It’s been sixteen years since “In Rainbows”?

Back in 2007, the issue surrounding that album was getting paid. Remember “pay what you want”. It was meant to bring the money back into music. It didn’t.

But it gave artists a hard truth, that they have fans who are willing to pay zero dollars for their recorded music.

Today the main issue is getting peoples attention and holding it. Anyone remember what was trending last week. Me neither.

“Amnesiac” is the fifth studio album by Radiohead, released on 30 May 2001.

Although the album came out in 2001, it was recorded with producer Nigel Godrich in the same sessions as Radiohead’s previous album “Kid A” released in 2000.

Radiohead considered releasing the work as a double album, but decided against it.

Based on the buzz created from the earlier albums, “Amnesiac” debuted at number one on the UK Albums Chart and number two on the US Billboard 200.

Packt Like Sardines in a Crushd Tin Box

It’s an electronic song with synthesisers and industrial percussion. Actually the tone of the synth riff feels like it became the design for the TonePad or SoundPrism apps.

Auto-Tune was also used to process Yorke’s vocals which sound hypnotic and other worldly.

After years of waiting nothing came, as your life flashed before your eyes you realize

A realization that the thing you have been eagerly anticipating for a long time, didn’t come to be.

After years of waiting nothing came, and you realize you’re looking in the wrong place

After the passage of time you come to the realization that your search or focus has been misguided.

Your strategy was ineffective and it led you astray. But there is time to reassess your approach, redirect your efforts, or reconsider your expectations in order to find the desired outcome or solution.

I’m a reasonable man, get off my case

Pyramid Song

The piano chords drive the song, which is a trippy 60s experimental acid rock track. Wikipedia tells me the musical part of song was inspired by the Charles Mingus song “Freedom” and its lyrics were inspired by an exhibition of ancient Egyptian underworld art Yorke attended while the band was recording in Copenhagen and ideas of cyclical time discussed by Stephen Hawking and Buddhism.

I jumped in the river and what did I see, black eyed angels swam with me

A symbolic leap into the unknown.

And while angels normally represent the light, the mention of black-eyed angels is seen as mysterious. The color black is also associated with darkness.

And we all went to heaven in a little row boat, there was nothing to fear and nothing to doubt

The mention of a row boat, which requires teamwork and coordinated effort to navigate, suggests a collective experience or shared journey.

“Pyramid Song” was named one of the best tracks of the decade by Rolling Stone, NME and Pitchfork

Pulk/Pull Revolving Doors

Wikipedia tells me it began as an attempt to record another song, “True Love Waits”.

It features keyboard loops recorded during the “OK Computer” sessions. Deciding that the arrangement did not fit “True Love Waits”, Radiohead used it to create a new track.

Yorke added a spoken vocal and used Auto-Tune to process it into melody.

Unfortunately the story of the songs creation is better than the song. It’s a skip for me.

You and Whose Army?

Wikipedia tells me that the song is about someone who is elected into power by people and who then blatantly betrays them.

At the time Yorke was protesting against the British PM, Tony Blair. However it seems that every democratic country has this problem.

Its like lounge music with a drunken vocal melody for the first 1.50 as the song builds and I was going to skip it.

But it changes and the last minute is dreamy rock and I like it.

We ride tonight ghost horses

A journey into the unknown. It seems to be a recurring theme on the album.

I Might Be Wrong

I like the Bluesy riff but don’t like the industrial sounding drum beat.

You go down the waterfall, think about the good times and never look back

Another phrase about a challenging or transformative experience.

As you draw strength, inspiration, or comfort from the good times during times of adversity. You know the whole wellness business model is built on selling the “power of positive thinking”.

Knives Out

It sounds like they just got in the room and jammed this one out.

Lyrically I think it’s about cannibalism.

Morning Bell/Amnesiac

I’ll give them points for trying to do something different and out of their comfort zones, but as a title track it’s terrible.

A skip for me.

Dollars and Cents

Another skip for me.

Hunting Bears

Its a two minute instrumental on electric guitar and synthesizer and backwards effects. It’s cinematic and I like it.

Like Spinning Plates

It’s a skip for me.

Life in a Glasshouse

It’s jazz noir and jazz trumpeter Humphrey Lyttelton and his band performed on this in the style of a New Orleans jazz funeral.

Wikipedia tells me that the lyrics were inspired by a news story Yorke read of a celebrity’s wife so harassed by paparazzi that she papered her windows with their photographs.

But it’s a skip for me.

Back in 2001, two years after Napster, sales were still a big thing and man of albums were good, sales would go through the roof. Linkin Park’s “Hybrid Theory” and “Meteora” come to mind here.

“Amnesiac” was certified Gold in Argentina, Australia, Belgium, France, Japan and the United States.

It was certified Platinum in Canada, United Kingdom and Europe.

It’s different. Give it a go.