Talk:Kid A

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This is the talk page for discussing improvements to the Kid A article.
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Featured article star Kid A is a featured article; it (or a previous version of it) has been identified as one of the best articles produced by the Wikipedia community. Even so, if you can update or improve it, please do.

Contents

[edit] Just a reminder about Reviewer/Ratings

Do NOT change Pitchfork, NME, whatever reviews to a "10 star" template. Very few media organisations that give scores out of 10 have ever awarded scores in "10 stars". Obviously someone created this Wikipedia template because they thought it was cool, but it actually takes up less space just to give the rating out of 10 and is also much easier to quickly read (with something out of 10 stars, it's not immediately clear how many there are, they're so closely bunched together, unlike with 5 star ratings where it is easy to read and visually good).

In addition, it's not only a poor formatting choice but leads to inaccuracy with converting Pitchfork Media reviews, since this one might happen to be 10.0/10.0, but usually their reviews are not whole numbers that could be converted into a number of stars out of 10.

[edit] Listing Japan

The first paragraph lists a Japan release date. it doesn't make the first para significantly longer. I put it there and I vote we keep it there.

why? because 1. the date is Sept 27, significantly earlier than the others, almost a week earlier and even in a different month (this is unusual and I don't think the case for other Radiohead albums) 2. listing Japan looks cool and makes it look less Eurocentric, really (not a valid reason, I know) 3. Radiohead is actually very popular in Japan, so it's not quite a random fact 4. we don't have any other part of the article listing more specific release dates (and I don't think it's needed, as these are the ONLY three dates, according to this site: http://www.indyrock.es/newalbum.htm)

September 27 Japan, October 2 Europe October 3 Canada / USA

and from that site, here's the chart positions it reached

UK - No.1 USA - No.1

      Canada - No.1  
France - No.1

Ireland - No.1 New Zealand - No.1 Australia - No.2

    Finland -No.2

Noruega -No.2

  Japan - No.3

Portugal -No.3 Italia -No.3 Suecia -No.3 Dinamarca-No.6 Suiza -No.8 Alemania -No.4 Holanda -No.6 Austria -No.5 Spain -No.23

quite impressive. but I guess Spain actually has its own music market unlike all these other countries which take the English stuff! 172.144.0.252 16:49, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] GA nomination failed

I failed the article, though I was a main contributor to it. Is the article well written, factually accurate, broad in coverage, NPOV, all that sort of thing? Maybe. I tried for that. I don't think it's too well written but if anything it was too broad in coverage. The problem lies in the stability and the images (points 5 and 6 on GA standards), and the general focus of the article, which had yet to be perfected when it was nominated (this article has had very few contributors).

The specific reasons are:

1). I think effort should be concentrated on Radiohead at the moment, this is a newer article and that has more importance. People should be encouraged to find sources for that article. The same user nominated both articles one day apart, that is still nominated. There should not be two separate Radiohead-related articles competing for GA status just now.

2). I had some more minor improvements/edits I needed/wanted to make on this article using other sources I have, which I did not have time to make recently. It is overly specific in some ways now, and needs more sources for claims. More others should also be making contributions to Kid A before it eventually gets further up the ladder. Yes, it is quite good, but it is not at the point where its "quality" should be called attention to. Maybe next month?

3). The person who put it up for GA appears not particularly commital either, and also to have a different idea of what kind of edits would constitute "focusing" the article more (not that some of his/her edits weren't positive). I checked history, and despite them being minor-ish, I was still going to get into an edit war about a removed quote which, imo, constitutes the main subject here. The recording process, more than any particulars about the style of music or its reception (which in any case are difficult to describe objectively), is fundamental and frankly the real reason to have such a separate article, as the other aspects of the album (not that they should be removed from this article) largely apply to Radiohead in general.

Another thing is that this album's article is able to cover issues that cannot be addressed in the main Radiohead article due to the structure of that. E.g. inspirations on Radiohead lyrics and the political views ascribed to them is a subject not covered directly in Radiohead, and probably shouldn't be (nor in Thom Yorke).

The main Radiohead article works better as a factual history with minor sections on the band members, to prevent fans from adding whatever they want if it had sections on Radiohead's "legacy" or that sort of thing (like some bands do, and like people used to do with the Radiohead article and turn it into a fannish horror about a year back, it seems). The other thing is this music act has such an extensive amount of articles on singles, album releases, that there is not the need for as much non-historical stuff in the main article, it's better to cover the details besides history elsewhere where you can be more specific.

But as a result it doesn't leave room to address certain aspects of the band- image/marketing/ideals/philosophy for lack of a better word- which are noted in most reports on them. It seemed appropriate here, as Kid A received the most attention for these things, to have both a music and lyrics section here. The idea is not that all Radiohead albums would follow the same exact format in their articles, or have the same detail as this. For example there's no need for detailed information about the recording process in The Bends article, as it was largely done in a recording studio in a few weeks by playing the songs a few times and trying to get the best performances, and notable events can be summarized in trivia or individual song pages. There's no need for a detailed marketing section for Hail to the Thief or OK Computer because, while highly marketed, they were more typical albums in that regard.

It seemed a good idea on Kid A to use many band quotes on the recording process, as it was so different from their previous ones and unusual as far as typical "rock music" ideas (See Rockism if you want to have an understanding of why that quote by a lead rock guitarist was notable). This is ranked "high importance" to WikiProject Alternative Rock, and I think it's more relevant to that with a section that puts it in a context of the band's previous popularity, their songwriting and recording method, rather than just parroting back the press release that Kid A is "experimental" and leaving it at that.

Yet, all those sections- the detailed recording history, the sound and influences, the lyrics and meaning- might be challenged at a higher level and should probably be peer reviewed to see if they really fit in this article at some pt.

Anyway, I think we need more of a consensus (stability) about this article's general structure and content before it can go on. ErleGrey's relentless editing style doesn't really help. Being merciless is good, but some of the edits appear rather haphazard. Bottom line is we need more ideas and contributors to improve it.

4). Maybe most importantly, images are now a major problem throughout Wikipedia and arguments over that were coming out in this article. It seemed clear that most of the images would have to be removed to achieve a GA, and there is absolutely no "free" images to replace them with.

This is not a natural science subject or something. If there is going to be lots of text, there need to be appropriate illustrations for a (pop) culture-related article. Wiki editors advocate removing all images that are tangentially related (apparently we have no right to display Charles Mingus or ProTools in an article not explicitly all about them), and at the same time disallow all images that ARE explicitly related (I wonder why there are no photos of Radiohead where the band members' faces can actually be seen in any of their articles), both for fair use rationale. They want to have their cake and eat it too, etc. Remember ignore all rules?

5). This article should absolutely be resubmitted at such time as anyone feels it's ready. It simply should not have been submitted for a GA after a lot of edits by basically one or two people, though, and without any consensus over it. 172.135.56.93 21:52, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

Oh and finally, Wikipedians need to STOP CHANGING PITCHFORK MEDIA RATINGS to the template of 10 STARS. I hate that site as much as anyone, but they don't give ratings in stars, and it's not visually clear how many stars are pictured anyway. 10.0 just happens to be representable like that. What if it was a 7.2? It actually takes up less space just to write their real rating.

Just a note. This article technically didn't fail a good article review. The use who "failed" it was not signed in to a registered wikipedia account, thus they were not able to carry out a valid review. If you wish to have the article reviewed, I'd resubmit it to the candidate page. There is a backlog, and registered good article reviewer's are doing what they can to review articles to the best of their ability. Alternativley, you could try a peer review. Nja247 (talk • contribs) 00:57, 11 February 2007 (UTC)
Yes, I know that now. That's why I changed my comment at the top. I was going to put the "GA nominee" logo back up there too from the prior version of the page, but someone else apparently agreed that the GA thing should be put on hold. So this article is technically "in limbo"?
I'm not sure who you are talking to, you may want to ask the user:ErleGrey about her/his plans for the article re:GA status, since s/he nominated it.
Peer review sounds like a good idea actually. But maybe the backlog gives time to improve the article a bit more before anyone reviews it for the GA nomination? 172.135.56.93 08:47, 11 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Time for a re-evaluation?

Is it time for a re-evaluation of the article's status? I think its now met the criticisms placed on it that prevented it from getting an "A" and good article status?

It still needs a few sources. More importantly the many sources there need to be condensed, however you do that, so that when the same source is cited multiple times it can instantly jump to the same source, instead of cluttering up the footnotes with tons of the same thing. And this article might be too long for the standard... I don't know (I am NOT suggesting someone simply go in and delete tons of stuff). maybe hardcore Wiki experts would not like such a long article on this "unimportant" subject. I think it could become a very good article though, given some citation finding and minor edits by people who care, which have been sorely lacking (and not stupid deletions of trivia and things like that).
I have yet to see any other album articles with this level of factual detail and context, which if channeled into slightly better more concise writing in a few places, should be a plus. It is quite scary taht when you search Radiohead Kid A in google this is the second result. Let's try to make it live up to that. can anyone point out some other comprehensive album articles we should be using as models here to improve this?? 172.144.0.252 19:46, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Fair use/Images

It's not that scary; Wikipedia is the top or near-top result for a lot of Google searches. One thing I'd like to point out is that the images, such as the one of Charles Mingus and the Talk Talk album cover, may not qualify as fair use as these are only fair use when used on a page primarily about the topic in question (or so I believe). This, for one, may prevent the article from obtaining GA status.--HisSpaceResearch 19:57, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

I don't believe that's necessarily true, as the images are adequately referenced in the text of that section and throughout the article (in the case of Mingus). I didn't put them back, but I might do it soon, regardless of the good article debate (I don't think this article should have been submitted for that, anyway. the effort should be concentrated on getting Radiohead up to standards first).
This fair-use-pictures issue in general (no offense to who removed the images-not only for this article) is ridiculous because there is nothing even close to consensus among leading editors over when and where different types of images can be used in music articles. Until there is more consensus things should not be deleted unless they are the subject of a legal complaint or it's truly a massively popular article, which is never going to be the case on this one.
Ok, on the one hand, images are supposedly only "fair use" if they relate directly to the article. On the other hand, the images that most directly relate to articles (good photos of the actual band in question- as opposed to blurry, distant, amateur shots of one member- and images of album covers for the artist in question), these are the ones constantly BANNED for not being fair use (except in the magic case of The Smashing Pumpkins, which seems to have gotten close to being a featured article, with massive amounts of beautiful unapproved images).
I don't see this article obtaining "good" status anyway, for other reasons. It is more comprehensive than is probably desired by leading editors for an article on this topic, as said already. Look at the length of the article. By Wiki standards, it is excessive. I don't see other single-album articles like this, I mean it's longer than the main Radiohead entry! Yet it's not like much of this information is a repeat of what's already there, or like there can be a spinoff topic on "Kid A Sound and influences" and "Kid A marketing and release", that would be stupid. I might be biased but I do think most of this article is justifiable wiki-worthy material and I'm trying to improve it and remove unsourced bits. But it just doesn't quite fit into the way format of album articles currently on Wikipedia, so I doubt it'd get approved as "good". It's better that it be the best article possible on the topic than a "good article" by wikipedia standards if those standards get in the way of it (And anyway: "Ignore all rules").
We should not be trying to ram relatively new (as in, not that many unique editors have worked on this) articles through Wikipedia hierarchy, but improving the articles in a grassroots process. If trying to obtain good status is going to conflict with trying to present a complete and easy to read picture of the topic, why does "good" matter? If the total number of images in the article in general is the issue, then perhaps they can all be removed. I don't understand why Mingus or Talk Talk is any less justifiable than say the image of ProTools, or Meeting People is Easy, or of Ed O'Brien in what is surely a fan picture from a concert from 2006 (not a picture of him while recording or touring for this album).
NONE of the images in the article relate directly to the article content and you know why that is? Because OF THE SAME "FAIR USE" rules that prevent us from posting any of the innumerable images, posters, or whatever of the band taken specifically for this album or its live shows. The only image that does relate, besides the album cover, is the album artwork (which will probably be removed for violating fair use) and Thom on SNL (which lots of editors have already requested for removal).
Mingus is more directly relevant to this album than a picture of Tom with a Nader sign on Saturday Night Live. But all the images are equally relevent, or irrelevant. That should be the criteria, not "fair use", which is a completely nebulous and POV concept. As far as I can tell, Jimmy Wales intentionally left it that way. The way some editors interpret it, constricts basically ALL images from pop culture related articles. 172.145.14.88 06:56, 6 February 2007 (UTC)
just an addendum: if it's not obvious let me explain why I added all the images. There is a lot of text, and this is not a technical sort of article. Images are really a necessity to break it up and illustrate. of course I first wanted to add pictures that would more directly relate to the article's subject. of course, such images are not allowed here (see above). I haven't been to a Radiohead concert and personally (perhaps illegally) taken pictures of the band. These are the only images of pop artists that are currently allowed under the rules, amateur poor quality pictures, because photoshoots are not allowed. Instead you have to be creative in an article such as this and find images of other things, such as those that have already been uploaded to other Wiki articles. each picture is more than justified considering its importance to the album/recording/reaction/etc, if you read the text. 172.145.14.88 07:06, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Genre

We have been running into a bit of minor difficulty over characterizing the genre of this album and I'm surprised it didn't happen sooner.

What are everyone's thoughts on this?

Genre labels are inherently silly, let's accept it. But if we're going to give different ones to each album, it can be helpful for those who haven't heard the material.

my thoughts

1. It's not appropriate to call Kid A alternative rock, although it was marketed to alternative rock audience. for instance in the absence of singles, the whole album was sent out to radio but only one of the songs (Optimistic) was considered playable on alternative rock radio. By 1980s standards, Kid A would be an alternative rock/post punk influenced album, as they were often highly electronic and sometimes more experimental than Kid A. but by modern standards of what this term means, it along with Amnesiac is really not, because they are too abstract and not guitar oriented enough. The meaning of alternative rock has changed drastically since 1991 (neither can Kid A be called indie rock, for obvious reasons). The band came out of the alt rock scene and their previous albums, and the later one Hail to the Thief, seem to all qualify broadly as alternative rock, although some of them could also be called art rock or just plain rock or whatever other designation someone wants. But I don't believe this can be applied to Kid A. It was rarely if ever described as an alternative rock album - despite the Grammy win in that category, which we all know is especially meaningless if you look at some of their other "alternative" nominees - and even if mostly "alternative" types listened to it, these critics or listeners would talk about its lack of adherence to the genre. Some individual songs could be called alternative rock, however.

2. Ok, the word "art rock" is practically meaningless and totally subjective and sounds pretentious, and isn't even considered a real genre by most people. In addition the band themselves (like most bands called "art rock") seem to reject this term. HOWEVER, this is true of many other musical genres, which are inherently subjective, give the appearance of similarity to diverse music, and are often rejected by whoever they are applied to, even when this application enjoys universal cultural currency. And it hasn't stopped "art rock" from being applied as the genre for Radiohead in the Radiohead article (along with Alternative rock and Electronic music, last time I checked) in the absence of anything more properly specific. For OK Computer, the application of "art rock" in addition to alternative rock is practically necessary, because of the way the album was commonly described by critics (Rolling Stone: "an art rock tour de force"), yet the lack of fit with the "progressive rock" genre. Otherwise it's best just to call it rock, but if things get more specific, "alternative rock" alone for that release would be misleading.

3. And if we were to stick with single categories, what do we call Kid A? It is electronic music, for one thing, but it is not, simply, electronic music. This refers to the form of the music (the whole mode of production is electronic, as often noted) but not the actual style (only a few songs could be described as purely electronic in instrumentation- about three or four at most). MOST of the songs in fact utilize guitars, and strings, and other "natural" instruments. Yet guitars (and voice) have been highly manipulated are not used in the typical way found in alternative rock, or even in the so-called art rock style of OK Computer where they play big guitar solos. The style of Kid A can just as easily be called art rock as OK Computer because of that term being so vague. We can combine "alt rock" and "art rock" to describe OK Computer in such a way that most will understand what is meant, and combine "art rock" and "electronic music" for Kid A to get the same general accuracy. In both cases the addition of "art rock" just lets the reader know that it is an alternative rock (OK C), or an electronic music (Kid A) album, but made from an "arty" and particularly a rock music perspective, rather than a "generic" alt rock or an album of pure electronic music.

4. If someone has a problem with "art rock" and I can see why, there are perhaps other terms that can be used. Experimental rock would seem to be the best suggestion and this is what I've used for this version of the article- Experimental rock and electronic music together give a pretty good description of this album and the ways it was usually described. If perhaps implying it is a bit more left-field than it actually is, these descriptions could still be well justified by citing a variety of reviews.

Experimental rock is pretty much another meaningless genre used to refer to acts that would not want to be called art rock or are more radically punk influenced and don't want associations with prog or other mainstream forms of "art rock". For Radiohead's whole career, though it might be nice to call them Experimental rock which they and their fans would probably prefer, it would just not be appropriate. For Kid A however, the adjective "experimental" was found in nearly every review, and the more underground experimental rock-type audience even embraced it to some extent. Evidence for this is the band appearing on the cover of The Wire (magazine) with an article about Kid A and Amnesiac by Simon Reynolds. Reynolds also called them "post-rock", as an easy way of describing exactly the distinction between the so-called art rock of OK Computer and the style of Kid A- guitars, but used for "texture". But considering that Reynolds himself invented this term in the early 90s and might have an interest in (over)applying it, and that since then it has changed in meaning (like "alternative rock") - to where it now usually means instrumental, dramatic bands with extended compositions like Mogwai and Godspeed You! Black Emperor - it doesn't fit Kid A particularly well as an official genre category without more explanation. The possible designation as post-rock is mentioned though, in the article itself under the section Sound and influences.

So I say Electronic music and experimental rock, with Electronic music and art rock (currently the Amnesiac categories) as second best possibility. I suppose all three of them could even be listed. as if it matters. 172.144.0.252 13:13, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

Agree for electronic and experimental rock. Maybe new prog????? . The article says Radiohead sometimes belongs to this genre, but i never heard about it.Frédérick Lacasse 16:56, 22 January 2007 (UTC)
no way for new prog. if any Radiohead album fit into that, it would be OK Computer or possibly Hail to the Thief, but even those are a big stretch apart from two or three songs. Muse fits nicely into new prog with an album like Origin of Symmetry I think... it's just not the style of Kid A at all. and the press/band didn't think so either.
I can actually see a lot of arguments coming up over "experimental rock" as fans of "omgz lolz TRUE XPERIMENTASHUN!" (i.e. unknown to mainstream) come and revert this to wankier sounding genres like art rock (which wouldn't be so horrible, actually). but let's remember, the word "experimental" appears in practically every article ever written about Radiohead during this period. whereas the word "art rock" appeared more for OK Computer. many articles also call them "post rock", which is just going too far, but if we have the inventor of "post-rock" himself applying it to Radiohead, and a feature on them in the NY Times called "The Post Rock Band", a case could even be made for that, despite being totally misleading considering how different this is from Godspeed, Mogwai, even Sigur Ros (if we are talking Talk Talk and Slint era post rock, Kid A DEFINITELY qualifies though! but unfortunately it ain't '91).
while I changed the genre to experimental rock, I actually tried to minimize the number of uses of the word "experimental" from the text of this article, just keeping the bare essential ones, as it's a cliche, and completely subjective when applied to an end musical product. as opposed to, maybe, the Kid A recording SESSIONS which were undeniably experimental, in terms of songwriting/recording process for Radiohead, which I think it's safe to say anyone would concede if they read a bit about them. but, ya know maybe Rod Stewart's recording sessions to produce an album of schlocky cover songs might equally be a brave experiment in something new for Rod Stewart, in the techniques he has to use to make it. so it's ALL subjective, and certainly judging whether an end result of music SOUNDS "experimental"... well that can't be done objectively. but Wiki is written for a general audience- and in this case most mainstream critics, and seemingly most average music listeners in 2000 considered Kid A highly experimental, whether they loved or hated it.
it totally could overlap with "art rock" of course, they are just designed to convey different ideas. w/ this it worked better to do experimental rock to differentiate the style from OK Computer.
fyi, the band says they write pop songs. they deny making "art rock nonsense", or post rock, and surely want to die every time they were called prog. though Yorke has a slight sense of humour about his elitism actually:
"prog rock is sad. and krautrock is not prog rock is more punk. queen were not prog rock. they were camp and not serious or shite enough. pink floyd moved to slow to be prog rock. certain areas of electronica smell of prog occasionally, i try not to notice. those who thought prog rock was like jazz are deluded. i dont know what prog rock is. never did. just because you change time signature a couple of times doesnt mean you is singing abou the fairies in the woods does it? were genesis prog rock? when peter gabriel put a flower round his head and kicked a bass drum was that prog? i have no connectivity with anything prog whatsoever except maybe that last bit about the flower and the kick drum and peter gabriel."
in any case the genre has to work on consensus, not what a musician says about their own stuff. Yorke probably wants to kill himself when he's called experimental, too. cause he's well aware of all the earlier, or weirder things he stole from. but that in itself doesnt deny Kid A as a member of the genre, cause everyone steals, lots of experimental rockers have a pop sensibility too, and Radiohead just happen to be more famous.
note: the above is just a justification for the inevitable edit war I don't want to participate in and don't really care about actually, as electronic music/art rock is fine if it comes to that. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 172.144.0.252 (talk) 12:42, 24 January 2007 (UTC).

Despite the experimental nature of the album, it's still consistenly considered alternative rock. The post-rock influence in fact adds to the classification, since post-rock is an alt-rock subgenre. WesleyDodds 07:20, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

What is that supposed to mean? It means nothing, since there is no concrete meaning for "alt rock" or "post rock", how can one be a "subgenre" of the other? I wonder what Simon Reynolds would have to say about that. The point of post-rock (which this album isn't, really) is that it's supposedly rejecting rock and drawing as much from say ambient music, or jazz or something else. So a true post-rock album would not be alternative rock, or in fact "rock" at all (without qualification). It would be like calling Revolver and Sgt. Pepper's a "blues" album, basically, just because rock grew out of blues and there is some blues influence on the albums.
As far as wikipedia is concerned, post-rock may be defined for convenience as part of the "alternative rock" umbrella, but this subjective determination relies on the wikipedia chosen definition of alternative rock, as the "true" alternative movement beginning in the 80s which spawned post rock among other things. "emo" is also defined as a subgenre of hardcore punk music, for the same historical reason. however this does not mean one could truthfully categorize any album with the genre of "emo" (like say, a Dashboard Confessional album) as being "hardcore punk" as well, due to the independent nature of the genres. just because one genre is considered a subgenre of another, having grown out of it, doesn't mean that something belonging to the subgenre also belongs to the main genre, or even, has anything in common with it.
This album may be listed as "alternative rock" for how it was marketed and Radiohead's previous brand name. That would be the only reason, because the music itself does not fit the genre category as defined for the past 20 years. However, it's definitely appropriate for it to belong to the Alternative Rock WikiProject, because of the band's history and identification with that. This is an important album for the recent history of alternative rock, without really being alternative rock. (most of the recent albums with importance for "alternative rock" are not actually called alternative rock, since as a genre, that has sort of died since the '90s, it's only the original legacy that remains). 172.165.51.199 06:09, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

Well, I don't think 'rock' has any place in the description of this album's title. Sure, it was made by a group of musicians who fit the profile of a 'rock band', but the entire recording process was not representative of a rock band's, and the sound is certainly not rock music; it's almost entirely based in ambient electronica. The only track that could be considered 'rock' is Optimistic. I mean, the fact that Thom Yorke himself said that he hated rock music at the time of the recording of this album and was pretty much exclusively listening to the Warp Records back catalogue... you know where I'm going. 67.71.10.206 23:55, 28 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Who removed the picture of Charles Mingus and why?

This article is quite long and could use pictures, particularly since the reproductions of Donwood's artwork are likely to be removed by someone anal at some point for copyright violations.

The pic someone posted of Mingus playing bass from an odd angle was undeniably cool looking (ok, not a valid criteria) added a lot of interest. I don't know why it would have been removed. The Kid A#Sound and influences section where the pic was placed has tons of namedropping- of Mingus and others. Each of the influenced cited can be backed up by multiple interviews, but Mingus in particular was mentioned a lot by Thom Yorke. It helps to give this section more interest for readers to have a pic of one of the key influences, and parallels the picture of the book cover of No Logo in the Lyrics and meaning section. Just as No logo was repeatedly cited by Yorke as an ideological influence on Kid A, Mingus was repeatedly cited as a musical influence, giving both of them high relevance to this article, especially in the absence of easily available "free" pictures of the band working on the album. 172.144.0.252 13:13, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

Yeah, agree fully. Powelldinho 13:15, 22 January 2007 (UTC)
Put it back. :) along with another pic of Meeting People Is Easy which fit well with the new text added on post-ok computer recording sessions. if anyone has a "free" pic of the band during this era (i.e. a much better one than what's currently uploaded at Radiohead) I suppose that could fit somewhere, but the Yorke on SNL is very good so long as it doesn't get removed for copyvio. 172.144.0.252 12:06, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Sound samples

Now that we've got the article worked out decently (minus enough sources), what does everyone think about the samples chosen as representative of this album?

It says no singles were released from Kid A. Is this true? I distinctly remember hearing Optimistic on the radio. Mike Church 07:40, 21 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Apparently there was a promo of Optimistic (and, in the UK at least, promos of some other tracks from Kid A) but no official single. --rbrwrˆ

[edit] pictures for this article?

  • picture from the Kid A tent tour or one of the olde style concert posters for it, under marketing and release section

thanks, whoever added all the pictures! now it would be really nice if we could also find one of the band in this period, but it's unlikely it'd be in public domain.

[edit] Factual Inaccuracy

I have seen a video for 'Idioteque' on MTV2 a year ago. It was in b/w and showed the band playing a bunch of keyboards and drum machines. Erwin

That wasn't really a "music video" but rather a video of the band playing the track live. If it's what I think you are talking about.

^^^That's correct...It's also a totally different version of the song, done for a radio show. -themilstead

[edit] Kid 17

Has anyone tried that 17 second synching trick mentioned in the article? It sounds distinctly implausible to me. I wonder if Thom was just trying to get people to buy two copies ;o) --bodnotbod 18:07, 23 January 2006 (UTC)

Ah. After further research it seems that you're supposed to synch individual tracks, not play the two albums through from beginning to end. It was the idea that 17 seconds at the end of one song would synch with 17 seconds of the beginning of another I found hard to believe. --bodnotbod 18:17, 23 January 2006 (UTC)
I know the guy who originally came up with that (really - he runs a Radiohead fan site). Thom has not confirmed it and it's probably a coincidence. I'm changing the article.--Terminal157 06:09, 14 February 2006 (UTC)

I've done it before with the tracks "Everything in it's Right Place", and "Kid A". It's kinda odd... they really do match up evenly, and sound a lot different, while maintaining the same mood. If you can, try it out some time. It's definately an amazing experience. Underwater 21:28, 4 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] kid a in alphabet land

Is Kid A In Alphabet Land related? Some internet sources say so. Look it up on Google. Omphaloscope » talk 18:41, 24 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Bizarre POV

"Kid A does have antecedents, intentional or not, in prog rock from outside Germany" What's the significance of the antecedents from within Germany? Adzz

that could be better phrased, but it's a valid point. "prog rock" as we know it or as defined by that article, is mostly an Anglo-American/Canadian thing. the bombastic long songs and all that.

at the same time, there were bands in Germany like Can, Neu!, Faust, Kraftwerk, Tangerine Dream, which formed their own culture, sharing I guess some of the ambitions of prog rock but with a distinct aesthetic. for whatever reason, maybe that they were more atonal/free-jazz influenced, more electronic, closer ties with what became punk and early hip-hop (i.e. Afrika Bambataa sampling Kraftwerk), or just that they're more elite and less popular, these bands seem to be revered to this day by people who reject other so-called progressive rock (assuming these Krautrock bands count as prog rock at all, which is arguable since "prog rock" doesnt really mean anything concrete, except the description of a scene mostly at a particular time in a particular place fitting a particular aesthetic, which bands like the German ones mentioned-- ALL of which were independently cited as influences by Radiohead during the Kid A era!-- were not a part of).

anyway, certain if not all Radiohead members, including Thom Yorke, are probably part of "that certain type of listener." They love nearly all the major Krautrock (so-called German prog rock) bands but have constantly disavowed the idea of progressive rock, and most of the (English) bands seen as the giants of prog rock, even ones that most people see as influences on them i.e. Pink Floyd. Jonny Greenwood said he loved Meddle and hated all their other stuff. Thom Yorke tries to distance himself from Roger Waters. The band made fun of Floyd for being more of a business than anything else, in the documentary Meeting People is Easy. so there is some disconnect. they detest the prog rock scene, except the more consciously avant garde one that arose in Germany.

[edit] Track Listing Times

The track listing times are off for a few songs. Are there different versions of the CD? I have 5:51 for The National Anthem, 5:56 for How To Disappear Completely, 5:15 for Optimistic, and 4:35 for Morning Bell.

I've got the same times for my songs, but I've got the limited edition of Kid A, although I doubt there's any difference to what's on the CD's, just the packaging. If nobody else has the same times as the artical then we'll change it. Underwater 00:37, 26 May 2006 (UTC)
Yes, you're right there should be absolutely no difference between the "limited edition" and the regular CD as far as the music content, so go with your times. 172.135.89.118 17:25, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Credits

I think this article should really have a separate credits section after the track listing, as recommended by WP:ALBUM. Whilst the text describes the musicians and some of the production team, it would still be nice to have a list of major contributors to the album. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Alex valavanis (talk • contribs) 10:59, 24 February 2007 (UTC).

Yup. And it was all in there. I followed the format of a Zappa album article that had GA status, and put in a listing of the specific additional musicians listed in the album booklet, as well as the production engineers (besides Godrich). It took up quite a small amount of space after the tracklist. However in January it was DELETED, along with some other information by someone who gave no justifications and enjoys deleting things. So if you want, add it back in, I'm not gonna bother right now. 172.147.227.44 11:37, 6 March 2007 (UTC)


[edit] Faulty CDs

Added part about a mastering error on the initial CD release. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 217.136.94.117 (talk • contribs) 2007-05-02

Thanks. We're quite close to making this a featured article and it doesn't really need its own section, so I've shortened it and moved it into the main text. - Alex valavanis 08:14, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Image:Radiohead EdO'Brien.jpg

I've tagged this commons image for speedy deletion as it has a non-commercial license and is therefore being used illegally. I'll remove it from the article until a free-use image can be found. Thanks - Alex valavanis 17:53, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Deletion template?!

Why is there a CSD template at the top of the article? It's not in the code. Any ideas how to get rid of it? - Alex valavanis 15:37, 18 May 2007 (UTC)

Looks like it's fixed now. Weird error :S

[edit] Kid 17

I've removed this section from the article as I don't think it's of significant enough importance to be in an encyclopedia. I certainly don't think it needs its own section. The text is as follows

If two copies of Kid A are played exactly 17 seconds apart, the music seems to sync and blend together. Some fans call this "Kid 17" or "The 17 Second Theory", and some have used audio-editing programs to combine both instances of the CD into a single track.[86] Jeff Sparks is commonly credited with the initial discovery of this phenomenon, as his Radiohead fansite was the primary introduction of Kid 17 to the public. No one in the band has commented on this, and it is believed by some to be purely coincidental.

Please raise any objections to its removal here. Thanks - Alex valavanis 03:26, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

I added it as a section only because it doesn't fit under any of the existing sections. It can be reduced to one brief sentence and put inside Musical style somewhere. The information is verifiable and probably of significant interest to many listeners, as supported by the source, so what's so unencyclopedic about it? –Pomte 03:50, 31 May 2007 (UTC)
It's mainly the last sentence that I have an issue with—the fact that there's no official response. Even though there's a reference, it's still a fan theory. However, I appreciate that it's a similar situation to the Dark Side of the Rainbow, which has an entire article written about it! As Kid A is a featured article however, we should be pretty careful about what we add. As you suggest, a brief sentence in Musical style may be OK, so why not give it a go? - Alex valavanis 10:07, 31 May 2007 (UTC)
Considering all the trivia that has at least a bit more importance to Radiohead themed articles and has been removed for not quite fitting into any section, I think it's ridiculous for this particular information to be here. Please take a look through some of the other removed trivia (for example, mention of the bands Radiohead has toured with or opened for being removed from the Radiohead article) and then continue to tell us "Kid 17" is important.
Ok, music is a subjective thing and Radiohead's brilliance in my opinion is making music that sounds quite chaotic and melodic at once. So what if manipulating their music results in something that a Radiohead fan might enjoy for the same reason?! that's what I'd expect anyway, it might be a nice surprise but it DOESN'T mean it's encyclopedia worthy! Someone decided Kid A sounds good with 17 seconds delay and publicized it a bit. But if I figure out that "Kid A" sounds especially great while riding up a ski lift looking at a sunset near Sarajevo, I'm not going to put it in Wikipedia.
The main question here is, how much has this been publicized? That is what makes Dark Side of the Rainbow encyclopedia worthy. Whether or not a sync of this type is "amazing" or intended or not, is irrelevant for us, all that matters is what's already been said about it before this article's mention. These things can be easily judged irrelevant unless they received significant attention. If it's never appeared outside of a fan forum, it's not allowable here. As a Radiohead fan who has participated in online sites, I think I am qualified to judge the relative importance of this- not only has it never appeared in any citable print article on the band I've seen, even on Radiohead fan forums there are only a few people who know about this, and it's not like they care much. No one believes it was intentional, and hardly anyone gets excited about it.
It's a slight possibility that in 30 years it would get to the tipping point of being a DSOTM/Wizard of Oz type thing that needed to be mentioned, but I don't see that happening. It certainly doesn't have any notability even in the Radiohead cult right now. If Wikipedia keeps it in a "featured article" judged to be of "high importance", of course what will happen eventually (besides the downgrading of the article which should happen first, if stuff like this remains in it while more relevant information does not) is that this MIGHT become more famous. Just because of Wikipedia's Kid A article. Is that what's supposed to happen? Don't think so. 172.135.89.118 17:21, 7 June 2007 (UTC)


[edit] credits

We know very little about who did what on this particular record. The record only lists radiohead without specifying. They have said a thing or two in interviews, and of course we can assume some things (it is very likely that most drumparts are Phil's) but we cannot say for certain that Thom played guitar on this record or that Ed didnt drum on this record. So I would propose to remove the details of the band member credits. I believe that it is standard to follow the credits on the record sleeve itself. Does anybody agree with me? --Merijn2 13:49, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

You're correct that maybe the list isn't completely comprehensive, but I believe everything that is listed is verifiable. If there is a particular instrument that you think is listed for a band member without citation, then {{fact}} tag it, and someone else will remove it if it isn't verifiable. I think that accurate information about personnel should be included, regardless of whether it came from the album cover or elsewhere. Perhaps it would be more accurate if the title of the section was changed to "Personnel"? - Thanks, Alex valavanis 14:01, 11 June 2007 (UTC)
The most disputable things in that list would be Thom Yorke listed as playing bass, O'Brien and Selway listed as doing programming, and the fact that Jonny and Colin Greenwood are NOT listed as either playing keyboard/synth or doing programming.
But they've said in interviews that Yorke played bass on The National Anthem recording. Someone convincingly posing as Nigel Godrich on a Radiohead message board also claimed Yorke played bass on the title track. O'Brien has said he transitioned from playing guitar to getting excited about the digital technologies and keyboards. There's no record of him saying he actually played keyboards or synth on any song that ended up on the album, but on previous albums he's been responsible for "effects" and here a lot of those were digital, so crediting him on programming as well as guitar seems to cover it. He also does a lot of that stuff live. Interviews or Ed's diary also mentioned that Selway came up with some of the drum machine patterns.
Jonny Greenwood said he wasn't into the programming aspect as much and that he's less comfortable with it than Thom. He also said he didn't remember playing a lot of keyboard on the album. Other band members said he was concentrating completely on Ondes martenot, and had to be torn away to do some scattered guitar parts. We can assume most of the keyboards were played by Thom. Colin Greenwood was previously credited with synthesizer on OK Computer but it seems Yorke handled a lot of that this time. However I could see crediting Colin Greenwood with synthesizer as well, since we don't know. 172.146.244.91 23:17, 9 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Use of "modular synthesizers" on this album?

The main Radiohead article includes a picture of Jonny Greenwood on Saturday Night Live in 2000, playing what the caption identifies as a modular synthesizer. I can't verify that- I know at least some of what he played with twisting knobs, often mistaken for synthesizers, are actually the Ondes martenot. However this one does look more like a synthesizer.

Anyway, the caption in that article also says this type of synth was extensively used on Kid A. I am wondering whether or not this accurate, since this article doesn't mention it, and in fact Greenwood says he didn't play that much synth while recording the album. If the modular synth was used, maybe it should be mentioned on which songs or played by which band member. It's not included at all in the list of instruments at the bottom of the page. 172.154.111.137 05:16, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] The Album Title

Re possible meanings of the album's title, could it be a reference to Sakakibara, or "Boy A", the young Japanese killer? Maybe Thom's reference to the 'brutal and horrible' subject matter ties in? - Juicy Lucy —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.160.162.242 (talk) 07:29, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

Possible, but it can't go in the article unless there's a reference! Papa November (talk) 10:47, 3 January 2008 (UTC)
I thought the official word was that it has to do with the technological theme of being a prototype.. can't recall context. –Pomte 10:51, 3 January 2008 (UTC)
It seems that Thom Yorke comes up with a different explanation in every interview I've heard! Papa November (talk) 10:57, 3 January 2008 (UTC)
  1. One writer's speculation: possibly borrowed from Carl Steadman's novel Kid A in Alphabet Land
  2. Clone 1: In a recent Web chat, Yorke claimed that the album title refers to "the first human clone -- I bet it has already happened.", [1], and a few other sources referring to the same web chat
  3. Clone 2: The bears first officially featured in an online cartoon strip called Modified Organisms. drawn by Stanley with Radiohead frontman Thom Yorke: now they've got a starring role in tile album artwork, "Thom's dedicating the album to the first human clone. Stanley explains, but there's a lot more to tile artwork than clones of bears: there's a real sense of apocalyptic destruction throughout.
–Pomte 11:00, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Kid A song articles all gone!!!

Does anyone know what happened to any of the song articles for this album? Funny how I was viewing them a few days ago, and now they're gone! Funny how some other song articles on the other albums are missing as well. Can someone please explain this? —Imdanumber1 (talk • contribs • email) 23:38, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

They deleted it because Kid A has no singles, which is stupid because there still should be articles on technical singles, as in prominent songs released to radio. Nothing we can do though, I've tried. TostitosAreGross (talk) 11:58, 24 May 2008 (UTC)
I actually brought this up to the person who originally redirected the song articles. I later realized that some of the articles were original research, while some had an adequate number of references to keep the articles in place. —Imdanumber1 (talk • contribs • email) 02:28, 25 May 2008 (UTC)
Ha, interesting new Wiki policy. Not that I think a separate "In Limbo" article is exactly justified, but I suppose in the spirit of evenhandedness we'll be deleting things like the "A Day in the Life," "Stairway to Heaven" and "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star" (not a single!) articles too, just to be fair? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 172.129.14.141 (talk) 07:26, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

Most songs are not notable enough to warrant their own article. faithless (speak) 07:57, 6 June 2008 (UTC)