Kid A

Released 27th September 2000
I bought it: The day after it came out, most likely from Time Records, our local independent record store that naturally no longer exists.

Where I was…
In the autumn of 2000 I was starting my final year of secondary school. Steve Lamacq and NME were my main sources of music, and music was my main source of everything. I was a bit of a loner. Radiohead were a band I was aware of, but I hadn’t found my way in yet.

Before reliable internet connections, mobile phones (smart or otherwise) or streaming, my main source of escapism was listening to the radio. Most weekday evenings on Radio 1 were occupied by Steve Lamacq’s Evening Session, followed by John Peel. I couldn’t always stay awake for Peel, but Lamacq opened up so much new music to me, and coincidentally he was from my dull little town too.

The run up to Kid A being released was being treated like the second coming. There were two big events on the radio - the broadcast of a gig from Warrington, and a whole show dedicated to the new album, playing it in full with the band there to talk about each song. I specifically remember Lamacq getting really passionate before he played Idioteque (“it’s a world where everything and nothing makes sense, it’s a world where the lottery rules”), and it was that song which really made me sit up and pay attention. The next day, I took the plunge and bought the album.

What I thought then…
From the opening chilling bars of Everything In Its Right Place, my main thought was “what the fuck have I just bought??” I was massively intimidated. Even the artwork was distant and glacial. But I grew to like its distance and perceived weirdness, it must have struck a chord with whatever I was going through at the time. Kid A was perhaps the first album I listened to obsessively, and ultimately changed the way I consumed music. Suddenly I wanted to know everything about this band and hear every song they ever made - which back then meant buying albums.

What I think now…
That opening is still chilling. Listening to this album through headphones makes you feel like Thom Yorke is whispering right into your ears. It’s hard to go back to the studio version of these songs without picturing the live versions - EIIRP’s extended sample breakdown or National Anthem being a fucking beast. It’s interesting that their “no singles, no videos” policy for this album was deemed shocking at the time, especially now singles don’t seem to exist.

This album feels like an older relative that was dismissed as weird when you were an ignorant teen, but in hindsight was more alive than any of us squares. There is a cohesion in the recurrent themes of fury and despair, plus flashes of love too. How To Disappear is still heartbreaking - those swirling strings towards the end like a ship caught in a storm. The whole thing centres around the unforgiving panic of Idioteque - then and still my favourite Radiohead song. I can’t count the times I’ve lost my shit to that track, either internally or very publically.

One thing that’s hitting me is how unhappy and alone I was at the time for these bleak songs to reach out to me so much. I guess it was good that I had a cathartic musical security blanket, but it also makes me realise just how far away I am from that now.

Next:
In an interstellar burst...