Rolling Stone Magazine recently listed their top 100 picks for best albums of the decade 2000-2009 (do we have an official name for this decade yet? I always get confused what to call it other than “This Decade”). #1 on the list was one of my favorite albums, Kid A by Radiohead. I remember first listening to album the summer after I graduated from high school, about a year after it came out. This was during the height of my super artsy period, where I would listen to Pink Floyd, the Beatles and Pearl Jam all of the time, and required all of my music to be varied and creative.
I drove my poor family crazy with this album after I bought it. I would always insist on listening to it, but it was always too weird and wild for my family.
I heard once that this album was inspired after the band heard the Icelandic band Sigur Ros’s album, Agaetis Byrjun. Both album has an almost otherworldly feel to it, with orchestration and subdued guitar effects. Nothing else sounds remotely like it.
Compare the Sigur Ros song Svefn-G-Englar with How to Disappear Completely:
Another major influence on the album was the jazz music of Charlie Mingus. Mingus had some pretty wild and crazy songs. Better Get in Your Soul is one of my favorites:
Compare that to the end of The National Anthem for example sounds like a train wreck of brass instruments. Wild, crazy, and simply awesome.
Here’s one of my favorite songs on the album, Optimistic:
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