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Customer Reviews
Average Rating:
-
Maybe not for blasting out your car stereo...
I remember listening to this album while reading at the library on cold winter days somewhere in upstate New York when the sun did not shine (which was often). These songs have a haunted feel that perhaps matched my surroundings and my mood. I agree that this album is maybe not right for every single occasion, but I feel I have to defend some songs on this album that have been pounded on by others. In my opinion, this is one of the best albums in terms of interesting music that you can actually enjoy listening to. I have listened to this album (as well as all of the other Radiohead albums) from start to finish many times, and for some reason, Amnesiac is the most fun. As for the disjointed sound, who is bothered by this now? How many people have not gotten used to listening to a wide range of music on iPod shuffle mode? I am not one of those guys who defends avant-garde art because it's daring or clever. I actually like these songs for what they are. In terms of favorites...
1.Life in a glass house--like being drunk in an old French wine bar on a wet night walking home with your crumpled hat and clinging to a telephone pole for support. I was shocked to see other people don't like this song. It gives me chills every time I hear it. But hey different strokes.
2.Pyramid song--driving through an unknown mountain town on a cold still night alone. I like how this song builds into that dreamy, melodic nowhereness.
3.You and whose army--I like how weak his voice sounds in contrast to his big words--overall it gives me the feel of a weak person reminding someone who is tormenting him that we are all weak and there is strength in numbers. Do not mess with us!
4.Hunting bears--as a post-apocalyptic source of nutrition, bears will be hunted. It will be a sad time. This song will make it sadder.
5.Spinning plates--probably not good enough to listen to on repeat, or maybe not ever, what the hell, skip this one.
6.Knives out--sounds more like a Radiohead song than anything else on this album, and it's good, but not as good as some of the other songs on Amnesiac.
Anyhoo, if you don't like this album I can't help you. It's not worth trying to change someone's opinion regarding music anyway. (Have you ever tried to recommend something you are super excited about to someone and they are like, eh..) I feel that way about this album. I'm just glad I have it and can listen to it on my headphones so as to not annoy those around me.
Rating: 
-
What a Load of Pretentious Crap!
I have to admit that Radiohead's first three outings, culminating in OK Computer, were spectacular. With songs like Creep, The Bends, Fake Plastic Trees, Let Down and Electioneering, they had become the buzz band of the '90's. Then came Kid A and it's companion Amnesiac. Disgusting! Thom Yorke adopts a high, nasally, whiney voice and the critics call it avante garde. The band starts to play unmusical, atonal mood poems and the critics exclaim that Radiohead have made rock music interesting again. Au contraire. This entire album is pretentious crap. It's only place is to be played in Soho with the band wearing all black, including turtlenecks and berets. Real Rock'n'Roll has a soul, which this does not. Radiohead had a soul up until OK Computer. It's shown it's head in spurts on Hail to the Thief and In Rainbows, but is still hiding behind all this pretentious BS. Let's hope they snap out of it, stop investigating their own navels and return to producing music for the real world, not a bunch of godforsaken critics.
Rating: 
-
Huh?
This album holds the dubious honor of being, other than their various EP's, the worst Radiohead release thus far. Of course, "worst Radiohead release" is a relative term, since they're my favorite band other than the Beatles, and most of their records are at least well-crafted and filled with mainly good songs (Pablo Honey, Hail to the Thief) if not brilliant (The Bends, OK Computer, Kid A, In Rainbows). But this... this is a weird, confusing mess. Two of these songs are certainly among the best the group ever did - up there with the "Paranoid Android"'s, "Optimistic"'s, and "Fake Plastic Trees"' of Radiohead's world. Another four aren't as good, but are still great. And then the remaining five suck ruthlessly.
Good first. "Pyramid Song" just might be the best song in Radiohead's history, a spooky combination of simple piano, nightmarish synths, sound effects such as what sounds like an air-raid siren going off underwater and lingering vocals. Plus it has the best video the group ever did, so that's cool. "I Might Be Wrong" is great as well. It's blues-techno, with a fine riff and a driving beat behind it. I also quite enjoy "You and Whose Army?", which is at once defiant and defeated. But Thom's vocals are mixed so high they bleed through. Too high, in other words. And I like Thom's vocals, too. "Knives Out" isn't spectacular, but Thom's weird vocal twisting makes it good. "Packt Like Sardines in a Crushd Tin Box" is simply a good techno song. Again, nothing to wet your pants over, but solid. And the drunken horn section on "Life in a Glasshouse" is so funny that I have to give it my endorsement.
So now... the noble failures, or else the just plain failures. I have to complement the group for creativity and ambition and on and on, but that doesn't make "Pulk/Pull Revolving Doors" or "Like Spinning Plates" any better. In fact, "Pulk/Pull" might be the worst song Radiohead has done to date, though Hail to the Thief's "We Suck Young Blood" is terrible as well. "Dollars and Cents" sounds like it wants to be "Pyramid Song, pt. 2" with its crazy nightmare sound effects and strings (Yeah, there were strings in "Pyramid Song", but there's so much other cool stuff in "Pyramid Song" I forgot to mention them), but without all the awesomeness of "Pyramid Song" it's just a disjointed mess of crazy sound effects and strings. Woo-frickin'-hoo. "Morning Bell/Amnesiac" is awful, as well. They took "Morning Bell" (one of the best songs off Kid A) and essentially screwed it up. Cool 5/4 beats? Gone. Catchy bass line? Gone. Awesome creepy seagull screech effects? Gone. In its place? An annoying bell that chimes every other beat and a celestial choir pad. The only good part is Thom's falsetto leaps during the chorus, but I can hear those on the original "Morning Bell". I'll stick to that, if you don't mind. Lastly, "Hunting Bears" is just boring. It's a moody guitar solo, and it's half the length of the similar "Treefingers" and still manages to be half as interesting. Boo. To make things even worse, "Morning Bell/Amnesiac", "Dollars and Cents", "Hunting Bears" and "Like Spinning Plates" are lined up one after another during the record's second half (or side, as I stubbornly refer to them as), so it's by far the worst stretch of music in Radiohead history (in ANYONE'S history, for that matter). If this was released in 1971 instead of 2001, and I was alive back in 1971, I'd probably have a worn-out first side of this album and a second side that was close to pristine - "close to" because "Life in a Glasshouse" still does rule.
I wish I knew what to make of this, but that's sadly not the case. I've heard most of these songs are Kid A outtakes, which speaks volumes about Radiohead's high level of quality control.
Rating: -
Dreadful
Terrible. Boring.
What a complete disappointment. Bought this CD from the bargain bin and still feel I was ripped off. Sorry, but there is absolutely nothing to say regarding this collection of discomfited sounds and vocal exercises that would be remotely positive. I've said too much already.
Rating: 
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..this record is just not that good!
I must preface this by saying that I am a huge Radiohead fan. I'm also a fan of all types of music and always open to hearing new sounds. The one thing I require is a semblance of a melody. You are not going to convince me that noise (although well put together) is a substitue for tunefulness. Some of the songs on this album are interesting as a peek at some very intelligent musical experimentation, but should not, under any circumstance, be confused with anything remotely enjoyable. The "emperor's new clothes" tag that some Radiohead fans get is dead on. Not only in the case of this album, but also in that other lovely invisible coat of the emperor's, Kid A. The flipside to all that reverence is the (undeserved) disdain towards Pablo Honey.
My two cents on Radiohead's records:
"The Bends" is a masterpiece. Beautifuly crafted music, soulful lyrics, all masterfuly executed. Every single song works. If you don't own this already, please do yourself a favor and go out and get it.
"OK computer" is a great, innovative album. The first five songs are truly without reproach. "Fitter Happier" is an annoyance and I'm not really thrilled with the back end of the album ("Lucky" is a good song), but at least, all the songs are interesting and at the very least melodic. The two records that followed were not.
Kid A has two good songs. "The National Anthem" and "Idiotheque".
Amnesiac has two great songs in "I Might be Wrong" and "Knives Out" and a very good one in "Pyramid Song".
The rest of these two albums is the result of brilliant minds searching for the next musical evolutionary step. Unfortunately they come up with dense, sometimes interesting, but never quite enjoyable noise instead.
"Hail to the Thief" has "2+2+5", and "A Wolf at the Door", which are excellent songs and book end a mediocre record.
"In Rainbows" is a much more accesible effort form the band and a hell of a lot more enjoyable than "Kid A" and "Amnesiac". "15 Step" and "Bodynatchers" are very good songs, and "Weird Fishes", "Faust Arp", "Reckoner", "House of Cards" and "Jigsaw Falling Into Place" are all solid songs. The kind of Radiohead songs that burrow their way in.
Finally, "Pablo Honey". In my opinion an excellent album. Dismissed by Radiohead snobs because of its accessibility and straightfowardness. It contains their most popular song and nary an experimental noise track, which puts off the pretentious bunch that like listening to music that is above the masses. Truth is that "Blow Out", "Lurgee", "Anyone Can Play Guitar", "Ripcord" and "How Do You Do?" are great rock songs. The fact of the matter is that most people want something they can jam to and not some repetitive bullcrap chanting to a techno loop (unless they are really, really stoned).
Call it what it is. Amnesiac is a self indulgent experimental record by a band bored with conventional rock and roll. I however, am not bored with rock and roll. I am bored by Amnesiac.
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