Two decades after they first appeared, the twin albums ‘Kid A’ and ‘Amnesiac’ – now combined in the box set ‘Kid A Mnesia’ – are more relevant than ever, the perfect soundtrack for an age of fear.
At the close of the 1990s, Radiohead frontman Thom Yorke was engaged in a prolonged rebellion against an oppressive force: himself. Although the band’s third album, OK Computer (1997), had been anointed by critics as one of the greatest ever released, Yorke was tired of his voice (“it annoys me how pretty it is”) and tired of guitars.
Rather than feeling liberated by success, he felt trapped. Radiohead, in the words of TheSydney Morning Herald, were deemed “the band most likely to whiten teeth, cure cancer and save us all”. It was an impossible burden.
