Have you heard Radiohead’s Kid A?

The album released in the year 2000, after 1997’s OK Computer. If OK Computer – which dealt with themes such as consumerism, human beings’ increasing reliance on technology, and social conformity – was a prelude to Y2K panic at the turn of the millennium, then Kid A was the introspection that came after it. The two albums would not be what they are today without each other. At the time of its release, OK Computer was revered by critics everywhere who were willing to assign it its own special place in music history. The willingness to do so seemingly came from a place of regarding it as valuable cultural commentary for an entire decade. But OK Computer’s reverence went beyond just critics of the time. The idea that it is an ending of an era for Radiohead, neatly closing out the millennium is one that is often echoed. But this assertion is only possible with the hindsight of Kid A.

Amidst people worrying about things like computers killing us all, comets crashing down to the earth, the second coming of Jesus, and Armageddon in general, Radiohead was recording Kid A in a house in Gloucestershire. It released in the October of 2000, much to the dismay of record label executives everywhere.

The album is a marked departure from everything Radiohead did before. Most notably, this is because of a lack of guitars in an album by what at the time was considered a Rock band. The first three songs of the album feature no guitars at all. Moving down the tracklist, listeners are faced with an increasing sense of uneasiness and melancholy slightly different from the kind that Radiohead had come to be known for.”Everything in its Right Place” opens the album and sets the tone for it. The song is perhaps one of the calmest on the album sonically but frontman Thom Yorke has talked about how that song is about a bout of depression he had dealt with. The title track “Kid A” is a barely decipherable mess of synths and sequencers that is haunting and weepy. By this time in the album one does begin to wonder, ‘for a band that has talked about reliance on technology and its ill effects as much as Radiohead have, they sure seem to be using a lot of electronic instruments don’t they?’

There are a lot of moments on the record that make little sense for a commercial release. One could sit and talk for hours about the idea of subjecting listeners to the cacophony of horns, synth and bass guitar on “The National Anthem” or the exact point of having a song like “Treefingers” on any album and not in a performance art piece. Moments like this are in abundance on the album and everyone can come up with their own reasons to justify their existence. The musicality and Radiohead’s ability to create a mood with whatever set of instruments they happen to be working with at the time is undeniable. This ability, along with many of the album’s sonic influences can even be heard on their last album, A Moon Shaped Pool.

By the time someone reaches “Morning Bell,” the penultimate track on the album, they are overcome with a sense of overwhelming existential pointlessness. Repetitiveness and the mundane are a key feature of Kid A and the use of repetition drives home the point that what you are listening to is incredibly sad. This is not to say that it is the kind of sad that makes you bawl. Kid A’s central moroseness is one that comes from the everyday. From repeating things that you do all the time. From finding a lack of meaning in doing so.

“Motion Picture Soundtrack” sounds incredibly warm and opens up to Thom Yorke’s droning vocals. It sounds unlike anything else on the album. For certain, it has the least amount of synthesizers in it. While it does sound warm, the lyrics are far from it. “Stop sending letters/ Letters always get burned/ It’s not like the movies/ They fed us on little white lies” Yorke croons as an orchestra offsets the content of his lyrics. Loneliness and isolation are also themes that feature heavily on this album. Much in the same way “Motion Picture Soundtrack” does, the song “How to Disappear Completely” also deals with anonymity and isolation. Both these songs, along with “Kid A”, “Idiotheque”, and “Optimistic” create a cogent body of work that deals with isolation, technology, loneliness, and general existential angst.

With themes as heavy as these, one does wonder why this album is as widely revered as it is.

Kid A brushed off what Radiohead was in the 90s. Its themes and instrumentation come up in future Radiohead albums like In Rainbows and A Moon Shaped Pool. The album’s popularity is perhaps best understood by seeing it not as a totem of deep sadness, but rather as an empathising with what people everywhere go through every day. Radiohead makes sad music, perhaps for people that are sad.