The year 2000, or Y2K, was supposed to be the end of the world as we know it, and in some ways it was. Y2K came with the release of Radiohead’s Kid A, a record that's best described as trailblazing. Kid A is notorious for being Radiohead’s cathartic album, where the band transforms from funky alt-rock to experimental. Few bands have ever been able to undergo such an overhaul in their sound and come out in the end this successful. Listening to Kid A is like watching a close friend slowly lose himself in the darkness. It is the sound of a lead singer destroying himself with his band following him close behind. Yet this absolute destruction doesn’t wound the sound. It creates an entity perfectly aware of itself and its deformations.
The album opens with “Everything in Its Right Place”, a track that's just a labyrinth of auditory exploration. It is disorienting, yet mesmerizing. Thom Yorke’s vocals, Radiohead’s lead singer, are distorted and haunting, and combined with the electronic instrumental, it places listeners into a trance. The title track “Kid A” is filled with textures. While not my favorite track, it is too unique to ignore. It feels like a sort of orchestrated chaos, with each blaring element being able to come to silence in an instant. The succeeding song, “National Anthem”, is as easy as it gets on the ears in Kid A, but still super freaky. It’s loaded with strange vocal effects and bass and finishes with an intense horn craze. Then there is “How to Disappear Completely”, a track often regarded as the most emotionalally potent in Radiohead’s discography. And while I could argue the track is overhyped, the background guitar is sensational.
The fifth track is “Treefingers”, a purely instrumental interlude. It is meditative and chill, serving as a deserved pause from the musical craze. The sixth, Optimistic, is a great vocal performance from Thom. The guitar is primal and distorted as if it were launching an attack. The seventh track is “In Limbo”. It feels like an adapted 21st-century Talking Heads cover, but much more psychedelic and surreal. The eight-track “Idioteque” feels very ahead of its time. It is utterly dystopian and reminds me of the artist Aphex Twin. The second to last song “Morning Bell” starts in a classic Radiohead technique, a deceptively simple instrumental. Yorke’s lines are filled with cryptic imagery, and the recurring pulses and glitches contribute to the otherworldliness. The ending track “Motion Picture Soundtrack” is probably my favorite. Its unfiltered organ is just hauntingly beautiful, and Yorke’s vocals invoke a sense of nostalgia. The second half of the song is like an alien lullaby. Just fantastic.
Radiohead’s ability to create deep emotional landscapes is what makes Kid A so special. It plunges listeners into an alien environment, like OK Computer, yet its icy ambiance devilishly lingers.
In Kid A, Radiohead feels abnormally prescient. Like even though I have not heard any album like Kid A since its creation, and it has been a quarter of a century, it makes me feel like I will. Somehow predicting the soundscape of the future but also capturing the anxieties and uncertainties of a new millennium. It's a testament to Radiohead’s artistic vision and willingness to evolve that this record continues to resonate, offering a record that feels just as relevant today as it did at the dawn of the 21st century.
*Made 3/13/24