Monday, November 09, 2009

Idioteque



Making one of the most talked-about and acclaimed records of all time, and following it up with a couple of left-leaning, coldly forbidding works that immediately alienated any bandwagon fans would seem like career suicide to any sensibly minded band, but with Radiohead, it's a logical horizontal career-mobility move. While 1997's 'OK Computer' shattered all manner of records and became the definitive yardstick by which all subsequent Brit-rock albums are measured against, the following 'Kid A' and 'Amnesiac' had Radiohead dabbling in various sub-genres of electronica, making for what could be the most dramatic volte-face ever within the business. Bandwagon fans enamoured of the likes of 'Just', 'Fake Plastic Trees' and 'Karma Police' were expectedly turned off by this revolutionary change in direction, but long-suffering disciples who have faithfully worshipped the band since the early 1990s took to it like ducks to water, and most critics hailed it as a bold new paradigm shift.

A solid example of this electronica-influenced aesthetic can be found in the paranoiac 'Idioteque', originally found on 'Kid A', a tetchy, IDM-sourced, beat-crazy stormer that is as good as anything put out by ambient-techno pioneers like Aphex Twin or the Future Sound of London. Check out the artfully shot video clip, which alternates jerky images of random pieces of machinery and what appears to be psychotic, gun-toting mutant bears.

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