CMW - Radiohead Amnesiac Listening Partyy

ChartAttack’s M&M stumbled into a Room at Westin Harbour Castle (the HQ for Canadian Music Week) where he encountered a make shift crash pad, vintage lighting, beanbag chairs and headphones. He picked up a set of headphones and heard Radiohead’s Amnesiac album in its entirety! Using one of the chairs he set-up his laptop and began to write this in stream of conscience mode.
 

  • 1) "Packt Like Sardines In A Crushd Tin Box" (3:57)


    • Starting with drumming and odd sounds before breaking into a "dance" beat, it’s hard to distinguish that this is any different than Kid A until Thom Yorke starts to sing, "I’m a reasonable man/get off my case/get off my case/get off my case." A little more palatable than any song on Kid A, but still experimental for major label music.
     

  • 2) "Pyramid Song" (4:49)


    • Canada and the U.K. will be putting out a commercial single for "Pyramid Song." The American label is coming out with a different first single. This song will have their first video from the album. Haunting vocals return. The piano accompaniment is very melancholy-sounding with sparse drumming pulling the song together.
     

  • 3) "Pulk/Pull Revolving Doors" (4:07)


    • Slightly industrial in the use of beats and vox voice, again, there's not much proper singing. Filled with trippy beats. Easily enhanced with chemicals, which weren't supplied by the label.
     

  • 4) "You And Whose Army?" (3:10)


    • Finally a return to Radiohead of yore! Simple guitar strumming with Thom’s accompaniment. This provides a relaxing start before the rest of the band brings the crescendo. By songs end there's a return to the Radiohead madness that made them famous.
     

  • 5) "I Might Be Wrong" (4:51)


    • The three minutes of normalcy comes to an end for this rocking number. A recognizable guitar riff! Radio stations will twig to this as it's very normal, has a cool guitar sound and contains very little craziness. Ends very abruptly then starts again.
     

  • 6) "Knives Out" (4:15)


    • More noticeable instruments! Already debuted live, the song continues where the last two tracks left off. Obviously, another potential radio track.
     

  • 7) "Morning Bell/Amnesiac" (3:14)


    • Sounds like a song that was left off the Kid A album. The normalcy has ended. "Cut the kids in half/cut the kids in half/." Bad drug trip material if I’ve ever heard it. Still it's blissful in the way it ends.
     

  • 8) "Dollars & Cents" (4:52)


    • We were expecting an anti-corporation rant of some sort that never materialised. Excellent peak to the song before it chills us out.
     

  • 9) "Hunting Bears" (2:00)


    • Kinda twangy. Picture plucking guitars on a porch near the ocean. Instrumental.
     

  • 10) "Like Spinning Plates" (3:57)


    • Back to the start. Fucked up sounds. Running amok in the studio with the distortion and knob twiddling. This song is just like spinning plates. Thankfully the room doesn’t start to spin, good thing we’re sober.
     

  • 11) "Life In A Glasshouse" (4:35)


    • Is this how they feel about their success? The horns make this one sound jazzy. Smokey. Loungey. Probably a couple of other "Y" things, too. A cabaret number. Sgt. Peppers Lonely Hearts Club 2001 version? Ends with a jazz jam of sorts and "Is someone listening?" cry by Thom.

    -Matt Mernagh

    ChartAttack
    29.03.01