Upon its release in 2000, Kid A was largely greeted with bafflement and derision by a slovenly British music press, who felt cheated by Radiohead's apparent abdication of the Stadium Rock Crown they were all ready to award them following 1997's seminal OK Computer. Their loss.

Often bizarrely portrayed as a wilfully perverse two fingers up to the mainstream and, most insultingly, a rip-off of Warp Records luminaries Aphex Twin & Autechre, in reality Kid A simply finds Radiohead continuing in the same manner as they'd always done- taking their vast and disparate musical influences and twisting them into their own distinctive voice to produce something truly original and awe-inspiring. And all in a pop-friendly 10 tracks/49 minutes.

Quite simply, Kid A is an astonishing record: a perfectly cohesive whole from beginning to end, its highlights too innumerable to mention. But for the purposes of this review, here are some of them:

The stunningly sparse, beautifully… more »

Upon its release in 2000, Kid A was largely greeted with bafflement and derision by a slovenly British music press, who felt cheated by Radiohead's apparent abdication of the Stadium Rock Crown they were all ready to award them following 1997's seminal OK Computer. Their loss.

Often bizarrely portrayed as a wilfully perverse two fingers up to the mainstream and, most insultingly, a rip-off of Warp Records luminaries Aphex Twin & Autechre, in reality Kid A simply finds Radiohead continuing in the same manner as they'd always done- taking their vast and disparate musical influences and twisting them into their own distinctive voice to produce something truly original and awe-inspiring. And all in a pop-friendly 10 tracks/49 minutes.

Quite simply, Kid A is an astonishing record: a perfectly cohesive whole from beginning to end, its highlights too innumerable to mention. But for the purposes of this review, here are some of them:

The stunningly sparse, beautifully concise keyboard opener Everything In Its Right Place; the propulsive punk-rock bassline opening of The National Anthem (which in turn evolves into a fantastically demented Mingus-inspired jazz freak-out); How To Disappear Completely, quite possibly the most beautiful orchestral-based track Radiohead ever committed to tape (excepting 2001's Pyramid Song perhaps), matched by an amazing Yorke vocal; the staggering Idioteque, its frantic beats pulsing like ice through the brain, Yorke's cut-up voice raging throughout like a demented man (or quite possibly the last sane person in a 21st century gone mad). Or the haunting, apocalyptic blues-rock of Optimistic, littered with classic Yorke-Speak ("This one's Optimistic/This one went to market/This one just crawled out the swamp/This one dropped a payload/to fight off all the animals/living on Animal Farm"). I could go on, but it's better if you discover them for yourself.

Kid A, like all the best albums, doesn't offer up all its secrets on the first listen. It's simply too good for that. Way too much emphasis has been placed on the electronic slant of some of the tracks: In reality, only half the songs on the album could be described as such, and they stand alone as some of the most exciting dance/rock hybrids of the last decade. Talking Heads' Remain In Light was an admitted influence on the album and its imprint is all over Kid A; not just in its use of cut-up beats and non-traditional rhythms but in Yorke's sometimes spasmodic, non-linear lyrics, all echoing David Byrne's defining 'How did I get here?'

Kid A (and its terrific, though less-cohesive 2001 counterpart, Amnesiac) was by all accounts an extremely difficult album for Radiohead to make. Thankfully they persisted, and the result contains some of their greatest ever music. Would that more pop/rock bands were willing, or able, to progress in such exciting ways.

Any prospective Radiohead fan should see Kid A become the absolute core of their collection. I envy anyone who is about to listen to this record for the first time.