Are You Kidding?

Number 14

'Kid A' by Radiohead

Trotter’s Top Ten position : Top Ten in 2000

UK Chart high : 1 in 2000

Narrowly edging out Girls Aloud, it's time for another pop-filled extravaganza from Thom and the boys...or not.  One of the best things about doing this countdown is going back and listening to albums that you've not heard for a while and seeing how they sit with you now.  Bizarrely, a lot of 'Kid A' now seems rather mainstream, though by no means pedestrian, which is very weird considering how much of a leap into the unknown it was considered to be at the time.  I wasn't entirely comfortable when news of what 'Kid A' would sound like was written in the press.  It seemed that Radiohead were deliberately being difficult so as to shed a few stadiums-worth of fans after the phenomenal success of 'OK Computer' and that to me is just as big a sellout as going for the U2 jugular in a way; neither approach being an honest representation of what you actually want to sound like as a band.  However, the years have proven that this wasn't a knee-jerk, belligerant reaction but a genuine development in their musical style.  That a lot of it sounds 'perfectly acceptable' now is, I think, testament to how much this band have done to bring the world round to their way of thinking and why they are probably the most important band around today, even if it does mean I now have a cd in my collection with jazz trumpets.  'Kid A' also displayed for the first time how much in tune with dance music this band actually are, 'Everything in its Right Place' and 'Idioteque' standing out amongst the tracks and wiping the floor with most otherwise-formulaic dance music of the time.  Clearly they were bored with the standard indie-rock band schtick and wanted to try something different, even if it meant taking the guitars away from two of the most talented guitarists of their generation in Jonny Greenwood and Ed O'Brien and having them sit on the floor playing with radios and Rolf Harris's stylophone.  If I was being pretentious, which I never am (!), I'd compare them to Picasso who felt he'd done all he could with realistic, traditional painting by the time he was 16 and developed something else entirely.  Thankfully they would show restraint and not go down a completely unlistenable path, but this way of working clearly enlivened the band again and probably explains why they are still around today making great music.  It's also not completely devoid of guitars either, 'The National Anthem' displaying one of their best, intense riffs of all.  They only approved one music video for 'Kid A' other than snippets for MTV trailers and that was setting the beautiful 'Motion Picture Soundtrack' appropriately enough to 'Heart of Darkness'.  To showcase the other standouts tracks I've included a link to what many believe to be one of the great Glastonbury performances, their headline slot in 2003.  And it's Penelope Cruz's album of the decade - what more could you ask for?  Apart from an even better album of their's to come, that is.

Look at Glastonbury 2003 - The National Anthem (14:15) ; Everything in it's Right Place (1:08:11) ; Idioteque (1:03:34) ; Motion Picture Soundtrack
Listen to a sampling of the Top Fifty on Spotify as we go or the 'one from each album' version