This Isn't Happening

A fun look at one of the most important rock albums of a generation. Yes, I am biased because of my love of Radiohead, but this book does a great job breaking down the whole album, the time period, and music as a whole at the beginning of the century.

I've been in quite the Radiohead phase for several months now, especially the band's “Kid A” album and the band's more experimental era. So when I stumbled upon this book, it seemed like it was going to be a home run for me. Steven Hyden seems like a good guy. I'm assuming he's pretty knowledgable considering he's a well accomplished music journalist. Gosh darn it I wanted to love this book but I just can't. If you've read just a little bit across the internet about “Kid A” then you would already know the majority of the anecdotes Hyden mentions here. His book is neither as informative or informational as I would've wanted it to be. It's increasingly repetitive (how many times I read Thom Yorke's ‘sucking a lemon' lyric was borderline nauseating) and Hyden's attempts at loosely connecting “Kid A” with the looming themes and cultural events during the time of its release (as well as the future/current day) is amateurishly surface level and it simply scratches the surface at best. The book's worst and most frustrating moments is when Hyden will make cultural references and try to connect them to Radiohead or “Kid A,” whether it's films like “Fight Club” or bands like The Smiths or The Strokes. They're just half assed, seemingly random, and not fully fleshed out just like the majority of this book. There's so much unnecessary fat and if it were to be trimmed, this could've easily just been a think piece on Rolling Stone or something. During the entire time I was reading this book, I simply wanted to just be listening to “Kid A.” And immediately after I finished this book, that is exactly what I did. I got a whole lot more out of listening to it once than reading this book.