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CREATIVE RESEARCH ASSIGNMENT

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When putting together their record Kid A, Radiohead was under a lot of pressure to deliver. They had come out of the gates as a kind of alternative-rock band with loner anthem "Creep" in 1992, and then made a bigger, more experimental splash with OK Computer in 1997.

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Expectations were high, as critics and audience were lauding the band for both their political, nihilistic views of humanity and their ability to write killer guitar leads. In some ways, Kid A, released in 2000, is an obvious follow-up to OK Computer; it's darker, weirder, and more cynical. But for many, the record's more experimental tone was alienating. 

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The album was a critical success, though, and has since been hailed as one of Radiohead's finest efforts. Stanley Donwood, who has worked on every single Radiohead album cover since their debut, was charged with the task of creating album art that matched the dystopian nightmare of the music the art would adorn. 

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Donwood was inspired by a Guardian front page photograph he saw during the Kosovo war. "It has taken looking straight down at the ground, and the image is of perhaps a square meter of snow. The snow is spattered with blood, engine oil, marked with boot prints, studded with cigarette ends."

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I enjoy the album since I discovered it in 2018, the discouraging and tetric tone of the songs produced interest in me because I had never heard any band remotely similar to Radiohead, at least when comparing Kid A to other great rock hits. However, I feel that after knowing the story behind the songs and the album art, I connected much more deeply with the band, due to the courage they had to create something out of the box and that at the same time worked as social criticism.

In the Album, we hear these lyrics as a reference to the Kosovo war:
"Who's in a bunker, who's in a bunker?​
Women and children first and the children first and the children​"

Works Cited

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