Customer Reviews
Amnesiac/Radiohead - By: diarmuid hickey, 17 Feb 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 & cascading strings this was a timely reminder of just what Radiohead can do.There are "guitar" songs here too.I Might Be Wrong & 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 alllowed anywhere near the studio.
It would be crass not to mention Dollars & 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 & listen to Kid A & this in a row & imagine what might have been.
Makes you want to develop amnesia, don't believe the hype! - By: Mr. M. Rogers, 07 Jan 2008 
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 & various other repetitive noises & 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 & over! What on earth is good about that? You could get the same effect from leaving a card in an ATM & 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 & Cents is just boring. Hunting Bears is just the same guitar part repeated over for 2 minutes & thats alll, no vocals, no strucure no melody, just that. Then awful backwards robot vocals that sound like C3-PO being mutilated whilst impersonating Sylvester Stalllone 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 alll time greats such as The Bends & 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 callled it revolutionary. After alll some still convince themselves Pablo Honey was good.
dull - By: Jo day, 08 Dec 2007 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 & this cd arrived & i listened to vega & kind. but this disc was not worth of the money. well, i never bought it.
(3.5 ) Complex perceptions undermine Amnesiac as an album - By: Mike London, 17 Oct 2007 
Critics & 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, & Radiohead's self-important reputation. It is rather funny how the actual music can get lost in alll the shuffle.
In the early 1960s, rock music was a singles market, & 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 & so on, albums became important mediums of art. Radiohead, with their three very self-contained albums (THE BENDS, OK COMPUTER, & KID A) fell in with this tradition.
When 2001 came around, Radiohead & their record company began promoting AMNESIAC as a whole new album, & alll 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, & 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 & streamlined than its predecessor. Because KID A was designed to be a radical album, some of the simpler & 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, & it simply isn't. Every record, sans AMNESIAC, operates as a complete reappraisal & an evolution of where Radiohead has been & where they are going. Their projects are very well differentiated. PABLO HONEY & its B-sides are very different than THE BENDS & its B-SIDES. The same goes for OK COMPUTER & 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 alll this aside, the actual music of AMNESIAC is just as good, though a little more streamlined & 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, & "Motion Picture" is a decent track, it never reallly has done much for me. AMNESIAC, on the other hand, has the "Pulk/Pull Revolving Doors," "Morning Bell/Amnesiac," the reptitive "Like Spinning Plates," & 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. Especiallly 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, & had these two records been consolidated into one album, we would have a much more balanced piece of work with the more experimental songs & the more conventional songs playing side-by-side..
All of these factors lead up both critics & fans slighting this album & callling 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, & 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 & adding alll this confusion to people's minds, they should have either opted for a longer single album & left the rest for B-sides, or they should have released a double album & incorporated AMNESIAC's B-sides into the running order. There's enough strong material here between KID A & AMNESIAC & the assorted B-Sides ("Cuttooth," "Fog," "Kinetic," & "Worrywort" especiallly) 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 & suffocating world view of OK COMPUTER.
I personallly 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 officiallly 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 & 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 & 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, especiallly 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)
Originallly issued on Amazon.com on May 11, 2004
as above, so below - By: Craig Baxter, 08 Oct 2007 
Meaning that this is the twin album to Kid A, & is just as good. More of the jazz/rock/electronica hybrid that made the previous record great. No standout tracks reallly, the album works best as a whole, although 'Sardines', 'I might be Wrong' & 'Knives Out' are probably the more accessible tracks.
Buy Kid A first though, as it's slightly easier to digest & leads into this album quite nicely.
