Kid A

Radiohead’s previous album OK Computer (1997) may have introduced experimental elements into their sound, but it didn’t become apparent until its follow-up Kid A was released in 2000. It was recorded following an exhaustive world tour in support of OK Computer, which left many of the band’s members burnt out, especially lead singer Thom Yorke, who nearly suffered a mental breakdown and began having writer’s block. To combat this, the band decided to strip back their sound for their next full-length, sequencing song lyrics at random and incorporating inspiration from krautrock acts such as Can and electronic acts such as Aphex Twin and Autechre. As Yorke himself stated in a 2013 interview:

He burns a heavy shadow… Aphex opened up another world that didn’t involve my fucking electric guitar… I hated the Britpop thing and what was happening in America, but Aphex was totally beautiful, and he’s kind of my age too.

Many songs from the Kid A sessions were saved for the album’s follow-up Amnesiac, released in 2001, and re-released alongside other unreleased works in the 20th anniversary album Kid A Mnesia (2021).

Kid A debuted at number one on both the UK Albums Chart and the US Billboard 200, making it the band’s first album to peak at the top of the latter; it was later certified platinum in the UK in its first week of sales. It initially received a mixed to positive response from critics, although some derided the band’s new aesthetic. In the years since its release, however, it has attracted universal acclaim, with Pitchfork, The Times, and Rolling Stone naming it the greatest album of the 2000s, and the latter placing it at number 67 on its updated list of The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time, right above Michael Jackson’s Off the Wall and Led Zeppelin’s Led Zeppelin IV.