Radiohead
"Kid A"
De Vincent Bergeron

Simple title because no word can describe this ultimate classic of experimental rock, electronic in its largest sens... Kid A is about 10 times better than Ok Computer which was already one of my fav and one of the best albums of all times i think.

The only arguments that could go versus "Ok Computer" brilliance were about the retrospective side of it. Little bit 60's here, little bit 70's there...Never like something already heard in a full tune, but still retro by parts. Of course, if you listened enough you soon discovered that "Ok Computer" was not about nostalgia, but about a really intense "personal vision" of music. Something that innovate as much as revisited the past to turn it inside out...

But "Kid A" is more than that! "Kid A" doesn't sound like anything else ever made. You can hear influences like on anything ever made in the history of music (except maybe the Shaggs : crappy/novelty recording of the late 60's), but these are distant sounds like a part of a keyboard line, a part of a string arrangement, etc. Now let's talk about the important parts..."Kid A" push the technology to the point where sounds are always part of a whole, where you can see the difference between a bass and a voice and a rythm and an atonal keyboard line.

"Kid A" mess up with "clichés" and always surprise you with a pure sens of creativity that almost feel childish, like a child discovering life and all of his senses. "Kid A" is anti-nostalgia, retrospective, even anti-Ok Computer, yet is able to take the best of it and reinvent it ; like if aliens have listened to "Ok Computer" and came out with their own vision of it...

The record captures the human simplicity where the weirdest parts are catchy on their own terms. It's also structured as a futuristic concept album that follow a very natural progression, a progression that any human can relate to... One of them being Thom Yorke (better than ever on "Kid A"). His lyrics, his emotional status switch through the album.

At first, a confuse individual sing in the most intense tracks of the album ("Everything In It's Right Place", "Kid A", "National Anthem"). Then, a dreamy indivual show ("I'm not here this isn't happening" sing Thom on "How To Disappear Completely") and even disappear completly on the ambient "TreeFingers". Back from his fantasies? "Optimistic" is a very unusual moment for this person, singing "You can try the best you can, you can try the best you can, the best you can is good enough" yet this same track is slowed down and multi-layered guitars, a sound that could, probably express an hesitation in this same statement.

"In Limbo" confirm this hesitation with a very dark performance by Thom Yorke, like he just got to a sudden low, his lowest ever, sudden depression after an hesitative positive moment. This track is subdued though. At the end, the leader scream "cry baby!" : maybe like he had enough of his reactions versus confusion and depression, a scream to get to reality?

"Idiotheque" is the only uptempo number of "Kid A", a very ground oriented piece, full of raw emotion and agressive lyrics by the english guy like this reaction to a previous thought : "This is really happening!". Back to the ground, the underrated genius talk about a very modern problem of real life in "Morning Bell", saying things like "You can keep the furniture", "Where did you park the car?" to make references to the problem of divorces and/or the tension related to this same situation (very real life, anti-"Kid A" thematic).

It bring us to the final piece where Thom Yorke seem to navigate through elements of every day life yet saying at the very end "i will see you in the next life..." making it the perfect end to this amazing emotional trip. "Kid A" is a classic, maybe the best thing i've ever heard...