Episode 89: This Isn't Happening with Steven Hyden

Across the Margin: The Podcast

In this episode of Across The Margin: The Podcast host Michael Shields converses with acclaimed music critic Steven Hyden. Hyden is the host of the podcast Celebration Rock wherein he converses with rock stars and the country’s biggest music writers about what’s happening in rock n’ roll. Additionally, he hosts the podcast Rivals, about the most fascinating feuds in music history, and he is one of the co-hosts of 36 From The Vault (Osiris Media), an excellent Grateful Dead podcast. He has written several tremendous books focused on rock n’ roll including Your Favorite Band Is Killing Me (2016), about famous rivalries in pop music history, and Twilight of the Gods (2018), exploring the history of classic rock. Hyden is a critic for Uproxx and previously served as staff writer at Grantland and an editor at The A.V. Club. In just a few weeks, Hyden is releasing his latest book entitled This Isn’t Happening, Radiohead’s Kid A and The Beginning of the 21st Century, a book that explores the making and meaning of Radiohead's groundbreaking, controversial, and epoch-defining album, Kid A. In it, Steven digs deep into the songs, history, legacy, and mystique of Kid A, outlining the album's pervasive influence and impact on culture, in time for its 20th anniversary. Deploying a mix of criticism, journalism, and personal memoir, Hyden skillfully revisits this enigmatic and alluring LP and investigates the many ways in which Kid A shaped and foreshadowed our current world. In this episode, Michael and Steven talk about what made Kid A so noteworthy and different than anything Radiohead had released prior. They recount multiple meltdowns by the lead singer of Radiohead, Thom Yorke, that directly contributed to the sound of KId A. They converse upon the unique time period that Kid A was born into, where the internet was a far different place than it is today and there existed a certain atmosphere of uncertainty in the air that can be dramatically heard on the album. They explore the struggles the band had in bringing the album to life, the unique relationship between Kid A and Radiohead’s first hit single “Creep,” and a whole lot more. All in all, what is celebrated in this latest episode is an album that is worthy of the sort of thorough examination Hyden gives it in his enthralling new book.

Pre Order This Isn’t Happening: Radiohead’s Kid A and The Beginning of the 21st Century

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