Tag: Anniversary
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Discovery by Daft Punk – Essentiality Review
The context for this review has changed dramatically. I first drafted it just one day before Daft Punk announced their separation after a 28 year career, 4 studio albums, 2 live albums and a film score. The news of course was widley covered by the music press and commented by fans all over the world.…
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Kid A by Radiohead – Essentiality Review
Succintly is not a way someone could describe Radiohead’s career; one of the most succesful and well-renowned bands of the 21st century. Trying to do it with Kid A certainly isn’t an easy task either. Anyway, I’ll try: The fourth album of the Oxford quintet is the one left-turn of an already beloved rock band…
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Kid-ays: ‘It’s not like the movies…’
‘Motion Picture Soundtrack’ is an ending song. The track sends-off Kid A with quite the opposite of a bang, however it is still quite a grand finale with its mellow organs, awe-inspiring harps and overall sorrowful atmosphere. The song is inherently sad but it’s a different kind of deep and beating emotion. The one that…
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Kid-ays: ‘Everybody wants to be a friend…’
‘Morning Bell’ has a unique place in Kid A. Coming just after the most recognizable track in the album and before the sweeping closer. It is also the only song that was presented in a different form in Amnesiac, an album composed mostly of Kid A‘s outtakes despite being released as its successor. The song…
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Kid-ays: ‘Throw it in the fire…’
If there’s a clear meaning for the definitive composition of Kid A is: utter paranoia. ‘Idioteque’ is the quintessential track of the album. A song that fully embraces the beat-driven, synth drenched electronics and also dwells in the fear-inducing realities in our war-leaning and technology-flooding world. The paradox here is that Thom Yorke’s voice is…
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Kid-ays: ‘This beautiful world…’
‘In Limbo’ despite being sonically wider, sounds more like an interlude than ‘Treefingers’. It treads the same territory that ‘Faust Arp’ would, 7 years later on ‘In Rainbows’. That specific trait may have something to do with the fact that the song lands between the two most recognized songs in Kid A. I once read…
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Kid-ays: ‘Float around on a prison ship…’
After a compelling start, Kid A reaches a more straightforward approach in the middle. That’s not to say it gets boring, quite the opposite, the next two songs check even more boxes when it come to adding sounds to the album. However they way they do it is uniquely simple. ‘Treefingers’ is the outlier amongst…
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Kid-ays: ‘The moment’s already past…’
Radiohead is a band known for their ability to successfully strive for beauty. When they commit themselves to craft a song that is blatantly gorgeous it is rare that they fail. In Kid A, earlier in the album than you might expect, comes ‘How to Disappear Completely’ one of the quintet’s most poignant exemplars of…
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Kid-ays: ‘Everyone has got the fear…’
‘The National Anthem’ is one song that proves that Radiohead can, even among a dystopian collection of electronic drenched tracks, get funky. And it’s still chillingly alienated funk. The song’s opening bassline is one of the most recognizable intros of any song from the band and even more so its disruptive addition of a brass…
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Canción Animal by Soda Stereo – Essentiality Review
“Oh, so you DO like music in Spanish?“ I definitely would expect my readers to ask that question. Also some skeptics certainly would claim that writing about one of the most famous albums of Latin rock, by one of the most recognized Latin American bands isn’t actually commendable when it comes to show interest for…
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High Violet by The National – Essentiality Review
With all that’s happening I feel like January was a long time ago. A month rendered in our minds as we looked forward to a new decade ignoring how our lives would change in the following months. And it was around that time I published my lists of favorite music from the past decade, and…
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Time Out by The Dave Brubeck Quartet – Essentiality Review
Here’s one simple and kind of dumb thought I had about jazz one time: ‘If music was a circle, then jazz would be the point where that circle starts and ends’. Mathematically circles don’t have beginnings or ends though, so, was I thinking of popular music history as if someone was drawing a circle and…
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Abbey Road by The Beatles – Essentiality Review
50 years. Half a century. Everything that needs to be said about The Beatles and their 11th album, Abbey Road has been said. The facts about its recording process, the story of a one-of-a-kind band that was coming to an end, the mixed reception of the finished product, the theories surrounding each song, the creation of the…
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Hospice by The Antlers – Essentiality Review
It is 6:40 am. I’m leaving my house to go to work. I’m walking to the stop where I meet a colleague who’s going to pick me up. Carpooling has become a routine. Walking through the morning mist after a rainy night is also a routine. But the most important routine is putting my headphones…
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Chairs Missing by Wire – Essentiality Review
The last years of the 70’s were music-defining ones. Or at least, rock-defining ones. The genre changed forever and the shape of it would transform from big arenas and excentricism to the minimalism and DIY nature of the punk, post-punk and new wave scenes. Enter, Wire. This London-based band became an essential part of…