Radiohead: Kid A (2LP) [XL RECORDINGS]

Why you'll love it

Kid A went to No. 1 in the UK and the US without a single, won the Grammy for Best Alternative Music Album and now tops just about every best-albums-of-the-2000s list. "Everything in Its Right Place", "The National Anthem" and "Idioteque" changed what a rock band could sound like.

This edition

• 2LP set, 10 tracks
• XL Recordings pressing
• Produced with Nigel Godrich

About the album

People tend to forget that when Radiohead's Kid A came out in October of 2000 there was still very much a divide between "rockist" audiences and the growing masses drawn to post-rave electronic music. The bafflement that greeted the potentially (and perhaps intentionally) self-sabotaging follow-up to 1997's towering OK Computer was, thus, not altogether surprising to those who, like Thom Yorke, were already well acquainted with Aphex Twin, Autechre and the entire 1990s Warp Records roster. And there was indeed bafflement. Initial reviews ranged from "mystifying" to "a lengthy, over-analysed mistake."

Time has proved most of those pundits wrong. Kid A stands today as a landmark moment of self-reinvention for one of the biggest rock bands on the planet and a record that redrew the definition of mainstream music in its own warped image. And there are great songs here once you put in a bit of time and stop pining for the next epic U.K. guitar-rock album. People also forget that The Bends and OK Computer took a little patience to properly "get." Once the robots spirited Yorke et al. away, in any case, there was no looking back for Radiohead.

Also at Kops: more Radiohead on vinyl · browse Alternative

Tracklist

Listen

On XL Recordings, a reissue of the 2000 album.