Amnesiac (album)

Recording

Radiohead and producer Nigel Godrich recorded Amnesiac during the same sessions as Kid A, from January 1999 to mid-2000 at Guillaume Studios in Paris, Medley Studios in Copenhagen, and Radiohead's newly built studio in Oxfordshire. The sessions drew on electronic music, 20th-century classical music, jazz and krautrock, employing synthesisers, ondes Martenot, drum machines, strings and brass. Strings arranged by guitarist Jonny Greenwood were performed by the Orchestra of St John's and recorded in Dorchester Abbey, a 12th-century church near Radiohead's studio.

The band considered releasing the work as a double album but found it too dense; singer Thom Yorke said the two albums "cancel each other out as overall finished things" and came from "two different places", with Amnesiac offering a "different take" on Kid A. The band stressed they saw Amnesiac as an album in its own right, not a collection of B-sides or outtakes. Yorke said the title was inspired by a Gnostic belief that the trauma of birth erases memories of past lives.

On "Packt Like Sardines in a Crushd Tin Box", Radiohead used Auto-Tune to process Yorke's vocals into a "nasal, depersonalised" sound. "Pulk/Pull Revolving Doors" began as an attempt to record "True Love Waits"; Radiohead disabled erase heads on tape recorders to create evolving tape loops, then manipulated the results in Pro Tools. Deciding the arrangement did not fit "True Love Waits", they used it to create a new track, with Yorke adding a spoken vocal processed with Auto-Tune into melody.

Music and lyrics

Amnesiac is an album that blends experimental rock, electronica, and alternative rock with jazz touches, and Simon Reynolds labeled it post-rock. Colin Greenwood noted it mixes "traditional Radiohead-type songs" with more adventurous material, where the guitar becomes just another layer of texture. The Atlantic described its sound as "swampy and foggy" with "uneasy" chords and rhythms, a contrast to the "surgical glint" of Kid A. Uncut observed that while Kid A felt futuristic, Amnesiac draws on pre-rock music, especially jazz from Miles Davis, Charlie Mingus, and Chet Baker.

The opener, "Packt Like Sardines in a Crushd Tin Box," uses synthesizers and metallic percussion. "Pyramid Song" is a swung piano-and-strings ballad inspired by Mingus's "Freedom," an Egyptian underworld art exhibition Thom Yorke saw in Copenhagen, and cyclical time concepts from Stephen Hawking and Buddhism. "Pulk/Pull Revolving Doors" is a harsh electronic track. "You and Whose Army?" slowly builds on piano before a final-minute climax; Yorke said it's about a leader who betrays voters, like Tony Blair.

"I Might Be Wrong" pairs a "venomous" guitar riff with a "trance-like metallic beat"; Colin Greenwood's bassline borrows from Chic's Bernard Edwards, and the lyrics came from advice by Yorke's partner Rachel Owen to let go of the past. "Knives Out," the most conventional song, features drifting guitars, driving percussion, a wandering bassline, haunting vocals, and eerie lyrics.

Promotion

Radiohead released no singles from Kid A, as Yorke wanted to avoid the stress of publicity he had struggled with on OK Computer, but he regretted that choice and said Amnesiac would have more promotion. "Pyramid Song" was released as a single in May 2001, followed by "Knives Out" in July, both with music videos. Two videos were created for "I Might Be Wrong", released as a promotional single in June. "Pulk/Pull Revolving Doors" and "Like Spinning Plates" were combined for a computer-animated video directed by Johnny Hardstaff, premiering on 29 November 2001 at an animation festival in Glasgow.

The video features imagery of killer whales swimming under UV light, a machine taking shape and conjoined babies spinning in a centrifuge; MTV gave it little airplay, deeming it "of a sensitive nature" and only broadcasting it with a warning. Radiohead enlisted the software company ActiveBuddy to create GooglyMinotaur, a chatbot on the AOL Instant Messenger network that launched on the day of the Amnesiac release. By November 2001 it was on 387,000 buddy lists and had received over 36 million messages; it was switched off in March 2002.

Radiohead first performed Amnesiac songs on the Kid A tour beginning in June 2000, rearranging electronic tracks with rock instrumentation—for instance, "Like Spinning Plates" was rearranged as a piano ballad. Yorke said the tension between what is human and what comes from machines was something they explored as they learned to play the songs live.

Reception

When Radiohead dropped Kid A, it split their audience, and many hoped the follow-up would bring back their guitar-driven rock. That didn't happen. Rolling Stone saw Amnesiac as an even bigger step away from their old sound, and Pitchfork noted it had nothing in common with 1995’s The Bends. Stylus called it "slightly more straightforward" than Kid A but said it "solidified the postmillennial model of Radiohead: less songs and more atmosphere, more eclectic and electronic, more paranoid, more threatening, more sublime."

Thom Yorke himself believed Amnesiac was no easier to get into than Kid A and would have gotten the same reaction if it had come out first. By 2020, the Guardian claimed "the impenetrable Amnesiac debunked industry rumours that Radiohead were primed for a bankable comeback." On Metacritic, the album holds a 75 out of 100 from 25 reviews, meaning "generally favourable reviews." Robert Hilburn of the Los Angeles Times thought Amnesiac was "a richer, more engaging record" than Kid A. Guardian critic Alexis Petridis, who hadn't liked Kid A, said Amnesiac put Radiohead back in "their role as the world's most intriguing and innovative major rock band," praising its "haunting musical shifts and unconventional melodies" while calling the electronic tracks "Pulk/Pull Revolving Doors" and "Like Spinning Plates" self-indulgent.

Stylus called it "an excellent disc" but not as "exploratory or interesting" as Kid A. Some wrote it off as a pile of Kid A leftovers. Pitchfork founder Ryan Schreiber argued its "questionable sequencing ... does little to hush the argument that the record is merely a thinly veiled B-sides compilation." Another Pitchfork writer, Scott Plagenhoef, felt the sequencing worked by building tension but that the more conventional marketing gave it a sense of "ordinariness."

Did You Know?

• The artwork was created by Yorke and Stanley Donwood, who explored London taking notes and scanned blank pages of old books superimposed with photos of fireworks and Tokyo tower blocks.
• Radiohead left EMI after their contract ended in 2003; a 2008 reissue as a double LP was part of the "From the Capitol Vaults" series.