#70

I’m really stoked with your choice of favourite song and nearly went for it. The sheer release of those bars against what comes before and after is incredible and yes the lyrics convey divorce in a very real and unsettling way. That one little tiny amendment to the drums for one bar really Sounds like a mistake and probably isn’t is it? Brilliant.

2 Likes
#71

The whole thing just sounds like somebody struggling to keep it together through clenched teeth to me, the clinical and sterile almost plain keys combined with the marching beat that hints at being off-kilter with it/s 5/4 time signature and little snare rolls makes it feel unsettling, like the fear of something lurking beneath the banality. All leads to that great atonal screech of strings in the instrumental part.

2 Likes
#72

Been on dis in one form or another since 2006 and I still think my most controversial opinion ever aired here is that amnesiac > kid a. Still stand by it. Both are amazing but amnesiac has the better songs.

2 Likes
#73

My take is that they should have been combined. Both have always felt a bit incomplete to me.

#74

Came out a couple weeks after i moved to Swindon (i know…) to do my art degree. Popped in the record shop the Friday before release and it was on the racks. Couldn’t believe my luck. OKC changed my life, musically speakimg and I was so excited for Kid A. I had been to the Victoria Park gig a week or so before which was one of my favourite gigs ever, so had heard a lot of the songs already.

But the album came out at such a big time in my life, farmer’s son moves away to big city (Swindon seemed big at the time anyway) and i didnt know anyone and i remember walking out the shop, putting it straight into my discman, EIIRP in one ear, my friend Keith on the phone im the other ear, me telling him how I’d already got the album and it was amazing (I’d heard about 1 minute of it by this point).
Listened to little else for weeks, devoured the artwork and text hidden in the CD case.

Anyway, point being i loved it, i still love it, it will always take me back to that place, a place i fucking hated(!) but honestly it couldnt have come out at a better time for me. It will always be my favourite album

Not sure what point any of the above is making but essentially very important and good album for me, 10/10

14 Likes
#75

Amazing album, not just because of the great music but, as others have mentioned, it was an incredibly important gateway to me at a time when I needed that. Not only that but I think the opening of EIIRP is one of the most understatedly brilliant ways to start a record.

I won a competition to hear the record a few weeks before it came out - so my sister and I went to a listening party somewhere in Camden market. We listened to it start to finish in the dark, and it blew my 15 y/o brain apart. Then when it came out I went in an early break time to get it from a local music shop (Modern Music in Abingdon, RIP) and just listened absolutely non-stop for months. I loved it, loved the artwork, loved the marketing around it, loved the Steve Lamacq special they did, loved everything. Some of it seems quite cringey now really but that totally underestimates the importance of it to 15-year-old me.

2 Likes
#76

Love that Jonny has become full Jimi Hendrix in this. What the album could have been…

#77

Came out too late for inclusion in the list that year and was too ‘old’ by the time of the folowing year maybe.

#78

Interesting that although the official Q review (by Stewart Maconie) was a little sniffy, the world exclusive first track-by-track preview in the previous issue (by Dave Cavanagh, RIP) was comparatively fulsome in its praise.

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#79

Unlikely, the winner was Stories from the City which also came out in October 2000!

1 Like
#80

Absolutely love reading stories like this about people’s relationships with bands/albums.

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#81

I remember reading that with a mixture.of excitement and trepidation. It makes me laugh now quite how ‘rockist’ I was. When I read they were using synths I remember feeling like it was some sort of betrayal, but I went with it because of how much OKC had meant to 14-15 year-old me.

What a twat I was.

5 Likes
#82

Building up to release I got totally caught up in the mythology around the supposed fraught recording process. There was drips of information from magazines every now and then which made it sound like they were really pushing themselves and it made me excited to hear what was coming. It all felt a bit secretive, definitely heightened the intrigue.

1 Like
#83

I guess they had to pick one or the other and went for the most recent, the fact that Amnesiac had a couple of singles might have helped it

#84

Oooh, i went looking for that track by track in my old mags earlier, couldn’t find it. Is there even amy Ondes on Kid A (the song)?

#85

hm not sure tbh :thinking:

#86

Not live anyway, not sure about the recorded version

#87

I’m thinking no, but not listened in a while.

#88

Are you… me?

1 Like
#89

One of the worst losses from the flood I had at uni. A bunch of CDs were under the water line, including this one. Most were salvageable, but the booklet behind the tray puffed up and rendered the whole thing useless.

Also lost all my SNES games. Gutted.

2 Likes