Radiohead

by Ben Sisario

Like other visionary artists thought reclusive, Radiohead has an unrecognized talent for mastering their own publicity. That became obvious last fall when they dropped Kid A, the densest and most inaccessible mainstream rock album since Metal Machine Music. They made no singles or videos and virtually no public appearances, but were still the most hyped band of the year. Instead of saturating the market, they made us want more. It takes guts to walk the high road, and Radiohead does it again. Amnesiac, recorded during the same sessions as Kid A, is no pop album, but it's so eerily beautiful that you can't resist listening to it over and over. Like Kid A, its thematic and sonic twin, it starts out with a lyrical wink from Thom Yorke, who sings, "After years of waiting/ Nothing," then "I'm a reasonable man, get off my case," as smart a retort to critics as Cobain's "Teenage angst has paid off well/ But now I'm bored and old." The rest of the album doesn't make as much sense, but it doesn't have to. The heavy-breathing piano chords on "Pyramid Song," Yorke's moaning and warm gospel backups on "You and Whose Army?" and the remake of Kid A's "Morning Bell" are a vortex of pre-dawn light, brilliant and obscured at the same time. One track, "Hunting Bears," is simply a guitar solo stitched together from tape loops, as sharp as a knife dragged across a wet canvas. Nobody has made such beguiling pop music since Bowie in the '70s, the Talking Heads or U2 circa The Unforgettable Fire. Critics will spend years trying to categorize and historicize this album, just to figure out precisely where it belongs in pop history. But who cares when the music is this beautiful? A