Kid A 20th Anniversary

[Jethro2]

I take it there has been no more news on the Smile album?  

That could either be a pandemic-project (and lots of artists have had similar versions - eg Nick Cave and Warren Ellis who are also long time side-project collaborators), or point to a more long term future.  I got the impression from Ed's solo album (and comments around it) that he was a bit out of love with the band.  Query also with Phil.  But a new version with Thom, Jonny and Nigel sounds attractive to me.

[Naomi Whats]

Weirdly I haven't been clamouring for new Radiohead since AMSP. It could be that this forum was a big part of what made me so hyped for new material, but like Penny said, AMSP just feels like a last album too. That said, it almost feels weird how hard they're pushing these reissues, treating them like as big a deal as new albums. It almost has the energy of an old band who got back together but never released new music

[pennyroyalty]

it's out on Spotify. The 'Pulk' True Love Waits is obviously a complete revelation, as Pulk is seemingly revealed to be built from the ruins of TLW, one of the band's most iconic songs. did they get cold feet about the version (i'm sure it would have upset fans at the time) and Pulk itself was then a kind of evasive 'don't put all the eggs in the basket' rework? kneejerk reaction, this should absolutely have been track 3 of Amnesiac (even though I like Pulk, and the eventual TLW we got on AMSP is devastatingly perfect).

[Jethro2]

It's on Apple music too, for those who have sold their soul in that direction ...

 

[Jethro2]

Jesus Christ, the 'Why us' version of Spinning Plates should be the 'Why not' version!  Glorious, and the precurser to the piano-riff version on the I Might be Wrong live set, which I always preferred.  

Excellent version of Fog too.

 

Edit: and Penny is clearly correct about Pulk/TLW.

Pleasantly surprised with the whole 3rd disk.  The string tracks are worthwhile too.

 

[Naomi Whats]

This plays almost like a remix album, it's great. Pretty amazing that the live version of Like Spinning Plates came about in the studio and not after the fact, and I love the version of TLW. My guess is that thematically it didn't fit and so wasn't included, but still.

The two "new" songs are easily the lowest point for me here and I almost wish they hadn't been included as the rest of it flows brilliantly

[pennyroyalty]

3 hours ago, Naomi Whats said:

The two "new" songs are easily the lowest point for me here and I almost wish they hadn't been included as the rest of it flows brilliantly

whether a couple of elements on the track are new overdubs or not, the obvious recent production polish on If You Say The Word certainly makes it stand out in an ugly way. i'm down with them making a kind of remix/new experience out of outtakes and even newly isolated instrumental sections, but if you're going to do that, make it a properly cohesive thing.

[otanachos]

Long time lurker from over 10 years ago here...

I think this reissue was alright, kinda regret buying the 3LP thing since I thought it would have at least all the material from the era spread across it. Oh well, another RH box set that gathers dust in my closet. I guess it is more a nostalgia thing of when new RH material would appear. But enough about the issues of being an old fan with disposable income.

The 3rd disc is nice overall, as some have noted, it is almost a blend of the three "outtakes" and the white cassette from the OKC reissue. Unfortunately, in this case, yeah, the reworked Say the Word and demo FMA should have just been left on the cutting room floor. I believe they are nothing special or reveal much about the recording sessions, while the alternate takes and instrumentals do so more convincingly, despite it being a very brief glimpse.

I get the feeling Thom and Stanley were the ones really pushing for this reissue campaign, and it shows with the focus on the books, art interviews, and the VR exhibition coming up. Jonny never seems interested in caring about the band's past, and Ed almost sounded as though he had disdain for the reissue idea in the first place during his Instagram live videos. I doubt Phil and Colin care either, has anyone even heard from those guys?

Perhaps since these sessions were more of a headache and stress-filled experience at the time, the camaraderie behind the OKC reissue was not present in this reissue. Maybe they were reminded of how fucking annoying it was and how the band almost broke up. To partially quote Thom in the latest interview behind it, "I’m glad we did it, but I never, ever, ever want to see it anymore ever again, ever.”

Anyways, it was a nice listen. I doubt I'll ever put it on more than a couple of times and remember it from time to time.

[Jethro2]

3 hours ago, otanachos said:

 

I get the feeling Thom and Stanley were the ones really pushing for this reissue campaign, and it shows with the focus on the books, art interviews, and the VR exhibition coming up. Jonny never seems interested in caring about the band's past, and Ed almost sounded as though he had disdain for the reissue idea in the first place during his Instagram live videos. I doubt Phil and Colin care either, has anyone even heard from those guys?

 

I get the impression Jonny was pretty actively involved, because the Pyramid and How to Disappear string pieces seem to have been expanded and reworked a bit, and instrumentals form a big part of the 2nd 'half' of Disk 3.

LSP, Fog and Pulk/TLW are the definite highlights for me (and How to Disappear into Strings).    

[babydoctor]

This version of TLW is far and away the biggest highlight for me. It's really great and not just as an interesting peek into their creative process.

LSP is kinda unsettling to me actually - having the IMBW live piano next to the auxiliary parts from the album version plus the completely scrambled lyrics and melody. I don't think I prefer it but it's very interesting.

"alt. fast track" makes me irritated that they didn't remaster the b-sides.

If You Say the Word and FMA are fine but yeah they don't fit here. I almost feel like they should've done an 'unreleased album' with the tracks from the OKC remaster and these plus some others I might be forgetting? Most of the classic unreleased stuff made it on to albums eventually so maybe there isn't that much more to mine in this way, and I'm probably imprinting my own experience as an internet-dwelling obsessed radiohead fan in the year 2002 or whenever onto how I think they should be handling these releases. But I think the bottom line for them is that they want promotional material to justify selling these albums a second time. Gorgeous as it is, TLW from an alternate timeline wouldn't cut it. Lost classics like Man O War and FMA are made singles.

[babydoctor]

can we just take a moment to appreciate that Radiohead generated all this material in like two years?

[Naomi Whats]

26 minutes ago, babydoctor said:

can we just take a moment to appreciate that Radiohead generated all this material in like two years?

It's honestly pretty wild. For what was considered such a difficult time they sure were prolific. This'll always be my favourite era of the band as it's the one tbat cemented who the band actually were in my mind. From this point on it felt like the band could do anything and that's what made every album release so exciting

[Happy Philistine]

I saw them play live for the first time in Punchestown right after they released Kid A. I listened to the album the day before and didn’t really get it. It was too different from what 17 y/o me was listening to. Then I saw them play it live and it clicked, opened up so much music for me. Definitely my favourite era of the band.

[Pickled Dog]

I find it interesting that people think the two outtakes should have just been left to gather dust. I don't disagree with the sentiment that people could take them or leave them. But I reckon it's probably pretty freeing for the band.

I was thinking about it the other day -- the fervour around all their online activity back in the day and our collective obsessiveness over live rarities really came to fruition around In Rainbows, with all these different tracks that people assumed were lost to the cutting room floor finally finding final studio versions, and considering that "Burn the Witch" and TLW bookended AMSP felt like a massive achievement considering that history -- the most notorious unheard track and the most beloved live rarity finally finding a place on a record. But there was a sense with AMSP that they were starting to live in their own shadow a bit, still working through stuff they'd started some 20 years earlier. Considering what a tabula rasa Kid A / Amnesiac was heralded as for them at the time, it's almost like they've spent all their time since working through the stuff that period generated.

TL;DR, I'm happy that they're just ejecting their archives into public hands at this point, whether its revelatory or just puts to bed fan speculation. It's undoing some of the mythology but that in itself has become an albatross around their neck, surely. Makes me excited for whenever they come back together, they might feel more refreshed and free of their back catalogue than they ever have this century. 

[Naomi Whats]

FTR I'm fine with them releasing the songs, it's just strange in the sense that it feels like a concerted effort has been made to make Kid Amnesiae flow like a proper album, but those two songs break that flow quite dramatically.

 

I guess I'd rather they'd just been singles or something

[Jethro2]

4 hours ago, Pickled Dog said:

I find it interesting that people think the two outtakes should have just been left to gather dust. I don't disagree with the sentiment that people could take them or leave them. But I reckon it's probably pretty freeing for the band.

I think there is a view that they sound a bit discordant mixed in with the rest of Disk 3, and that they have more of a AMSP-era production (and vocal) sound.  Disk 3, to me anyway, sounds like a lot of effort was put into making it flow like a stand-alone album (and that's likely how people will listen to it), and IYSTW and FMA can sound a little out of place. I don't have a problem with either of them, but they are my least favourite complete songs on the disk.

Agreed about the 'freeing' aspect for the band.  Those tracks didn't make it onto b-sides at the time, so there is an implication that they were considered too good for that, and reserved to be reworked as later album tracks.  That didn't work out, and ... here they are.

[Pickled Dog]

Okay, yeah. I misunderstood on that point. They certainly do seem tagged on the end of what otherwise works really nicely as a "remix" album.

I guess that's the real strength of this thing -- making songs that are technically really familiar sound totally out of this world, whereas the "new" songs actually feel a bit tired.

Before hearing it, I did think, "yeah, I don't really care about how the strings from HTDC sound on their own, tbh." But it's actually incredible. Even more haunting on their own than the original maybe.

[Pickled Dog]

I also wonder if they haven't included the whole package of b-sides here because they're actually a bit shit in hindsight... Those two tagged-on outtakes aside, I think this remix suite is probably stronger than that b-side collection, on the whole. Gotta respect them actually caring about the curating of their work and not just doing an full archive dump (which they said they're never do anyway, right?)

[Used to be Skuj]

2 hours ago, Pickled Dog said:

I also wonder if they haven't included the whole package of b-sides here because they're actually a bit shit in hindsight... Those two tagged-on outtakes aside, I think this remix suite is probably stronger than that b-side collection, on the whole. Gotta respect them actually caring about the curating of their work and not just doing an full archive dump (which they said they're never do anyway, right?)

Well, I don't want to sound like a broken record, but neglecting to include all those B-sides, shit or not, was the deal-breaker for me. People argue that we have them anyway, elsewhere. Well, sheesh, I also have Kid A and Amnesiac. 

[Used to be Skuj]

Wasn't there some intense discussion amongst the band about releasing a double album of all 30 bits? I actually wish they did that. It would be even Whiter than The Beatles. I love trying to create a 2LP out of all of them.

But now, for this release, they'll just ignore the leftovers from the 2 albums? 

I'm still baffled. 

 

[babydoctor]

7 hours ago, Pickled Dog said:

I also wonder if they haven't included the whole package of b-sides here because they're actually a bit shit in hindsight... Those two tagged-on outtakes aside, I think this remix suite is probably stronger than that b-side collection, on the whole. Gotta respect them actually caring about the curating of their work and not just doing an full archive dump (which they said they're never do anyway, right?)

Definitely a stronger experience than just stringing the b-sides together, but I can't agree that they're shit individually. Weakest ones IMO were Trans-Atlantic and Fast Track, and one of those basically made the cut here. Kind of moot though I guess, it didn't happen so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ I still have those MP3s somewhere.

I was also very surprised at how much I loved the isolated strings from HTDC, I wasn't expecting them to work so well alone. Dunno why.

[Mathieu]

I'm still waiting for mine to arrive, but listening to it on Spotify is such a pleasure.

[Wil]

The audacity of taking the pyramid string audio file, cutting it out of master track and just putting it in a new project is fucking BEYOND me.

[Naomi Whats]

On 11/7/2021 at 6:32 PM, Pickled Dog said:

I also wonder if they haven't included the whole package of b-sides here because they're actually a bit shit in hindsight... Those two tagged-on outtakes aside, I think this remix suite is probably stronger than that b-side collection, on the whole. Gotta respect them actually caring about the curating of their work and not just doing an full archive dump (which they said they're never do anyway, right?)

I don't think they're shit. Worrywort and Fog are amongst my favourite Radiohead songs and there aren't any I wouldn't happily listen to.

There was definitely a distinctive vibe to the Amnesiac/HTTT bsides that didn't match the albums but did match each other. I think in some ways it's hard for me to separate the intense nostalgia they give me in general

[Wil]

the new stuff on KID Amnesia is pretty decent. I really like 'if you say the word', and follow me around actually grew on me. the new fog sounds good too but I prefer the other versions. pulk true love waits is definitely my favourite thing on there.

 

 

really don't care about the other stuff, the two strings tracks are so pointless it's unreal. this era of radiohead was the most exciting, you used to be to go to their website and there would be hundreds of little snippets, this is early internet stuff. it felt like the website was this little online maze where you could hear the millions of ideas they were tossing around at that time, and this record has none of that. there's no love or effort in this.

 

it's supposed to be a window into that time period for the band and there's very little of that. maybe i'm wrong and it's best left along to avoid spoiling radiohead's two best albums, but i'm feeling pretty disappointed by the whole thing.

 

those two strings tracks are so fucking stupid i cant get over how dumb it is. 

 

what are they gunna do for the HTTT remaster, give us the lasers audio file off sitdownstandup?