Idioteque

"Idioteque" is a song by the English rock band Radiohead, released on their fourth album, Kid A (2000). Radiohead developed it while experimenting with modular synthesisers, and it contains samples of two 1970s computer music compositions.

"Idioteque" was named one of the best songs of the decade by Pitchfork and Rolling Stone. Rolling Stone also named it one of the greatest songs of the century so far, and ranked it number 48 on their list of the "500 Greatest Songs of All Time".

A live version appears on the 2001 album I Might Be Wrong: Live Recordings. "Idioteque" was included on Radiohead: The Best Of (2008).

Recording

File:Paul Lanksy - Mild und Leise (sample).ogg

Radiohead sampled this portion of Template:Lang, a 1973 computer music composition by Paul Lansky, for "Idioteque".

"Idioteque" began with an electronic rhythm created by Jonny Greenwood.<ref name="Harcourt-2000">Template:Cite interview</ref> Greenwood created a drum machine using synthesiser modules similar to those available in the 1970s, using components such as filters to create and shape sounds.<ref name="Harcourt-2000" /> Feeling the rhythm "needed chaos", he experimented with found sounds and sampling.<ref name="Harcourt-2000" />

Greenwood sampled the four-chord synthesiser phrase from Template:Lang, a computer music piece by the American composer Paul Lansky. Lansky wrote Template:Lang during 1973Template:Ndash74 at Princeton University on an IBM mainframe computer using Music 360<ref>Template:Cite AV media notes</ref> and FM synthesis. It was released on the 1976 compilation Electronic Music Winners,<ref name="Osborn">Template:Cite book</ref> which Greenwood discovered in a second-hand record shop while Radiohead were touring the US.<ref name="Lansky-2012">Template:Cite book</ref>

Lansky allowed Radiohead to use the sample after Greenwood wrote to him with a copy of "Idioteque".<ref name="Harcourt-2000" /> Lansky wrote that he found Radiohead's use of the sample "imaginative and inventive" and that he had himself "sampled" the chord progression by using the Tristan chord.<ref name="Lansky-2012" /> "Idioteque" also briefly samples another composition on Electronic Music Winners, "Short Piece", by Arthur Kreiger,<ref name="Osborn" /> who became a professor of music at Connecticut College.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Greenwood recorded 50 minutes of improvisation and gave it to the singer, Thom Yorke, who took a short sequence and used it to write the song.<ref name="public-interview">Template:Cite web</ref> Yorke said: "Some of it was just 'what?', but then there was this section of about 40 seconds long in the middle of it that was absolute genius, and I just cut that up."<ref name="public-interview" /> He described it as "an attempt to capture that exploding beat sound where you're at the club and the PA's so loud, you know it's doing damage".<ref name="REYNOLDS">Template:Cite web</ref> As with other songs on Kid A, Yorke wrote lyrics by cutting up phrases and drawing them from a hat.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> In the second chorus, his vocals are rearranged and looped so that he seems to say "the first of the children" in 5/4, creating a grouping dissonance against the original 4/4 chorus.<ref name="vocal">Template:Cite book</ref>

Reception

The critic Simon Reynolds wrote that "Idioteque" "does for the modern dance what PiL and Joy Division's 'She's Lost Control' did for disco. Call it bleak house or glum 'n' bass, but the track works through the contrast between Yorke's tremulous hyperemotionality and the rigid grid of rhythm."<ref name="ReynoldsSpin">Template:Cite magazine</ref><ref name="REYNOLDS" /><ref>Template:Cite magazine</ref> Keith Cameron of NME wrote that despite it being "gauche" in its style of what he called "garage-noir", "Idioteque" was "a nonetheless brilliantly persuasive two-step litany of paranoia, fear and unease. Yorke sings it like he means it."<ref name="NME3">Template:Cite magazine</ref>

Tom Ewing of Freaky Trigger dismissed "Idioteque" as a "plain awful, a piss-poor" imitation of the 1999 Aphex Twin track "Windowlicker", with "Yorke yammering excruciatingly over the top".<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> However, the Rock's Backpages reviewer Barney Hoskyns wrote that while "Idioteque" was arguably too derivative of Aphex Twin, it contributed "something irresistibly powerful to the [Aphex Twin] template".<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> Brent DiCrescenzo of Pitchfork wrote that it "clicks and thuds like Aphex Twin and Bjork's Homogenic, revealing brilliant new frontiers for the 'band'."<ref name="pitchfork">Template:Cite web</ref> The Q reviewer Stuart Maconie wrote that listeners expecting a crossover into conventional electronic dance music were surprised by the "whiny, metallic attack" and anxious refrain, resulting in a song that is "about as uplifting as Mandrax".<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>

"Idioteque" was named the eighth-best song of the decade by Pitchfork<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> and the 56th-best by Rolling Stone.<ref>Template:Cite magazine</ref> In 2018, Rolling Stone ranked it the 33rd-greatest song of the century so far,<ref>Template:Cite magazine</ref> and in 2025 they named it the eighth-greatest.<ref name="Rolling Stone-2025">Template:Cite web</ref> In 2021 and 2024, Rolling Stone ranked "Idioteque" number 48 on its lists of the "500 Greatest Songs of All Time", describing it as "the foreboding, spellbinding centrepiece of Kid A".<ref>Template:Cite magazine</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

Personnel

Credits adapted from liner notes.

• Jonny Greenwood – modular synthesiser, sampling<ref name="Harcourt-2000" />
• Thom Yorke – vocals<ref name=vocal />
• Nigel Godrich – production, engineering, mixing
• Radiohead – production
• Gerard Navarro – production assistance, additional engineering
• Graeme Stewart – additional engineering
• Chris Blair – mastering

Other versions

Radiohead have regularly performed "Idioteque" live.<ref name="Rolling Stone-2025" /> A performance was included on the 2001 album I Might Be Wrong: Live Recordings.<ref name="p4k3">Template:Cite web</ref> The drummer, Philip Selway, said Radiohead wanted to "give that sense of the electronic in the piece" while performing with live instruments, and that this changed how he approached drum parts.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

In July 2010, Amanda Palmer released a cover of "Idioteque" as the first single from her Radiohead covers album.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> It was National Public Radio's Song of the Day for January 11, 2011.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> In 2010, Yoav used a loop pedal to perform an acoustic version.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

External links

• Radiohead Official Site
• Homepage of Paul Lansky: explanation by the composer of the song's relationship with his piece mild und leise, including a sample of it.