Line #78 Music/Amnesiac


1	[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/5_amnesiac.jpg]]
2	[[caption-width-right:350:''"I jumped in the river, and what did I see?"'']]
3
4	->''"After years of waiting\
5	Nothing came\
6	As your life flashed before your eyes\
7	You realize"''
8	-->-- '''"Packt Like Sardines in a Crushd Tin Box"'''
9
10	''Amnesiac'' is the fifth studio album by English rock band Music/{{Radiohead}}, released in 2001 through Creator/ParlophoneRecords in the UK and Creator/CapitolRecords in the US.
11
12	Mostly recorded alongside its predecessor ''Music/KidA'', released seven months prior, with the intent of releasing both as a double album (before being DividedForPublication), the album is considered a companion piece -- if not a direct sequel -- to its [=Y2K=] counterpart. Lead singer Thom Yorke described it as "another take" on the album, as well as "a form of explanation."
13
14	Sonically, the album displays the same influences as ''Kid A'', including {{Jazz}}, {{Krautrock}}, ElectronicMusic, and ClassicalMusic, but coalesces them into a mold that is predominantly PostRock-styled. Compared to ''Kid A'', however, it is looser and more eclectic in structure, placing greater emphasis on its jazz and classical elements while still prominently featuring an electronic rock edge. Of the eleven tracks featured on ''Amnesiac'', only the closer, "Life on a Glasshouse", had recording sessions progress after the release of ''Kid A'', with Radiohead inviting the Humphrey Lyttleton Band to perform with them on the track in the waning months of the 20th century.
15
16	Upon release, the album was another commercial success for the band, topping the charts in the UK, Canada, and Finland and peaking at No. 2 on the ''Billboard'' 200. It would go on to be the 80th best-selling album of 2001 in the UK, and would be certified Platinum in both the UK, the EU, and Canada, as well as gold in the US, Argentina, Australia, Belgium, France, and Japan.
17
18	Like ''Kid A'', ''Amnesiac'' was first teased with a series of short animated [[{{Blipvert}} "blips"]] that aired on MTV and were briefly made available online. However, ''Amnesiac'' featured a much smaller amount of blips (possibly because the novelty had already worn off by then) and featured actual singles shortly after, each with proper music videos. The singles in question were "Pyramid Song", "I Might Be Wrong", and "Knives Out".
19
20	20 years after its release, ''Amnesiac'' and its predecessor were reissued as ''Kid A Mnesia'', collecting both albums alongside a third disc of outtakes.
21	----
22
23	!! Tracklist:
24
25	# "Packt Like Sardines in a Crushd Tin Box" (4:00)
26	# "Pyramid Song" (4:49)
27	# "Pulk/Pull Revolving Doors" (4:07)
28	# "You and Whose Army?" (3:11)
29	# "I Might Be Wrong" (4:54)
30	# "Knives Out" (4:15)
31	# "Morning Bell/Amnesiac" (3:14)
32	# "Dollars and Cents" (4:52)
33	# "Hunting Bears" (2:01)
34	# "Like Spinning Plates" (3:57)
35	# "Life in a Glasshouse" (4:34)
36	----
37
38	!! Think about the good tropes and never go back:
39	* AmazingTechnicolorWorld: The music video for "Knives Out" features lavish use of bright, vivid color in the set design and wardrobe, contrasting with dark, often frightening imagery and the desperate tone of the song itself.
40	* AppealToWorseProblems: Mentioned in "Life in a Glasshouse":
41	-->''Think of all the starving millions''
42	* AutoTune: Thom's voice in "Pulk/Pull Revolving Doors" has autotune applied with ridiculous pitch-shifting settings to create a disorienting effect.
43	* BeingWatched: "Life in a Glasshouse" repeatedly mentions how "there's someone listening in," tying in with the CelebrityIsOverrated themes.
44	* {{Blipvert}}: Like with ''Kid A'', ''Amnesiac'' was originally advertised with a series of these. However, there were much less of them before the band decided to drop the act and return to the traditional singles & music videos model; while the ''Kid A'' blips tally up to nearly a quarter of an hour in total runtime, the ''Amnesiac'' blips in sum only reach 6-7 minutes. Incidentally, a small number of the ''Amnesiac'' blips actually use excerpts from "Everything in Its Right Place" and "The National Anthem" from ''Kid A''.
45	* BookEnds: The album's finale, "Life in a Glasshouse", has the line "Packed like frozen food and battery hens", which possibly nods back to the album's opener, "Packt Like Sardines in a Crushd Tin Box".
46	* CelebrityIsOverrated: "Life in a Glasshouse" portrays life in the very public eye as not dissimilar to a domestic prison.
47	* ColorMotifs: Red and black feature prominently on the front and back covers, while beige is dominant throughout the liner notes.
48	%%* ContractualPurity: Discussed and criticized in-universe throughout "Life in a Glasshouse".
49	* CreepyJazzMusic: "Life in a Glasshouse", a minor-[[{{Scales}} key]] New Orleans-style dirge about the suffocating nature of celebrity.
50	* CreepyMonotone: Thom's voice in "Pulk/Pull Revolving Doors" is autotuned to achieve this effect.
51	* DarkReprise: "Morning Bell/Amnesiac" is a darker version of the song featured on ''Music/KidA''.
52	* DividedForPublication: ''Amnesiac'' was recorded simultaneously with ''Music/KidA'', and at one point the two were planned for release as a double album; however, Radiohead ultimately opted to release them as separate albums six months apart.
53	* EitherOrTitle: The version of "Morning Bell" heard on this album features the additional subtitle "Amnesiac".
54	* {{Foreshadowing}}: Much like the hidden booklet included with early CD copies of ''Music/KidA'', the liner notes to this album include references to not just songs on this album, but future Radiohead songs as well. Among other examples, one page is littered with repetitions of the phrase "I am Citizen Insane", the title to a song that would first be released as a ''Music/HailToTheThief'' BSide in 2003 (specifically on some versions of the "Go to Sleep" single release).
55	* GenreMashup: The album, as mentioned above, takes influence from many different genres.
56	* GenreRoulette: '''Oh yes.''' It's got electronica ("Packt Like Sardines in a Crushed Tin Box", "Pulk/Pull Revolving Doors", "Like Spinning Plates"), rock ("I Might Be Wrong", "Knives Out"), jazz (ranging from modern styles like the piano-driven "You and Whose Army?" and the cool jazz-esque "Dollars and Cents" to a New Orleans-style dirge in "Life in a Glasshouse"; arguably the Music/CharlesMingus-influenced "Pyramid Song" also counts), and some things that don't quite fit into any genre.
57	* IdiosyncraticCoverArt: The album art for ''Amnesiac'' plays itself off of visual motifs from the artwork for ''Music/KidA''; the front cover reuses the title font and features similar black-and-red ColorMotifs, while the artwork in the liner notes depicts the same forest fire seen in the liner notes for ''Kid A'', but from within the forest this time rather than from outside. The tray art for both albums is also heavily based in the visual motifs seen in the liner notes, albeit without overt references to the forest fire.
58	* ImAHumanitarian: "Knives Out":
59	-->''So knives out''
60	-->''cut him up''
61	-->''don't look down''
62	-->''shove it in your mouth''
63	* InheritedIlliteracyTitle: "Packt Like Sardines in a Crushd Tin Box" stemmed from some typos on Thom's behalf that the band felt were fitting to the song, so they left them in.
64	* {{Instrumentals}}: "Hunting Bears".
65	* InTheStyleOf: Most of "You and Whose Army?" was modeled after the sound of jazz vocal group Music/TheInkSpots, right down to mimicking the sound of a 1940's ribbon microphone.
66	* {{Instrumental}}: "Hunting Bears"
67	* ListSong: "Pulk/Pull Revolving Doors" is basically this, as Thom lists many types of doors.
68	-->''There are barn doors''
69	-->''and there are revolving doors''
70	-->''doors on the rudders of big ships''
71	-->''we are revolving doors''
72	* LimitedLyricsSong: "Pyramid Song" has one verse of 8 lines repeated twice.
73	* LonelyPianoPiece: "Pyramid Song", a melancholy, piano-driven song about the experience of dying.
74	* LoudnessWar: As was the trend among music at the time, ''Amnesiac'' is louder than Radiohead's previous output. It's also the first album in their discography with clipping problems (starting with "You and Whose Army?"), which would plague most of their future releases from this point forward. YMMV on whether or not it adds to or detracts from the music, as songs like "Pulk/Pull Revolving Doors" [[{{Glitch}} already make considerable use of clipping as a stylistic element]].
75	* MinimalisticCoverArt: The album cover isn't too snazzy design-wise, simply being a worn red book against a black background, with a small doodle of a crying minotaur and constellation on the book. It's taken up a notch with the special edition, which ''is'' the worn red book. The 2009 collector's edition pulls a similar trick, but instead of being an actual book, it uses a box made up to look like a close-up of the book cover.
76	* MoodWhiplash: Due to the various genres utilized and the overall atmosphere of fear and confusion, the album has a lot of this. The paranoid, jittery "Packt Like Sardines in a Crushd Tin Box" is followed by the smoother, sadder "Pyramid Song," which is then followed by the nightmarish "Pulk / Pull Revolving Doors," and so on.
77	* MundaneMadeAwesome: See WordSaladLyrics below.
78	* MythologyGag:
79	** "Packt Like Sardines in a Crushd Tin Box" takes its NonAppearingTitle from [[https://isbn.radiohead.com/663/responsive-images/b20698356149ec46c0f3d8eae87cd3fc___a_1571_1323.jpg a line in the hidden booklet]] included with early copies of ''Music/KidA''.
80	** "Knives Out" reprises the intro to [[Music/OKComputer "Paranoid Android"]], this time using it as the basis for the entire backing track. This earned a fair deal of criticism of the time, with some accusing Radiohead of running short on ideas.
81	** The liner notes to the album act as a combination of the standard and hidden liner notes to ''Music/KidA'', mixing in computer-generated SurrealHorror artwork with gritty, Gothic-themed drawings and text from both this album's songs and several then-upcoming songs.
82	* NoEnding: When listened to on its own, "Pyramid Song" just seems to abruptly cut off partway through the outro. In the context of the album, it produces a hard cut to the start of "Pulk/Pull Revolving Doors", creating a heavily jarring effect.
83	* NonAppearingTitle: "Packt Like Sardines in a Crushd Tin Box", "Pyramid Song", "Pulk/Pull Revolving Doors" (though the phrase "revolving doors" does appear), partly "Morning Bell/Amnesiac" ("morning bell" appears, but not "amnesiac"), "Hunting Bears" (on account of it being an {{instrumental}}), "Life in a Glasshouse" (though "li''ving'' in a glass house" appears).
84	* OurMinotaursAreDifferent: The crying Minotaur, which serves as a visual motif for this album in the same manner as the Modified Bears for ''Kid A'', right down to appearing on the front cover (though the specific depiction of the minotaur on the cover makes him appear more similar to a human).
85	* PackagedAsOtherMedium: The album cover is made to look like a forgotten old library book. The front and back covers are of the front and back of an actual book; the back cover and the back of the CD booklet both feature mock-checkout cards on them (complete with the back of the booklet having a "spine damaged" notice); the liner notes are made to look like pages of a book that have been torn up, scribbled on, and yellowed out; the second page is made to look like the title page to 18th-century writer and politician Edward Gibbon's ''The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, Volume II''; and the last page features instructions for [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stripped_book stripping]] the book. This is taken to an even greater extent in the [[https://www.discogs.com/Radiohead-Amnesiac/release/835328 special edition]], which actually ''is'' the book pictured on the cover, complete with more faithful replications of library checkout cards.
86	* {{Paparazzi}}: "Life in a Glasshouse" takes off from a RealLife incident of a celebrity's spouse pasting up previously taken photos of the celebrity on the windows in order to foil press photographers.
87	* ParanoiaFuel: InUniverse; "Life in a Glasshouse" invokes this from the CelebrityIsOverrated angle, stating how confining vast amounts of fame can be for celebrities by means of privacy-breaching paparazzi, constant media scrutiny, and the self-imprisonment that comes with [[StepfordSmiler constantly keeping up a disingenuously perfect image]].
88	-->''Well, of course I'd like to sit around and chat,\
89	but someone's listening in.''
90	* PostRock: Like its sister album ''Kid A'', ''Amnesiac'' uses the same focus on timbre and texture over melody and lyrics; the jazz influences bring it closer to the sound of Music/TalkTalk's ''Music/SpiritOfEden'' and ''Music/LaughingStock'' than to the more ubiquitous brand of ''Music/{{Spiderland}}''-esque post-rock.
91	* PyramidPower: Implicitly {{invoked\|Trope}} with "Pyramid Song", which was originally titled "Egyptian's Song" on early promotional releases.
92	* ARareSentence: Pitchfork's review of ''Amnesiac'' cracked a joke at a line from "Knives Out" that could be seen as an AccidentalInnuendo.
93	-->"The song also loses points for containing the line, 'Shove it in your mouth.' Really, Thom."
94	* RearrangeTheSong: The band rerecorded "Morning Bell" from ''Music/KidA'' with more emphasis on atmospherics as opposed to rhythm, featuring richer instrumentation that makes heavy use of chimes and bell tones compared to the PostPunk-inspired, percussion-driven 2000 version.
95	* {{Recut}}: An extended version of "Life in a Glasshouse" (billed as the "full-length version") is featured as a BSide to "Knives Out". This version roughly half a minute longer than the one heard on the album, featuring longer cadenzas from the Humphrey Lyttleton Band and lacking the whirling electronic intro.
96	* RedAndBlackAndEvilAllOver: Red and black are heavy {{color motif}}s for the album, and are used to draw a sense of unease that ties in with the foreboding sound on the record. It also provides an interesting visual contrast with the use of WhiteAndRedAndEerieAllOver for ''Kid A''.
97	* ReverseCerebusSyndrome: Ever so slightly compared to ''Music/KidA'', thanks to the more varied subjects covered here compared to its predecessor's focus on the darkest and most overtly personal songs from the 1999-2000 sessions. It's still a dour album, just not to as voyeuristic of a degree.
98	* SdrawkcabSpeech: [[PlayingWithATrope Played with]] on "Like Spinning Plates": the first verse features Thom singing the lyrics in reverse, but played backwards so that it sounds like he's singing them forwards (albeit heavily slurred), complimenting the reversed backing track of an early draft of [[Music/HailToTheThief "I Will"]] that drives the song. The second verse, meanwhile, is sung normally with no extra treatments.
99	* SequelSong: Given the nature of its recording, one could consider this a sequel ''album'' to ''Kid A'', featuring a similar sound and further exploring the themes on that album.
100	* ShoutOut:
101	** The lyrics to "Pulk/Pull Revolving Doors" are derived from a 1973 children's book titled ''How Things Work''. The book features a section about different kinds of doors, which opens with a poem titled "There's More to a Door Than You Think" that's [[https://imgur.com/a/EcQnL near-identical]] to the Radiohead song's lyrics.
102	** Carrying over from its appearance on ''Music/KidA'', the line "cut the kids in half" at the end of "Morning Bell/Amnesiac" appears to be a nod to one of the stories surrounding the Hebrew king Solomon in Literature/TheBible, in which the king responded to a custody dispute between two woman over a child they each claimed they birthed by offering to cut the kid in half and give each piece to one of the women-- the woman who protested the suggestion was granted custody.
103	* SiameseTwinSongs:
104	** "Pyramid Song" hard-cuts directly into "Pulk/Pull Revolving Doors" midway through the outro, giving the impression of both songs being a single piece. Aiding this is how "Pulk/Pull Revolving Doors" repeats the outro of "Pyramid Song", with an intentionally shoddy loop added to make it sound more unsettling.
105	** Averted strangely with "Hunting Bears" / "I Might Be Wrong." They flow perfectly into each other, are in the same key, have the same tempo, harmonize perfectly when played on top of each other... but don't follow each other on ''Amnesiac''. Instead, "Hunting Bears" serves as more of a DarkReprise of "I Might Be Wrong," or an intro to "Like Spinning Plates."
106	* SingingVoiceDissonance: This is on many of the tracks. Even Thom said himself that he doesn't like how "pretty" his voice sounds. For instance, "Knives Out" is about cannibalism, and his voice sounds quite soft.
107	* SpokenWordInMusic: In "Pulk/Pull Revolving Doors", Thom speaks through a Roland MC-505 sequencer with some found sounds thrown in.
108	* TheSomethingSong: "Pyramid Song".
109	* StepfordSmiler: The subject of "Life in a Glasshouse," implying great suffering in the privacy-lax and prison-esque celebrity lifestyle beneath the nice-looking surface.
110	-->''She is putting on a smile\
111	Living in a glasshouse.''
112	* StylisticSuck:
113	** The outro to "Pulk/Pull Revolving Doors" is intentionally poorly looped, similarly to the drum loop that closes out "Optimistic" on ''Music/KidA''.
114	** Humphrey Lyttleton stated that he and his eponymous band's part on "Life in a Glasshouse" was recorded specifically to sound unplanned and unrehearsed, emphasizing the exploratory side of jazz instead of the slick side that endures in popular memory.
115	* SurrealMusicVideo:
116	** This trope had already become the band's stock-in-trade at this point, but nowhere is it more apparent with the videos for this album than on "Knives Out", which rotates throughout a brightly-colored hospital room that continuously changes up in bizarre and outlandish ways that range from comical (e.g. a cartoonishly giant game of ''Operation'') to disturbing (e.g. Thom disappearing and being stuck onto the head of the mouse mentioned in the song lyrics).
117	** The video for both "Pulk/Pull Revolving Doors" and "Like Spinning Plates" also counts in its latter portion, consisting solely of two crying, conjoined babies in what looks like a giant centrifuge.
118	* TitleTrack: Retroactively done with [[Music/KidA "Morning Bell"]], which is given the subtitle "Amnesiac" in the version included on this album.
119	* UncommonTime: Subverted with "Pyramid Song." It sounds arrhythmic, but is actually a heavily syncopated, 4/4 bossa nova rhythm played ''really'' slowly.
120	* WordSaladLyrics: Done to [[MundaneMadeAwesome strangely]] [[Administrivia/TropesAreTools awesome effect]] in "You and Whose Army?"
121	-->''We ride tonight\
122	Ghost horses.''
123	* XtremeKoolLetterz: It's subtle, but "Packt Like Sardines in a Crushd Tin Box". It actually stemmed from a typo by Thom, a notoriously poor typist, but the band decided to ThrowItIn on the grounds that it fit the tone of the song and album.
124	* YouAndWhatArmy: Invoked in the title and lyrics for "You and Whose Army?"
125	-->''You and whose army?''\
126	''You and your cronies''
127	----

Context Music / Amnesiac