Kid A
How is it that Kid A's opening track, laden with an electronic vocal stuttering "bleh, bluh-bleh bleh bluh" is the most fascinating statement made in rock & roll this year? Because somehow, even when Radiohead blathers and blips nonsense, it's profound. The band's future-perfect musical grammar may be hard to decipher, and the melody is even more subliminal, but the journey traveled with Radiohead reveals them to be not only rock music's greatest adventurers in 2000, but teachers as well. --Beth Massa With every record, Radiohead jump off higher and higher cliffs, daring fans to take the plunge in their artistic feats of derring-do. The journey from that scratchy bit of raw guitar angst in "Creep" (from 1993's Pablo Honey) to any song on Kid A amounts to a high-wire act that few, if any, bands in popular music have ever attempted. It's hard to believe both records come from the same planet, much less the same band. Likewise, the grandiose, Pink Floyd-esque thematic scope of 1997's extraordinary OK Computer is nowhere to be found here. Quiet, contemplative, and less confrontational, it opens with a lack of bombast, as "Everything in Its Right Place" builds tension with ghostly voiceovers, a dry pulse, and a shadowy organ motif. That tension appears over and over on Kid A. On "How to Disappear Completely," the unsettled, atonal keyboard waxing in the background offsets the plaintive Thom Yorke vocal, and on "Idioteque," detached, inorganic rhythms make the melody's despondent aimlessness that much more nerve-racking. Throughout, Radiohead fearlessly explore dissonance and structure, melding twisted, Brian Eno-meets-Aphex Twin sonic landscapes with utter discontent in the world around them. They may sometimes overreach, letting artsy ambition prevent them from giving us the arena rock-god goodies. But their commitment to restless creativity also yields pleasures that don't fade but instead become more resonant upon repeated listenings. If OK Computer was rock's most relevant expression of millennial angst, Kid A is the opposite; it's the 21st century's first record that sounds like the future, barely caring what that Y2K fuss was all about and much more worried about what the hell we're all supposed to do now. --Matthew Cooke Radiohead Photos More from Radiohead
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OK Computer 
The Bends 
Hail To The Thief 
Pablo Honey 
Amnesiac 
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01:15Give Up
Postal Service - Give Up Music CD. cool emo electronic music, definitely indie, but very good and...
01:44Kid A
despite not having a single or a video, Kid A became Radiohead's best-selling album. And it...
01:15Digital Ash in a Digital Urn
A great Emo/Indie CD, recommended for anyone wanting to expand their taste in music.
01:02Hail To The Thief
Radiohead's most recent CD, Hail to the Thief. A great recording of the most recent...
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Kid A (2-10" LPs)
180 Gram/Audiophile pressing |
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ProductReviews88/100 (100 Reviews)
Recent Reviews
- 5/5
- From: Amazon
- Posted: May-29-2008
- Monumental
This may be the best album I've ever heard. The first five notes are simply the most arresting announcement of a sea change for a band that I know. When this was released, it was instantly the most important popular (admittedly, a...
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- 5/5
- From: Amazon
- Posted: May-12-2008
- Radiohead KID A
I just saw Radiohead live for the 1st time last night in Bristow, VA. They were absolutely incredible live!!! If you're looking for one of they're best, then you can't go wrong with the album KID A. From start to finish it just leaves...
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- 5/5
- From: Amazon
- Posted: May-04-2008
- Radiohead Enter A New Realm
I'll make this short as so many people have nailed the amazing aspects of this album. Radioheads sound changed on a large scale in only a few years. They became aPost-Rock Electronic band with a majority of the songs zeroing in on the...
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- 4/5
- From: Amazon
- Posted: Mar-29-2008
- ...I see where you're all coming from...but this isn't shocking and inaccessible...
...well it happened in the end didn't it? Radiohead wanted to change their sound and I really don't blame them...they are a really talented bunch of musicians (yes not just Greenwood and Yorke) and I find this change in direction very...
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Selected Reviews
- 5/5
- From: Amazon
- Posted: May-29-2008
- Monumental
This may be the best album I've ever heard. The first five notes are simply the most arresting announcement of a sea change for a band that I know. When this was released, it was instantly the most important popular (admittedly, a...
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- 3/5
- From: Amazon
- Posted: Mar-27-2008
- A shock when it was released, and now more of an IDM relic, but still fairly entertaining
Almost everyone has heard the story of how Radiohead shocked the world with this album. After releasing the hugely successful rock album OK COMPUTER in 1997, the band went on a massive world tour and then a long creative hiatus. When KID...
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- 2/5
- From: Amazon
- Posted: Jan-11-2008
- Just plain boring
More than 7 years have gone since this record was released and I still don't get it. I don't get the average Radiohead fan hype about something so daring and original, which it is, but in all honesty Kid A doesn't give me the one bit of...
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