Radiohead
Kid A

THE REVIEW

In my opinion, Radiohead wrote this album to prove they are the greatest band of all time, even to those four miserable bastards who still thought otherwise. Let's be clear, "Ok Computer" wasn't that great, but in its defense, it suffered from the "guitar-based album" handicap, a music concept that in '97 - but generally in any year post-Prince's arrival - was already largely outdated. All that rhetoric about pre-2000 hypochondria - the kind that made you belch high notes like a bored fop at the mere thought of "computer," or "information revolution," or "cyborg" or similar crap - ultimately, however, hid something genius: "Fitter Happier," after all, was already charting the future, "Exit Music" was already projecting that sense of anxiety to a parallel level, post-Napster and pre-9/11; "Airbag," after all, was a hell of a song, even if it, too, was gripped by that plastic anxiety thing, which about 3 days later would have aged horribly. In short, they were good songs, often very good, but ultimately left you with nothing but some revitalized skin and a poetic hint of noble depression: a pity, but I can't help but remark how they suffered from formal senility and conceptual rhetoric. However, something truly revelatory and immortal was already in sight.

Then "Kid A" came along and made everything clearer. "Everything In Its Right Place" redefined the concept of humanity, taking it by the neck, flipping over the skin and flesh, and letting the mood flow slowly: it's the most antiseptically gloomy harmony, the very concept of "precarity," human and alien, brought into music. If your mind wasn't opened by that "yesterday I woke up sucking a lemon," evidently you didn't understand a damn thing about this album, so you might as well stop telling your friends it's better than "Ok Computer" even if you don't think so. The title-track creaks, creaks, and creaks again: that music box is all there, beneath the floor beams, between Berenice's teeth, that percussive pad that invades the neck like a silent vulture still resonates, like a farewell song.

Yes, I know you like "The National Anthem," I know the free-jazz makes you giddy, but, brother, I think you've understood very little if you say that. Now there's "How To Disappear Completely," but I don't feel like telling you what I think, I'll leave you to your pathetic musings. "Optimistic" is what "Ok Computer" should have been if only it hadn't been the cold-eradicated nail that it instead is. "In Limbo" I would say calmly trashes in a second and in an asbestos cloud all your useless Pink Floyd albums.

"Idiotheque" is exactly what Wagner would have composed if, instead of writing, he had run under a raven-black rain in a field of poppies: like a velvetian neurosis transferred onto more excited synapses. "Treeingers" I've skipped so far, because you skip it too when you listen to this album, but trust me, you're missing the best part. "Morning Bell" is stunning here, while it twists the gut in "Amnesiac," and I can't tell you why.

"Motion Picture Soundtrack" is beyond, I admit I haven't decoded it yet and probably never will: it remains the impossible lock, the untraceable clause, the plexus that prevents the substance from overflowing. I'll conclude here, then. From there on, Radiohead composed two other stratospheric albums, namely "Hail To The Thief" and "In Rainbows," then some slightly bland albums. "Kid A" remains a distinct case in the history of art and humanity, the precarious and definitive work, the album that challenged weak minds and literally drove enlightened minds crazy. An incredibly bastard album, a perfect album.