After all these years what makes Kid A stand out from Radiohead’s discography it’s the moments in it that haven’t become widely renowned by their faithful fan-base and the general alternative listeners. Songs like ‘Everything In Its Right Place’, ‘Idioteque’ and ‘The National Anthem’ are today, quintessentially Radiohead. ‘Kid A’ in the other hand it’s still an outlier among several tracks that fit that description in the broader picture of the band’s catalogue.

Its central tune is a repeating stacatto melody played in bright keyboard notes. After a break with just the keyboard, the electronic backbeat is ramped up by an acoustic drumset at some point in the track. The beat then becomes this jazzy asincopated interplay between the hihats and the snare. Feels like an spiritual predecessor to The King of Limb’s more organic percussions. That, added to a funky bassline give ‘Kid A’ an innocuous groove.

Thom Yorke’s voice is processed so that it sounds like an artifical intelligence in decay. It’s difficult to actually distinguish his words without reading the lyric sheet, but that just adds up to its quirkiness. If you read them, the lyrics are quite oblique but intriguing nonetheless. “We’ve got heads on sticks/You’ve got ventriloquists” sounds like a spite to the corrupted machinery behind politics and mass media. But that’s pure interpretation and serves as a catalyst for the mystery surrounding the track.

Ultimately ‘Kid A’ embodies its album essence. Moreover, being that it is just its second track, it’s surprising that it further expands the vision that Radiohead brought to the record, so early on. It is not perhaps the most repeatable song in the LP but it’s easy to point out the ambition it represents.