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Radiohead Amnesiac Average Rating: 
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If you like "Amnesiac", you might also like ...
Kid A |
Hail to the Thief |
OK Computer |
The Bends |
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| Customer Reviews 1-5 of 847 | NEXT >> |
2008-11-04While Radiohead's 2000 album Kid A was already a shocking experience, nothing could have possable prepaird fans for what would procede the album in only a year, the vastly obscure Amnesiac. Written as a paralells to one another, the two albums fit together like peices of an obscure and disturbing, yet ultimately ingenious puzzle. Kid A had it's fair share of uplifting moments throughout the paranoia and gloom, but Amnesiac pulled no punches, and searched for an answer in the same vein as Kid A. Both albums share some specific themes, as evidenced by the two seperate versions of the song Morning Bell, but both have very diffrent personelities. It seems as if both started in the first place, a single point of birth, and spiraled off spontanously in oposite directions. Kid A made the climb ad infinitum, and Amnesiac dug into deeper ground and swam into darker water. The album is largely a disturbing search for some kind of resolution to life's angst and internal pain, and the trip it takes to the answer is nothing short of astounding. But let's not kid ourselves, the chances that any album after Kid A would have been an easy listen is zero to none. That's not to say that this album is completely unaccessable. You have heard wierder music, but sometimes it feels like the emotional bomb is being dropped track after track, and the only thing that seems traditional are time signatures which aren't even always present. Upon first listen, the record will mostly likely sound distant and unapproachable, but once the listeners ears deside to take the wheel and drive the music home, a beautiful flower blooms and things start to make sense. Each song is hand crafted in this way, to reap rewards over time, and only time will do this work. Most of the songs, such as Knives Out and Pulk/Pull Revolving Doors meander with no real resolution, perhpas representing some kind of ongoing search. There is some accessable material here, namely I Might Be Wrong, an electronic groove which builds itself fantastically into catchy layers which build and then destroy themselves to a wonderful effect. Many Radiohead fans also cite Pyramid Song as the bands best song. But simple lack of accessibility leads many to beleive that the album is at fault dispite how much someone can enjoy it in the end. Radiohead know that how much one wants to make a record that can tear down doors won't neccessarily make them deliver. While at first it may seem like a collection of songs that simpley weren't strong enough for Kid A, Amnesiac actualy has more stucture than it's precedessor, and is just as enthralling when one finaly comes to understand it's ins and outs. While this is easily Radiohead's most difficult, jarring, and wildly experimental album, it is also the most engaging, rewarding, and to some, the best.
2008-06-18I rarely give ANY product this kind of review - but Amnesiac is one of those rare CD's that can be listened to in entirity. Moody, extremly layered, sad, whistful.
Listen to it once and you will be hooked.
2008-06-13THIS IS AN incredable CD AND THESE GUYS ARE AWESOME LIVE!
LIKE SPINNING PLATES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
2008-06-08Rock music does a lot of things extremly well, but one emotion that it seems to have dificulty capturing is dispair. I'm not talking about the blues. The blues involves reveling, often in a kind of self-satisfied way, about one's awareness of how badly one's life is going. There's nothing smug or self-satisfied about dispair: it is a prelude to the death of hope, the reaching of a point from which one can't "come back." "Amnesiac" captures dispair better than just about any rock album I can think of (another great entry in this abject sweeptakes would be Fleetwood Mac's masterpeice "Then Play On").
"Amnesiac" is to most music dealing with misery as opening up a bottle of whiskey in a darkened room with a loaded gun on the table, alone and with the phone disconnected, is to a bragging drunkalogue delivered to a crowded AA meeting. If you don't understand what I'm talking about concider yourself fortunate. If you do, get "Amnesiac." It does perfectly what it sets out to do, with no comprimises or gratuitious bows to commerical acceptance or normal rock and roll conventions. It couldn't be the high art that it is if it had been done in any other way.
2008-05-31I remember listening to this album while reading at the library on cold winter days somewhere in upstate New York when the sun did not shine (which was often). These songs have a haunted feel that perhpas matched my suroundings and my mood. I agree that this album is maybe not right for every single ocassion, but I feel I have to defend some songs on this album that have been pounded on by others. In my oppinion, this is one of the best albums in terms of intresting music that you can actualy enjoy listening to. I have listened to this album (as well as all of the other Radiohead albums) from start to finish many times, and for some reason, Amnesiac is the most fun. As for the disjointed sound, who is bothered by this now? How many people have not gotten used to listening to a wide range of music on iPod shuffle mode? I am not one of those guys who defends avant-garde art because it's daring or clever. I actualy like these songs for what they are. In terms of favorites...
1.Life in a glass house--like being drunk in an old French wine bar on a wet night walking home with your crumpled hat and clinging to a telephone pole for support. I was shocked to see other people don't like this song. It gives me chills every time I hear it. But hey diffrent strokes.
2.Pyramid song--driving through an unknown mountian town on a cold still night alone. I like how this song builds into that dreamy, melodic nowhereness.
3.You and whose army--I like how weak his voice sounds in contrast to his big words--overall it gives me the feel of a weak person reminding someone who is tormenting him that we are all weak and there is strenght in numbers. Do not mess with us!
4.Hunting bears--as a post-apocalyptic source of nutrition, bears will be hunted. It will be a sad time. This song will make it sadder.
5.Spinning plates--probably not good enough to listen to on repeat, or maybe not ever, what the hell, skip this one.
6.Knives out--sounds more like a Radiohead song than anything else on this album, and it's good, but not as good as some of the other songs on Amnesiac.
Anyhoo, if you don't like this album I can't help you. It's not worth trying to change someone's oppinion regarding music anyway. (Have you ever tried to recomend something you are super excited about to someone and they are like, eh..) I feel that way about this album. I'm just glad I have it and can listen to it on my headphones so as to not annoy those around me.
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| Editorial Review |
Only lightly augmented with electronics, songs like "You and Whose Army?" and "I Might Be Wrong" almost sound like they came from a typical five-piece rock band. You may even believe the band still employs a guitarist after hearing Jonny Greenwood's wistful surf-guitar lead on "Knives Out" or his subtle but noticeable contributions to the anticapitalist rant "Dollars and Cents." But inevitably, the band continually shifts gears, moving into Boards of Canada territory on "Like Spinning Plates" and delivering dark, bass-laden oddities like "Pulk/Pull Revolving Doors," a fuzzed-out piece of avant-garde techno that could just as easily be on an Autechre or Aphex Twin record. The song's half-sung, half-spoken vocal was laid down by either a heavily distorted Thom Yorke or, just perhaps, a loquacious microwave oven. Either way, the music always has momentum, regardless of whether propelled by man or appliance. Radiohead as a band understand how to make rock interesting again, and in the end, that's all they set out to do when they recorded Amnesiac, as well as Kid A. It's more than can be said for the bad frat-punk, teen-pop and soulless techno that currently rules the charts, and for that alone, Radiohead's astonishing exploration of 21st-century anguish deserves credit. --Matthew Cooke
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More from Radiohead
 OK Computer |  The Bends |  Kid A |
 Pablo Honey |  Hail To The Thief |  The Astoria London Live |
If you like "Amnesiac", you might also like ...
|
Kid A |
Hail to the Thief |
OK Computer |
The Bends |
Pablo Honey |
