AMNESIAC - Radiohead (2001) ALBUM REVIEW

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[MarcoGosatti]

Darren, have a look at the retrospective views on KID A, if you haven't already. It's basically got full marks. An album that's aged like fine wine. The track I like on Amnesiac is I Might Be Wrong, it's brilliant.

[Z-eb]

i think amnesiac is their best and the endless list of b sides from this period (haventh heard kid amnesia extra stuff yet though)

[SirGordonJ]

listened to these again recently and it felt like Kid A is more "different" from the previous albums while this is a little more "similar" so I wondered if they either decided to reverse a little or explicitly put out the more challenging one first.

You are bang on with the lack of riffs and hooks, I have no idea which song is which and couldn't hum one of them on command. Electronica can be a bit like that although usually because there are no or minimal lyrics.

I had ordered the combined album and then realised a couple of listens every year is enough and cancelled.

Having said all that, the songs on here are brilliant live they just don't click with me when I'm on the sofa.

[WalterSobchak]

Knives Out, the greatest miserable song ever

[benday]

'maybe I'm not a radiohead fan after all'. So true. I've listened to them A LOT, but never considered myself a fan like I am of say the Manics, the Smiths, Jeff Buckley where I have the blind loyalty. I can happily critique a Radiohead album any day.

[dingdong]

I indeed remember the 'better' reviews that Amnesiac garnered compared with Kid A at the time. I said at the time they were wrong and I still stand by that as, although I like Amnesiac, Kid A is by far the stronger of the two. I can't help but think the more positive reviews were due to the hacks not being given advance copies of Kid A so they genuinely wrote from the heart and onto a blank canvas. Being such a curve-balling 'marmite' album some simply didn't like it and that is of course fine. However, many people after a while grew to love Kid A (it is a grower after all) and I am sure many then lauded Amnesiac to the hilt as it was by then 'cool' to like Kid A and feared the proverbial 'egg on t' face' if they got it wrong. Even John Peel was ranting about Kid A and moaning they weren't an obscure band anymore so he could get them to do a Kid A style session and (his words) "play the shit out of it". Today in 2021 I think Kid-A-Mnesia does work best. Its a more complete body of work. But releasing that as a double album in 2000 would have been too much of test. I'd have loved it. Many on here would've. But many, many would have been scratching their heads going "eh???".

[slumdogjay]

I like Pyramid song but the rest of the album bores the shit out of me. I prefer the live versions of songs from those 2 albums. I really like Hail To The Thief and absolutely love In Rainbows. Looking forward to those reviews lol.

[KRAZEEIZATION]

Amnesiac was a bit disappointing after Kid A. I like Knives Out as it’s like The Smiths. Both came out on double 10” vinyl back then. The ambient stuff is rubbish and then you get glitchy stuff like a CD skipping. This got to me on In Rainbows so I left the Radiohead hotel after that. I sold the Vinyl albums except OK and Hail To The Thief. Even on Kid A, Treefingers and In Limbo are rubbish. One solid album would have done it but I can’t think of anything on Amnesiac that would suit Kid A so it’s a tricky one. I’ve always felt Radiohead had the potential to make great pop/rock but they seemed to have a fear of commercialism and became too arty instead handing the gauntlet over to the terribly boring, overrated twaddle and smaltz of Colplay.