Amnesiac (2001)
Amnesiac is a 2001 alternative rock album by Radiohead.
Recorded in the same sessions as Kid A, Amnesiac gathers the songs Radiohead set aside, and it plays less like leftovers than like a stranger, more haunted sibling. Thom Yorke's voice drifts through the piano loop of 'Pyramid Song' and the skittering 'Pulk/Pull Revolving Doors,' the ondes Martenot ghosting behind guitars that mostly stay hidden. Nigel Godrich produced. The band folds in jazz, krautrock and twentieth-century classical, closing on 'Life in a Glasshouse,' a New Orleans dirge cut with trumpeter Humphrey Lyttelton. Cryptic, cold to the touch, and quietly one of their strangest records.
Quick answers
What is Amnesiac about?
Recorded in the same sessions as Kid A, Amnesiac gathers the songs Radiohead set aside, and it plays less like leftovers than like a stranger, more haunted sibling. Thom Yorke's voice drifts through the piano loop of 'Pyramid Song' and the skittering 'Pulk/Pull Revolving Doors,' the ondes Martenot ghosting behind guitars that mostly stay hidden. Nigel Godrich produced. The band folds in jazz, krautrock and twentieth-century classical, closing on 'Life in a Glasshouse,' a New Orleans dirge cut with trumpeter Humphrey Lyttelton. Cryptic, cold to the touch, and quietly one of their strangest records.
When was Amnesiac released?
Amnesiac was released in 2001.
Who made Amnesiac?
Amnesiac is by Radiohead.
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A few thoughts on Amnesiac
Follow it with Kid A, its twin, for the fuller sweep of the same experiment. The dread and static suit David Lynch, so try Mulholland Drive next. For music that shares the frozen electronic ache, reach for Burial's Untrue, all vinyl crackle and half-heard voices in the rain.
The rest of Radiohead's strangest stretch, before and after Amnesiac
Amnesiac came out of the same sessions as Kid A, its more haunted twin, and both mark the middle of a run that started somewhere far more conventional. Pablo Honey and The Bends show the guitar band Radiohead used to be, while Hail to the Thief picks the same restless studio experiments back up two years later.
Landmark albums that broke from their genre's own rulebook
Amnesiac folds jazz and krautrock and electronics into what is nominally a rock record, and these albums made the same kind of leap in their own moment. Wish You Were Here and Atom Heart Mother stretch Pink Floyd's prog toward the avant-garde, Nevermind rewired rock's mainstream overnight, and A Rush of Blood to the Head carries that same restless, atmospheric ambition into the 2000s.