Product Description

After confounding expectations with 2000's 'Kid A', Radiohead's fifth album is slightly more commercial, if no less experimental. Described by the band as 'fat and dark', it contains the single 'Pyramid Song'.

Track Listing

1. Packt Like Sardines In A Crushed Tin Box
2. Pyramid Song
3. Pulk/pull Revolving Doors
4. You And Whose Army
5. I Might Be Wrong
6. Knives Out
7. Morning Bell/Amnesiac
8. Dollars And Cents
9. Hunting Bears
10. Like Spinning Plates
11. Life In A Glasshouse

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #3079 in Music
• Released on: 2001-06-04
• Number of discs: 1

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

Customer Reviews

This is rubbish!
Sorry, but this is terrible. A few years ago I bought a few Radiohead albums and listened to them chronologically. I gave up before I got to this one, but my daughter pulled it out of the cd rack so I thought I would give it a spin.

Its awful! Really, really bad. Consistently bad too. Most Radiohead albums can be forgiven because they contain a couple of brilliant songs in amidst the quagmire, but this turkey is pure 100% quagmire.

Buy for an enemy.

Amnesiac/Radiohead
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!
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.