Succintly is not a way someone could describe Radiohead’s career; one of the most succesful and well-renowned bands of the 21st century. Trying to do it with Kid A certainly isn’t an easy task either. Anyway, I’ll try: The fourth album of the Oxford quintet is the one left-turn of an already beloved rock band that most fans and critics alike, agree was actually successful. Furthermore, it became a defining record for its genre, its context and the years to come.

Judging by my track-by-track dissection of the album you can conclude that I’m a Radiohead fan. I am, but evidence favors my thesis here. The one-two punch that the Oxford quintet pulled at the end of the 90s is music history. Haters may argue against this, even claim that the opposite is true, but that exact discussion and its long-lasting ripples is what makes Kid A what it is today.

The record is profound evidence of a deconstruction process from a band that had already made a career-defining statement. A formula Radiohead decided to concoct because expressing the overwhelming fear of the way the technological upheaval was going to change our societies was hard to put in the recording of just one album. Also the unnerving experience of immersing themselves in these themes could be, and probably was, one of the causes for the radical change in the sonic expression these musicians risked portraying.

Before writing this, I was thinking what would best describe Kid A in the context of Radiohead’s discography. Having mentioned the ‘left-turn’, the record is curiously filled with many of the most recognizable tracks Radiohead has ever put out. But its still unique. The band’s musical prowess is expressed in many forms throughout their catalogue and of course we can easily trace the influence they have in many artists of the 21st century, but there’s still a traceable personality in each release, and Kid A’s is overwhelming.

These factors, its uniqueness among its peers and the perception of the record now as quintessential Radiohead, are what makes the album still relevant to this day. The band will probably never sound like this again, and yet, the sound experimentation within Kid A is peppered in subsequent releases and in each of the band’s members’ solo careers.

Kid A‘s large shadow over the last twenty years looms as an hypnotic yet beautiful introduction to a millenium we don’t quite comprehend yet. Defiance of the rock music establishment had been done before, and it’s being done years and years after, but Kid A‘s own disregard for the rulebook is still significant because it feels natural, even deserved. The relevancy of its ominous warning has become an ever-growing menace. The reading of this record it’s cryptic, yet at times straightforward. ‘Idioteque’ is a doomsday-invoking electronic ode to infinite knowledge, and it is all the more tangible because of its rhythmic, unimpeachable drive.

The band’s embrace of their past melancholic tones with new ways of playing them is balanced with precision. There’s orchestral flourishes framing a song about trying to get away from everything. In another track, a kraut-rock influenced repetitive beat pushes forward a story about being alone in a haunted house. And then, there’s ‘Optimistic’ which is the song that most calls to Radiohead’s previous releases with a chorus that claims: “The best you can is good enough”, probably the only ray of sunshine that goes through the album’s impending fog.

So, will we ever understand what makes Kid A incredibly approachable? I don’t mean the immediate attraction of ‘Everything In Its Right Place’ or the addictive instrumental arrangments in songs like ‘The National Anthem’ or ‘Morning Bell’. Or the perennial chills Thom Yorke’s voice can provoke. I mean, just like with our poor dealing of post-modern problems, will we ever catch on with what Radiohead intended? I don’t pose this question implying that Kid A is bigger than all of us. Nowadays Kid A is one of the most unique listening extravaganzas contemporaneous music has gave us, and I don’t see that changing anytime soon. All of this in great part thanks to its equal introduction of risk-taking and playing to the band’s strengths.

Nevertheless, Kid A has immersed itself in the band’s discography and in our minds and in music at large. A collection of tracks so subversive that we don’t notice its gentle strain. The public certainly didn’t when it first came out, but I do think that today, despite its almost unanimous praise, we still haven’t notice it.