AQ REDUX: Kid A changed my life

This is kind of a cheat on the whole AQ Redux idea and it's only the second posting of my history as an Aquinian columnist. I pitched the idea for my column, essentially a hodge-podge of pop-culture musings and rantings at the end of my second year at St. Thomas. We ran the one on image and coolness in the last issue of the year.

A week or so later I wrote the following piece on a whim but it couldn't really wait until the following semester to be printed. My editor, the wonderful Hiedi Irvine, helped me get in touch with Here magazine. I emailed the column to them along with my image column to give them an idea of my style. After weeks of waiting, I finally hear back with a message saying Here has enough columnists as is.

With great haste I shoot back a reply asking what they would be looking for as far as a freelancer would be concerned so I could figure out some story ideas. After an even longer wait, I finally get an email back re-iterating the fact that they don't want a columnist even though I specifically indicated that I was fine with doing straight up features. Their editor gave me a vague idea of what Here was looking for but I was so disgusted with how long it took to get a reply that I decided to work at a call center for the summer instead of write.

Anyway, for the first time ever, here is my column about Kid A by Radiohead. It's a bit self-serving, I'll admit that but hey it was a fun one to write.



Kid A changed my life
by Jason Wilson



Outside my apartment, I stood smoking a cigarette and thinking about life. More accurately I was thinking about my music collection and the limits within it. It consists of albums I have either heard too frequently and have become bored of or those that I tolerated once and have no interest in repeating.

For the first time ever -- at least since it was released -- I was compelled to listen to Radiohead's Kid A. This is not a record that is or has ever been in my possession. When it was released, people treated it as the second coming of rock music and this critical fellating it received turned me off. Why should I feel obligated to listen to (and love) an album because music critics have labeled it as the best of its kind?

Nearly seven years ago I avoided Kid A and tonight I needed to listen to it. NEEDED TO.

Luckily, I found a copu in a pile of my roommateès discs beside his stereo. Funny, I have never seen him play it.

My compulsive list-making has shielded me from many bands because I have pigeon-holed myself into my particular taste. I refused to like Radiohead -- except The Bends -- because they had been built up far too much. Radiohead seemed like a trendy choice in the late 90s spilling over to the new millenium and I never wanted to jump on that train. Now it seems safe to finally give in and objectively analyze the music.

On track three The National Anthem I realize that I am absorbed. It is a visceral experience. The tracks blend into one another unapologetically, telling a story. As the listener I have inserted myself into a Kubrickian reality where past, present and future have collided in a dreamy haze. I am not on drugs; at least not of the narcotic variety because this album -- and most good music -- is like a drug itself.

This, I realize, is why Kid A is important. It takes you on a journey. Without sounding too much like an elitist snob it needs to be said that this is a rare quality in popular music these days.

Singles drive the industry while the album offers little more than empty hooks surrounding them. An album does not need a storyline to be good, but some coherent idea of the content is welcome. The concept album is almost an archaic form of media (or is it?).

The tracks on Kid A flow together but do not imitate the rest of the record. Pop stars try to find a signature sound that sells and then create an entire album consisting of essentially one song on twelve tracks. It's a formula appealing to the lowest common denominator. Why make something that requires effort to appreciate when A Simple Plan makes "music" that is both easy to listen to and ignore?

Artists that transcend popularity from generation to generation like Bob Dylan also have a signature sound. The difference -- besides talent -- is artists like Dylan never stay in that comfort zone for very long and always push the boundaries of their art, or in other words they take risks (see: Neil Young, 1980s).

While I am not a fan of her sound, Pink portrays the image that she is not a mindless diva controlled by her producers. She seems to break the mould or at least tries to convince you she is an individual in control of her creative process. Whether this is a further ploy by the studios or an honest depiction of her is up for debate, but it is a much better image than the boy band era of the late 90s.

The music industry is safe; and by safe I also mean boring. MuchMusic and MTV no longer play uninterrupted music videos, at least not at great length. These stations employ robotic yes men and women with no personality to shill their wares. They tell people what is "cool" and what should be popular and every high-schooler in North America who wants to have a social life listens. How else can the popularity of Avril Lavigne** be explained?

People do not buy music for the music, but for the image that lies in the perception of peers. The only way to truly appreciate the music is to wait for the hype to die and then give it a go. Maybe waiting seven years to listen to Kid A is extreme, but it has provided the opportunity for the music to sink in.

The paradox this creates is by finally breaking down, it may be perceived that you were, in the long run affected by the hype machine. Maybe even more than anyone else who listened to it and discarded it within a month of the initial release. This is a valid argument.

Both angles are stubborn when all that really matters is the music, not the image. Ignoring or buying into it because of what the album represents socially amounts to nothing, and I learned this the hard way.

My Kubrickian fantasy of a dream-world where time overlaps continues through the second half of Kid A and I can't help but wonder what my thoughts would have been had I listened to it in 2000. The important thing is my record collection needs some diversity and my own copy of Kid A will soon make an appearance.


* It is still not in my collection but I do have my old roommate's copy of it, though I'm not sure if he's aware of it. I have however seen Radiohead in concert. This past summer with a few friends I travelled to Montreal for a beautiful show with the opening act Grizzly Bear.

** Walking through the Regent Mall a little while back, I think it was the end of summer just before school, I couldn't help but laugh at a poster in the store. There was this cautionary poster about staying in school. Of all people to be on the poster was Avril Lavigne.

I said to the clerk, "it's a bit ironic when a millionaire high school dropout is telling kids to stay in school."

The clerk kind of chuckled probably wishing the customers would all just go away quietly without sharing their inane observations. I remember those days well.