:en:Kid A

Following the critical and commercial success of their 1997 album OK Computer, the members of Radiohead suffered burnout.{{cite news |last=Zoric |first=Lauren |date=22 September 2000 |title=I think I'm meant to be dead ... |work=The Guardian |url=https://www.theguardian.com/friday_review/story/0,,371289,00.html |url-status=live |access-date=18 May 2007 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140102235438/http://www.theguardian.com/friday_review/story/0%2C%2C371289%2C00.html |archive-date=2 January 2014 |df=dmy-all}} The songwriter, Thom Yorke, became ill, describing himself as "a complete fucking mess ... completely unhinged". He was troubled by new acts he felt were imitating Radiohead{{cite web |last=Reynolds |first=Simon |date=July 2001 |title=Walking on thin ice |url=https://www.rocksbackpages.com/Library/Article/radiohead-walking-on-thin-ice |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210122183234/https://www.rocksbackpages.com/Library/Article/radiohead-walking-on-thin-ice |url-status=dead |archive-date=22 January 2021 |access-date=10 March 2024 |work=The Wire}} and became hostile to the music media.{{cite web|title=Radiohead: Kid A|url=https://www.nme.com/reviews/reviews-radiohead-2944-317559|date=23 December 2000|website=NME|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200304065902/https://www.nme.com/reviews/reviews-radiohead-2944-317559|access-date=4 May 2020|archive-date=4 March 2020}} He told The Observer: "I always used to use music as a way of moving on and dealing with things, and I sort of felt like that the thing that helped me deal with things had been sold to the highest bidder and I was simply doing its bidding. And I couldn't handle that."

Yorke suffered from writer's block and could not finish writing songs on guitar.{{cite journal |last=Cavanagh |first=David |author-link=David Cavanagh |date=October 2000 |title=I can see the monsters |journal=Q |pages=96–104}} He became disillusioned with the "mythology" of rock music, feeling the genre had "run its course".{{cite web |last=Smith |first=Andrew |date=1 October 2000 |title=Sound and fury |url=https://www.theguardian.com/theobserver/2000/oct/01/life1.lifemagazine |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131110180556/http://www.theguardian.com/theobserver/2000/oct/01/life1.lifemagazine |archive-date=10 November 2013 |access-date=19 May 2007 |website=The Observer |df=dmy-all}} He began to listen almost exclusively to the electronic music of artists signed to the record label Warp, such as Aphex Twin and Autechre, and said: "It was refreshing because the music was all structures and had no human voices in it. But I felt just as emotional about it as I'd ever felt about guitar music." He liked the idea of his voice being used as an instrument rather than having a leading role, and wanted to focus on sounds and textures instead of traditional songwriting. Yorke considered changing the band's name, saying he did not "want to be answerable to what we'd done before".

Yorke bought a house in Cornwall and spent his time walking the cliffs and drawing, restricting his musical activity to playing the grand piano he had recently bought.{{Cite web|date=12 February 2013|title=Splitting atoms with Thom Yorke|url=http://www.dazeddigital.com/music/article/15601/1/splitting-atoms-thom-yorke|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160418233341/http://www.dazeddigital.com/music/article/15601/1/splitting-atoms-thom-yorke|archive-date=18 April 2016|access-date=9 July 2016|website=Dazed|df=dmy-all}} "Everything in Its Right Place" was the first song he wrote. His lack of knowledge of electronic instruments inspired him, as "everything's a novelty ... I didn't understand how the fuck they worked. I had no idea what ADSR meant."{{cite magazine|last=Fricke|first=David|date=14 December 2000|title=People of the Year: Thom Yorke of Radiohead|url=https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/people-of-the-year-thom-yorke-of-radiohead-194004/|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190105201537/https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/people-of-the-year-thom-yorke-of-radiohead-194004/|archive-date=5 January 2019|access-date=2019-01-05|magazine=Rolling Stone|language=en-US}} The guitarist Ed O'Brien had hoped Radiohead's fourth album would comprise short, melodic guitar songs, but Yorke said: "There was no chance of the album sounding like that. I'd completely had it with melody. I just wanted rhythm. All melodies to me were pure embarrassment." The bassist, Colin Greenwood, said other guitar bands were trying to do similar things, and so Radiohead had to change and move on.{{cite web|last=Kot|first=Greg|year=2000|title=Radiohead sends out new signals with 'Kid A'|url=http://www.nigelgodrich.com/press5.htm|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160313120012/http://nigelgodrich.com/press5.htm|archive-date=13 March 2016|access-date=18 March 2007|website=Nigelgodrich.com}}

{{see also|Amnesiac (album)#Recording}} File:Jonny Greenwood - Ondas Martenot.jpg in 2010|alt=]]After the success of OK Computer, Radiohead bought a barn in Oxfordshire and converted it into a recording studio.{{Cite news |last=Rogers |first=Jude |author-link=Jude Rogers |date=2024-09-29 |title=‘It commemorates collective moments’: Radiohead through the eyes of Colin Greenwood |url=https://www.theguardian.com/music/2024/sep/29/radiohead-colin-greenwood-photography-how-to-disappear#comments |access-date=2024-09-29 |work=The Observer |language=en-GB |issn=0029-7712}}{{sfn|Randall|2004|pp=183, 189}} Yorke planned to use it as the German band Can had used their studio in Cologne, recording everything they played and then editing it. As the studio would not be complete until late 1999, Radiohead began work in Guillaume Tell Studios, Paris, in January 1999.

Radiohead worked with the OK Computer producer Nigel Godrich and had no deadline. Yorke, who had the greatest control, was still facing writer's block. His new songs were incomplete, and some consisted of little more than sounds or rhythms; few had clear verses or choruses. Yorke's lack of lyrics created problems, as these had provided points of reference and inspiration for his bandmates in the past.{{cite journal |last=Kent |first=Nick |author-link=Nick Kent |date=1 June 2001 |title=Happy now? |journal=Mojo}}

The group struggled with Yorke's new direction. According to Godrich, Yorke did not communicate much,{{cite news|last=Marzorati|first=Gerald|date=1 October 2000|title=The post-rock band|language=en-US|work=The New York Times|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2000/10/01/magazine/the-post-rock-band.html|access-date=28 July 2008|issn=0362-4331}} and according to Yorke, Godrich "didn't understand why, if we had such a strength in one thing, we would want to do something else". The lead guitarist, Jonny Greenwood, feared "awful art-rock nonsense just for its own sake". His brother, Colin, did not enjoy Yorke's Warp influences, finding them "really cold". The other band members were unsure of how to contribute, and considered leaving. O'Brien said: "It's scary – everyone feels insecure. I'm a guitarist and suddenly it's like, well, there are no guitars on this track, or no drums."

Radiohead experimented with electronic instruments including modular synthesisers and the ondes Martenot, an early electronic instrument similar to a theremin, and used software such as Pro Tools and Cubase to edit and manipulate their recordings. They found it difficult to use electronic instruments collaboratively. According to Yorke, "We had to develop ways of going off into corners and build things on whatever sequencer, synthesiser or piece of machinery we would bring to the equation and then integrate that into the way we would normally work."{{Cite web |last=Sterner |first=Daniel |date=July 2019 |title=Talk: Thom Yorke |url=https://www.elektronauts.com/talk/134 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190710213712/https://www.elektronauts.com/talk/134 |archive-date=10 July 2019 |access-date=2019-07-12 |website=Elektronauts}} O'Brien began using sustain units on his guitar, which allow notes to be sustained infinitely, combined with looping and delay effects to create synthesiser-like sounds.{{cite news |date=14 November 2017 |title=Radiohead's Guitarist Created His Own Instrument and Helped Change the Band's Music |website=Esquire |url=http://www.esquire.com/entertainment/music/a13529349/radiohead-ed-obrien-interview/ |url-status=live |access-date=14 November 2017 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171115072535/http://www.esquire.com/entertainment/music/a13529349/radiohead-ed-obrien-interview/ |archive-date=15 November 2017}}

In March, Radiohead moved to Medley Studios in Copenhagen for two weeks, which were unproductive. The sessions produced about 50 reels of tape, each containing 15 minutes of music, with nothing finished. In April, Radiohead resumed recording in a mansion in Batsford Park, Gloucestershire. The lack of deadline and the number of incomplete ideas made it hard to focus, and the group held tense meetings. They agreed to disband if they could not agree on an album worth releasing. In July, O'Brien began keeping an online diary of Radiohead's progress.{{cite web |title=The Best You Can Is Good Enough: Radiohead vs. The Corporate Machine |url=https://www.popmatters.com/tools/print/132589/ |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20151004163150/http://www.popmatters.com/tools/print/132589/ |archive-date=4 October 2015 |access-date=3 October 2015 |website=PopMatters |df=dmy-all}}

Radiohead moved to their new studio in Oxfordshire in September. In November, Radiohead held a live webcast from their studio, featuring a performance of new music and a DJ set.{{cite news|url=http://www.mtv.com/news/570044/radiohead-debut-song-during-webcast/|title=Radiohead debut song during webcast|last=Vanhorn|first=Teri|date=12 November 1999|work=MTV News|access-date=11 November 2018|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181112021255/http://www.mtv.com/news/570044/radiohead-debut-song-during-webcast/|archive-date=12 November 2018|url-status=dead}} By 2000, six songs were complete. In January, at Godrich's suggestion, Radiohead split into two groups: one would generate a sound or sequence without acoustic instruments such as guitars or drums, and the other would develop it. Though the experiment produced no finished songs, it helped convince O'Brien of the potential of electronic instruments.

On 19 April 2000, Yorke wrote on Radiohead's website that they had finished recording.{{Cite web|last=Nelson|first=Chris|date=20 April 2000|title=Radiohead complete recording for OK Computer follow-up|url=https://www.mtv.com/news/821233/radiohead-complete-recording-for-ok-computer-follow-up/|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211004102055/https://www.mtv.com/news/821233/radiohead-complete-recording-for-ok-computer-follow-up/|url-status=dead|archive-date=4 October 2021|access-date=2021-10-04|website=MTV News|language=en}} Having completed over 20 songs,{{cite web|last=O'Brien|first=Ed|date=22 July 1999 – 26 June 2000|title=Ed's Diary|url=http://www.greenplastic.com/coldstorage/articles/edsdiary/index.php|url-status=usurped|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070413133839/http://www.greenplastic.com/coldstorage/articles/edsdiary/index.php|archive-date=13 April 2007|access-date=19 May 2007|df=dmy-all}} Radiohead considered releasing a double album, but felt the material was too dense,{{cite web |last=Yago |first=Gideon |date=18 July 2001 |title=Played in Full |url=http://www.mtv.com/bands/archive/r/radiohead01 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140715094234/http://www.mtv.com/bands/archive/r/radiohead01/ |archive-date=15 July 2014 |access-date=14 July 2014 |website=MTV |publisher=Viacom}} and decided that a series of EPs would be a "copout". Instead, they saved half the songs for their next album, Amnesiac, released the following year. Yorke said Radiohead split the work into two albums because "they cancel each other out as overall finished things. They come from two different places."{{cite web|last=Kot|first=Greg|date=31 July 2001|title='It's difficult justifying being a rock band'|url=https://www.chicagotribune.com/2001/07/31/its-difficult-justifying-being-a-rock-band/|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131212061753/http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2001-07-31/features/0107310006_1_pink-floyd-amnesiac-thom-yorke|archive-date=12 December 2013|access-date=27 March 2012|website=Chicago Tribune}} He observed that deciding the track list was not just a matter of choosing the best songs, as "you can put all the best songs in the world on a record and they'll ruin each other".{{Cite journal|last1=Yamasaki|first1=Yoichiro|last2=Yamashita|first2=Erica|date=December 2000|title=I Don't Want To Be In A Rock Band Any More|url=|journal=Select|publisher=EMAP|volume=|pages=|via=}} He cited the later Beatles albums as examples of effective sequencing: "How in the hell can you have three different versions of 'Revolution' on the same record and get away with it? I thought about that sort of thing." Agreeing on the track list created arguments, and O'Brien said the band came close to breaking up: "That felt like it could go either way, it could break ... But we came in the next day and it was resolved."{{Cite web|title=Radiohead guitarist Ed O'Brien steps up|url=https://theface.com/music/radiohead-guitarist-ed-obrien-album-shangri-la-interview-thom-yorke|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200424035341/https://theface.com/music/radiohead-guitarist-ed-obrien-album-shangri-la-interview-thom-yorke|archive-date=24 April 2020|access-date=2020-04-18|website=The Face|date=6 February 2020 |language=en-gb}} The album was mastered by Chris Blair in Abbey Road Studios, London.{{cite book|last1=Southall|first1=Brian|title=Abbey Road: The Story of the World's Most Famous Recording Studios|last2=Vince|first2=Peter|last3=Rouse|first3=Allan|publisher=Omnibus Press|year=2011|isbn=978-0-85712-676-4}}

File:DorchesterAbbey Interior Nave&EastWindow.JPG, Oxfordshire.]]Radiohead worked on the first track, "Everything in Its Right Place", in a conventional band arrangement in Copenhagen and Paris, but without results.{{cite interview|last1=O'Brien|first1=Ed|interviewer=Paul Anderson|title=Interview with Ed O'Brien and Philip Selway|last2=Selway|first2=Philip|publisher=XFM|date=25 September 2000|subject-link1=Ed O'Brien|subject-link2=Philip Selway}} In Gloucestershire, Yorke and Godrich transferred the song to a Prophet-5 synthesiser,{{Cite news|date=4 March 2014|title=The 14 synthesizers that shaped modern music|language=en-US|work=The Vinyl Factory|url=https://thevinylfactory.com/features/the-14-synthesizers-that-shaped-modern-music/|access-date=5 March 2018|archive-date=24 April 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170424111958/https://thevinylfactory.com/features/the-14-synthesizers-that-shaped-modern-music/|url-status=live}} and Yorke's vocals were processed in Pro Tools using a scrubbing tool.{{cite interview|last1=Greenwood|first1=Jonny|interviewer=Nic Harcourt|title=An Interview With Jonny And Colin Greenwood|last2=Greenwood|first2=Colin|work=Morning Becomes Eclectic|publisher=KCRW|location=Los Angeles|date=20 October 2000|subject-link1=Colin Greenwood|subject-link2=Jonny Greenwood}} O'Brien and the drummer, Philip Selway, said the track helped them accept that not every song needed every band member to play on it. O'Brien recalled: "To be genuinely sort of delighted that you'd been working for six months on this record and something great has come out of it, and you haven't contributed to it, is a really liberating feeling." Jonny Greenwood described it as a turning point for the album: "We knew it had to be the first song, and everything just followed after it."

Yorke wrote an early version of "The National Anthem" when the band was still in school. In 1997, Radiohead recorded drums and bass for the song, intending to develop it as a B-side for OK Computer, but decided to keep it for their next album. For Kid A, Greenwood added ondes Martenot and sounds sampled from radio stations, and Yorke's vocals were processed with a ring modulator.{{cite journal |last=Swenson |first=Kylee |date=January 2001 |title=A Spy In the House of Music: Radiohead's Ed O'Brien Discusses Sonic Espionage |journal=MC2 |pages=44–47 }} In November 1999, Radiohead recorded a brass section inspired by the "organised chaos" of Town Hall Concert by the jazz musician Charles Mingus, instructing the musicians to sound like a "traffic jam".

The strings on "How to Disappear Completely" were performed by the Orchestra of St John's and recorded in Dorchester Abbey, a 12th-century church about five miles from Radiohead's Oxfordshire studio.{{cite journal |last=Blashill |first=Pat |date=29 March 2000 |title=Radiohead revealed: the inside story of the year's most important album |url=http://www.followmearound.com/presscuttings.php?year=2000&cutting=66 |url-status=dead |journal=Melody Maker |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070711130337/http://www.followmearound.com/presscuttings.php?year=2000&cutting=66 |archive-date=11 July 2007 |access-date=18 March 2007}}{{cite magazine |last=Fricke |first=David |author-link=David Fricke |date=21 May 2001 |title=Radiohead warm up with Amnesiac |url=https://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/radiohead-warm-up-with-amnesiac-20010524 |magazine=Rolling Stone |access-date=25 July 2015 |archive-date=15 July 2014 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140715085158/http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/radiohead-warm-up-with-amnesiac-20010524 |url-status=live }} Radiohead chose the orchestra as they had performed pieces by Penderecki and Messiaen. Jonny Greenwood, the only Radiohead member trained in music theory, composed the string arrangement by multitracking his ondes Martenot. According to Godrich, when the orchestra members saw Greenwood's score "they all just sort of burst into giggles, because they couldn't do what he'd written, because it was impossible – or impossible for them, anyway".{{Cite news|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/11/magazine/jonny-greenwood-radioheads-runaway-guitarist.html|title=Jonny Greenwood, Radiohead's Runaway Guitarist|last=Pappademas|first=Alex|date=9 March 2012|newspaper=The New York Times|access-date=22 June 2016|issn=0362-4331|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160520115900/http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/11/magazine/jonny-greenwood-radioheads-runaway-guitarist.html|archive-date=20 May 2016|url-status=live}} The orchestra leader, John Lubbock, encouraged them to experiment and work with Greenwood's ideas.{{Cite journal|last=Zoric|first=Lauren|date=October 2000|title=Fitter, Happier, More Productive|journal=Juice}} The concerts director, Alison Atkinson, said the session was more experimental than the orchestra's usual bookings.

File:Paul Lanksy - Mild und Leise (sample).ogg composition by Paul Lansky, for "Idioteque".]]"Idioteque" was built from a drum machine pattern Greenwood created with a modular synthesiser. It incorporates a sample from the electronic composition "Mild und Leise" by Paul Lansky, taken from Electronic Music Winners, a 1976 album of experimental music.{{cite book |last=Lansky |first=Paul |url=http://paul.mycpanel.princeton.edu/radiohead.ml.html |title=My Radiohead Adventure |publisher=Taylor & Francis/Routledge |year=2012 |isbn=9780203086612 |editor-last1=Cateforis |editor-first1=Theo |edition=2nd |pages=8 |doi=10.4324/9780203086612 |s2cid=221172298 |archive-date=20 August 2017 |access-date=26 July 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170820030208/http://paul.mycpanel.princeton.edu/radiohead.ml.html |url-status=live }} Greenwood gave 50 minutes of improvisation to Yorke, who took a short section of it and used it to write the song.{{cite web |date=12 July 2016 |title=Thom Yorke Talks About Life in the Public Eye |url=https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=15226006 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090220183402/http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=15226006 |archive-date=20 February 2009 |access-date=29 March 2009 |website=NPR |df=dmy-all}} Yorke said it was "an attempt to capture that exploding beat sound where you're at the club and the PA's so loud, you know it's doing damage".

"Motion Picture Soundtrack" was written before Radiohead's debut single, "Creep" (1992),{{cite web|last=Kennedy |first=Jake |title=Kid A Rock |work=Record Collector |date=November 2000 |access-date=17 March 2007 |archive-date=9 March 2016 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160309042328/http://followmearound.com/presscuttings.php?cutting=101&year=2000 |url=http://www.followmearound.com/presscuttings.php?cutting=101&year=2000 |url-status=dead }} and Radiohead recorded a version on piano during the OK Computer sessions. For Kid A, Yorke recorded it on a pedal organ, influenced by the songwriter Tom Waits. Radiohead added harp samples and double bass, attempting to emulate the soundtracks of 1950s Disney films.{{cite interview|last=Sandall|first=Robert|title=Interview with Jonny & Colin|last2=Russell|first2=Mark|url=https://www.mixcloud.com/ferdinandbeckett/mixing-it-20-jan-2001-radiohead-kid-a-special-full-episode/|work=Mixing It|publisher=BBC Radio|date=20 January 2001|others=Jonny and Colin Greenwood|access-date=22 February 2018|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180222165054/https://www.mixcloud.com/ferdinandbeckett/mixing-it-20-jan-2001-radiohead-kid-a-special-full-episode/|archive-date=22 February 2018|url-status=live}} Radiohead also worked on several songs they did not complete until future albums, including "Nude",{{Cite web|url=http://www.wordmagazine.co.uk/content/music-producers|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110703005546/http://www.wordmagazine.co.uk/content/music-producers|url-status=dead|archive-date=3 July 2011|title=The Music Producers {{!}} Word Magazine|date=3 July 2011|access-date=16 August 2016}} "Burn the Witch"{{cite web|url=https://pitchfork.com/news/65162-watch-radioheads-video-for-new-song-burn-the-witch/|title=Watch Radiohead's Video for New Song 'Burn the Witch'|date=3 May 2016|website=Pitchfork|access-date=3 May 2016|last1=Yoo, Noah|last2=Monroe, Jazz|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160503174606/http://pitchfork.com/news/65162-watch-radioheads-video-for-new-song-burn-the-witch/|archive-date=3 May 2016|df=dmy-all}} and "True Love Waits".{{Cite web|url=https://www.vulture.com/2016/05/history-radiohead-true-love-waits.html|title=The 21-Year History of Radiohead's 'True Love Waits,' a Fan Favorite Two Decades in the Making|last=Reilly|first=Dan|date=10 May 2016|website=Vulture|access-date=10 September 2016|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160907002120/http://www.vulture.com/2016/05/history-radiohead-true-love-waits.html|archive-date=7 September 2016|df=dmy-all}}

{{listen

| filename11 = Kid A.ogg

| title11 = "Kid A"

| description11 = The title track, a heavily processed electronic piece, demonstrates both Radiohead's increasing ambient electronic influences and the distortion of Yorke's voice, extensively done on the album.

| filename12 = The National Anthem (Radiohead).ogg

| title12 = "The National Anthem"

| description12 = This song, featuring a horn section improvising over a repetitive bassline, demonstrates the band's increasing influence from jazz during this time period. Yorke cited Charles Mingus as his main inspiration here.

}}

Kid A has been described as a work of electronica,{{cite news |last=Segal |first=David |date=6 June 2001 |title='Amnesiac': Radiohead To Remember |url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/lifestyle/2001/06/06/amnesiac-radiohead-to-remember/458e4be5-6034-43d7-a931-b01fdffed103/ |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170827091532/https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/lifestyle/2001/06/06/amnesiac-radiohead-to-remember/458e4be5-6034-43d7-a931-b01fdffed103/ |archive-date=27 August 2017 |access-date=10 March 2019 |newspaper=The Washington Post}}{{cite book |last=Cross |first=Alan |author-link=Alan Cross |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Y_HODgAAQBAJ |title=Radiohead: the secret history |publisher=Joe Books |year=2012 |isbn=9781927002308}} experimental rock,{{cite magazine |last=Paoletta, Michael |date=7 October 2000 |title=Reviews & Previews – Albums |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=uhAEAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA22 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160504124713/https://books.google.com/books?id=uhAEAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA22&lpg=PA22&dq=%22Kid+A%22+%22experimental+rock%22&source=bl&ots=bropjAsXC-&sig=NfkL4JoxHGVOFnTlCvCNaxj2Owk&hl=en&sa=X&ei=iY2rVKvfGsmBygScj4GgAw&ved=0CEIQ6AEwBzgK#v=onepage&q=%22Kid%20A%22%20%22experimental%20rock%22&f=false |archive-date=4 May 2016 |access-date=19 January 2015 |magazine=Billboard}} post-rock,{{cite web |last=Welsh |first=April Clare |date=2 October 2015 |title=Radiohead's 'Kid A' – The Album's Tracks Ranked In Order Of Greatness |url=https://www.nme.com/blogs/nme-blogs/radioheads-kid-a-turns-15-the-albums-tracks-ranked-in-order-of-greatness-1188414 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181215232950/https://www.nme.com/blogs/nme-blogs/radioheads-kid-a-turns-15-the-albums-tracks-ranked-in-order-of-greatness-1188414 |archive-date=15 December 2018 |access-date=13 December 2018 |website=NME}}{{cite magazine |last=Reynolds |first=Simon |date=October 2000 |title=Radio Chaos |url=http://www.followmearound.com/presscuttings.php?year=2000&cutting=88 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070927211400/http://www.followmearound.com/presscuttings.php?year=2000&cutting=88 |archive-date=27 September 2007 |access-date=23 April 2007 |magazine=Spin}} alternative rock,{{cite web |title=Radiohead – Kid A |url=https://www.sputnikmusic.com/review/5439/Radiohead-Kid-A/ |url-status=live |archive-url=https://archive.today/20120702224241/http://www.sputnikmusic.com/review/5439/Radiohead-Kid-A/ |archive-date=2 July 2012 |access-date=20 November 2018 |website=Sputnikmusic}} post-prog,{{cite magazine |last=Kearney |first=Ryan |date=31 May 2016 |title=The Radiohead Racket |url=https://newrepublic.com/article/133773/radiohead-racket |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161108133640/https://newrepublic.com/article/133773/radiohead-racket |archive-date=8 November 2016 |magazine=New Republic |df=dmy-all}} ambient,{{cite magazine |date=18 April 2020 |title=The 40 greatest stoner albums |url=https://www.rollingstone.com/music/lists/the-40-greatest-stoner-albums-20130607/radiohead-kid-a-19691231 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160117130642/http://www.rollingstone.com/music/lists/the-40-greatest-stoner-albums-20130607/radiohead-kid-a-19691231 |archive-date=17 January 2016 |access-date=6 January 2016 |magazine=Rolling Stone}} electronic rock,{{cite magazine |last=Nicholas, Taylor |date=11 May 2001 |title=Recovering the Memory of Pop Radiohead's 'Amnesiac' |url=https://www.popmatters.com/010511-radiohead-2496101503.html |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150924100840/http://www.popmatters.com/feature/010511-radiohead/ |archive-date=24 September 2015 |access-date=1 September 2015 |magazine=PopMatters}} art rock,{{cite web |last=Saunders |first=Luke |date=12 March 2020 |title=10 records to introduce you to the world of art-rock |url=https://happymag.tv/10-records-to-introduce-you-to-the-world-of-art-rock/ |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210719162008/https://happymag.tv/10-records-to-introduce-you-to-the-world-of-art-rock/ |archive-date=19 July 2021 |access-date=28 June 2020 |website=Happy Mag}} and art pop. Though guitar is less prominent than on previous Radiohead albums, guitars were used on most tracks. "Treefingers", an ambient instrumental, was created by digitally processing O'Brien's guitar loops. Many of Yorke's vocals were manipulated with effects; for example, his vocals on the title track were simply spoken, then vocoded with the ondes Martenot to create the melody.

Kid A incorporates influences from electronic artists on Warp Records, such as the 1990s IDM artists Aphex Twin and Autechre; 1970s Krautrock bands such as Can; the jazz of Charles Mingus,{{cite web|last=Zoric |first=Lauren |work=Juice Magazine |date=1 October 2000 |access-date=19 May 2007 |title=Fitter, Happier, More Productive |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160309014557/http://followmearound.com/presscuttings.php?cutting=91&year=2000 |url-status=dead |archive-date=9 March 2016 |url=http://www.followmearound.com/presscuttings.php?year=2000&cutting=91 }} Alice Coltrane and Miles Davis; and abstract hip hop from the Mo'Wax label, including Blackalicious and DJ Krush.{{cite interview|last=Greenwood|first=Jonny|url=http://nepasavaler.net/bio/jg/index.html|title=Jonny Greenwood interview|work=Ne Pas Avaler|access-date=1 April 2007|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070401081718/http://www.nepasavaler.net/bio/jg/index.html|archive-date=1 April 2007|df=dmy-all}} Yorke cited Remain in Light (1980) by Talking Heads as a "massive reference point".{{cite web |date=1 November 2000 |title=No more Thom for guitar rock |url=https://www.nme.com/news/music/radiohead-393-1309133 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171201182054/http://www.nme.com/news/music/radiohead-393-1309133 |archive-date=1 December 2017 |access-date=30 November 2017 |website=NME}} Björk was another major influence,{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=rehGAQAAQBAJ&q=bjork+%22kid+a%22|title=Radiohead's Kid A|last=Lin|first=Marvin|date=2010|publisher=A & C Black|isbn=978-0-8264-2343-6|access-date=20 November 2014|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160216154004/https://books.google.com/books?id=rehGAQAAQBAJ&dq=bjork+%22kid+a%22&hl=es&source=gbs_navlinks_s|archive-date=16 February 2016|url-status=live}} particularly her 1997 album Homogenic,{{cite web|url=http://deadspin.com/5842521/how-a-14-year-old-bjork-album-is-still-defining-alternative-pop-and-hip-hop-today|title=Put A Björk In It: How A 14-Year-Old Album Is Still Influencing Music|last=Dickey|first=Jack|date=22 September 2011|work=Musicweek2011|publisher=Deadspin|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141115182252/http://deadspin.com/5842521/how-a-14-year-old-bjork-album-is-still-defining-alternative-pop-and-hip-hop-today|archive-date=15 November 2014|url-status=live|access-date=20 November 2014|df=dmy-all}} as was the Beta Band.{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=KPOsu8JOHO8C&q=the+beta+band+1999&pg=PA32|title=The A to X of Alternative Music|last=Taylor|first=Steve|date=27 September 2006|publisher=A&C Black|isbn=0-8264-8217-1|location=London|page=32}} Radiohead attended an Underworld concert which helped renew their enthusiasm in a difficult moment.{{cite web|url=http://www.wordmagazine.co.uk/content/radiohead-escape-artists-part-two |title=Radiohead: The Escape Artists, Part Two|work=The Word|date=7 May 2008|access-date=6 November 2008|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20081207062918/http://www.wordmagazine.co.uk/content/radiohead-escape-artists-part-two|archive-date=7 December 2008}}

The string orchestration for "How to Disappear Completely" was influenced by the Polish composer Krzysztof Penderecki. Jonny Greenwood's use of the ondes Martenot was inspired by Olivier Messiaen, who popularised the instrument and was one of Greenwood's teenage heroes.{{cite news| last = Gill| first = Andy| title = So long to Jonny guitar| work = The Independent| date = 31 October 2003| url = https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/music/features/jonny-greenwood-so-long-to-jonny-guitar-93830.html| access-date = 18 June 2017| archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20170813205922/http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/music/features/jonny-greenwood-so-long-to-jonny-guitar-93830.html| archive-date = 13 August 2017| url-status = live}} Greenwood described his interest in mixing old and new music technology, and during the recording sessions Yorke read Ian MacDonald's Revolution in the Head, which chronicles the Beatles' recordings with George Martin during the 1960s. Radiohead also sought to combine electronic manipulations with jam sessions in the studio, saying their model was the German band Can.

Yorke's lyrics on Kid A are less personal than on earlier albums, and instead incorporate abstract and surreal themes.{{cite web |last=Adams |first=Tim |date=23 February 2013 |title=Thom Yorke: 'If I can't enjoy this now, when do I start?' |url=https://www.theguardian.com/music/2013/feb/23/thom-yorke-radiohead-interview |access-date=26 April 2015 |website=The Guardian |archive-date=28 June 2015 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150628075705/http://www.theguardian.com/music/2013/feb/23/thom-yorke-radiohead-interview |url-status=live }} He cut up phrases and assembled them at random, combining cliches and banal observations; for example, "Morning Bell" features repeated contrasting lines such as "Where'd you park the car?" and "Cut the kids in half".{{Cite web |last=Mitchum |first=Rob |date=25 August 2009 |title=Radiohead: Kid A: Special Collectors Edition |url=https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/13385-kid-a-special-collectors-edition/ |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150703063410/http://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/13385-kid-a-special-collectors-edition/ |archive-date=3 July 2015 |access-date=4 July 2015 |website=Pitchfork |df=dmy-all}} Yorke denied that he was "trying to get anything across" with the lyrics, and described them as "like shattered bits of mirror ... like pieces of something broken".

Yorke cited David Byrne's approach to lyrics on Remain in Light as an influence: "When they made that record, they had no real songs, just wrote it all as they went along. Byrne turned up with pages and pages, and just picked stuff up and threw bits in all the time. And that's exactly how I approached Kid A." Radiohead used Yorke's lyrics "like pieces in a collage ... [creating] an artwork out of a lot of different little things". The lyrics are not included in the liner notes, as Radiohead felt they could not be considered independently of the music,{{cite interview|subject=Radiohead|interviewer=NY Rock|date=December 2000|url=http://www.nyrock.com/interviews/2000/radiohead.asp|access-date=1 April 2007|archive-date=31 December 2005|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20051231222751/http://www.nyrock.com/interviews/2000/radiohead.asp|url-status=dead|title=Radiohead: They're Not So Angst-ridden Once You Get to Know Them}} and Yorke did not want listeners to focus on them.

Yorke wrote "Everything in Its Right Place" about the depression he experienced on the OK Computer tour, feeling he could not speak.{{Cite magazine|url=https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/radiohead-making-music-that-matters-84574/|title=Radiohead: Making Music That Matters|last=Fricke|first=David|author-link=David Fricke|date=2 August 2001|magazine=Rolling Stone|language=en-US|access-date=6 January 2019|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190106104332/https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/radiohead-making-music-that-matters-84574/|archive-date=6 January 2019|url-status=live}} The refrain of "How to Disappear Completely" was inspired by R.E.M. singer Michael Stipe, who advised Yorke to relieve tour stress by repeating to himself: "I'm not here, this isn't happening".{{cite magazine|url = https://www.rollingstone.com/music/pictures/readers-poll-the-10-best-radiohead-songs-20111012/10-how-to-disappear-completely-0823981|title = 'How To Disappear Completely' – Readers' Poll: The 10 Best Radiohead Songs|magazine = Rolling Stone|date = 12 October 2011|access-date = 8 March 2015|url-status = live|archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20150117193945/http://www.rollingstone.com/music/pictures/readers-poll-the-10-best-radiohead-songs-20111012/10-how-to-disappear-completely-0823981|archive-date = 17 January 2015|df = dmy-all}} The refrain of "Optimistic" ("try the best you can / the best you can is good enough") was an assurance by Yorke's partner, Rachel Owen, when Yorke was frustrated with the band's progress. The title Kid A came from a filename on one of Yorke's sequencers. Yorke said he liked its "non-meaning", saying: "If you call [an album] something specific, it drives the record in a certain way."

The Kid A artwork and packaging was created by Yorke with Stanley Donwood, who has worked with Radiohead since their 1994 EP My Iron Lung.{{cite news|url=https://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/radioheads-secret-weapon-20060612|title=Radiohead's Secret Weapon|last=Goodman|first=Elizabeth|date=12 June 2006|magazine=Rolling Stone|access-date=3 March 2018|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180303164717/https://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/radioheads-secret-weapon-20060612|archive-date=3 March 2018|url-status=live}} Donwood painted on large canvases with knives and sticks, then photographed the paintings and manipulated them with Photoshop.{{cite web|date=22 November 2006|title=Arts Diary|url=https://www.theguardian.com/music/2006/nov/22/radiohead.popandrock|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140926042018/http://www.theguardian.com/music/2006/nov/22/radiohead.popandrock|archive-date=26 September 2014|access-date=24 April 2007|website=The Guardian}} While working on the artwork, Yorke and Donwood became "obsessed" with the Worldwatch Institute website, which was full of "scary statistics about ice caps melting, and weather patterns changing"; this inspired them to use an image of a mountain range as the cover art.{{cite news|url = https://www.theguardian.com/environment/blog/2008/mar/20/thomyorke|title = Thom Yorke: why I'm a climate optimist|date = 23 March 2008|access-date = 26 April 2015|newspaper = Guardian|last = Yorke|first = Thom|url-status = live|archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20150518050542/http://www.theguardian.com/environment/blog/2008/mar/20/thomyorke|archive-date = 18 May 2015|df = dmy-all}} Donwood said he saw the mountains as "some sort of cataclysmic power".{{cite web|url = https://www.nme.com/blogs/nme-blogs/stanley-donwood-on-the-stories-behind-his-radiohead-album-covers|title = Stanley Donwood on the Stories Behind His Radiohead Album Covers|work = NME|date = 27 September 2013|access-date = 28 September 2013|author = Jones, Lucy|url-status = live|archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20130927150613/http://www.nme.com/blogs/nme-blogs/stanley-donwood-on-the-stories-behind-his-radiohead-album-covers|archive-date = 27 September 2013|df = dmy-all}}

Donwood was inspired by a photograph taken during the Kosovo War depicting a square metre of snow full of the "detritus of war", such as military equipment and cigarette stains. He said: "I was upset by it in a way war had never upset me before. It felt like it was happening in my street." The red swimming pool on the album spine and disc was inspired by the 1988 graphic novel Brought to Light by Alan Moore and Bill Sienkiewicz, in which the number of people killed by state terrorism is measured in swimming pools filled with blood. Donwood said this image "haunted" him during the recording of the album, calling it "a symbol of looming danger and shattered expectations".{{cite web|last = Donwood|first = Stanley|title = Bear over a swimming pool|work = Slowly Downward|url = http://shop.slowlydownward.com/Store/DisplayIndividualItem/1/575.html|access-date = 25 April 2007|archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20070610203044/http://shop.slowlydownward.com/Store/DisplayIndividualItem/1/575.html|archive-date = 10 June 2007|url-status = dead}} Yorke and Donwood cited a Paris exhibition of paintings by David Hockney as another influence.{{Cite magazine|last=Vozick-Levinson|first=Simon|date=2021-11-03|title='Some sort of future, even if it's a nightmare': Thom Yorke on the visual secrets of Kid A and Amnesiac|url=https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-pictures/radiohead-kid-a-amnesiac-artwork-1252016/|access-date=2021-11-03|magazine=Rolling Stone|language=en-US|archive-date=4 November 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211104181353/https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-pictures/radiohead-kid-a-amnesiac-artwork-1252016/|url-status=live}}

Yorke and Donwood made many versions of the album cover, with different pictures and different titles in different typefaces. Unable to pick one, they taped them to cupboards of the studio kitchen and went to bed. According to Donwood, the choice the next day "was obvious".{{Cite book|last=Donwood|first=Stanley|title=There Will Be No Quiet|publisher=Thames & Hudson|year=2019|isbn=9781419737244|pages=73–74|author-link=Stanley Donwood}} In October 2021, Yorke and Donwood curated an exhibition of Kid A artwork at Christie's headquarters in London.{{Cite web|date=2021-09-22|title=Radiohead's Thom Yorke is co-curating a Kid A artwork exhibition|url=https://www.nme.com/news/music/radioheads-thom-yorke-is-co-curating-a-kid-a-artwork-exhibition-3051877|access-date=2021-10-16|website=NME|language=en-GB}}

File:Radiohead's Kid A Matters.ogg discussing Kid A in 2000]]

File:RHbear.svg|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170227030021/http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/music/news/glastonbury-2017-headliner-rumours-radiohead-rihanna-daft-punk-lady-gaga-a7370061.html|archive-date=27 February 2017|url-status=live|access-date=25 July 2017|df=dmy-all}}{{efn|The bear head logo is known as "Modified Bear",{{cite web|title=Radiohead – Modified Bear and Logo – 1.25" Button / Pin|website=Amazon|url=https://www.amazon.com/Radiohead-Modified-Bear-Logo-Button/dp/B00596L8II|access-date=25 July 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170813205921/https://www.amazon.com/Radiohead-Modified-Bear-Logo-Button/dp/B00596L8II|archive-date=13 August 2017|url-status=live}} "Despot Bear",{{cite web|title=Radiohead – Best Band Logos|website=Diffuser.fm|first=Joe|last=Robinson|url=https://diffuser.fm/radiohead-band-logos|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161021104057/http://diffuser.fm/radiohead-band-logos/|archive-date=21 October 2016|df=dmy-all}} "Hunting Bear" and "Blinky Bear".{{cite web|title=Source|url=http://citizeninsane.eu/s2001-07Blender.htm|website=Blender|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080424090715/http://citizeninsane.eu/s2001-07Blender.htm|date=July 2001|archive-date=24 April 2008|access-date=25 July 2017|df=dmy-all}}}}|alt=|172x172px]]Radiohead minimised their involvement in promotion for Kid A,{{Cite web|url=http://www.mtv.com/news/1435893/radiohead-plan-singles-videos-for-amnesiac-yorke-says/|title=Radiohead Plan Singles, Videos For Amnesiac, Yorke Says|last=Archive-Sorelle-Saidman|website=MTV News|language=en|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190425121726/http://www.mtv.com/news/1435893/radiohead-plan-singles-videos-for-amnesiac-yorke-says/|archive-date=25 April 2019|access-date=2019-04-25}} conducting few interviews or photoshoots.{{cite news|url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/955767.stm|title='Difficult' Radiohead album is a hit|date=4 October 2000|work=BBC News|access-date=22 March 2007|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090203045025/http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/955767.stm|archive-date=3 February 2009|df=dmy-all}} Though "Optimistic" and promotional copies of other tracks received radio play, Radiohead released no singles from the album. Yorke said this was to avoid the stress of publicity, which he had struggled with on OK Computer, rather than for artistic reasons. He later said he regretted the decision, feeling it meant much of the early judgement of the album came from critics.

Radiohead were careful to present Kid A as a cohesive work rather than a series of separate tracks. Rather than give EMI executives their own copies, they had them listen to the album in its entirety on a bus from Hollywood to Malibu.{{Cite web |last=Hyden |first=Steven |title=How Radiohead's Kid A kicked off the streaming revolution |url=http://grantland.com/hollywood-prospectus/how-radioheads-kid-a-kicked-off-the-streaming-revolution |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150930220924/http://grantland.com/hollywood-prospectus/how-radioheads-kid-a-kicked-off-the-streaming-revolution/ |archive-date=30 September 2015 |access-date=30 September 2015 |website=Grantland |df=dmy-all}} Rob Gordon, the vice president of marketing at Capitol Records, the American subsidiary of Radiohead's label EMI, praised the album but said promoting it would be a "business challenge".{{cite web |last=Cohen |first=Warren |date=11 October 2000 |title=With Radiohead's Kid A, Capitol busts out of a big-time slump. (Thanks, Napster.) |url=http://wjcohen.home.mindspring.com/insideclips/radiohead.htm |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150926050138/http://wjcohen.home.mindspring.com/insideclips/radiohead.htm |archive-date=26 September 2015 |access-date=20 March 2007 |website=Inside.com}}

No advance copies of Kid A were circulated,{{cite web |date=31 March 2003 |title=New Radiohead Album Floods The Internet |url=https://www.billboard.com/articles/news/71756/new-radiohead-album-floods-the-internet |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140922051111/http://www.billboard.com/articles/news/71756/new-radiohead-album-floods-the-internet |archive-date=22 September 2014 |access-date=22 March 2007 |website=Billboard.com}} but it was played under controlled conditions for critics and fans.{{cite web |last=Gold |first=Kerry |date=16 September 2000 |title=Control Freaks |url=http://www.followmearound.com/presscuttings.php?year=2000&cutting=84 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160309142715/http://followmearound.com/presscuttings.php?cutting=84&year=2000 |archive-date=9 March 2016 |access-date=22 March 2007 |website=The Vancouver Sun}} On September 5, 2000, it was played for the public for the first time at the IMAX theatre in Lincoln Square, Manhattan.{{Cite web |date=5 September 2000 |title=New Yorke! New Yorke! |url=http://www.nme.com/newsdesk/20000905120230.html |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20001018020619/http://www.nme.com/newsdesk/20000905120230.html |archive-date=18 October 2000 |access-date=26 May 2023 |website=NME}} Promotional copies of Kid A came with stickers prohibiting broadcast before September 19. At midnight, it was played in its entirety by the London radio station Xfm.{{Cite journal|last=Kennedey|first=Jake|date=November 2000|title=Kid A Rock|journal=Record Collector}} MTV2,{{cite web|last=Goldsmith|first=Charles|date=18 September 2000|title=Radiohead's New Marketing|url=http://www.followmearound.com/presscuttings.php?year=2000&cutting=86|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070927211312/http://www.followmearound.com/presscuttings.php?year=2000&cutting=86|archive-date=27 September 2007|access-date=22 March 2007|website=The Wall Street Journal}} KROQ, and WXRK also played the album.

Rather than agree to a standard magazine photoshoot for Q, Radiohead supplied digitally altered portraits, with their skin smoothed, their irises recoloured, and Yorke's drooping eyelid removed. The Q editor Andrew Harrison described the images as "aggressively weird to the point of taking the piss ... All five of Radiohead had been given the aspect of gawking aliens."{{Cite journal |last=Harrison |first=Andrew |date=August 2020 |title=Almost Famous: Tales from Q's Frontline |journal=Q |publisher=H Bauer Publishing |pages=50–51}} Yorke said: "I'd like to see them try to put these pictures on a poster." Q projected the images onto the Houses of Parliament, placed them on posters and billboards in the London Underground and on the Old Street Roundabout, and had them printed on key rings, mugs and mouse mats, to "turn Radiohead back into a product".

Instead of releasing traditional music videos for Kid A, Radiohead commissioned dozens of 10-second videos featuring Donwood artwork they called "blips", which were aired on music channels and distributed online.{{Cite journal |last=Sherburne |first=Philip |date=May 2003 |title=Sound and vision: Radiohead reinvents the music video |url=https://citizeninsane.eu/media/usa/etc/06/pt_2003-05_res.htm |journal=RES |publisher=RES Media Group |pages=53 |archive-date=11 September 2021 |access-date=11 September 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210911124450/https://citizeninsane.eu/media/usa/etc/06/pt_2003-05_res.htm |url-status=dead }} Pitchfork described them as "context-free animated nightmares that radiated mystery", with "arch hints of surveillance".{{Cite web |date=2020-01-22 |title=7 Things From the New Radiohead Online Archive That Excite Us |url=https://pitchfork.com/thepitch/7-things-from-the-new-radiohead-online-archive-that-excite-us/ |access-date=2021-09-11 |website=Pitchfork |language=en-US |archive-date=11 September 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210911134056/https://pitchfork.com/thepitch/7-things-from-the-new-radiohead-online-archive-that-excite-us/ |url-status=live }} Five of the videos were serviced as exclusives to MTV, and "helped play into the arty mystique that endeared Radiohead to its core audience", according to Billboard.{{Cite magazine |last=Lynch |first=Joe |date=2 October 2020 |title=20 years ago, Radiohead's Kid A changed the way albums were marketed |url=https://www.billboard.com/articles/columns/rock/9459335/radiohead-kid-a-album-strategy |access-date=2021-09-11 |magazine=Billboard |language=en |archive-date=11 September 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210911140502/https://www.billboard.com/articles/columns/rock/9459335/radiohead-kid-a-album-strategy |url-status=live }} Much of the promotional material featured pointy-toothed bear characters created by Donwood. The bears originated in stories Donwood made for his young children about teddy bears who came to life and ate the "grown-ups" who had abandoned them.

{{quote box

| quote = Everything in the industry at that point was like, "The internet isn't important. It's not selling records" – everything for them had to translate to a sale. I knew the internet was [generating sales], but I couldn't prove it because every record had MTV and radio with it. [After Kid A was a success], nobody in the industry could believe it because there was no radio and there was no traditional music video. I knew at that point: this is the story of the internet. The internet has done this.

| source = – Capitol executive Robin Sloan Bechtel, 2015

| align = right

| width = 25%

| salign = right

}}

Though Radiohead had experimented with internet promotion for OK Computer in 1997, by 2000 online music promotion was not widespread,{{cite web|url=https://pitchfork.com/features/article/9890-internet-explorers-the-curious-case-of-radioheads-online-fandom/|title=Internet Explorers: The Curious Case of Radiohead's Online Fandom|last=Jeremy|first=Gordon|date=12 May 2016|website=Pitchfork|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160512175336/http://pitchfork.com/features/article/9890-internet-explorers-the-curious-case-of-radioheads-online-fandom/|archive-date=12 May 2016|access-date=21 October 2019}} with record labels still reliant on MTV and radio. Donwood wrote that EMI was not interested in the Radiohead website, and left him and the band to update it with "discursive and random content".

To promote Kid A, Capitol created the "iBlip", a Java applet that could be embedded in fan sites. It allowed users to stream the album, and included artwork, photos and links to order Kid A on Amazon. It was used by more than 1000 sites, and the album was streamed more than 400,000 times. Capitol also streamed Kid A through Amazon, MTV.com and heavy.com, and ran a campaign with the peer-to-peer filesharing service Aimster, allowing users to swap iBlips and Radiohead-branded Aimster skins.

Three weeks before release, Kid A was leaked online and shared on the peer-to-peer service Napster. Asked whether he believed Napster had damaged sales, the Capitol president, Ray Lott, likened the situation to unfounded concern about home taping in the 1980s and said: "I'm trying to sell as many Radiohead albums as possible. If I worried about what Napster would do, I wouldn't sell as many albums." Yorke said Napster "encourages enthusiasm for music in a way that the music industry has long forgotten to do".{{cite news |last=Farley |first=Christopher John |date=23 October 2000 |title=Radioactive |url=http://www.time.com/time/europe/magazine/2000/1023/radiohead.html |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110311074531/http://www.time.com/time/europe/magazine/2000/1023/radiohead.html |archive-date=11 March 2011 |access-date=22 March 2007 |work=Time Europe |volume=156 |issue=17}}

The commercial success of Kid A suggested that leaks might not be as damaging as many had assumed.{{Cite web |last=Harvey |first=Eric |date=2015-01-28 |title=A History of Digital Album Leaks, 1993-2015 |url=https://pitchfork.com/thepitch/652-a-history-of-digital-album-leaks-1993-2015/ |access-date=2024-02-07 |website=Pitchfork |language=en-US |archive-date=4 February 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240204044710/https://pitchfork.com/thepitch/652-a-history-of-digital-album-leaks-1993-2015/ |url-status=live }} The music journalist Brent DiCrescenzo argued that the Napster leak profoundly affected the way Kid A was received, surprising listeners who would patiently download new tracks to find they comprised "four minutes of ambient noise".

Radiohead rearranged the Kid A songs to perform them live. O'Brien said, "You couldn't do Kid A live and be true to the record. You would have to do it like an art installation ... When we played live, we put the human element back into it."{{Cite magazine|date=2001-06-21|title=Radiohead take Amnesiac on tour|url=https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/radiohead-take-amnesiac-on-tour-242596/|access-date=2021-10-04|magazine=Rolling Stone|language=en-US|archive-date=4 October 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211004143241/https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/radiohead-take-amnesiac-on-tour-242596/|url-status=live}} Selway said they "found some new life" in the songs when they came to perform them. Yorke said: "Even with electronics, there is an element of spontaneous performance in using them ... It was the tension between what's human and what's coming from the machines. That was stuff we were getting into, as we learned how to play the songs from Kid A and Amnesiac live."{{cite magazine |last=Fricke |first=David |author-link=David Fricke |date=27 June 2003 |title=Bitter prophet: Thom Yorke on Hail to the Thief |url=https://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/bitter-prophet-thom-yorke-on-hail-to-the-thief-20030626 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170318111404/http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/bitter-prophet-thom-yorke-on-hail-to-the-thief-20030626 |archive-date=18 March 2017 |access-date=15 April 2017 |magazine=Rolling Stone}}

In mid-2000, months before Kid A was released, Radiohead toured the Mediterranean, performing Kid A and Amnesiac songs for the first time.{{cite web|url=http://www.followmearound.com/presscuttings.php?year=2000&cutting=75 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150924014231/http://www.followmearound.com/presscuttings.php?year=2000&cutting=75 |archive-date=24 September 2015 |last=Oldham |first=James |title=Radiohead – Their Stupendous Return |work=NME |date=24 June 2000 |access-date=15 May 2007 }} Fans shared concert bootlegs online. Colin Greenwood said: "We played in Barcelona and the next day the entire performance was up on Napster. Three weeks later when we got to play in Israel the audience knew the words to all the new songs and it was wonderful."{{cite news|title=Radiohead take Aimster|work=BBC News|date=2 October 2000|url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/953151.stm|access-date=17 March 2007|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060307223538/http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/953151.stm|archive-date=7 March 2006|df=dmy-all}} Later that year, Radiohead toured Europe in a custom-built tent without corporate logos, playing mostly new songs. The tour included a homecoming show in South Park, Oxford, with supporting performances by Humphrey Lyttelton (who performed on Amnesiac), Beck and Sigur Rós.{{Cite news|date=2001-07-08|title=Rapturous return for masters of misery|language=en-GB|work=BBC News|url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/1429002.stm|access-date=2021-06-07|archive-date=4 November 2011|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20111104060514/http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/1429002.stm|url-status=live}} According to the journalist Alex Ross, the show may have been the largest public gathering in Oxford history.{{cite news|last=Ross|first=Alex|author-link=Alex Rossi (journalist)|date=21 August 2001|title=The Searchers: Radiohead's unquiet revolution|magazine=The New Yorker|url=https://www.therestisnoise.com/2004/04/mahler_1.html|url-status=dead|access-date=14 June 2007|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070525102645/http://www.therestisnoise.com/2004/04/mahler_1.html|archive-date=25 May 2007}}

Radiohead also performed three concerts in North American theatres, their first in nearly three years. The small venues sold out rapidly, attracting celebrities, and fans camped overnight. Rolling Stone described the Kid A tour as "a revelation" that "exposed rock and roll humanity" in the songs. In October, Radiohead performed on the American TV show Saturday Night Live. The performance shocked viewers expecting rock songs, with Jonny Greenwood playing electronic instruments, the house brass band improvising over "The National Anthem", and Yorke dancing erratically to "Idioteque".{{cite book|author=Marianne Tatom Letts|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=3HSuhm6DRGgC&pg=PA167|title=Radiohead and the Resistant Concept Album: How to Disappear Completely|date=8 November 2010|publisher=Indiana University Press|isbn=978-0-253-00491-8|pages=158, 167, 219|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161226222209/https://books.google.com/books?id=3HSuhm6DRGgC&pg=PA167|archive-date=26 December 2016|url-status=live|df=dmy-all}} In November 2001, Radiohead released I Might Be Wrong: Live Recordings, comprising performances from the Kid A and Amnesiac tours.

Kid A reached number one on Amazon's sales chart, with more than 10,000 pre-orders. It debuted at number one on the UK Albums Chart, selling 55,000 copies in its first day – the biggest first-day sales of the year and more than every other album in the top ten combined. Kid A also debuted at number one on the US Billboard 200,{{cite news|url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/968437.stm|title=US adopts Kid A|date=12 October 2000|work=BBC News|access-date=22 March 2007|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090203052923/http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/968437.stm|archive-date=3 February 2009|df=dmy-all}} selling more than 207,000 copies in its first week.{{cite web|url=http://www.canoe.com/JamMusicRadiohead/oct18_radiohead-can.html|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20041031192406/http://www.canoe.com/JamMusicRadiohead/oct18_radiohead-can.html|url-status=dead|archive-date=31 October 2004|title=Radiohead sales fall, but 'Kid' still No. 1|access-date=April 18, 2020}} It was Radiohead's first US top-20 album, and the first US number one in three years for any British act.{{cite news|url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/1389135.stm|title=US Success for Radiohead|date=14 June 2001|work=BBC News|access-date=22 March 2007|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070313150734/http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/1389135.stm|archive-date=13 March 2007|df=dmy-all}} Kid A also debuted at number one in Canada, where it sold more than 44,000 copies in its first week, and in France, Ireland and New Zealand. European sales slowed on 2 October 2000, the day of release, when EMI recalled 150,000 faulty CDs. By June 2001, Kid A had sold 310,000 copies in the UK, less than a third of OK Computer sales.{{cite news|last=Petridis|first=Alexis|title=CD of the week: Radiohead: Amnesiac|url=http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2001/jun/01/shopping.artsfeatures1|date=1 June 2001|newspaper=The Guardian|language=en|access-date=13 September 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190906155527/https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2001/jun/01/shopping.artsfeatures1|archive-date=6 September 2019|url-status=live}} It is certified platinum in the UK, Australia, Canada, France, Japan and the US.

{{Album reviews

| title = Contemporary reviews

| MC = 80/100{{cite web |url=https://www.metacritic.com/music/kid-a/radiohead |title=Reviews for Kid A by Radiohead |website=Metacritic |access-date=14 July 2015 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150625223223/http://www.metacritic.com/music/kid-a/radiohead |archive-date=25 June 2015 |df=dmy-all }}

| rev1 = Chicago Sun-Times

| rev1score = {{rating|3.5|4}}{{cite news |url=https://www.highbeam.com/doc/1P2-4565554.html |title='Kid A' tops new album class |work=Chicago Sun-Times |date=3 October 2000 |access-date=8 July 2015 |last=DeRogatis |first=Jim |author-link=Jim DeRogatis |url-access=subscription |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161008201752/https://www.highbeam.com/doc/1P2-4565554.html |archive-date=8 October 2016 |df=dmy-all }}

| rev2 = Entertainment Weekly

| rev2score = B+{{cite magazine |url=https://www.ew.com/article/2000/10/06/music-review-kid |title=Kid A |magazine=Entertainment Weekly |issue=562 |issn=1049-0434 |date=6 October 2000 |access-date=8 September 2011 |last=Browne |first=David |author-link=David Browne (journalist)|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150715202506/http://www.ew.com/article/2000/10/06/music-review-kid |archive-date=15 July 2015}}

| rev3 = The Guardian

| rev3score = {{rating|2|5}}{{cite news |url=https://www.theguardian.com/friday_review/story/0,,374450,00.html |title=Mourning glories |work=The Guardian |date=29 September 2000 |access-date=3 July 2017 |last=Sweeting |first=Adam |author-link=Adam Sweeting |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160313033216/http://www.theguardian.com/friday_review/story/0%2C%2C374450%2C00.html |archive-date=13 March 2016 |df=dmy-all }}

| rev4 = Melody Maker

| rev4score = {{rating|1.5|5}}

| rev5 = NME

| rev5score = 7/10{{cite journal |url=https://www.nme.com/reviews/reviews/20000926060052.html |title=Radiohead – Kid A |journal=NME |date=26 September 2000 |access-date=15 March 2015 |last=Cameron |first=Keith |archive-url=https://archive.today/20001017164459/http://www.nme.com/reviews/reviews/20000926060052.html |archive-date=17 October 2000 |url-status=dead |df=dmy-all }}

| rev6 = Pitchfork

| rev6score = 10/10{{cite web |url=https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/6656-kid-a |title=Radiohead: Kid A |work=Pitchfork |date=2 October 2000 |access-date=8 September 2011 |last=DiCrescenzo |first=Brent |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110822223049/http://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/6656-kid-a/ |archive-date=22 August 2011 |df=dmy-all }}

| rev7 = Q

| rev7score = {{Rating|3|5}}{{cite journal |title=Radio Ga Ga |journal=Q |issue=170 |date=November 2000 |last=Maconie |first=Stuart |author-link=Stuart Maconie |page=96}}

| rev8 = Rolling Stone

| rev8score = {{rating|4|5}}{{cite magazine |url=https://www.rollingstone.com/music/albumreviews/kid-a-20001012 |title=Kid A |magazine=Rolling Stone |date=12 October 2000 |access-date=23 May 2012 |last=Fricke |first=David |author-link=David Fricke |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120424161811/http://www.rollingstone.com/music/albumreviews/kid-a-20001012 |archive-date=24 April 2012 |df=dmy-all }}

| rev9 = Spin

| rev9score = 9/10{{cite journal |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=HTMuhxamaFEC&pg=PA171 |title=Radio Chaos |journal=Spin |date=October 2000 |volume=16 |issue=10 |pages=171–72 |access-date=8 July 2015 |last=Reynolds |first=Simon |author-link=Simon Reynolds |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161226173549/https://books.google.com/books?id=HTMuhxamaFEC&pg=PA171 |archive-date=26 December 2016 |df=dmy-all }}

| rev10 = The Village Voice

| rev10score = A−{{cite news |url=https://www.villagevoice.com/2001/02/06/pazz-jop-preview/ |title=Pazz & Jop Preview |work=The Village Voice |date=13 February 2001 |access-date=8 July 2015 |last=Christgau |first=Robert |author-link=Robert Christgau |df=dmy-all |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180916003923/https://www.villagevoice.com/2001/02/06/pazz-jop-preview/ |archive-date=16 September 2018 |url-status=live }}

}}

Kid A was widely anticipated.{{Cite news |title=Are Radiohead OK? |language=en-US |newspaper=The Irish Times |url=https://www.irishtimes.com/culture/are-radiohead-ok-1.1103060 |access-date=2018-11-15}} Spin described it as the most anticipated rock record since the 1993 Nirvana album In Utero.{{cite web|last=Borow|first=Zev|date=November 2000|title=The difference engine|url=http://students.ceid.upatras.gr/~kakaletr/articles/spin.htm|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070305004203/http://students.ceid.upatras.gr/~kakaletr/articles/spin.htm|archive-date=5 March 2007|access-date=20 March 2007|website=Spin Magazine|df=dmy-all}} According to Andrew Harrison, the editor of Q, journalists expected it to provide more of the "rousing, cathartic, lots-of-guitar, Saturday-night-at-Glastonbury big future rock moments" of OK Computer. Months before its release, Pat Blashill of Melody Maker wrote: "If there's one band that promises to return rock to us, it's Radiohead."

After Kid A had been played for critics, many bemoaned the lack of guitar, the obscured vocals and the unconventional song structures. Some called it "a commercial suicide note". The Guardian wrote of the "muted electronic hums, pulses and tones", predicting that it would confuse listeners. In Mojo, Jim Irvin wrote that "upon first listen, Kid A is just awful ... Too often it sounds like the fragments that they began the writing process with – a loop, a riff, a mumbled line of text, have been set in concrete and had other, lesser ideas piled on top."{{Cite journal |last=Irvin |first=Jim |author-link=Jim Irvin |date=October 2000 |title=Boys in the bubble |journal=Mojo}} The Guardian critic Adam Sweeting wrote that "even listeners raised on krautrock or Ornette Coleman will find Kid A a mystifying experience", and that it pandered to "the worst cliches" about Radiohead's "relentless miserabilism". Several critics found the free jazz of "The National Anthem" discordant and unpleasant.

Several critics felt Kid A was pretentious or deliberately obscure. The Irish Times bemoaned the lack of conventional song structures and panned the album as "deliberately abstruse, wilfully esoteric and wantonly unfathomable ... The only thing challenging about Kid A is the very real challenge to your attention span." In the New Yorker, the novelist Nick Hornby wrote that it was "morbid proof that this sort of self-indulgence results in a weird kind of anonymity rather than something distinctive and original".{{Cite magazine |last=Hornby |first=Nick |author-link=Nick Hornby |date=30 October 2000 |title=Beyond the Pale |url=https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2000/10/30/beyond-the-pale-3 |url-status=live |magazine=The New Yorker |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150402125356/http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2000/10/30/beyond-the-pale-3 |archive-date=2 April 2015 |access-date=14 March 2015 |df=dmy-all}} The Melody Maker critic Mark Beaumont called it "tubby, ostentatious, self-congratulatory, look-ma-I-can-suck-my-own-cock whiny old rubbish ... About 60 songs were started that no one had a bloody clue how to finish."{{cite journal|url=http://www.followmearound.com/presscuttings.php?year=2000&cutting=85|journal=Melody Maker|title=Radiohead Kid A|last=Beaumont|first=Mark|author-link=Mark Beaumont (journalist)|date=20 September 2000|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160528134048/http://www.followmearound.com/presscuttings.php?year=2000&cutting=85|archive-date=28 May 2016|url-status=dead|access-date=25 April 2007}} Alexis Petridis of The Guardian described it as "self-consciously awkward and bloody-minded, the noise made by a band trying so hard to make a 'difficult' album that they felt it beneath them to write any songs". Rolling Stone published a piece mocking Kid A as humourless, derivative and lacking in songs: "Because it was decided that Radiohead were Important and Significant last time around, no one can accept the album as the crackpot art project it so obviously is."{{Cite magazine|last1=Kungman|first1=Michael|last2=Cohen|first2=Jason|date=24 October 2000|title=This Week: Kid A to Zzzzz — A Radiohead Reaction-ary|url=http://rollingstone.com/sections/news/text/newsarticle.asp?afl=&NewsID=12059&ArtistID=236|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20001203192800/http://rollingstone.com/sections/news/text/newsarticle.asp?afl=&NewsID=12059&ArtistID=236|archive-date=3 December 2000|access-date=2021-11-06|magazine=Rolling Stone}}

Some critics felt Kid A was unoriginal. In the New York Times, Howard Hampton dismissed Radiohead as a "rock composite" and wrote that Kid A "recycles Pink Floyd's dark-side-of-the-moon solipsism to Me-Decade perfection".{{Cite news |last=Hampton |first=Howard |title=70ss Rock: The Bad Vibes Continue |language=en |work=The New York Times |date=14 January 2001 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2001/01/14/arts/music-70-s-rock-the-bad-vibes-continue.html |url-status=live |access-date=2018-12-01 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181202024623/https://www.nytimes.com/2001/01/14/arts/music-70-s-rock-the-bad-vibes-continue.html |archive-date=2 December 2018}} Beaumont said Radiohead were "simply ploughing furrows dug by DJ Shadow and Brian Eno before them". The Irish Times felt the ambient elements were inferior to Eno's 1978 album Music For Airports and its "scary" elements inferior to Scott Walker's 1995 album Tilt. Select wrote: "What do they want for sounding like the Aphex Twin circa 1993, a medal?" In an NME editorial, James Oldham wrote that the electronic influences were "mired in compromise", with Radiohead still operating as a rock band, and concluded: "Time will judge it. But right now, Kid A has the ring of a lengthy, over-analysed mistake."{{Cite journal|last=James|first=Oldham|date=30 September 2000|title=I was a complete fucking mess when OK Computer finished|journal=NME}} The Rolling Stone journalist Rob Sheffield wrote that the "mastery of Warp-style electronic effects" appeared "clumsy and dated". Rob Mitchell, the co-founder of Warp, felt Kid A was not "gratuitously" electronic, nor as radical as Warp acts such as Aphex Twin and Autechre, but instead represented "an honest interpretation of [Warp] influences" that was "totally authentic". He said it was an "excellent" album, and predicted it might one day be seen in the same way as David Bowie's 1977 album Low, which alienated some Bowie fans but was later acclaimed.{{Cite journal |last=Oldham |first=James |date=2020 |title=I was basically becoming unhinged... completely unhinged. |url=https://go.readly.com/magazines/5e551761d9e840113f4ee8b0/5e8c5fa703c6b71b7fcfda0e/1 |url-status=live |journal=Uncut Ultimate Music Guide: Radiohead |pages=55 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230405075354/https://go.readly.com/magazines/5e551761d9e840113f4ee8b0/5e8c5fa703c6b71b7fcfda0e/1 |archive-date=5 April 2023 |access-date=4 May 2020}}

AllMusic gave Kid A a favourable review, but wrote that it "never is as visionary or stunning as OK Computer, nor does it really repay the intensive time it demands in order for it to sink in". The NME was also positive, but described some songs as "meandering" and "anticlimactic", and concluded: "For all its feats of brinkmanship, the patently magnificent construct called Kid A betrays a band playing one-handed just to prove they can, scared to commit itself emotionally." In Rolling Stone, David Fricke called Kid A "a work of deliberately inky, often irritating obsession ... But 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 said Kid A was "not the act of career suicide or feat of self-indulgence it will be castigated as", and predicted that fans would recognise it as Radiohead's best and "bravest" album. Billboard described it as "an ocean of unparalleled musical depth" and "the first truly groundbreaking album of the 21st century".{{cite magazine|url=https://www.billboard.com/reviews/reviewdisplay.asp?ID=87891 |title=RADIOHEAD Kid A |access-date=15 March 2015 |magazine=Billboard |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20001204001200/http://www.billboard.com/reviews/reviewdisplay.asp?ID=87891 |archive-date=4 December 2000 }} The critic Robert Christgau wrote that Kid A was "an imaginative, imitative variation on a pop staple: sadness made pretty". The Village Voice called it "oblique oblique oblique ... Also incredibly beautiful."{{Cite web |last=Wolk |first=Douglas |date=2000-10-03 |title=Like Our New Direction? |url=https://www.villagevoice.com/2000/10/03/like-our-new-direction/ |access-date=2023-02-15 |website=The Village Voice |archive-date=5 April 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230405075352/https://www.villagevoice.com/2000/10/03/like-our-new-direction/ |url-status=live }} Brent DiCrescenzo of Pitchfork gave Kid A a perfect score, calling it "cacophonous yet tranquil, experimental yet familiar, foreign yet womb-like, spacious yet visceral, textured yet vaporous, awakening yet dreamlike". He concluded that Radiohead "must be the greatest band alive, if not the best since you know who". One of the first Kid A reviews published online, it helped popularise Pitchfork and became notorious for its "obtuse" writing.{{cite web |last=Leonard |first=Devin |date=3 May 2017 |title=Pitchfork grows up |url=https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2017-05-03/pitchfork-grows-up |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181121120412/https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2017-05-03/pitchfork-grows-up |archive-date=21 November 2018 |access-date=21 November 2018 |website=Bloomberg News}}{{Cite magazine |last=Enis |first=Eli |date=2020-03-26 |title=Everything In Its Right Place: How a Perfect 10.0 Review of Radiohead's Kid A Changed Music Criticism 20 Years Ago |url=https://www.billboard.com/music/rock/radiohead-kid-a-pitchfork-review-brent-discrescenzo-2000-9342543/ |access-date=2024-01-27 |magazine=Billboard |language=en-US}}

Yorke said Radiohead had not attempted to alienate or confound, but that their musical interests had changed. Jonny Greenwood argued that the tracks were short and melodic, and suggested that "people basically want their hands held through 12 'Mull Of Kintyre's". Yorke recalled that Radiohead had been "white as a sheet" before early performances on the Kid A tour, thinking they had been "absolutely trashed". At the same time, the reaction motivated them: "There was a sense of a fight to convince people, which was actually really exciting."{{cite web |last=Frost |first=Thomas |date=May 2019 |title=Thom Yorke: Daydream nation |url=https://crackmagazine.net/article/long-reads/thom-yorke-daydream-nation/ |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190620185517/https://crackmagazine.net/article/long-reads/thom-yorke-daydream-nation/ |archive-date=20 June 2019 |access-date=21 June 2019 |website=Crack Magazine}} He said Radiohead felt "incredibly vindicated and happy" after Kid A reached number one in the US.

At Metacritic, which aggregates ratings from critics, Kid A has a score of 80 based on 24 reviews, indicating "generally favourable reviews". It was named one of the year's best albums by publications including the Wire,{{Cite journal |date=January 2001 |title=2000 rewind |url=https://www.thewire.co.uk/issues/charts/2000-rewind |journal=The Wire |issue=203 |archive-date=30 July 2023 |access-date=30 July 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230730114041/https://www.thewire.co.uk/issues/charts/2000-rewind |url-status=live }} Record Collector,{{Cite journal |last=The Best of 2000 (Issue #257, January 2001) |date=January 2001 |title=The best of 2000 |journal=Record Collector |issue=257}} Spin,{{Cite web |date=31 December 2000 |title=The 20 Best Albums Of 2000 |url=http://www.spin.com/new/2000top20/staffpicks/ |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20010606235113/http://www.spin.com/new/2000top20/staffpicks/ |archive-date=6 June 2001 |access-date=30 July 2023 |website=Spin}} NME{{Cite web |last=Soghomonian |first=Talia |date=2009-11-06 |title=Best Albums Of 2000 - Have Your Say |url=https://www.nme.com/blogs/nme-blogs/best-albums-of-2000-have-your-say-773517 |access-date=2023-07-30 |website=NME |language=en-GB |archive-date=30 July 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230730114030/https://www.nme.com/blogs/nme-blogs/best-albums-of-2000-have-your-say-773517 |url-status=live }} and the Village Voice.{{Cite web |last=Christgau |first=Robert |author-link=Robert Christgau |date=2019-02-01 |title=2000 Pazz & Jop: Albums While They Last |url=https://www.villagevoice.com/2019/02/01/2000-pazz-jop-albums-while-they-last/ |access-date=2023-07-30 |website=The Village Voice |archive-date=30 July 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230730114030/https://www.villagevoice.com/2019/02/01/2000-pazz-jop-albums-while-they-last/ |url-status=live }} At the 2001 Grammy Awards, Kid A was nominated for Album of the Year and won for Best Alternative Album.{{cite web |title=43rd Annual Grammy Awards Winners |url=http://www.grammy.com/nominees/search?artist=&field_nominee_work_value=&year=2000&genre=All |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150402095007/http://www.grammy.com/nominees/search?artist=&field_nominee_work_value=&year=2000&genre=All |archive-date=2 April 2015 |access-date=8 March 2015 |work=Grammy.com |df=dmy-all}}{{cite web |title=43rd Annual Grammy Awards – 2001 |url=http://www.rockonthenet.com/archive/2001/grammys.htm |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150311012724/http://www.rockonthenet.com/archive/2001/grammys.htm |archive-date=11 March 2015 |access-date=9 March 2015 |work=Rock on the Net |df=dmy-all}}

{{Album reviews

| title = Retrospective reviews

| rev1 = AllMusic

| rev1score = {{rating|5|5}}{{cite web |url=https://www.allmusic.com/album/kid-a-mw0000620999 |title=Kid A – Radiohead |website=AllMusic |access-date=8 September 2011 |last=Erlewine |first=Stephen Thomas |author-link=Stephen Thomas Erlewine |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120603193556/http://www.allmusic.com/album/kid-a-mw0000620999 |archive-date=3 June 2012 |df=dmy-all }}

| rev2 = The A.V. Club

| rev2score = A{{cite web |url=https://www.avclub.com/review/radiohead-ikid-ai-iamnesiaci-ihail-to-the-thief-de-32301 |title=Radiohead: Kid A / Amnesiac / Hail To The Thief (Deluxe Editions) |work=The A.V. Club |date=1 September 2009 |access-date=8 September 2011 |last=Phipps |first=Keith |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141009182623/http://www.avclub.com/review/radiohead-ikid-ai-iamnesiaci-ihail-to-the-thief-de-32301 |archive-date=9 October 2014 |df=dmy-all }}

| rev3 = Drowned in Sound

| rev3score = 10/10{{cite web |last1=Tudor |first1=Alexander |title=Radiohead's Kid A - the DiS Reappraisal |url=https://drownedinsound.com/in_depth/4136425-radioheads-kid-a-the-dis-re-appraisal |website=Drowned in Sound |access-date=25 February 2024 |date=27 March 2009 |archive-date=25 February 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240225171222/https://drownedinsound.com/in_depth/4136425-radioheads-kid-a-the-dis-re-appraisal |url-status=dead }}

| rev4 = The Encyclopedia of Popular Music

| rev4Score = {{Rating|3|5}}{{cite book|last=Larkin|first=Colin|author-link=Colin Larkin|title=The Encyclopedia of Popular Music|year=2007|publisher=Oxford University Press|edition=4th|isbn=978-0195313734|title-link=The Encyclopedia of Popular Music|volume=6|chapter=Radiohead|page=736{{ndash}}7|chapter-url=https://archive.org/details/encyclopediaofpo0006unse/page/737/}}

| rev5 = The Great Rock Discography

| rev5Score = 9/10{{cite book |last1=Strong |first1=Martin C. |title=The Great Rock Discography |date=2006 |publisher=Canongate Books |location=Edinburgh |isbn=1-84195-827-1 |chapter=Radiohead |page=888}}

| rev6 = Pitchfork

| rev6score = 10/10{{cite web |url=https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/13385-kid-a-special-collectors-edition |title=Radiohead: Kid A: Special Collectors Edition |work=Pitchfork |date=25 August 2009 |access-date=8 September 2011 |last=Mitchum |first=Rob |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110825105105/http://www.pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/13385-kid-a-special-collectors-edition/ |archive-date=25 August 2011 |df=dmy-all }}

| rev7 = Q

| rev7score = {{Rating|5|5}}{{cite journal |title=Radiohead: Kid A |journal=Q |issue=362 |date=August 2016 |page=107}}

| rev8 = Record Collector

| rev8score = {{Rating|5|5}}{{cite journal |title=Radiohead: Kid A |journal=Record Collector |page=92 |quote=[S]uitably liberated... These are recordings with soul...}}

| rev9 = The Rolling Stone Album Guide

| rev9score = {{Rating|5|5}}{{cite book |chapter=Radiohead |last=Sheffield |first=Rob |author-link=Rob Sheffield |title=The New Rolling Stone Album Guide |publisher=Simon & Schuster |edition=4th |year=2004 |editor1-last=Brackett |editor1-first=Nathan |editor2-last=Hoard |editor2-first=Christian |isbn=0-7432-0169-8 |pages=[https://archive.org/details/newrollingstonea00brac/page/671 671–72] }}

| rev10 = Under the Radar

| rev10score = 10/10{{cite web |last1=Scott |first1=Jim |title=Radiohead Kid A: Special Collectors Edition Capitol |url=https://www.undertheradarmag.com/reviews/kid_a_special_collectors_edition |website=Under the Radar |access-date=25 February 2024 |date=3 November 2009 |archive-date=25 February 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240225171217/https://www.undertheradarmag.com/reviews/kid_a_special_collectors_edition |url-status=live }}

}}

In the years following its release, Kid A attracted acclaim. In 2005, Pitchfork wrote that it had "challenged and confounded" Radiohead's audience, and subsequently "transformed into an intellectual symbol of sorts ... Owning it became 'getting it'; getting it became 'anointing it'."{{cite web|work=Pitchfork|title=Top 100 albums of 2000–2004|date=7 February 2005 |url=https://pitchfork.com/features/staff-lists/5956-the-top-100-albums-of-2000-04-part-one/10/|access-date=15 March 2015|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150330001819/http://pitchfork.com/features/staff-lists/5956-the-top-100-albums-of-2000-04-part-one/10/|archive-date=30 March 2015|df=dmy-all}} In 2015, Sheffield likened Radiohead's change in style to Bob Dylan's controversial move to rock music, writing that critics now hesitated to say they had disliked it at the time.{{cite magazine |last=Sheffield |first=Rob |author-link=Rob Sheffield |date=2 October 2015 |title=How Radiohead shocked the world: a 15th-anniversary salute to Kid A |url=https://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/how-radiohead-shocked-the-world-a-15th-anniversary-salute-to-kid-a-20151002 |url-status=live |magazine=Rolling Stone |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170803130122/http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/how-radiohead-shocked-the-world-a-15th-anniversary-salute-to-kid-a-20151002 |archive-date=3 August 2017 |access-date=24 June 2017 |df=dmy-all}} He described Kid A as the "defining moment in the Radiohead legend". In 2016, Billboard argued that Kid A was the first album since Bowie's Low to have moved "rock and electronic music forward in such a mature fashion".{{cite magazine |last1=Lynch |first1=Joe |title=David Bowie Influenced More Musical Genres Than Any Other Rock Star |url=https://www.billboard.com/articles/news/6843061/david-bowie-influence-genres-rock-star |magazine=Billboard |access-date=3 September 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210418011502/https://www.billboard.com/articles/news/6843061/david-bowie-influence-genres-rock-star |archive-date=18 April 2021 |date=14 January 2016}} In an article for Kid A's 20th anniversary, the Quietus suggested that the negative reviews had been motivated by rockism, the tendency to venerate rock music over other genres.{{Cite web|last=Cornish|first=Dale|date=2020-09-28|title=Talking Heads Gone Bleep Techno: Radiohead's Kid A Turns 20|url=https://thequietus.com/articles/28987-kid-a-radiohead-review-anniversary|access-date=2020-09-28|website=The Quietus|language=en-us}}

In a 2011 Guardian article about his negative Melody Maker review, Beaumont wrote that though his opinion had not changed, "Kid A{{'s}} status as a cultural cornerstone has proved me, if not wrong, then very much in the minority ... People whose opinions I trust claim it to be their favourite album ever."{{Cite web|url=https://www.theguardian.com/music/musicblog/2010/oct/11/radiohead-kid-a-10-years|title=Radiohead's Kid A: still not much cop|last=Beaumont|first=Mark|author-link=Mark Beaumont (journalist)|date=11 October 2010|website=The Guardian|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150402165723/http://www.theguardian.com/music/musicblog/2010/oct/11/radiohead-kid-a-10-years|archive-date=2 April 2015|url-status=live|access-date=15 March 2015|df=dmy-all}} In 2014, Brice Ezell of PopMatters wrote that Kid A is "more fun to think and write about than it is to actually listen to" and a "far less compelling representation of the band's talents than The Bends and OK Computer".{{cite magazine|url=https://www.popmatters.com/feature/185769-is-everything-in-its-right-place-kid-a-and-the-problem-of-narrative|title=Is Everything in Its Right Place? A (Polite) Dissent to 'Kid A'|last=Ezell|first=Brice|magazine=PopMatters|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170629135144/http://www.popmatters.com/feature/185769-is-everything-in-its-right-place-kid-a-and-the-problem-of-narrative/|archive-date=29 June 2017|url-status=live|df=dmy-all}} In 2016, Dorian Lynskey wrote in The Guardian: "At times, Kid A is dull enough to make you fervently wish that they'd merged the highlights with the best bits of the similarly spotty Amnesiac ... Yorke had given up on coherent lyrics so one can only guess at what he was worrying about."{{cite web|url=https://www.theguardian.com/music/2016/jan/14/kid-a-to-straight-outta-compton-five-flawed-albums-became-classics|title=From Kid A to Straight Outta Compton – five flawed albums that became classics|last=Lynskey|first=Dorian|date=14 January 2016|work=The Guardian|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170529084621/https://www.theguardian.com/music/2016/jan/14/kid-a-to-straight-outta-compton-five-flawed-albums-became-classics|archive-date=29 May 2017|url-status=live|access-date=24 June 2017|df=dmy-all}}

Grantland credited Kid A for pioneering the use of internet to stream and promote music, writing: "For many music fans of a certain age and persuasion, Kid A was the first album experienced primarily via the internet – it's where you went to hear it, read the reviews, and argue about whether it was a masterpiece ... Listen early, form an opinion quickly, state it publicly, and move on to the next big record by the official release date. In that way, Kid A invented modern music culture as we know it." In his 2005 book Killing Yourself to Live, the critic Chuck Klosterman interpreted Kid A as a prediction of the September 11 attacks. Speaking at Radiohead's induction to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame 2019, David Byrne of Talking Heads, one of Radiohead's formative influences, said: "What was really weird and very encouraging was that [Kid A] was popular. It was a hit! It proved to me that the artistic risk paid off and music fans sometimes are not stupid."{{cite magazine |last1=Blistein |first1=Jon |last2=Wang |first2=Amy X. |date=30 March 2019 |title=Read David Byrne's Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Tribute to Radiohead |url=https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/radiohead-david-byrne-rock-and-roll-hall-of-fame-induction-814063/ |url-status=live |magazine=Rolling Stone |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190330195046/https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/radiohead-david-byrne-rock-and-roll-hall-of-fame-induction-814063/ |archive-date=30 March 2019 |access-date=30 March 2019}} In 2020, Billboard wrote that the success of the "challenging" Kid A established Radiohead as "heavy hitters in the business for the long run".

In 2020, Rolling Stone ranked Kid A number 20 on its updated "500 Greatest Albums of All Time" list, describing it as "a new, uniquely fearless kind of rock record for a new, increasingly fearful century ... [It] remains one of the more stunning sonic makeovers in music history."{{Cite magazine |date=2020-09-22 |title=The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time |url=https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-lists/best-albums-of-all-time-1062063/ |magazine=Rolling Stone |language=en-US |access-date=2020-09-23 |archive-date=22 September 2020 |archive-url=https://archive.today/20200922150118/https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-lists/best-albums-of-all-time-1062063/roberta-flack-first-take-1062782/ |url-status=live }} In previous versions of the list, Kid A ranked at number 67 (2012){{cite magazine|date=31 May 2012|title=Radiohead, 'Kid A' – 500 Greatest Albums of All Time|url=https://www.rollingstone.com/music/lists/500-greatest-albums-of-all-time-20120531/radiohead-kid-a-20120524|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150302053346/http://www.rollingstone.com/music/lists/500-greatest-albums-of-all-time-20120531/radiohead-kid-a-20120524|archive-date=2 March 2015|access-date=8 March 2015|magazine=Rolling Stone|df=dmy-all}} and number 428 (2003).{{cite web|title=RollingStone, '500 Greatest Albums of All Time|url=http://www.rockonthenet.com/archive/2003/rs500albums5.htm|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140905194438/http://www.rockonthenet.com/archive/2003/rs500albums5.htm|archive-date=5 September 2014|df=dmy-all}} In 2005, Stylus{{cite web |last=Burns |first=Todd |date=18 January 2005 |title=The Top 50 albums, 2000–2005 |url=http://www.stylusmagazine.com/feature.php?ID=1430 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20050306095656/http://www.stylusmagazine.com/feature.php?ID=1430 |archive-date=6 March 2005 |access-date=1 April 2007 |work=Stylus Magazine}} and Pitchfork named Kid A the best album of the previous five years, with Pitchfork calling it "the perfect record for its time: ominous, surreal, and impossibly millennial".

In 2006, Time named Kid A one of the 100 best albums, calling it "the opposite of easy listening, and the weirdest album to ever sell a million copies, but ... also a testament to just how complicated pop music can be".{{cite magazine|date=13 November 2006|title=The All-Time 100 Albums|url=http://www.time.com/time/2006/100albums/index.html|magazine=Time|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110424141858/http://www.time.com/time/2006/100albums/index.html|archive-date=24 April 2011|access-date=3 March 2009|url-status=dead|df=dmy-all}} At the end of the decade, Rolling Stone,{{Cite magazine |date=2011-07-18 |title=100 Best Albums of the 2000s |url=https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-lists/100-best-albums-of-the-2000s-153375/ |access-date=2024-02-11 |magazine=Rolling Stone |language=en-US |archive-date=1 July 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190701005627/https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-lists/100-best-albums-of-the-2000s-153375/ |url-status=live }} Pitchfork and the Times ranked Kid A the greatest album of the 2000s. The Guardian ranked it second best, calling it "a jittery premonition of the troubled, disconnected, overloaded decade to come. The sound of today, in other words, a decade early." In 2021, Pitchfork readers voted Kid A the greatest album of the previous 25 years.{{Cite web |date=2021-10-15 |title=The 200 best albums of the last 25 years, according to Pitchfork readers |url=https://pitchfork.com/features/lists-and-guides/peoples-list-25th-anniversary/ |access-date=2021-10-15 |website=Pitchfork |language=en-US |archive-date=15 October 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211015193750/https://pitchfork.com/features/lists-and-guides/peoples-list-25th-anniversary/ |url-status=live }} In 2025, Rolling Stone named it the second-greatest album of the century so far, writing that it "foresaw a darker 21st century, one marked by fear, loneliness, dislocation, and technological advancements that only divide us further ... And 25 years later, there's near-universal sentiment that Kid A is not only a towering achievement by the greatest band of its time, but also a warning call that went completely unheeded."

In 2011, Rolling Stone named "Everything in Its Right Place" the 24th-best song of the 2000s, describing it as "oddness at its most hummable".{{Cite magazine|date=17 June 2011|title=100 Best Songs of the 2000s|url=https://www.rollingstone.com/music/lists/100-best-songs-of-the-aughts-20110617/radiohead-everything-in-its-right-place-20110616|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180616080415/https://www.rollingstone.com/music/lists/100-best-songs-of-the-aughts-20110617/radiohead-everything-in-its-right-place-20110616|archive-date=16 June 2018|access-date=16 June 2018|magazine=Rolling Stone}} "Idioteque" was named one of the best songs of the decade by Pitchfork{{Cite web|date=2009-08-21|title=The Top 500 Tracks of the 2000s|url=http://pitchfork.com/features/staff-lists/7693-the-top-500-tracks-of-the-2000s-20-1/2/|url-status=live|archive-url=https://archive.today/20120525092629/http://pitchfork.com/features/staff-lists/7693-the-top-500-tracks-of-the-2000s-20-1/2/|archive-date=2012-05-25|access-date=2010-03-13|website=Pitchfork|publisher=}} and Rolling Stone,{{cite magazine|title=100 Best Songs of the 2000s|url=https://www.rollingstone.com/music/lists/100-best-songs-of-the-aughts-20110617/radiohead-idioteque-20110617|url-status=live|magazine=Rolling Stone|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121106234310/http://www.rollingstone.com/music/lists/100-best-songs-of-the-aughts-20110617/radiohead-idioteque-20110617|archive-date=6 November 2012|access-date=17 November 2012}} and Rolling Stone ranked it #33 on its 2018 list of the "greatest songs of the century so far".{{cite magazine|title=100 Greatest Songs of the Century - So Far|url=https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-lists/the-100-greatest-songs-of-the-century-so-far-666874/idioteque-radiohead-667067|url-status=live|magazine=Rolling Stone|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20191029193324/https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-lists/the-100-greatest-songs-of-the-century-so-far-666874/idioteque-radiohead-667067/|archive-date=29 October 2019|access-date=29 October 2019}}

(*) designates unordered list

Radiohead left EMI after their contract ended in 2003.{{cite news |last=Nestruck |first=Kelly |date=8 November 2007 |title=EMI stab Radiohead in the back catalogue |work=The Guardian |publisher= |location=London |url=http://music.guardian.co.uk/news/story/0,,2207489,00.html |access-date=22 November 2007 |archive-date=19 May 2008 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080519013024/http://music.guardian.co.uk/news/story/0,,2207489,00.html |url-status=live }} After a period of being out of print on vinyl, Kid A was reissued as a double LP on 19 August 2008 as part of the "From the Capitol Vaults" series, along with other Radiohead albums.{{cite web |date=10 July 2008 |title=Coldplay, Radiohead to be reissued on vinyl |url=https://www.nme.com/news/music/coldplay-396-1336094 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120216012653/http://www.nme.com/news/coldplay/37969 |archive-date=16 February 2012 |access-date=2 November 2011 |work=NME |df=dmy}} In 2007, EMI released Radiohead Box Set, a compilation of albums recorded while Radiohead were signed to EMI, including Kid A. On 25 August 2009, EMI reissued Kid A in a two-CD "Collector's Edition" and a "Special Collector's Edition" containing an additional DVD. Both versions feature live tracks, taken mostly from television performances. Radiohead had no input into the reissues and the music was not remastered.{{cite magazine |last=McCarthy |first=Sean |date=18 December 2009 |title=The Best Re-Issues of 2009: 18: Radiohead: Pablo Honey / The Bends / OK Computer / Kid A / Amnesiac / Hail to the Thief |url=https://www.popmatters.com/best-album-re-issues-2009-2496140735.html |url-status=live |magazine=PopMatters |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20091220175703/http://www.popmatters.com/pm/feature/117848-the-best-re-issues-of-2009/ |archive-date=20 December 2009 |access-date=29 August 2011}}

The EMI reissues were discontinued after Radiohead's back catalogue transferred to XL Recordings in 2016.{{cite magazine|url=https://www.billboard.com/biz/articles/7318966/radioheads-early-catalog-moves-from-warner-bros-to-xl|title=Radiohead's Early Catalog Moves From Warner Bros. to XL|last=Christman|first=Ed|date=4 April 2016|magazine=Billboard|access-date=6 May 2017|archive-date=10 April 2016|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160410121349/https://www.billboard.com/biz/articles/7318966/radioheads-early-catalog-moves-from-warner-bros-to-xl|url-status=live}} In May 2016, XL reissued Kid A on vinyl, along with the rest of Radiohead's back catalogue.{{cite web|url=http://www.thevinylfactory.com/vinyl-factory-news/radiohead-reissue-entire-catalogue-vinyl/|title=Radiohead to reissue entire catalogue on vinyl|last=Spice|first=Anton|date=6 May 2016|website=thevinylfactory.com|access-date=6 May 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160826093045/http://www.thevinylfactory.com/vinyl-factory-news/radiohead-reissue-entire-catalogue-vinyl/|archive-date=26 August 2016|url-status=live}} An early demo of "The National Anthem" was included in the special edition of the 2017 OK Computer reissue OKNOTOK 1997 2017.{{Cite web|last=Atkins|first=Jamie|date=22 June 2017|title=OK Computer – OKNOTOK 1997-2017|url=http://recordcollectormag.com/reviews/ok-computer-oknotok-1997-2017|access-date=23 June 2017|website=Record Collector|archive-date=25 June 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170625083556/http://recordcollectormag.com/reviews/ok-computer-oknotok-1997-2017|url-status=live}} In February 2020, Radiohead released an extended version of "Treefingers", previously released on the soundtrack for the 2000 film Memento, to digital platforms.{{Cite web|last=Pearis|first=Bill|title=Radiohead share extended "Treefingers" and rare remixes to digital archive|url=https://www.brooklynvegan.com/radiohead-share-extended-treefingers-rare-remixes-to-digital-archive/|access-date=2021-12-09|website=BrooklynVegan|date=22 February 2020|language=en|archive-date=9 December 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211209194943/https://www.brooklynvegan.com/radiohead-share-extended-treefingers-rare-remixes-to-digital-archive/|url-status=live}}

On November 5, 2021, Radiohead released Kid A Mnesia, an anniversary reissue compiling Kid A and Amnesiac. It includes a third album, Kid Amnesiae, comprising previously unreleased material from the sessions.{{Cite web|last=Trendell|first=Andrew|date=2021-11-04|title=Radiohead – Kid Amnesiae review: a haunting secret history of two classic records|url=https://www.nme.com/reviews/album/radiohead-kid-amnesiae-review-3087188|access-date=2021-11-04|website=NME|language=en-GB|archive-date=4 November 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211104114425/https://www.nme.com/reviews/album/radiohead-kid-amnesiae-review-3087188|url-status=live}} Radiohead promoted the reissue with singles for the previously unreleased tracks "If You Say the Word" and "Follow Me Around".{{Cite magazine|last=Martoccio|first=Angie|date=2021-11-01|title=Radiohead's 'Follow Me Around' is a holy grail for fans. 20 years later, it's here|url=https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/radiohead-follow-me-around-video-guy-pearce-1251279/|access-date=2021-11-01|magazine=Rolling Stone|language=en-US|archive-date=16 November 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211116033602/https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/radiohead-follow-me-around-video-guy-pearce-1251279/|url-status=live}} Kid A Mnesia Exhibition, an interactive experience with music and artwork from the albums, was released on November 18 for PlayStation 5, macOS and Windows.{{Cite web|last=Tarantola|first=A.|date=9 September 2021|title=Radiohead and Epic Games team up for a virtual Kid A Mnesia exhibit|url=https://www.engadget.com/radiohead-and-epic-games-team-up-for-the-kid-a-mnesia-exhibit-215738766.html|access-date=2021-09-10|website=Engadget|language=en-US|archive-date=9 September 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210909234920/https://www.engadget.com/radiohead-and-epic-games-team-up-for-the-kid-a-mnesia-exhibit-215738766.html|url-status=live}}

All songs written by Radiohead, except "Idioteque", which samples "Mild und Leise" by Paul Lansky and "Short Piece" by Arthur Kreiger.

1. "Everything in Its Right Place" – 4:11
2. "Kid A" – 4:44
3. "The National Anthem" – 5:51
4. "How to Disappear Completely" – 5:56
5. "Treefingers" – 3:42
6. "Optimistic" – 5:15
7. "In Limbo" – 3:31
8. "Idioteque" – 5:09
9. "Morning Bell" – 4:35
10. "Motion Picture Soundtrack" – 7:01
11. * Untitled hidden track – 0:52

Note: Track 10 ends at 3:20; includes an untitled hidden track from 4:17 until 5:09, followed by 1:51 of silence. On streaming services, the hidden track is listed as a separate track.

Credits adapted from liner notes.

{{col-begin}}

{{col-2}}

Production

• Nigel Godrich – production, engineering, mixing
• Radiohead – production
• Gerard Navarro – production assistance, additional engineering
• Graeme Stewart – additional engineering
• Stanley – artwork {{small|("Landscapes, Knives and Glue")}}
• Tchock – artwork {{small|("Landscapes, Knives and Glue")}}
• Chris Blair – mastering

{{col-2}}

Additional musicians

• Orchestra of St John's – strings
• John Lubbock – conducting
• Jonny Greenwood – scoring
• Horns on "The National Anthem"
• Andy Bush – trumpet
• Steve Hamilton – alto saxophone{{efn|Credited simply as "alto"}}
• Martin Hathaway – alto saxophone {{small|(etc.)}}
• Andy Hamilton – tenor saxophone
• Mark Lockheart – tenor saxophone
• Stan Harrison – baritone saxophone
• Liam Kirkham – trombone
• Mike Kearsey – bass trombone
• Henry Binns – rhythm sampling on "The National Anthem"

{{col-end}}

{{col-start}}

{{col-2}}

{{col-2}}

{{col-end}}

{{Certification Table Top|caption=Sales certifications for Kid A}}

{{Certification Table Entry|region=Australia|type=album|award=Platinum|relyear=2000|certyear=2001}}

{{Certification Table Entry|region=Canada|artist=Radiohead|title=Kid A|award=Platinum|number=2|type=album|relyear=2000|certyear=2018|access-date=5 September 2018}}

{{Certification Table Entry|region=Chile|type=album|nocert=true|salesamount=25,000|artist=Radiohead|title=Kid A|relyear=2000|salesref={{cite magazine|title=WARNER, EMI DEMONSTRATE DIFFERENT STYLES IN CHILE|magazine = Billboard|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=8A4EAAAAMBAJ&dq=Madonna%2C+Luis+Miguel+Chile&pg=PA89|date=22 April 2000|publisher=Nielsen Business Media, Inc.|pages=53, 89|access-date=27 January 2022|issn=0006-2510}}}}

{{Certification Table Entry|region=France|artist=Radiohead|title=Kid A|award=Platinum|type=album|relyear=2000|certyear=2008|access-date=24 April 2018}}

{{Certification Table Entry|region=Italy|artist=Radiohead|title=Kid A|award=Gold|type=album|relyear=2000|certyear=2022|note=sales since 2009|access-date=4 April 2022}}

{{Certification Table Entry|region=Japan|artist=レディオヘッド|title=キッドA |award=Platinum|type=album|relyear=2000|certyear=2001|certmonth=6|access-date=5 October 2019}}

{{Certification Table Entry|region=New Zealand|artist=Radiohead|title=Kid A|award=Gold|type=album|id=2001-01-26|source=newchart|access-date=2024-11-20|relyear=2000}}

{{Certification Table Entry|region=Norway|artist=Radiohead|title=Kid A|award=Gold|type=album|relyear=2000|certyear=2001}}

{{Certification Table Entry|region=United Kingdom|artist=Radiohead|title=Kid A|award=Platinum|type=album|relyear=2000|certyear=2000|salesamount=479,000|id=3613-1730-2|salesref={{cite web|url=https://www.officialcharts.com/galleries/albums-turning-20-years-old-in-2021/?31992|title=Albums turning 20 years old in 2021|work=Official Charts|access-date=2 January 2023|archive-date=2 January 2023|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230102165730/https://www.officialcharts.com/galleries/albums-turning-20-years-old-in-2021/?31992|url-status=live}}}}

{{Certification Table Entry|region=United States|artist=Radiohead|title=Kid A|award=Platinum|salesamount=1,480,000|salesref={{cite web|url=https://www.forbes.com/sites/nickdesantis/2016/05/10/radioheads-digital-album-sales-visualized/#40b286fd3a87|title=Radiohead's Digital Album Sales, Visualized|first=Nick|last=DeSantis|website=Forbes|access-date=30 January 2018|archive-url=https://archive.today/20190222204347/https://www.forbes.com/#40b286fd3a87|archive-date=22 February 2019|url-status=live}}|type=album|relyear=2000|certyear=2001|access-date=17 June 2017}}

{{Certification Table Summary}}

{{Certification Table Entry|region=Europe|type=album|title=Kid A|artist=Radiohead|award=Platinum|certyear=2000|access-date=2 February 2020}}

{{Certification Table Bottom|streaming=false}}

{{notelist}}

{{reflist}}

• {{cite book|last1=Randall|first1=Mac|title=Exit Music: The Radiohead Story|year=2004|publisher=Omnibus Press|isbn=1-84449-183-8|edition=2nd}}
• {{cite book |last1=Randall |first1=Mac |title=Exit Music: The Radiohead Story: The Radiohead Story |year=2011 |publisher=Omnibus Press |location=London, England |isbn=978-0-85712-695-5 |edition=3rd |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=GU9QmQEpLoYC}}

• {{Cite book

| last = Lin

| first = Marvin

| date = 25 November 2010

| publisher = Continuum International Publishing Group

| title = Radiohead's Kid A

| location = New York

| isbn = 978-0-8264-2343-6

| series = 33⅓ series

}}

• {{usurped|1=[https://web.archive.org/web/20070413133839/http://www.greenplastic.com/coldstorage/articles/edsdiary/index.php Ed's Diary:]}} Ed O'Brien's studio diary from Kid A/Amnesiac recording sessions, 1999–2000 (archived at Green Plastic)
• Marzorati, Gerald. "[http://partners.nytimes.com/library/magazine/home/20001001mag-radiohead.html The Post-Rock Band]". The New York Times. 1 October 2000. Retrieved on 4 November 2010.
• "[https://www.popmatters.com/pm/special/section/all-things-reconsidered-the-10th-anniversary-of-radioheads-kid-a/ All Things Reconsidered: The 10th Anniversary of Radiohead's 'Kid A']" (a collection of articles). PopMatters. November 2010. Retrieved on 4 November 2010.
• {{Cite book

| last = Hyden

| first = Steven

| date = 29 September 2020

| publisher = Hachette Books

| title = This Isn't Happening: Radiohead's "Kid A" and the Beginning of the 21st Century

| location = New York

| isbn = 978-0-3068-4568-0

}}

• {{Discogs master|type=album|21501|name=Kid A}}

{{Radiohead}}

{{Grammy Award for Best Alternative Music Album}}

{{Pitchfork}}

{{Authority control}}

Category:2000 albums

Category:Albums produced by Nigel Godrich

Category:Capitol Records albums

Category:Electronic albums by English artists

Category:Grammy Award for Best Alternative Music Album

Category:Parlophone albums

Category:Post-rock albums by English artists

Category:Ambient pop albums

Category:Radiohead albums