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| Released | 30 May 2001 (2001-05-30) | |||
| Recorded | 4 January 1999 – 18 April 2000 | |||
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| Length | 43:57 | |||
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Amnesiac is the fifth studio album by the English rock bandRadiohead, released on 30 May 2001 byEMI. It was recorded with the producerNigel Godrich in the same sessions as Radiohead's previous albumKid A (2000). Radiohead split the work in two as they felt it was too dense for adouble album. As withKid A, Amnesiac incorporates influences fromelectronic music,20th-century classical music,jazz andkrautrock. The final track, "Life in a Glasshouse", is a collaboration with the jazz trumpeterHumphrey Lyttelton and his band.
After having released no singles forKid A, Radiohead promotedAmnesiac with the singles "Pyramid Song" and "Knives Out", accompanied by music videos. Videos were also made for "Pulk/Pull Revolving Doors" and "Like Spinning Plates", as well as "I Might Be Wrong", which was released as a promotional single. In June 2001, Radiohead began theAmnesiac tour, incorporating their first North American tour in three years.
Amnesiac debuted at number one on theUK Albums Chart and number two on the USBillboard 200. By October 2008, it had sold over 900,000 copies worldwide. It iscertified platinum in the UK, the US and Canada, and gold in Japan. It received positive reviews, though some critics felt it was too experimental or less cohesive thanKid A, or saw it as a collection ofKid A outtakes.
Amnesiac was named one of the year's best albums by numerous publications. It was nominated for theMercury Prize and severalGrammy Awards, winning forBest Recording Package for the special edition. "Pyramid Song" was named one of the best tracks of the decade byRolling Stone,NME andPitchfork, andRolling Stone rankedAmnesiac number 320 in their 2012 list of the "500 Greatest Albums of All Time".Kid A Mnesia, an anniversary reissue compilingKid A,Amnesiac and previously unreleased material, was released in 2021.
Radiohead and their producer,Nigel Godrich, recordedAmnesiac during the same sessions as their previous album,Kid A, released in October 2000.[1] The sessions took place from January 1999 to mid-2000 in Guillaume Studios in Paris, Medley Studios in Copenhagen, and Radiohead's newly built studio in Oxfordshire.[2][3][4] The drummer,Philip Selway, said the sessions had "two frames of mind ... a tension between our old approach of all being in a room playing together and the other extreme of manufacturing music in the studio. I thinkAmnesiac comes out stronger in the band-arrangement way."[5]
The sessions drew influence from electronic music,20th-century classical music, jazz andkrautrock, using synthesisers,ondes Martenot,drum machines, strings and brass.[1] The strings, arranged by the guitaristJonny Greenwood, were performed by theOrchestra of St John's and recorded inDorchester Abbey, a 12th-century church close to Radiohead's studio.[6][5]
Radiohead considered releasing the work as adouble album, but felt it was too dense.[7] The singer,Thom Yorke, said Radiohead split it into two albums because "they cancel each other out as overall finished things" and came from "two different places". He feltAmnesiac offered a "different take" onKid A and "a form of explanation".[8] The band members stressed that they sawAmnesiac not as a collection ofKid AB-sides or outtakes but an album in its own right.[9] Yorke said the title was inspired by aGnostic belief that the trauma of birth erases memories of past lives, an idea he found fascinating.[5]
"Pulk/Pull Revolving Doors" began as an attempt to record another song, "True Love Waits".[10] It features keyboard loops recorded during theOK Computer sessions;[10] Radiohead disabled theerase heads on the tape recorders so that the tape repeatedly recorded over itself, creating a "ghostly"tape loop,[11] and manipulated the results inPro Tools.[12] Deciding that the arrangement did not fit "True Love Waits", Radiohead used it to create a new track.[10] Yorke added a spoken vocal and used the pitch-correcting softwareAuto-Tune to process it into melody. According to Yorke, Auto-Tune "desperately tries to search for the music in your speech, and produces notes at random. If you've assigned it a key, you've got music."[1] The "True Love Waits" version of "Pulk/Pull Revolving Doors" was eventually released on the 2021 compilationKid A Mnesia.[13]
Radiohead also used Auto-Tune on "Packt Like Sardines in a Crushd Tin Box" to process Yorke's vocals and create a "nasal, depersonalised" sound.[1] For "You And Whose Army?", Radiohead attempted to capture the "soft, warm, proto-doowop sound" of the 1940s harmony groupthe Ink Spots. They muffled microphones with egg boxes and used the ondes Martenot's resonatingpalme diffuseur loudspeaker to treat the vocals.[1] Unlike many tracks from the sessions, the band recorded it live. The guitaristEd O'Brien said: "We rehearsed it a bit, not too much, then just went in and did it. It's just us doing our thing as a band."[5]
According to a diary kept by O'Brien, "Knives Out" took over a year to complete, as Radiohead had been tempted to over-embellish it.[14] It was influenced by the guitar work ofJohnny Marr of theSmiths.[15] Yorke said "Knives Out" did not depart from Radiohead's earlier style, and "survived because it was too good to miss".[8] "Dollars and Cents" was edited down from an eleven-minutejam, inspired by thekrautrock bandCan, who would record extensively and then edit their recordings.[1]
"Like Spinning Plates" was the result of an attempt to record another song, "I Will", on synthesiser.[16] Dismissing this recording as "dodgyKraftwerk", Radiohead reversed it and created a new song. Yorke said: "I was in another room, heard the vocal melody coming backwards, and thought, 'That's miles better than the right way round', then spent the rest of the night trying to learn the melody."[1] Radiohead recorded "I Will" in a new arrangement for their next album,Hail to the Thief (2003).[17]
For the final track, "Life in a Glasshouse", Jonny Greenwood wrote to the jazz trumpeterHumphrey Lyttelton, explaining that Radiohead were "a bit stuck".[18] Lyttelton agreed to perform on the song with his band after his daughter showed him Radiohead's 1997 albumOK Computer.[18] According to Lyttelton, Radiohead "didn't want it to sound like a slick studio production but a slightly exploratory thing of people playing as if they didn't have it all planned out in advance".[18] The recording session lasted seven hours, and left Lyttelton exhausted. "I detected some sort of eye-rolling at the start of the session, as if to say we were miles apart," he said. "They went through quite a few nervous breakdowns during the course of it all, just through trying to explain to us all what they wanted."[18]
Amnesiac was described upon release asexperimental rock,[19]electronica[20] andalternative rock,[21] with elements of jazz;[22]Simon Reynolds described the overall album as "sound[ing] verypost-rock", in a similar fashion toKid A.[1] Colin Greenwood said it contained "traditional Radiohead-type songs" alongside more experimental work,[23] and noted that in both albums, "the guitar becomes one more texture, difficult to separate from other textures".[11]The Atlantic contrasted it with "the surgical glint" ofKid A, with "swampy and foggy" arrangements and "uneasy" chords and rhythms.[22]
The first track, "Packt Like Sardines in a Crushd Tin Box", is an electronic song with synthesisers and metallic percussion.[22] "Pyramid Song", aswung ballad with piano and strings,[22] was inspired by theCharles Mingus song "Freedom".[24] Its lyrics were inspired by an exhibition of ancientEgyptian underworld art Yorke attended while the band was recording in Copenhagen[9] and ideas of cyclical time discussed byStephen Hawking andBuddhism.[9] "Pulk/Pull Revolving Doors" is an abrasive electronic track.[25]
Yorke said "You and Whose Army?" was "about someone who is elected into power by people and who then blatantly betrays them – just likeBlair did".[24] The song builds slowly on piano, before reaching a climax in the final minute. According to O'Brien, "In the Radiohead of old, onOK Computer, that break would have lasted four minutes. We would have carried on 'Hey Jude'-style."[5]
"I Might Be Wrong" combines a "venomous" guitarriff with a "trance-like metallic beat". Colin Greenwood's bassline was inspired by theChic bassistBernard Edwards.[24] The lyrics were influenced by advice given to Yorke by his partner,Rachel Owen: "Be proud of what you've done. Don't look back and just carry on like nothing's happened. Just let the bad stuff go."[24] "Knives Out", described as the album's most conventional song,[26] features "drifting" guitar lines, "driving" percussion, a "wandering" bassline, "haunting" vocals and "eerie" lyrics.[27]
"Morning Bell/Amnesiac" is an alternative version of "Morning Bell" fromKid A;The Atlantic described it as a blend of "cosiness and nausea".[22] O'Brien said that Radiohead often record and abandon different versions of songs, but that this version was "strong enough to bear hearing again".[28] Yorke wrote that it was included "because it came from such a different place ... Because we only found it again by accident after having forgotten about it. Because it sounds like a recurring dream."[29] He said the lyrics for "Dollars and Cents" were "gibberish", but were inspired by the notion that "people are basically just pixels on a screen, unknowingly serving this higher power which is manipulative and destructive".[24]
"Hunting Bears" is a short instrumental on electric guitar and synthesiser.[30] "Life in a Glasshouse" features the Humphrey Lyttelton Band playing in the style of a New Orleansjazz funeral.[31] According to Lyttelton, the song starts with "ad-libbed, bluesy, minor-key meandering, then it gradually gets so that we're sort of playing real wild, primitive,New Orleans blues stuff".[18] The lyrics were inspired by a news story Yorke read of a celebrity's wife so harassed by paparazzi that she papered her windows with their photographs.[24]
TheAmnesiac artwork was created by Yorke and the longtime Radiohead collaboratorStanley Donwood.[32] For inspiration, Donwood explored London taking notes, likening the city to thelabyrinth ofGreek mythology.[33] He scanned blank pages of old books and superimposed onto them photos of fireworks and Tokyo tower blocks, copies ofPiranesi'sImaginaryPrisons drawings, and lyrics and phrases printed by Yorke on a broken typewriter.[34]
The cover depicts a book cover with a weepingminotaur.[33] The minotaur, a motif of theAmnesiac artwork, represents the "maze" Yorke felt he had become lost in during his depression afterOK Computer;[35] Donwood described it as a "tragic figure".[35] Figures included in the album booklet include faceless terrorists, self-serving politicians and corporate executives. Yorke said they represented "the abstracted, semi-comical, stupidly dark, false voices that battled us as we tried to work".[36]
For the special edition, Donwood designed a package with a hardback CD case in the style of a mislaid library book. He imagined that "someone made these pages in a book and it went into drawer in a desk and was forgotten about in the attic ... And visually and musically the album is about finding the book and opening the pages."[33] The special edition won aGrammy Award for Best Recording Package at the44th Grammy Awards.[37]
Radiohead announcedAmnesiac on their website in January 2001, three months after the release ofKid A.[38] It was released in Japan on 30 May byEMI,[39] in the UK on 4 June byParlophone and in the US on 5 June byCapitol, both subsidiaries of EMI.[40]Amnesiac debuted at number one on theUK Albums Chart.[41] On the USBillboard 200, it debuted at number two, with sales of 231,000, surpassing the 207,000 first-week sales ofKid A.[42] It iscertified gold in Japan for shipments of 100,000 copies.[43] By October 2008,Amnesiac had sold more than 900,000 copies worldwide.[44] In July 2013, it was certified platinum in the UK for sales of more than 300,000.[45]
Radiohead released no singles fromKid A, as Yorke wanted to avoid the stress of publicity he had struggled with onOK Computer. He regretted the choice, feeling it meant much of the early judgement of the album came from critics, and saidAmnesiac would have more promotion.[46] "Pyramid Song" was released as a single in May,[47] followed by "Knives Out" in July,[26] backed by music videos.[5] Two videos were created for "I Might Be Wrong",[48] which was released as aradio-only single in June.[49]
Radiohead reworked "Pulk/Pull Revolving Doors" and "Like Spinning Plates" for a computer-animated video directed by Johnny Hardstaff. The video premiered on November 29, 2001, at an animation festival at theCentre For Contemporary Arts, Glasgow. It features imagery of killer whales swimming under UV light, a machine taking shape and conjoined babies spinning in a centrifuge.[50] The video received little airplay fromMTV, who felt it was "of a sensitive nature" and would only broadcast it with a warning. Hardstaff said: "The irony is that you can't move on MTV for bland R&B and the empty boasts of 'artists' effectively fixated with their own flaccid showbiz cocks, but any piece of film with an ounce of real emotion isn't going to get seen."[48]
Radiohead first performedAmnesiac songs on theKid A tour, which began in June 2000.[51] For live performance, they rearranged the electronic tracks using rock instrumentation.[52] For example, "Like Spinning Plates" was rearranged as a piano ballad.[53] Yorke said: "Even with electronics, there is an element of spontaneous performance in using them ... It was the tension between what's human and what's coming from the machines. That was stuff we were getting into, as we learned how to play the songs fromKid A andAmnesiac live."[52]
On 10 June 2001, Radiohead recorded a concert for a special hour-long episode of the BBC showLater... with Jools Holland, including a performance of "Life in a Glasshouse" with the Humphrey Lyttelton Band.[41] TheAmnesiac tour began on 18 June 2001, with Radiohead's first North American tour in three years. It comprised performances in west coast amphitheatres in June, followed by performances in the east and midwest in August.[54] The openers werethe Beta Band andKid Koala.[55] Capitol avoided traditional promotion for the tour and instead disseminated information to Radiohead's large online fanbase.[56] Tickets sold out within minutes.The Observer described this as "the most sweeping conquest of America by a British group" sinceBeatlemania, succeeding where bands such asOasis had failed.[56]
Radiohead hoped to tour the US using a custom-built tent as they had for theKid A tour in Europe, but met opposition fromClear Channel Entertainment andTicketmaster, which Yorke said had amonopoly on American live music. Radiohead considered abandoning touring in the US, but felt this would have been a defeat.[8] They instead chose unusual venues, such asGrant Park in Chicago and the bank of theHudson River in New York.[8][56] The German DJChristoph de Babalon supported them in Europe.[57] Recordings from theKid A andAmnesiac tours were released onI Might Be Wrong: Live Recordings in November 2001.[30]
| Aggregate scores | |
|---|---|
| Source | Rating |
| Metacritic | 75/100[58] |
| Review scores | |
| Source | Rating |
| AllMusic |   [59] |
| Entertainment Weekly | C+[60] |
| The Guardian |  [61] |
| Los Angeles Times | [62] |
| NME | 8/10[63] |
| Pitchfork | 9.0/10[64] |
| Q | [65] |
| Rolling Stone | [66] |
| The Rolling Stone Album Guide | [67] |
| Spin | 7/10[68] |
After Radiohead's previous album,Kid A, had divided listeners, many hopedAmnesiac would return to their earlier rock sound.[69][64] TheGuardian titled its review "Relax: it's nothing likeKid A".[69] However,Rolling Stone sawAmnesiac as a further distancing from Radiohead's earlier style,[66] andPitchfork found that it was nothing like their 1995 albumThe Bends.[64]Stylus wrote that althoughAmnesiac was "slightly more straightforward" thanKid A, it "solidified the postmillennial model of Radiohead: less songs and more atmosphere, more eclectic and electronic, more paranoid, more threatening, more sublime".[70] Yorke feltAmnesiac was no more accessible thanKid A and would have elicited the same reactions had it been released first.[8] In 2020, theGuardian wrote that "the impenetrableAmnesiac debunked industry rumours that Radiohead were primed for a bankable comeback".[71]
On the review aggregate siteMetacritic,Amnesiac has a rating of 75 out of 100 based on 25 reviews, indicating "generally favourable reviews".[58]Robert Hilburn of theLos Angeles Times felt thatAmnesiac, compared toKid A, was "a richer, more engaging record, its austerity and troubled vision enriched by a rousing of the human spirit".[62] TheGuardian criticAlexis Petridis, who had dislikedKid A, felt thatAmnesiac returned Radiohead to "their role as the world's most intriguing and innovative major rock band ... [It] strikes a cunning and rewarding balance between experimentation and quality control. It's hardly easy to digest but nor is it impossible to swallow."[69] He criticised the electronic tracks "Pulk/Pull Revolving Doors" and "Like Spinning Plates" as self-indulgent, but praised the album's "haunting musical shifts and unconventional melodies".[69]Stylus wrote that it was "an excellent disc", but was not as "exploratory or interesting" asKid A.[70]
Some dismissedAmnesiac as a collection ofKid A outtakes.[72] ThePitchfork founder, Ryan Schreiber, wrote that its "questionable sequencing ... does little to hush the argument that the record is merely a thinly veiled B-sides compilation".[64] AnotherPitchfork writer, Scott Plagenhoef, felt the sequencing worked by creating tension, heightening the power of the more experimental tracks.[72] However, he felt the more conventional marketing created a sense of "ordinariness" compared toKid A and the impression that Radiohead had bowed to pressure from their record label.[72]
Some critics feltAmnesiac was less cohesive thanKid A. TheAllMusic criticStephen Thomas Erlewine wrote that it "often plays as a hodgepodge", and that both albums "clearly derive from the same source and have the same flaws ... The division only makes the two records seem unfocused, even if the best of both records is quite stunning."[59] Another AllMusic critic, Sam Samuelson, saidAmnesiac was a "thrown-together" release that might have been better packaged with the live albumI Might Be Wrong as a "completeKid A sessions package".[73] Schreiber, however, felt the "highlights were undeniably worth the wait, and easily overcome its occasional patchiness".[64]
Reviewing the 2009 reissue ofAmnesiac forPitchfork, Plagenhoef wrote: "More thanKid A – and maybe more than any other LP of its time –Amnesiac is the kickoff of a messy, rewarding era ... disconnected, self-aware, tense, eclectic, head-turning – an overload of good ideas inhibited by rules, restrictions, and conventional wisdom."[72] Writing aboutAmnesiac for its 20th anniversary in 2021,The Atlantic wrote that it might be Radiohead's best work: "Listening to it 20 years after its release, the album's grumpy wisdom — its dignity in the face of dread — feels more moving than ever."[22] In 2024,Consequence wrote thatAmnesiac was less universal thanOK Computer and less focused and cohesive thanKid A, but was a "rosetta stone for understanding Radiohead as a whole", with its combination of ballads, rock, electronica and strings.[25]
Amnesiac was nominated for the 2001Mercury Music Prize, losing toPJ Harvey'sStories from the City, Stories from the Sea, for which Yorke provided guest vocals.[74] It was the fourth consecutive Radiohead album nominated for aGrammy Award for Best Alternative Music Album,[75] and the special edition won aGrammy Award for Best Recording Package at the44thGrammy Awards.[37]
TheLos Angeles Times,[76]Q,[77]The Wire,[78]Rolling Stone,[79]Kludge,[80]The Village Voice,[81] andAlternative Press[82] namedAmnesiac one of the best albums of 2001. In 2005,Stylus named it the best album of the preceding five years.[70] In 2009,Pitchfork rankedAmnesiac the 34th-best album of the 2000s[83] andRolling Stone ranked it the 25th.[84] It is included in the 2005 book1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die,[85] and number 320 in the 2012 edition ofRolling Stone's "500 Greatest Albums of All Time" list.[86] "Pyramid Song" was ranked among the best tracks of the decade byRolling Stone,[87]NME[88] andPitchfork.[89]
Radiohead left EMI after their contract ended in 2003.[90] In 2007, EMI releasedRadiohead Box Set, a compilation of albums recorded while Radiohead were signed to EMI, includingAmnesiac.[90] After a period of beingout of print on vinyl,Amnesiac was reissued as a double LP on 19 August 2008 as part of the "From the Capitol Vaults" series, along with other Radiohead albums.[91]
On 25 August, EMI reissuedAmnesiac in a two-CD "Collector's Edition" and a "Special Collector's Edition" containing an additional DVD. The first CD contains the original studio album; the second CD collects B-sides fromAmnesiac singles and live performances; the DVD contains music videos and a live television performance. Radiohead had no input into the reissues and the music was not remastered.[92] The EMI reissues were discontinued after Radiohead's back catalogue was transferred toXL Recordings in 2016.[93] In May 2016, XL reissued Radiohead's back catalogue on vinyl, includingAmnesiac.[94]
An early demo of "Life in a Glasshouse", performed by Yorke on acoustic guitar, was released on the 2019 compilationMiniDiscs [Hacked].[95] On November 5, 2021, Radiohead releasedKid A Mnesia, an anniversary reissue compilingKid A andAmnesiac. It includes a third album,Kid Amnesiae, comprising previously unreleased material from the sessions.[96] Radiohead promoted the reissue with two digital singles, the previously unreleased tracks "If You Say the Word" and "Follow Me Around".[97]Kid A Mnesia Exhibition, an interactive experience with music and artwork from the albums, was released on 18 November forPlayStation 5,macOS andWindows.[98]
All tracks are written byRadiohead
| No. | Title | Length |
|---|---|---|
| 1. | "Packt Like Sardines in a Crushd Tin Box" | 4:00 |
| 2. | "Pyramid Song" | 4:49 |
| 3. | "Pulk/Pull Revolving Doors" | 4:07 |
| 4. | "You and Whose Army?" | 3:11 |
| 5. | "I Might Be Wrong" | 4:54 |
| 6. | "Knives Out" | 4:15 |
| 7. | "Morning Bell/Amnesiac" | 3:14 |
| 8. | "Dollars and Cents" | 4:52 |
| 9. | "Hunting Bears" | 2:01 |
| 10. | "Like Spinning Plates" | 3:57 |
| 11. | "Life in a Glasshouse" | 4:31 |
| Total length: | 43:57 | |
Adapted from theAmnesiac liner notes.[99]
Weekly charts[edit]
| Year-end charts[edit]
|
| Region | Certification | Certified units/sales |
|---|---|---|
| Argentina (CAPIF)[127] | Gold | 20,000^ |
| Australia (ARIA)[128] | Gold | 35,000^ |
| Belgium (BRMA)[129] | Gold | 25,000* |
| Canada (Music Canada)[130] | Platinum | 100,000^ |
| France (SNEP)[131] | Gold | 100,000* |
| Japan (RIAJ)[132] | Gold | 100,000^ |
| United Kingdom (BPI)[45] | Platinum | 331,000[133] |
| United States (RIAA)[135] | Gold | 1,020,000[134] |
| Summaries | ||
| Europe (IFPI)[136] | Platinum | 1,000,000* |
* Sales figures based on certification alone. | ||
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