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Foreign.
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This is all of it on wnyc. I'm David Fuerst filling in for Alison Stewart, who is going to be hosting get lit tonight at the New York Public Library. In the year 2000, Radiohead had already broken through with hit songs like Creep. And their last album, OK Computer, was a huge success, with choruses you can sing along with on tracks like no Surprises and Karma Police. But the then, on October 2, the year 2000, they surprised everyone by releasing an album that started like this was a shock that sounded slippery, anxious and electronic. The risk paid off. It became Radiohead's first album to hit number one on the Billboard 200. A full decade later, it still had staying power. Both Rolling Stone and Pitchfork named Kid A the best album of the 2000s. Stephen Haydn is a cultural critic for Uproxx and author of the book this Isn't Radiohead's Kid A in the beginning of the 21st century. And he is with us for an installment of all of 25th anniversary music series Silver liner notes and Stephen, welcome.
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C
Thanks for having me.
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B
And listeners, we want to hear from you as well during this conversation. Are you a Radiohead fan? Do you remember when you first heard Kid A? Do you have a favorite song? How do you think it measures up to their other albums? Where does it fit in their legacy? Call us or text us the number. 212-433-9692. That's 212433, WNYC. And Stephen, do you remember where you were when. When you first heard this album? Were you already a Radiohead fan when you heard it?
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C
Yeah, I mean, they were a band that I grew up with from the time I was 14. That's when Creep came out on MTV. So I was in my early 20s when Kid A came out, and I was part of that generation where I'm sure for older people it would have been the beatles in the 60s, where every album that comes out, you're waiting for it and it's gonna be received as a major statement. And Kid A definitely felt like that, not only because of the music, but the timing. When it came out at the beginning of this new decade, this new century, it really felt like they were a band addressing the moment and in a way, addressing moments that were yet to come.
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B
Talk about that. What moment are they addressing and what kind of lyrics are we hearing in this collection?
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C
Well, you know, it's a record, really, that isn't about the words. It's about the mood that it creates and the feeling you get from the music. And in a weird way, the way that the lyrics are written, which were very deliberately written by Tom York to not have any kind of literal meaning, because that was one of the things that he was burned out with from the previous record, okay, Computer, which people would talk about it as this sort of anti tech record, and he didn't really want to break down the record that way. So it's really about creating this sort of abstract collision of words and music that I think was ahead of its time, because the way that this album feels, it's how being online feels, how everything is disjointed, things are coming at you, and you have to create your own context as a viewer, which may be totally different from someone else's reality, receiving the same information.
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B
We played the album's first track, Everything In Its Right Place, in the introduction. Put yourself in the shoes of a Radiohead fan, right, who's been following them since the 1990s. How did people react to the first moments of this album?
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C
Well, you know, this was a record that had been talked about a lot in the press before it came out, and it was really presented as, this is the difficult Radiohead record. You know, they're not going to give you what you've expected on the first three albums. And, you know, the thing to remember about Radiohead at this time is that they had almost become their own genre in British rock, where there were a lot of bands that took what Radiohead did in the mid-90s on OK, computer and the Bends, and they ripped it off, essentially. So you had a lot of bands that people may not remember, you know, Travis Star, Sailor groups that had these kind of singers, like, with high operatic voices, that would play these folky ballads that would swell to big crescendos. I mean, Coldplay, really, if you listen to their first record, that's what they're doing. They're doing sort of a Radiohead thing. So I think Tom York in particular, felt like he had to rebel against that. And I think that there was a feeling among a lot of fans that this is the kind of band that Radiohead is, that they're gonna push the envelope and they're gonna do something daring. So while there, I think there was some trepidation, I also think there was a lot of excitement among fans that, oh, this is not the typical rock band that's just gonna do the same thing over and over again. They're going to actually try to, you know, redesign the paradigm, if you will, of their sound.
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We're speaking with Stephen Haydn about The Radiohead album Kid A, which amazingly is 25 years old as of right now. Yeah. Wow. If you'd like to join this conversation, we'd like to hear from you as well. The number 212-433-9692. You can also text us 212-433-WNYC. Hear from Brian and Yonkers. Welcome to all of it.
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Hey, how are you guys doing?
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Great. Do you. Do you remember hearing this album the first time?
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Of course. You know, but what was interesting for me was I actually remember seeing it before hearing it because the band performed two songs on SNL that completely blew my mind. I was already a fan at that point, but seeing them perform, I think it was the National Anthem and idiotech. I was just like, what is going on here? You know? And 25 years later, I'm still listening to this album and really their full catalog on the regular. But that moment on SNL really stuck with me.
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B
Stephen, you want to talk about that moment? And does that ring true for a lot of Radiohead fans, that that was their first time hearing this music?
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C
Yeah, definitely. And I think, and I can remember that as clear as day, you know, Johnny Greenwood, the guitar player in the band, he was playing this modular synth where it looked like he was an old time phone operator, like plugging cords into this big board thing and just playing these songs that were totally unlike anything radio had done before. National Anthem, this rampaging kind of jazzy sounding song. And then Idiotic is just them going full blown, you know, Apex twin electronic music. And, you know, it's a guitar band that isn't really playing guitars on, on either song. And it really was one of those things where, you know, you watch it and you don't really know what's happening here. But it's also incredibly exciting again, because you're at the beginning of this new time in music and you don't really know where. Where anything is headed. I. I think that was a big part of it. You kind of felt like Radiohead was pointing the way forward a little bit.
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Well, let's go back to that time. Let's hear another song. This is the one you were just talking about, the National Anthem, which is based around this bass line that keeps repeating. Here's a bit of Kid A. There's something ambient trance like on a lot of the songs on this album. Can you talk about that? And let me just say, I absolutely love the. The brass cacophony that this track builds to.
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C
Yeah. I think this album was an attempt to Move beyond rock music for Radiohead, where it really felt like they had perfected a certain kind of guitar rock, certainly on OK Computer and also the Bends. And you could hear them embracing other forms of music, which was something that was also happening, I think, in indie rock in general at that time, which I think was again, part of this idea of, okay, the 20th century's over. What can we do to make this kind of music seem fresh again? So the irony of that is that in a lot of ways they were drawing on music from like 20 or 30 years earlier. A lot of the art rock of the 70s, you can hear that in Kid A. Whether, you know, like on a song like the National Anthem. You hear the influence of like a lot of the German groups of that time can. Kraftwerk, stuff like that. And as well as, you know, David Bowie's Berlin records that he made with Brian Eno and the Talking Heads. When they started moving beyond rock music on albums like Remain In Light, they were looking to the past at other bands in their position that had sort of moved beyond like a four piece or five piece rock band and trying to find something a little bit more expansive and expressive and I think frankly, futuristic sounding. You know, I. I really think that's a. They were grasping for that, you know, at the end of the 90s when they were working on this record as well as what became Amnesiac the following year.
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The following year. We are celebrating 25 years of Radioheads, Kid A right now and all of it here on WNYC. And join the conversation. 212-433-9692. And let's welcome Sophia in Edison, New Jersey. Welcome to all of it.
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D
Hi.
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That the guy that just came before me is kind of a tough act to follow, I think. I don't really have that much to say, but I wasn't alive when the album came out. Actually, I wasn't even thought of yet. But I do really, really like it. I would say it's my second favorite album, right behind OK Computer. And yeah, I just feel like, okay, okay, Computer is a lot more like cohesive. But I do see what someone that came before, I don't know if it was the same guy was saying that they were kind of trying to move away from, you know, storytelling and like everyone seeing their albums as like an entire concept album. But I do think one of their actual, like, ironically enough, one of their best examples of storytelling is in this album. The guy before mentioned the song idiotek and I think right behind their song True Love Waits on the Moonshape Pool record. This is like their second best, like, storytelling, cohesive meaning song. Because sometimes I notice they make songs that are kind of very random seeming and their lyrics don't really like. Not like other artists where they're really trying to say something with their words. It's kind of more like. It's kind of more like Bjork, where like, oh, listen, this sounds cool.
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B
Ah.
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E
Like I. Yeah, like I always kind of feel like Tom York. His solo stuff is like the boy version of Bjork in a way.
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B
Fascinating. Steven, do you want to comment on some of Sophia's thoughts? Thank you for joining us, Sophia.
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Yeah, I mean, she brings up the song Idiotech, and I think she was talking about it as a storytelling song. And that is a song where it does bring out the apocalyptic quality that a lot of people ascribe to this record. I think when it came out, it really was seen as like this dystopian album in a way that, ok, Computer was. But again, I think that the way it communicates that is more from how this album feels and the way that the music is conveyed and the way that Tom Yorke's voice sounds, which isn't as beautiful, frankly, as it is on some of the earlier records. It does have more of this kind of subterranean sort of man machine quality a little bit to it. But, yeah, Idiot is a song that I think is more overt about some of that darkness to it. And it is interesting to think about this album in retrospect. You almost think of it as like a 911 album because it feels like how the world felt a little bit after that tragedy occurred. But, you know, this record came out a year before that happened. There is something almost like an overture quality to this album. I feel like where they're setting you up for the weirdness of the 21st century. And it has, I think, certainly been a very strange, you know, quarter century that we've all lived through.
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Let's hear a bit of that song you're talking about. This is Idiotech from Kid A by Radiohead. We're speaking with Stephen Haydn about the Radiohead album Kid A for all of its series. Silver liner notes. The album turned 25 years old this month. And Stephen, it's great to have you with us. And also joining us right now is WNYC newsroom editor David Giambuso, who has wandered into the studio. You have some Radiohead Kid A stories to. And David, we always work together, but welcome to all of it.
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Thank you. Thank you.
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B
Now, we were talking in the newsroom this morning, you mentioned that Radiohead was your favorite band ever and that you have a special connection with Kid A. Can you tell us how you first heard this and where you were when you were initially listening to it?
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F
Sure. Well, I was just a couple years out of college, so. Ok, Computer came out while I was in college, which is really the best time for that album to come out. And as Steven has been talking about, I was very much like, well, how are they going to. What are they going to do next? What's, you know, how are they going to improve on this? Or what's the new direction? But I had just gotten a job at a local newspaper, the Journal News. I was a cops reporter, which meant I had to drive around Westchester county in my Mercury, my Ford Mercury with the tape deck, and I had a cassette of Kid A in there on repeat.
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C
And I just.
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I probably listened to it straight for a month, two months. I mean, it was. It's always been in the rotation since. It still is 25 years later. But I just immersed myself in it.
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B
Really immersed yourself in it. Now, a lot of people describe the music on Kid A as being very anxious, but interestingly to me, you said that the music makes you feel quite the opposite way.
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F
That's right. And as Stephen was alluding to, it was a very strange time. You know, it was. Everyone was worried about Y2K, obviously, and we were worried what was going to happen with the world. And a lot of the anxiety that Radiohead, Tom York specifically elucidates in his lyrics and music, in their lyrics and music, it already existed.
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C
It's just.
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For me, it was sort of. It was almost cathartic to hear it put into musical form. And actually a lot of the, you know, those complex feelings that you can't really put into words yourself that can be identified in music, to me, that's what this album was. It was taking all that angst and identifying the fears that a lot of people, I think, felt.
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B
Thank you so much for sharing that. And, Stephen, I want you to jump in on that as well. But, David, can you believe it's 25 years old at this point?
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I can't. I don't know how I didn't age. And yet this album has aged.
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B
That makes you at least 26.
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Exactly.
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B
Stephen, do you want to jump in on that as well?
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Yeah, I mean, I think everything he was saying really rings true. And the other thing about this record is, you know, for as much as it was presented as this provocation or a difficult Record, Radiohead is still a classic rock band. I think, at heart, they still, you know, even on this record, they were writing really good songs that even when they were trying to be alienating, they couldn't help but connect emotionally with an audience. I mean, I was just listening to Edi Attack before, and I had said something about how Tom York was trying to make his voice sound less pretty on this record, and I was thinking, his voice still sounds really pretty on this song. I mean, like, he couldn't totally get away from what was so great about the first three records, but they were just able to express it in a different kind of way that I think, you know, to what he was saying before. It just felt like it was indicative of the times. And even greater than that, it's indicative, I think, of now. You know, in a weird way, this record became even more relevant as the Internet became a bigger part of our lives, as technology encroached in more corners of the world. And, I mean, now we're in a reality where AI is bearing down on us. I mean, how much more relevant could this record be in 2025? In a weird way, things are more dystopian now, much more so than they were in 2000. So this record is maybe even better soundtrack of the current moment than it was 25 years ago.
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B
And thank you so much, David, for joining us. I grabbed you out of the newsroom to be part of this conversation today. If you would like to join the conversation, just give us a call, 212-433-9692. We have a caller right now, Vernon. Vernon Reed from the band Living Color. Is that correct? Vernon, welcome.
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D
Wow, that would be me, yes. Hey, and hey, man, it's so funny you played the National Anthem, because I recently played the Blue Nut and I covered that very song on one of my solo records. And I know that Radiohead, those. They were listening to a lot of Miles Davis around the time. When I hear that tune, I hear Reflections of Bitches, Brew of Jack Johnson, you know, the use of ostinato bass lines. And I hear, you know, a bit of the influence of Jack DeJeanette, who we just lost, who was a drummer in that time period for Miles Davis.
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B
Great to hear your thoughts on this. And really bringing a musician's angle there, because you're talking about concepts and terminologies that I'm just struggling to catch up with.
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D
Yeah, he just, you know, that whole hypnotic, hypnotic repeating figures, that was one of the things that was with a hallmark of Miles's music in the late 60s and early 70s, you know, certainly, you know, the record on the Corner is another example of Miles using those kind of, you know, really ahead of his, of his time use of those kind of hypnotic repeating figures.
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B
Is that, is it a record you still listen to these days?
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D
You know, I was listening to the complete Jack Johnson session. Oh today because, because just reflecting on Jack DeJeanette and you know, how I think his work, you know, influence Philips, Elway, you know. Definitely. Yeah, it's terrible loss, but yeah, it's great to reflect on 25 years of.
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Kid A Vernon Reed. Thank you so much for joining us today here on all of It. And let's try to get to one more call. This is Sam in Brooklyn. Welcome to all of it.
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A
Hey, thanks for taking my call. Yeah, I, you know, it's funny. So the story for the first time I heard it, I was in high school and my friend Jordan came to pick me up at my parents house. I don't remember where we were going. And I got into the car and instead of driving he said, you got to hear this. And he put on the opening track. And I remember like it is such a. Like when you guys played it earlier, it immediately transported, transported me back to that moment still 25 years later. Like it was just, it was a new sonic experience that I hadn't really had before. And it's funny, in the time since I first spoke to your screener, while I've been waiting, I've been reflecting and I remember that actually the feeling I felt was fear. And it's so interesting that Steven brought up this idea that it feels like a reflection on 911 even though it was before 9 11. Because I was thinking about it, I was like, oh yeah, that was right after 9 11. And then I was like, no wait, it wasn't. But that fear was so palpable just from those opening notes. I don't know, being in a car doesn't sound like the place to have that kind of like deep sonic experience. But it really, I think was actually the perfect place to have that experience.
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B
Well, thank you so much for sharing today. We're here with the writer Stephen Haydn. And very quickly, as we are wrapping up, Steven, Radiohead is gonna be going on their first tour in seven years, starting next month in Europe. Are you going to be flying out for any of the shows?
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Well, we'll see. I don't know. I mean it's going to be hard to get into those, those gigs, but hopefully they come to America. I mean they haven't really been active in the past decade, so hopefully more shows, maybe even a record, who knows? But, yeah, I would love to see them again.
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B
And let's go out on one more song. You wanted to highlight the track Optimistic. Can you say something quickly about this one?
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C
Yeah. I mean, this is just evidence that when Radiohead wanted to, they could also be a brilliant guitar band, you know, on this record that was supposedly their break from guitar music. It's like, well, no, we can still do that too. And we'll demonstrate it here.
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Stephen Haydn writes for Uproxx and is the author of the book this Isn't Radiohead's Kid A and the beginning of the 21st century. Thank you so much for speaking with us. And it's 25 years old. Can you believe it as well?
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It's crazy, but hopefully I'm the same age as I was when I heard this record, so it's a miracle.
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All right, here's Optimistic. And that's all of it. Thank you for listening. Alison Stewart will be back for tomorrow. Have a great afternoon.