or are you just party to the whole change around you. Then it segues into the pied piper reference, he first took out the rats, and all were happy. Then when no one paid him, he led away the children. Radiohead seems to suggest that we are letting this evil into our life, to get the rats out, so to speak. They also remind us that, if we don't take further care of our own lives, we will lose our children as well. The song has this amazing melody that is unlike any normal structure. The repetitions of the standing line take up almost a minute of the song. And then it moves into a heavy drum chorus, and then fades into an almost electronic scream.
And then the scream erupts into "the National Anthem" the third track. The song is a musical explosion. There is little to prepare yourself for this song. It takes the musical ideas seen in CUTW and multiples them to an exponential level. This is a scary song, the jazz musicians that come in are all but comforting, and though the bass provides rhythm, it does not provide any stability to the rest of the song. But it's a musical masterpiece, and perhaps the best song on the album.
The lyrics, "everyone around, everyone has got the fear/ what's going on." It's not unlike Marvin crying for his brothers in his classic that bears the name of the last lyric. But Whereas Marvin cried for it to stop, and believed it could, Radiohead seem to suggest this is the new way of life, fear, and ignorance of what's happening. Did you feel the weather, it's not right, but why is that? We have to change ourselves, to become aware of our lives. Tyler "freed" the narrator and the others of fight club by scarring them, literally and metaphorically. He reminds them:
Our generation has had no Great Depression, no Great War. Our war is a spiritual war. Our depression is our lives.
We're designed to be hunters and we're in a society of shopping. There's nothing to kill anymore, there's nothing to fight, nothing to overcome, nothing to explore. In that social emasculation, this everyman is created.
Though the next tracks are a bit of a change, they are welcome and soothing. The fourth track is how to disappear completely, which it the first track I would suggest you listen to if you haven't followed Radiohead in a while. It's got guitars, and it's rather mellow. Yorke's voice isn't electronically manipulated like the last three songs, and it's wholly soothing and undeniably beautiful. There is a melontron sounding howl of guitars in the background, and it fades in and out of the song. Once again, the theme of nothing as it seems comes back into play. Yorke sings, "I'm not here/ this isn't happening." It makes you want to cry at points, it's so sad, it's so beautiful, even though it's "soft" song, at points it's overwhelming. As the title suggests, it's about not really being here, like in the shadows of kid A. Life is now just kind of floating through as the lyrics and music suggest.
Floating is just like the next song, Treefingers. It's a lot like great gig in the sky from Floyd's Dark Side. It's the middle track, it ties the two parts of the album together. The song itself is intentionally aimless in terms of structure, it's ambience, not really a song. It's like a harmony track to another song, without the rest of the song. At the same time, it rises to plateau after plateau of sound, it's orchestrated with skill and intent. It's uninteresting the first few times, but as it penetrates your mind with each listen, it becomes more and more developed, and it will make sense musically, and the stark simplicity of it will become the beauty.
The album comes back to song form with optimistic, and it comes back with a bang. If you have heard a song from the album on the radio, this is probably it. This is more like the Radiohead of old. Optimistic sounds like it could fit on the bends musically; it's another of the gems on the album. Thematically, though it fits perfectly on Kid A.
A guy started at Fight Club, his ass was a wad of cookie dough. After a few weeks, he was carved out of wood. ---Narrator
They don't take the people and form them in Optimistic, but the people keep coming out, unready for the real world, crawling out of the swamps, trying to do their best. Once again, the irony can't be missed. It hits like a hammer, like the lyrics suggest, the big fish will eat the little ones, and envelop them, into their world. It was the experienced men of fight club who took in the rookies, saved them from this cannibalistic life. They were eaten up by the corporate world, Tyler was moving them away, but also reminding them, just like Optimistic seems to view the typical individual:
You are not special. You are not a beautiful or unique snowflake. You are the same decaying organic matter as everything else.
The album then moves, without a hitch, like the transference from song to song of Computer, to In Limbo. The theme is just like the title suggests, and is similar to how to disappear in the idea of floating.
With insomnia, you're never really asleep; you're never really awake --- Narrator
But this time it's not about trying to lose yourself, it's about trying to break free, to move away, but it has pangs of the idea of "disappear" as well, he's living in a fantasy world, don't bother him, even tough he may be lost, its almost better than being found.
Next comes Idioteque. The change is coming, "we're not scaremongering/ this is really happening" and they are screaming for you to wake up from the complacency of the discotheques and realize that it's not good for you, that the change is coming, and to "take the money and run," get away with your life. In the background there is the line "the first of the children" --- Kid A, it's here, beware.
The song fades into morning bell. It's another favorite of mine, and it's the most methodical in terms of structure, it builds with layer upon layer, and then about the 2-minute mark, with the repetition of the words, round and round, and it all comes together like a climax, but there is still another two minutes to the song. It moves on in this glorious electronica state of music, rising and falling.
The song, upon many listens, sounds like the tale of a breakup. "you can keep the furniture… clothes are all with the furniture" There is also this repeated line of release me, and it sounds like there are two live people living together no more, and they are moving on. However, Yorke recently revealed in an interview with Kurt Loder, that it is about his experience with buying a new house, and that he is one of the parties involved. However, the other party was a ghost. This is his world, but something is not right. It's now his world, but something is still there, "the lights are on but nobody's home." Once again, nothing is as it seems, nothing is in it's right place.
We were raised on television to believe that we'd all be millionaires, movie gods, rock stars, but we won't. And we're starting to figure that out. -- Tyler
The last "song" of the album is motion picture soundtrack, there is a 40 second burst of orchestrated music, titled genchildren, like the close of Sgt. Pepper. It's in an entirely different orchestration than the version that has been floating around napster for a long while. The song has an electric organ playing a sort of death march, a depressing form that builds with the lyrics until some angelic harps come in, as if to reassure us that its all ok, like the happy ending to a movie. The lyrics however are a polar opposite, at about the same time the harps come in, so does the line "it's not like the movies, they fed us those little white lies." The tales we have been raised on are only going to let us down, the world may seem the same, but it's all changed, it's not the same as it was or we were lead to believe.
It seems that we all have no motivation to change, we're all too afraid like the national anthem would suggest, that the lies of Motion Picture soundtrack have become our reality. But Yorke and company are screaming, just like Tyler, to get off your butt and do something. To change the world. Just, on The Bends, says you do it to yourself. Kid A and Computer say it's being done to us, and we can't stop it. They're about something different in ways, but then again, it's not.
It makes perfect sense that Yorke held up the sign Let Ralph (Nader) Debate on SNL when they performed there, he wants people to try for change in the world, to realize it's not all hunky dory, the discotheques are not our places of salvation. We can't use "cheap sex and sad films" to get back to where we want to be. We have to wake up. Radiohead doesn't go as far as to suggest the nihilism of Fight Club, they would rather not have the violence, but by holding up the sign for Nader, they do suggest that we need to wake up to what's really around us. But there is this terror that everything is being taken over by the corporations who make the clones, who put McDonalds in Taiwan, the idea of Planet Starbucks in Fight Club. Radiohead almost named the album No Logo, for a book of the same name about the corporate takeover of the world, the Nike dominance, the horrifying control they have, and in many ways No Logo is a good companion piece in literature to computer and Kid A. It would have been good, but it wouldn't have fit the same way that the idea of the first clone does. The world is being built from the ground up now, and it's scary as hell, just like the ideas of computer, but now with fear of the millennium gone, the fear of too much computer dependency has been eased. But everything has changed, because now, like the corporations, can and most likely are being built the way the corporations do want us to be.
This is your life, and it's ending one minute at a time. --- Narrator
Do something about it.
(continued...)
In the leaflets of the collector's edition of Kid A, there is a list of 8 glacier melts in the world, all which have happened in the last 150 years. These listed glaciers of ice are melting fading away, and if you follow up on the consequences of the huge glacier melt going on, one will see the ultimate change of the whole world in a few thousand years.
Radiohead, who released this album a year later than the difference of their other three, Pablo was 93, bends 95, and Computer 97, took their time on this one. An unreleased track called Knives Out reportedly took over 300 days, and didn't make on the album. The tracks closer, motion picture soundtrack, has been played in an acoustic form since 93. This album is a result of hard work, patience, and dedication. This is not the music BSB or N'sync, Britney, or Limp who have only had a year between releases. Then again, no one ever accused Radiohead of being poppy sensations. The album is a masterpiece, an A, an is a good choice for album of the year. It holds amazing music, like computer and the bends before it, though not quite at that level, or at least, not yet, Radiohead albums only get better with age. It's great compared to what's out there today, though it's not as terrific as Radiohead's last 2, it still is a substantive album. But the grade and rating aren't really the point of this review.
Kid A, like the other great album of 2000 so far, D'angelo's Voodoo, needed time to develop. This is an album about change, in more ways than one. And they needed to take their time to get it done.
First of all, Radiohead is THE best guitar band out today, no argument. They do things that only Jimi or SRV and Clapton could pull off, and they do it in triplicate. There are three amazing guitarists in this band, see the bends Sulk or Computer's tourist for proof. But tired of being pinned this way, they moved away from the traditional "rock" sound. It takes 4 tracks to guitars to appear in any normal fashion. And for all of the hip hop influences in Airbag and Climbing up the walls (CUTW), trip-hop for the latter, nothing in the whole back catalogue could prepare you for some of the tracks of Kid A. Idioteque, like the suffix would suggest, has a dance beat to it. But this is no dance song you have ever heard before.
"If I had to choose
between the continued possibility of nothing happening
and doing nothing
I would unquestionably choose the latter
… or the former --- writings from the booklet of Kid A
OK Computer was about the loss of control (No Surprises), the hatred of the rubbish of it all (subterranean homesick alien), the dependency of machines (Fitter Happier), the failed trust (electioneering), and fear of all sorts (CUTW and Lucky). It is the ultimate statement about life in the nineties made in music. Everything is now packaged, politicians included, into little bits for us to absolve.
Everywhere I travel, tiny life. Single-serving sugar, single-serving cream, single pat of butter. The microwave Cordon bleu hobby-kit. Shampoo-conditioner combos. Sample-packaged mouthwash. The people I meet on flights? They're single-serving friends.
Narrator - Fight Club
Fight Club would be the movie equivalent. Both remind you that you should not be your possessions, they both have notions against high fashion "kicking screaming Gucci little piggy" Tyler and the Narrator laugh at the ads of Calvin Klein.
Whereas Fight Club suggested trying to make something of your life thru nihilist like views about possessions, fighting to feel alive, or re-leveling the playing field, Ok computer was too drenched in fear. The last track, the tourist had the chorus "hey, man, slow down" screaming for it to stop. The song however, moves along at this nightmarish pace, it's slow, but at the same time, its faster than could be comprehended. It's like Radiohead is being pulled, kicking and screaming into the 21st century, and they fear what's coming.
In many ways, that time has come. And Kid A, represents a lot about that. It's now the new "millennium," though the change doesn't really take place till Jan 2001, the whole mentality has already come because it's 2000. The Tourist, now more than ever, seems like the perfect closer for computer, because it seems to carry unto, and lead into Kid A. You wake up, and it's 2000. You're here, but the world is the same as it was, or is it? On deeper investigation, nothing is right. The title too, alludes to this, Kid A, in some interviews, is the first human clone. Something like a human, but not quite the same. And that's precisely where Radiohead come in, and as with everything in their music, the irony is heavy as an anvil.
Everything In Its Right Place starts off Kid A. And of course the title is not the truth, but its not a lie. Everything is where it is supposed to be, but everything is changing beneath the very foundation of our life.
You wake up at O'Hare. You wake up at SeaTac. Pacific, Mountain, Central. Lose an hour, gain an hour. … You wake up at air harbor international. If you wake up at a different time in a different place, could you up as a different person? Narrator
The most repeated line of the first track is Yesterday I woke up sucking on a lemon. It has been referenced in near every review. It's inescapable. It doesn't make sense. That's precisely the point.
Near the end of the song, Thom Yorke's voice is taken and looped over and over again, on top of the main lyrics. It's sonically amazing, and it in a distant logical way, makes sense. And just as the album's message bursts open with this track, though not as conceptual as Computer, there are underlying themes, so does the music. When performed live, it's an amazing experience. Whether live or on the album, it hits hard. Reminiscent of the way both Airbag and Planet Telex did for their albums. And just as Telex and Airbags had the sound of the album captured and presented within them could be seen as litmus tests for the rest of the album. The sonic softness of Telex is seen throughout The Bends, and the guitar driven, overpowering force of airbag is precisely like the rest of Computer. Everything is driven by Electronic sounds, just like the rest of the album. Interesting too, is the opening words. Though not intelligible at first, Yorke repeats the words Kid A, introducing the album without really announcing it like Hip-hop singles. Which, in the norm now, seem to tell the point of the song at the beginning, an intro for a single, to inform you of what you may already know. Radiohead, however don't tell you as much as they subtlety remind you, this isn't as it used to be.
The second track is the title track, just as it was with the bends. Kid A is kind of a lost melodic pondering. The lyrics are meant to be difficult to hear. But they are as follows:
I slipped away
I slipped on a little white lie
We got heads on sticks
You got ventriloquists
We got heads on sticks
You got ventriloquists
Standing in the shadows at the end of my bed (x4)
Rats and children follow me out of town
Rats and children follow me out of town
Come on kids...
The line about Standing in the shadows seems to follow me wherever I go now. Are you really here, well you may be, but are you really involved? Or are you just party to the whole change around you. Then it segues into the pied piper reference, he first took out the rats, and all were happy. Then when no one paid him, he led away the children. Radiohead seems to suggest that we are letting this evil into our life, to get the rats out, so to speak. They also remind us that, if we don't take further care of our own lives, we will lose our children as well. The song has this amazing melody that is unlike any normal structure. The repetitions of the standing line take up almost a minute of the song. And then it moves into a heavy drum chorus, and then fades into an almost electronic scream.
And then the scream erupts into "the National Anthem" the third track. The song is a musical explosion. There is little to prepare yourself for this song. It takes the musical ideas seen in CUTW and multiples them to an exponential level. This is a scary song, the jazz musicians that come in are all but comforting, and though the bass provides rhythm, it does not provide any stability to the rest of the song. But it's a musical masterpiece, and perhaps the best song on the album.
The lyrics, "everyone around, everyone has got the fear/ what's going on." It's not unlike Marvin crying for his brothers in his classic that bears the name of the last lyric. But Whereas Marvin cried for it to stop, and believed it could, Radiohead seem to suggest this is the new way of life, fear, and ignorance of what's happening. Did you feel the weather, it's not right, but why is that? We have to change ourselves, to become aware of our lives. Tyler "freed" the narrator and the others of fight club by scarring them, literally and metaphorically. He reminds them:
Our generation has had no Great Depression, no Great War. Our war is a spiritual war. Our depression is our lives.
We're designed to be hunters and we're in a society of shopping. There's nothing to kill anymore, there's nothing to fight, nothing to overcome, nothing to explore. In that social emasculation, this everyman is created.
Though the next tracks are a bit of a change, they are welcome and soothing. The fourth track is how to disappear completely, which it the first track I would suggest you listen to if you haven't followed Radiohead in a while. It's got guitars, and it's rather mellow. Yorke's voice isn't electronically manipulated like the last three songs, and it's wholly soothing and undeniably beautiful. There is a melontron sounding howl of guitars in the background, and it fades in and out of the song. Once again, the theme of nothing as it seems comes back into play. Yorke sings, "I'm not here/ this isn't happening." It makes you want to cry at points, it's so sad, it's so beautiful, even though it's "soft" song, at points it's overwhelming. As the title suggests, it's about not really being here, like in the shadows of kid A. Life is now just kind of floating through as the lyrics and music suggest.
Floating is just like the next song, Treefingers. It's a lot like great gig in the sky from Floyd's Dark Side. It's the middle track, it ties the two parts of the album together. The song itself is intentionally aimless in terms of structure, it's ambience, not really a song. It's like a harmony track to another song, without the rest of the song. At the same time, it rises to plateau after plateau of sound, it's orchestrated with skill and intent. It's uninteresting the first few times, but as it penetrates your mind with each listen, it becomes more and more developed, and it will make sense musically, and the stark simplicity of it will become the beauty.
The album comes back to song form with optimistic, and it comes back with a bang. If you have heard a song from the album on the radio, this is probably it. This is more like the Radiohead of old. Optimistic sounds like it could fit on the bends musically; it's another of the gems on the album. Thematically, though it fits perfectly on Kid A.
A guy started at Fight Club, his ass was a wad of cookie dough. After a few weeks, he was carved out of wood. ---Narrator
They don't take the people and form them in Optimistic, but the people keep coming out, unready for the real world, crawling out of the swamps, trying to do their best. Once again, the irony can't be missed. It hits like a hammer, like the lyrics suggest, the big fish will eat the little ones, and envelop them, into their world. It was the experienced men of fight club who took in the rookies, saved them from this cannibalistic life. They were eaten up by the corporate world, Tyler was moving them away, but also reminding them, just like Optimistic seems to view the typical individual:
You are not special. You are not a beautiful or unique snowflake. You are the same decaying organic matter as everything else.
The album then moves, without a hitch, like the transference from song to song of Computer, to In Limbo. The theme is just like the title suggests, and is similar to how to disappear in the idea of floating.
With insomnia, you're never really asleep; you're never really awake --- Narrator
But this time it's not about trying to lose yourself, it's about trying to break free, to move away, but it has pangs of the idea of "disappear" as well, he's living in a fantasy world, don't bother him, even tough he may be lost, its almost better than being found.
Next comes Idioteque. The change is coming, "we're not scaremongering/ this is really happening" and they are screaming for you to wake up from the complacency of the discotheques and realize that it's not good for you, that the change is coming, and to "take the money and run," get away with your life. In the background there is the line "the first of the children" --- Kid A, it's here, beware.
The song fades into morning bell. It's another favorite of mine, and it's the most methodical in terms of structure, it builds with layer upon layer, and then about the 2-minute mark, with the repetition of the words, round and round, and it all comes together like a climax, but there is still another two minutes to the song. It moves on in this glorious electronica state of music, rising and falling.
The song, upon many listens, sounds like the tale of a breakup. "you can keep the furniture… clothes are all with the furniture" There is also this repeated line of release me, and it sounds like there are two live people living together no more, and they are moving on. However, Yorke recently revealed in an interview with Kurt Loder, that it is about his experience with buying a new house, and that he is one of the parties involved. However, the other party was a ghost. This is his world, but something is not right. It's now his world, but something is still there, "the lights are on but nobody's home." Once again, nothing is as it seems, nothing is in it's right place.
We were raised on television to believe that we'd all be millionaires, movie gods, rock stars, but we won't. And we're starting to figure that out. -- Tyler
The last "song" of the album is motion picture soundtrack, there is a 40 second burst of orchestrated music, titled genchildren, like the close of Sgt. Pepper. It's in an entirely different orchestration than the version that has been floating around napster for a long while. The song has an electric organ playing a sort of death march, a depressing form that builds with the lyrics until some angelic harps come in, as if to reassure us that its all ok, like the happy ending to a movie. The lyrics however are a polar opposite, at about the same time the harps come in, so does the line "it's not like the movies, they fed us those little white lies." The tales we have been raised on are only going to let us down, the world may seem the same, but it's all changed, it's not the same as it was or we were lead to believe.
It seems that we all have no motivation to change, we're all too afraid like the national anthem would suggest, that the lies of Motion Picture soundtrack have become our reality. But Yorke and company are screaming, just like Tyler, to get off your butt and do something. To change the world. Just, on The Bends, says you do it to yourself. Kid A and Computer say it's being done to us, and we can't stop it. They're about something different in ways, but then again, it's not.
It makes perfect sense that Yorke held up the sign Let Ralph (Nader) Debate on SNL when they performed there, he wants people to try for change in the world, to realize it's not all hunky dory, the discotheques are not our places of salvation. We can't use "cheap sex and sad films" to get back to where we want to be. We have to wake up. Radiohead doesn't go as far as to suggest the nihilism of Fight Club, they would rather not have the violence, but by holding up the sign for Nader, they do suggest that we need to wake up to what's really around us. But there is this terror that everything is being taken over by the corporations who make the clones, who put McDonalds in Taiwan, the idea of Planet Starbucks in Fight Club. Radiohead almost named the album No Logo, for a book of the same name about the corporate takeover of the world, the Nike dominance, the horrifying control they have, and in many ways No Logo is a good companion piece in literature to computer and Kid A. It would have been good, but it wouldn't have fit the same way that the idea of the first clone does. The world is being built from the ground up now, and it's scary as hell, just like the ideas of computer, but now with fear of the millennium gone, the fear of too much computer dependency has been eased. But everything has changed, because now, like the corporations, can and most likely are being built the way the corporations do want us to be.
This is your life, and it's ending one minute at a time. --- Narrator
Do something about it.
(continued...)
posted by Indiana at
2:26 AM
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