Kid A Established Radiohead as the Most Influential Band of the Modern Era

Intro:

The year 2000 was important for many reasons, it marked the turn of the millennium, the first X-men movie was released, but it was also the year that Radiohead released their 4th studio album Kid A. Radiohead by that time was already very popular, especially when it came to the brit rock scene of the late 90s. Their debut album Pablo Honey has their most popular song to date in Creep, and the next two albums The Bends and OK Computer were revolutionary pieces of alt rock. These albums are great and very successful, but it was their next album three years after OK Computer that truly separated them from the rest of the rock bands.

Radiohead frontman Thom Yorke was the face of the band, but as a collective, the 5 members always seemed to have extremely high aspirations in music. Artists in any field inspire themselves from previous ones to serve as a sort of role model when creating their own music. As time goes on, every new generation seems to have inspirations from the previous one. This ultimately helps the progression of music as we are continuously seeing the boundaries of the art being pushed to new heights. However, it takes someone or a group of people truly special to be this role model for the new generation. In the past, huge artists such as Chuck berry, The Beatles, and Michael Jackson to name a few have served this exact role and elements from their art can still be heard in music from today. In the year 2000, a new one of these role models emerged, in this year the album Kid A marked Radiohead as the most influential band of the modern era. It may not have been known upon its’ release, but now almost 22 years later, there is lots of solid evidence to support this claim. Firstly, the way they incorporated experimental rock which had been seen before, but they did it in such a new way that was truly ground-breaking. Secondly, the actual instrumentation of the album and Radiohead’ influence in general is found in countless new music being released today. Lastly, Radiohead’s entire legacy was shaped from Kid A, they are remembered because of this album, and each one that came after for the legendary band.

Genre Bending:

By the 2000’s, music is already extremely well established, with tons of different genres and subgenres to choose from. With all this diversification, it is very difficult for bands to stand out, especially in the very popular overarching rock genre. This makes for a certain hunger for some artists to try and stand out, to break the status quo and really get a different sound. This is where experimental music of all genres comes into play. The name is very self-explanatory, the genre essentially experiments with music and typically gives listeners something very fresh. There are certain risks when experimenting of course, the album could just sound really bad if the execution is not done well, however, when artists succeed, it is quite the spectacle. Some artists who could fall into this category and have seen much success among critics in this genre are Captain Beefheart & His Magic Band, John Coltrane, Deerhoof, and Mount Eerie to name a few. Kid A however, also had its’ fair share of experimenting. The album may not be seen as a full-on experimental one by some, but there is no denying that there are many musical experiments of new sounds that they introduced with it.

Before Kid A’s release, Radiohead had already grown an immense fanbase, and their fans were speculating about this 4th album. The rumour that turned out to be true is that the band wanted to go a different direction with their music and incorporate more electronic and glitchy sounds. This idea in general was not new however, many artists have played around with more electric elements dating back to Bob Dylan. However, the final product that Radiohead eventually ended up with was something completely new that even surprised some fans. The final album became some soft electronic rock with glitchy elements and a mix of energetic and soft vocals. Describing it is difficult and I’d argue that to get a true understanding of it, one would need to listen to the album. Nonetheless, this style or brand of rock had never been heard before, even from the band’s earlier works. Yes, there are similarities with some of their other works and some other artists they certainly inspired themselves from, but the final sound was completely new. In fact, the sound is so different that to this day, die hard Radiohead fans continue to argue over what genre this album is. When a genre cannot be easily identified, such as this case, it is fair to say that the album had some experimentation and bent pre-existing genres. This genre bending truly set the tone for modern music, with more and more artists testing the limits of each music genre.

Influence on Other Artists:

As previously stated, artists everywhere inspire themselves from others on their own work. There is a certain comradery and togetherness among all artists. Similarly, to athletes for example, a soccer player will have respect for another soccer player whose game they really like. Sometimes, this respect goes so far as to inspire the player so that they shape their game off the other. This is the same exact case for musicians, they all perform the same art, and have mutual respect for great artists that they like. Artists are constantly interviewed about who their favourite artists are as people try to get an insight on where some inspiration for their music came from. The artists that others often say they love and inspire themselves from are typically the big ones who might also be seen as pioneers, such as Elvis Presley, The Beatles, Marvin Gaye, The Chemical Brothers, etc. This list can go pages long depending on the person, but after Kid A, it would be hard for most people to not include Radiohead on this list of musical pioneers.

Previously, we talked about how Radiohead essentially bent the rock genre in a very successful experimental way, this brand of music that they built is what inspired so many that came after. Firstly, there are artists who simply credit Radiohead as a band they like. To be completely honest, this applies to most artists, whether they were interviewed about it or not, most musicians have some appreciation for Radiohead in general or are just fans. Secondly, there are some who take it a step further and sample Radiohead in their own song. Sampling is a common practice in producing nowadays, if there are certain riffs or melodies that an artist likes, they would want to use it on their own song too. Radiohead is no stranger to this either, they sample other songs in their own work, but they also have been sampled by others countless times. There are some very big names who have sampled them in the past, for example, Frank Ocean, Vampire Weekend, Janelle Monae, Lil Peep, the Roots, The Weeknd, Lupe Fiasco, etc. The variety of genres covered by the artists who were just mentioned speaks to how mainstream Radiohead is and how they inspire not only rock artists, but hip-hop artists, electronic artists and many more. Finally, there are musicians who inspire themselves from Radiohead and instead of sampling them, they try to use similar musical devices to mimic Radiohead’s sound. I want to highlight two examples that are quite interesting in their similarities with Radiohead. The first one is the song Tessellate by alt-J. Right off the bat, you get a slow piano, quickly followed by some drums and a soft guitar, the pace begins to speed up and then comes the singing. The entire soft aspect of this song and the way that the drums are played with the piano and guitar and then the build all throughout follows the typical Radiohead formula. The final example is Kareoke by Drake. Drake is an interesting example because he might be the most popular artist on the planet today, and his music is not one would think is similar with Radiohead. But this song will change that perception for sure. The instrumentation at the start is very easy to hear and sound extremely like Idioteque off Kid A. It is the loud and clear-cut Drums with some soft piano in the back that make for this similarity with the Radiohead song. All this mutual respect from these artists shows the legacy that Radiohead have built through the years.

Legacy:

Now in the year 2022, we have the luxury of seeing Radiohead’s future after Kid A, as well as their current status in the world and history in rock. Starting off by their own success after Kid A, the band released 5 albums afterwards including Amnesiac, which is commonly known as B-sides or extras from Kid A (they were recorded together), and most recently also released some more songs from those recording sessions in 2021 with Kid Amnesiac. Just by seeing how much material the band made while creating Kid A goes to show the quality of the music they were creating during that time. Out of these 5 albums they released after Kid A, they all are typically enjoyed and well appreciated by Radiohead fans and music critics, even the recent ones in A Moon Shaped Pool from 2015. Fans of the band will debate to no end which Radiohead album was the best. Kid A is almost unanimously in most fans top 3 for its ingenuity and impact on the band and music as a whole. After Kid A, the band saw success with this new sound they created and simply built on that. Every album even before Kid A had its’ own feel to it, the songs each fit together very well in their respective albums. Although they would play around with different sounds all the time, a Radiohead song will always be extremely recognisable. This is mainly due to Yorke’s identifiable voice, but also their mixing of piano drums and guitar as previously mentioned. Whether the band will release another new album is yet to be seen, fans will surely love to hear it, but that’s completely up to the group, as they have been releasing the highest quality of music since 1993. Though, I don’t think many can complain about the body of work they have created if they were to retire right now. The Rolling Stones even has them on their list of top 100 artists of all time, coming in at number 73 on the list. Considering their discography, all the praise they get from fans, other musicians, and critics, and the influence they have had on the music industry as a whole, it is difficult to argue that they were not an inspirational band who set a new standard for the modern era of music.

Conclusion:

            Now having analyzed Radiohead’s 4th studio album Kid A, we see how the group played with the idea of genre, how they had and will continue to have a lasting influence on other musicians, and how they have a legendary status in music’s history. In a way, the album coming out on the turn of the millennium is almost perfect. For such a great band, to release something so ground-breaking, fits into a new era of music that would come in the 2000s and so forth. The band and this album are truly iconic, one cannot learn about music in the 2000s without appreciating Radiohead’s impact, and that is exactly what they are, the most influential band in music’s modern era.

References:

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