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| Amnesiac | 
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| Artist: Radiohead
Label: Parlophone
Category: Music
List Price: £8.99
Buy Used: £2.99
You Save: £6.00 (67%)
New (73) from £2.99
Avg. Customer Rating:  148 reviews
Sales Rank: 1650
Media: Audio CD
Discs: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.3
Dimensions (in): 5.3 x 5 x 0.4
MPN: 32764
UPC: 724353276423
EAN: 0724353276423
ASIN: B00005B4GU
Release Date: June 4, 2001
Availability: Usually dispatched within 1-2 business days
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| Tracks:
| • | Packt Like Sardines In A Crushed Tin Box | | • | Pyramid Song | | • | Pulk/pull Revolving Doors | | • | You And Whose Army | | • | I Might Be Wrong | | • | Knives Out | | • | Morning Bell/Amnesiac | | • | Dollars And Cents | | • | Hunting Bears | | • | Like Spinning Plates | | • | Life In A Glasshouse |
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| Editorial Reviews:
Amazon.co.uk Review
Though the songs on Amnesia were recorded at the same time as those on its predecessor, Kid A, the gap between the releases of the pair suggests a determination on Radiohead's part that the two should not be perceived as halves of the same whole. However, there is little in the way of meaningful stylistic divergence between the two albums--Amnesiac shares with Kid A an atmosphere of defeated, vengeful paranoia, a heavy reliance on electronic noises and distorted vocals, a somewhat frustrating absence of Jonny Greenwood's guitar and the song "Morning Bell", which reappears on Amnesiac in a slightly less mournful arrangement. It may just be that Radiohead felt that it might have been a bit much to ask anyone, even Radiohead fans, to consume this entire lugubrious trove at once. Amnesiac, like Kid A is heavy going. And, also like Kid A, Amnesiac rewards repeated listenings generously. The more acute Thom Yorke's lyrical biliousness grows, the harder the band work to redeem matters with some moments of astonishing beauty. "You and Whose Army?" contains gorgeous knelling piano evocative of "Karma Police", "Like Spinning Plates" deploys a backwards backing track to bewitching effect, and the closing track, "Life in a Glasshouse", is an exuberant Laughing Clowns-style wig-out, featuring veteran jazz trumpeter Humphrey Lyttleton. Once again, it is not so much that Radiohead have not put a foot wrong, but that they're walking where nobody else has trodden. Amnesiac is another giant leap. --Andrew Mueller
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| Customer Reviews: Read 143 more reviews...
Amnesiac/Radiohead February 17, 2008
This album is less well recieved than Kid A.Maybe people just couldn't take another "alternitive" Radiohead album so soon after Kid A.The truth is that this is a superb release.The uncomfortable opener(Pakt Like Sardines In A Tin),with its disorted eletronica.Its followed by the sweeping Pyrimad Song.With its dense piano and cascading strings this was a timely reminder of just what Radiohead can do.There are "guitar" songs here too.I Might Be Wrong and Knives Out provide ample riffs.
Perhaps,better then, to reflect on what is not here.If the had approached Like Spinning Plates on record as they do live,when it is stripped down into a song,it would have served this record better.Pulp should not have been allowed anywhere near the studio.
It would be crass not to mention Dollars and Cents,another wonderful example of genius,or the showstopping Life In A Glasshouse.This better than Hail To The Thief but worse than previous offerings bar Pablo Honey.
Still though,sit down and listen to Kid A and this in a row and imagine what might have been.
 Makes you want to develop amnesia, don't believe the hype! January 7, 2008
0 out of 3 found this review helpful
This album is a work of art, a masterpiece, a...look I can't bring myself to do this. I liked Kid A after repeated listens but this is just terrible no matter how many times you listen to it. Yes this album has its moments, Pyramid Song/I Might Be Wrong being examples, among my favourite Radiohead tracks. Unfortunatly for most of the album I could have recorded my alarm clock and various other repetitive noises and would have got the similar results. Starts off well until Pulk/Pull Revolving Doors which makes you think the skip button is the greatest thing ever. The music is just the same noise repeated over and over! What on earth is good about that? You could get the same effect from leaving a card in an ATM and recording the beeping for 3 minutes. The album gets back on track with I Might Be Wrong/ Knives Out then a pointless alternative version of Morning Bell before it descends into utter farce.
Dollars and Cents is just boring. Hunting Bears is just the same guitar part repeated over for 2 minutes and thats all, no vocals, no strucure no melody, just that. Then awful backwards robot vocals that sound like C3-PO being mutilated whilst impersonating Sylvester Stallone on Spinning Plates. Minutes of absolute rubbish. Life In A Glass House salvages it somewhat at the end. Just because this is from the same band that brought us all time greats such as The Bends and OK Computer doesn't mean they are incapable of doing a bad album. Yes of course we can forgive them but we shouldn't kid ourselves that this is a good album. Its terrible, end of story. Sad to see how many fans convinced themselves this was good in the same way Star Wars geeks convinced themselves the last 3 films were any cop. The reality is that if Amnesiac had been made by a lesser band it would have been laughed at. Radiohead might as well have recording themselves farting in the studio for an hour, people would have still called it revolutionary. After all some still convince themselves Pablo Honey was good.
dull December 8, 2007
0 out of 4 found this review helpful
and pretentious. i'll never buy this sadness from this singer. it's just boredome, not serious. it was the best place i've been and this cd arrived and i listened to vega and kind. but this disc was not worth of the money. well, i never bought it.
 (3.5 ) Complex perceptions undermine Amnesiac as an album October 17, 2007
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
Critics and fans alike haunt AMNESIAC, Radiohead's 2001 album, with accusations this record is little more than a KID B. Indeed, much of the controversy surrounding this album has to do with complex issues of album vs. single, and Radiohead's self-important reputation. It is rather funny how the actual music can get lost in all the shuffle.
In the early 1960s, rock music was a singles market, and people didn't think of albums as a piece of art. Through seminal releases from artists such as Dylan, The Beatles, The Who, Pink Floyd, Genesis, Jethro Tull, Led Zeppelin and so on, albums became important mediums of art. Radiohead, with their three very self-contained albums (THE BENDS, OK COMPUTER, and KID A) fell in with this tradition.
When 2001 came around, Radiohead and their record company began promoting AMNESIAC as a whole new album, and all the heavy conceptual ideals that a new Radiohead album entails went along with this announcement. They also said that AMNESIAC would be the `real' sequel to OK COMPUTER, and there would be more guitars this time around. What did they give us? An album that doesn't sound much different than KID A, though a little more conventional and streamlined than its predecessor. Because KID A was designed to be a radical album, some of the simpler and more conventional tracks were left off it. Where did they go?
Why, AMNESIAC. And when AMNESIAC hit the market, people were more puzzled than they were with KID A, because they had been explicitly promised a return to the more guitar oriented sound of their pre-millennial work. Not only that, AMNESIAC was promoted very heavily an actual album, not as an outtakes album that got slapped together from KID A's cutting room floor. The band wanted AMNESIAC to be treated as a regular release, and it simply isn't. Every record, sans AMNESIAC, operates as a complete reappraisal and an evolution of where Radiohead has been and where they are going. Their projects are very well differentiated. PABLO HONEY and its B-sides are very different than THE BENDS and its B-SIDES. The same goes for OK COMPUTER and its B-Sides. KID A continues this pattern of artistic reinvention on Radiohead's part for every new album. But not so with AMNESIAC. AMNESIAC sounds like just what it is - songs cut during the KID A session but not released on that album.
Putting all this aside, the actual music of AMNESIAC is just as good, though a little more streamlined and simpler (which is not a bad thing, don't get me wrong), than the music found on KID A. As it is, AMNESIAC as more misfires than KID A does. I don't care much for the dead weight instrumental "Treefingers," which I think breaks KID A's momentum, and "Motion Picture" is a decent track, it never really has done much for me. AMNESIAC, on the other hand, has the "Pulk/Pull Revolving Doors," "Morning Bell/Amnesiac," the reptitive "Like Spinning Plates," and the slight should-have-been-a-b-side-instrumental "Hunting Bears." Why have two versions of "Morning Bell"? "Morning Bell" is one of the closing highlights of KID A, but we didn't need this one. Especially when you look at the B-Sides that were left off AMNESIAC, which would have made it just strong as KID A. The rest of the songs on AMNESIAC as just as good as KID A, and had these two records been consolidated into one album, we would have a much more balanced piece of work with the more experimental songs and the more conventional songs playing side-by-side..
All of these factors lead up both critics and fans slighting this album and calling it little more than a clone of KID A, which is ironic because KID A is named after the first human clone. But I digress. Because of the aforementioned politics, people's perception of AMNESIAC is shaped by the band, by rock history, and by the explicit promised made to them by the record company. People approach this record not as a self-contained unit, but the second part of KID A. And in truth, they are right. This is the second part of KID A.
In my opinion, which doesn't count for much, instead of releasing two albums and adding all this confusion to people's minds, they should have either opted for a longer single album and left the rest for B-sides, or they should have released a double album and incorporated AMNESIAC's B-sides into the running order. There's enough strong material here between KID A and AMNESIAC and the assorted B-Sides ("Cuttooth," "Fog," "Kinetic," and "Worrywort" especially) for a first-class single album. The best moments of these sessions rival Radiohead's best work, though perhaps this material cannot reach the grandiose claustrophobia and suffocating world view of OK COMPUTER.
I personally would prefer to have seen them release this as a double album. While some of the material is not strong enough to merit inclusion, had the full two hours (counting the b-sides) of these sessions been officially released as a double LP we would have had a grand, new entry into the dizzying world of indulgent records. On double LPs, even the misfires are welcome, because they add to the character and intent of the band in the creative throes of crafting new music. George Martin was right when he said THE WHITE ALBUM should have been condensed into a single album. It would have been a stronger album. But it's that wild, messy, chaotic, scattershot effect that makes THE WHITE ALBUM such an effective and gripping listen. The same would be true of Radiohead's double album.
P. S. Here's a list of AMNESIAC's B-Sides. KID A had no singles or tour so it doesn't have B-Sides. The ones with astericks (*) should have been on either album, especially Cuttooth.
1. Kinetic*
2. Trans-Atlantic Drawl
3. Fast Track (instrumental).
4. Amazing Sounds
5. Cuttooth*
6. Fog.*
7. Worrywort*
8. Life in a Glass House (Full version) (longer)
Originally issued on Amazon.com on May 11, 2004
 as above, so below October 8, 2007
Meaning that this is the twin album to Kid A, and is just as good. More of the jazz/rock/electronica hybrid that made the previous record great. No standout tracks really, the album works best as a whole, although 'Sardines', 'I might be Wrong' and 'Knives Out' are probably the more accessible tracks.
Buy Kid A first though, as it's slightly easier to digest and leads into this album quite nicely.
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