Book Review: This Isn't Happening by Steven Hyden

So this was a fun experiment - to read a book about an album that I've never heard and have no desire to hear by a band I have no interest in.

So why read it? Partly to revisit the beginning of the century, but mostly because it was written by Steven Hyden, one of the only authors I find worth reading about music. I loved him in late-period Grantland.com (and wished he's made the jump to The Ringer) and really enjoyed his books about rock feuds and the history of classic rock (as well as the retrospective on the Black Crowes, of which he was a co-author). I may not have any real interest in Radiohead's Kid A, but I figured it would be worthwhile to read Hyden defend it as one of the greatest and most meaningful albums of all time.

While Hyden jumps around a bit, narrating based more on themes than chronology, he sets the stage pretty quickly - Radiohead were accidental Buzz Bin artists in the mid-90s who felt the need to escape the fame from their hit "Creep" the rest of their lives. Their music turned more complex and moody as the 90s wore on, until, nearing the end of the century, the band decided that the only way to escape the guitar-rock aura was to make the least Radiohead-like album Radiohead could do. And thus sprach Kid A.

As Hyden points out, this is a classic fourth-album challenge (when you start to get sick of your own sound), and started from a similar place as U2 when they put out Achtung Baby and Zooropa. However, U2 only spent a decade in that sound before "re-applying to be the greatest rock band in the world"; for Radiohead, Kid A was an actual turning point.

For Kid A, Radiohead removed guitars, bass, and drums for brass, strings, and something called an ondes Martenot, then sampled the hell out of them to create electronic soundscapes. With digital melodies fronted by modulated vocals warning of the dangers of technology and the growing distance between us all (or not - it's also possible the lyrics mean nothing), Kid A was a shock to the music world. Some, like myself, never bothered to hear it at all. Others, like Hyden, heard it the first time, got confused, heard it a second time, heard it twenty - thirty - times until it finally made some kind of sense.

The subtitle to this book mentions this record starting the 21st century. True to the word, this was the most online album of its time. During the making of the album, the band not only had a website, but updated it constantly - warts and all - during the making of the album. The website also promoted numerous fan sites, where fans provided links to concert footage of the band trying out the new songs. Then, when the album came out, a funny thing happened. Rock magazines, which were still in their prime and featured "rock journalists" who wrote and mostly thought the same, almost universally dismissed Kid A, especially virulently in Radiohead's native England (where they were unfortunately not Suede). The few Internet music sites, however, were quick to embrace it. The nascent Pitchfork.com, yet to become one of the most influential music sites of the aughts, highlighted a very un-journalistic, zany review (a feature, not a bug, for online music sites) that ultimately gave Kid A a 10/10 rating. Unknown at the time, one side of the debate would soon devour the other side, before itself kneeling to the might of Twitter hot-takes.

Speaking of reviews, this section of the book revealed one of the most interesting points to me personally. As I mentioned above, I've read Hyden's books and his Grantland columns, all about stuff relevant to Gen Xers, and expected that he'd continue to do so over at The Ringer. But instead, outside of the podcast and HBO documentary about Woodstock 99 (which is must-see TV), he makes his living writing reviews of new music. There's a question to be had about why young readers would care about the POV of a middle-aged man, but conversely, why would a middle-aged man care to write about new music? The answer comes from how disappointed Hyden was in "rock journalism" when Kid A came out, how all the reviews aped the same style and the same points (basically, it wasn't Nirvana, and "Creep" wasn't on it), while the only fresh takes on reviews were done online. When Hyden entered music journalism he pledged that he would put himself in the mindset of the potential listener and go to the music, not let the music come to him. He gave the example of a band called Twenty One Guns (note: never heard of them), which he admits he finds ridiculous. However, he knows that they have a very devoted following who parse out lyrics and basically create a canon out of their music, so when Hyden has to review a Twenty One Guns album he had to put himself in that listener's shoes. All thanks to his experience with Kid A.

I still have no interest in listening to Kid A - when your paean to the album admits that it will take multiple listens to enjoy it then you've already lost me - but I loved reading one of my favorite music writers write about an album he cares so deeply about. Recommended whether you are a Radiohead fan or not - eight out of ten hot dogs!