Amnesiac

Released 4th June 2001
I bought it: The day it came out, in that limited library book edition.

Where I was…
This could very well have been the last day of our GCSEs. Either way, after getting this album from Time Records again, a bunch of us went to the the park and someone had brought portable speakers along. There is a strong memory, shared by not just me, of the opening Pakt Like Sardines playing out while we were lazing around by the boating pond. By now I was A Big Radiohead Fan and probably winding up my mates who had liked them for years.

What I thought then…
Either I was already developing my poncy critical journalist tone by this stage, or I was just copying what I’d read elsewhere. Either way, I remember thinking Kid A was a coherent album and this felt more like the songs that were left over. Singles were back, which meant b-sides (more on them later). Knives Out felt a bit of a plodder at the time but probably the only one that would have gotten radio play - weird to think how vital that was at the time (to the industry, the band could clearly give no fucks about any of this).

What I think now…
I forgot how haunting Pyramid Song is, it’s like waltzing off a cliff. Going from that to a slap in the face from Pulk/Pull and back to the soothing menace of You And Whose Army (a Fallout 3 song ahead of its time) shows the unforgiving nature of this album. Dollars & Cents still sends me to sleep. I Might Be Wrong should have been The Other Single. This album is a bit all over the place - some excellent places, but not the most direct of routes. Saying that, it’s still relatively succinct and all over in 43 mins.

Next:
Couldn’t look you in the eye...