Performer Notes
- Includes a 28-page booklet.
- Radiohead: Thom Yorke, Jonny Greenwood, Ed O'Brien, Colin Greenwood, Phil Selway.
- KID A won the 2001 Grammy Award for Best Alternative Music Album. It was nominated for the 2001 Grammy Award in the categories of Album Of The Year and Best Engineered Album.
- This limited edition of KID A comes as a enlarged digipack book designed by Stanley and Tchock.
- Radiohead: Thom Yorke, Jonny Greenwood, Ed O'Brien, Colin Greenwood, Phil Selway.
- KID A won the 2001 Grammy Award for Best Alternative Music Album. It was nominated for the 2001 Grammy Award in the categories of Album Of The Year and Best Engineered Album.
- In the wake of OK Computer, it became taken for granted among serious rock fans of all ages that Radiohead not only saved rock from itself, but paved the way toward the future. High praise, but given the static nature of rock in the last half of the '90s, it was easy to see why fans and critics eagerly harnessed their hopes to the one great rock band that wanted to push the limits of its creativity, without grandstanding or pandering. Daunting expectations for anyone, even for a band eager to meet them, so it's little wonder that Kid A was so difficult to complete. Radiohead's creative breakthrough arrived when the band embraced electronica -- which was nearly a clich? by the end of the '90s, when everyone from U2 to Rickie Lee Jones dabbled in trip-hop or techno. The difference is that the wholehearted conversion on Kid A fits, since OK Computer had already flirted with electronica and its chilly feel. Plus, instead of simply adding club beats or sonic collage techniques, Radiohead strove for the unsettling "intelligent techno" sound of Autechre and Aphex Twin, with skittering beats and stylishly dark sonic surfaces. To their immense credit, Radiohead don't sound like carpetbaggers, because they share the same post-post-modern vantage point as their inspirations. As perhaps befitting an album that's coolly, self-consciously alienating, Kid A takes time to unfold; multiple plays are necessary just to discern the music's form, to get a handle on quiet, drifting, minimally arranged songs with no hooks. This emphasis on texture, this reliance on elliptical songs, means that Kid A is easily the most successful electronica album from a rock band: it doesn't even sound like the work of a rock band, even if it does sound like Radiohead. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine
Professional Reviews
Rolling Stone (1/4/01, p.106) - Ranked #8 in Rolling Stone's Top 10 Albums of 2000.
Rolling Stone (10/12/00, pp.85-6) - 4 stars out of 5 - "...A clear-eyed space opera about a plausible future....this 'is' pop, a music of ornery, glistening guile and honest ache, and it will feel good under your skin once you let it get there..."
Spin (1/01, p.73) - Ranked #2 in Spin's "Top 20 Albums of the Year [2000]".
Spin (10/00, pp.171-2) - 9 out of 10 - "...The songfullness emerges from the strangeness, and a beautifully sequenced CD assumes the shape of a classic LP....KID A is not only [its] bravest album but its best one as well."
Spin (10/00, pp.171-2) - 9 out of 10 - "...The songfullness emerges from the strangeness, and a beautifully sequenced CD assumes the shape of a classic LP....KID A is not only [their] bravest album but its best one as well."
Entertainment Weekly (10/6/00, pp.85-6) - "...A genuinely challenging work....a sonic journey..." - Rating: B+
Q (10/01, p.91) - Ranked #13 in Q's "Best 50 Albums of Q's Lifetime"
Q (1/01, p.93) - Included in Q's "50 Best Albums of 2000".
Q (11/00, p.96) - 3 stars out of 5 - "...Beautiful as it is strange....Musically, [its] best features are its keening, lapwing guitars and a thin, atonal orchestral drizzle....best enjoyed with the lights off..."
Alternative Press (11/00, p.95) - 3 out of 5 - "...Like the soundtrack to a movie that hasn't been filmed....This is music that messes with your insides..."
Magnet (1-2/01, p.45) - Included in Magnet's "20 Best Albums of 2000" - "...This year's version of R.E.M.'s UP: a genre-resistant sonic scuplture that plays wicked eardrum tricks at every turn..."
The Wire (1/01, p.34) - Included in Wire's "50 Records Of The Year".
Muzik (11/00, p.90) - 4 out of 5 - "...A record of experiments....This deserves your attention."
CMJ (1/08/01, p.17) - Included in CMJ's "Best of the Year" for 2000.
CMJ (10/2/00, p.3) - "...An epic audio experiment punctuated with raw emotion and inspiring innovation....an unquestionable masterpiece..."
Vibe (11/00, p.166) - 4 discs out of 5 - "...Richly sculpted with multi-colored chords, ebbing rhythms, and oddball time measures, KID A floats...through the galaxy in search of musical cliches to annihilate..."
Mojo (Publisher) (p.66) - Ranked #7 in Mojo's "100 Modern Classics" -- "[W]eeping icons of heartbreaking loveliness..."
Mojo (Publisher) (10/00, p.86) - "...Intriguing, eccentric, obviously a grower....It still sounds a mess, but that's obviously the plan..."
NME (Magazine) (12/30/00, p.77) - Ranked #11 in NME's "Top 50 Albums Of The Year" - "...Warp-style electronica, modern jazz....chill atmospherics and curdled, bitter soundscapes..."
Pitchfork (Website) - "[A] complete album, one where everything from production to arrangements to lyrics to album art were carefully crafted towards a unified purpose."
Record Collector (magazine) (p.92) - 5 stars out of 5 -- "[S]uitably liberated....These are recordings with soul..."
