History YMMV / KidA

* JustForFun/XMeetsY: ''Kid A'' is essentially what one would get if ''Music/{{Wish You Were Here|1975}}'', ''Music/{{Low|DavidBowieAlbum}}'', and ''Music/RemainInLight'' had a threesome.

** "Radiohead predicted ''WesternAnimation/IceAge''!"[[labelnote:Explanation]]The second verse of "Idioteque" opens with the lines "ice age coming/ice age coming." ''Kid A'' came out in 2000, while the first ''Ice Age'' movie came out in 2002; the discovery of this coincidence led to many fans joking about it whenever "Idioteque" or ''Kid A'' as a whole comes up.[[/labelnote]]

* BrokenBase: At first; upon release, the album was highly divisive for its genre shift to electronic-tinged PostRock, with many desiring for the band to return to the abstract guitar-driven AlternativeRock of ''Music/OKComputer''. ''Music/{{Amnesiac}}'' drew similarly mixed responses for being a direct continuation of ''Kid A'', and this led to ''Music/HailToTheThief'' being a considerable source of hype among those who felt alienated by the more experimental direction Radiohead had taken in 2000.

* JustForFun/XMeetsY: ''Kid A'' is essentially what one would get if ''Music/WishYouWereHere1975'', ''Music/{{Low|DavidBowieAlbum}}'', and ''Music/RemainInLight'' had a threesome.

* NightmareFuel: [[NightmareFuel/{{Radiohead}} The Kid A Mnesia folder]] counts a lot of creepy things in this album.

* NightmareFuel: Packed to the brim with it.
** Nearly any of the promotional 'blips' that were made. Downright creepy scenes and imagery, and incredibly apocalyptic and futuristic. One that particularly captivates viewers with its unsettling content features a stick figure staggering away from another lying in the snow, bleeding out; many infer that the mobile stick figure murdered the bleeding one.
** The song "Kid A" is initially only kind of unsettling. It gets creepier when you figure out the lyrics ("standing in the shadows at the end of my bed...") and the fact that to Thom they represent something so horrible he distorted his voice in the song to distance himself from it. The speculation regarding what exactly that is doesn't help (the creepy pied piper imagery suggests pedophilia, while Thom has hinted it's about cloning or mind control). Then you look up its pages in the maze section of the Radiohead website, one of which is a picture of a man with his eyes sewn shut. And then you look up the lyrical outtakes, made by Thom's usual semi-comprehensible stream of consciousness to seem like they were written by a lunatic (several lyrics also made it into the outtake "Follow Me Around"):
---> ''I am the bloody pied piper rats and children follow me out of town a scarecrow that dont scare the crows nowadays i get panicked i have ceased to exist my words you know are out of ink. drooling looney tunes moving room to room did you lie to us [[UsefulNotes/TonyBlair tony]]? we thought you were different but now were not so sure now you know were not so sure. we can blow a hole in anything [[UsefulNotes/MargaretThatcher thatchers]] children see you on the way back down. kill the enemy within unhinged cowboys and indians moving statues yur safe until you look away. i would like to change back now please to the shadow of my former self. iam the bloody pied piper. & the rats and the children will follow me around so you hade better make it worth my while. please allow me the suspension of your disbelief the benefit of the doubt.''
---> ''never say anything''
---> ''be instrumental''
** While the title track may be the strongest example, the entire album is creepy and offputting, though never outright scary (in general, it just sounds.... ''wrong''). Here are some of the more unsettling qualities, track by track:
*** "Everything in Its Right Place's" strange synths and Thom's distorted voice, combined with its constant build up.
*** "The National Anthem," when the instruments drop out and we're left with distorted samples of dialogue and an orchestra at the end.
*** "How to Disappear Completely's" calm but dissonant string arrangement.
*** "Treefingers" is comparatively soft, but is still empty and cold.
*** "In Limbo" is hazy, off-balance, and ends with what sounds like a siren wailing through a snowstorm.
*** "Idioteque" is an extremely anxious and paranoid dance song. Its rhythmic energy doesn't make it lighter, but instead more desperate. The song ends on another distorted sample, this time of wailing, atonal strings.
*** "Morning Bell" comes in on Idioteque's LastNoteNightmare.
*** "Motion Picture Soundtrack" is an ironic example. The harp samples are so sweet as to be sickly and seem to have deliberately invoked Disney soundtracks, but the lyrics are still cold, distant, and offputting, especially with its references to the afterlife.
** The album's hidden booklet, especially the caricature of UsefulNotes/TonyBlair with a SlasherSmile, as well as the liberal doses of WordSaladHorror.

* JustForFun/XMeetsY: ''Kid A'' is essentially what one would get if ''Music/WishYouWereHere'', ''Music/{{Low|DavidBowieAlbum}}'', and ''Music/RemainInLight'' had a threesome.

* UncannyValley: A creepy CGI version of Thom's disembodied shows up in a couple of blips (specifically ones made for the TitleTrack), calmly gazing into space as digital snow falls on his face; in one blip he gradually suffers a nosebleed. Brrrrrrrr.

* JustForFun/XMeetsY: ''Kid A'' is essentially what one would get if ''Music/WishYouWereHere'', ''Music/LowDavidBowieAlbum'', and ''Music/RemainInLight'' had a threesome.

** The song "Kid A" is initially only kind of unsettling. It gets creepier when you figure out the lyrics ("standing in the shadows at the end of my bed...") and the fact that to Thom they represent something so horrible he distorted his voice in the song to distance himself from it. The speculation regarding what exactly that is doesn't help (the creepy pied piper imagery suggests pedophilia, while Thom has hinted it's about cloning or mind control). Then you look up its pages in the maze section of the Radiohead website, one of which is a picture of a man with his eyes sewn shut. And then you look up the lyrical outtakes, made by Thom's usual semi-comprehensible stream of consciousness to seem like they were written by a lunatic:

--> ''I am the bloody pied piper rats and children follow me out of town a scarecrow that dont scare the crows nowadays i get panicked i have ceased to exist my words you know are out of ink. drooling looney tunes moving room to room did you lie to us [[UsefulNotes/TonyBlair tony]]? we thought you were different but now were not so sure now you know were not so sure. we can blow a hole in anything [[UsefulNotes/MargaretThatcher thatchers]] children see you on the way back down. kill the enemy within unhinged cowboys and indians moving statues yur safe until you look away. i would like to change back now please to the shadow of my former self. iam the bloody pied piper. & the rats and the children will follow me around so you hade better make it worth my while. please allow me the suspension of your disbelief the benefit of the doubt.''
--> ''never say anything''
--> ''be instrumental''

-->''"It's not like the movies\\

* TheyChangedItNowItSucks: Many listeners initially weren't kind to Radiohead's GenreShift on this album, having expected ''OK Computer 2'' and instead getting the exact opposite. Fans who disliked the band's experimentalism gravitated toward Music/{{Coldplay}}, who had their breakthrough around this time for the same reason.

* MemeticMutation: "FASTER JONNY"[[labelnote:Explanation]]A phrase Thom Yorke often shouts to Jonny Greenwood during live performances of "Idioteque" to cue him to speed up the song's tempo; it being as common as it is led to it quickly catching on among fans, resulting in it often being invoked whenever the song comes up anywhere, as well as leading fans to joke about Jonny viewing the song as TheDreaded for how often he's told to speed up during it.[[/labelnote]]

** Stanley Donwood's artwork is naturally kind of creepy, but the ''Kid A'' art deserves special mention.

* TheyChangedItNowItSucks: Many listeners initially weren't kind to Radiohead's GenreShift on this album, having expected ''OK Computer 2'' and instead getting the exact opposite.

--> ''I am the bloody pied piper rats and children follow me out of town a scarecrow that dont scare the crows nowadays i get panicked i have ceased to exist my words you know are out of ink. drooling looney tunes moving room to room did you lie to us [[UsefulNotes/TonyBlair tony]]? we thought you were different but now were not so sure now you know were not so sure. we can blow a hole in anything thatchers children see you on the way back down. kill the enemy within unhinged cowboys and indians moving statues yur safe until you look away. i would like to change back now please to the shadow of my former self. iam the bloody pied piper. & the rats and the children will follow me around so you hade better make it worth my while. please allow me the suspension of your disbelief the benefit of the doubt.''

* CommonKnowledge: ''Kid A'' is often referred to as the album where Radiohead abandoned the use of guitar. In reality, most of the album's tracks still used guitar, just not always in the conventional way. In fact, only two tracks are entirely devoid of guitar, those being "Everything in Its Right Place" and "Motion Picture Soundtrack" ([[BookEnds the first and last tracks on the album]]), whilst the ambient track "Treefingers" is largely constructed from recordings of Ed O'Brien's guitar playing.

* CommonKnowledge: ''Kid A'' is often referred to as the album where Radiohead abandoned the use of guitar. In reality, most of the album's tracks still used guitar, just not always in the conventional way. In fact, only two tracks are entirely devoid of guitar, those being "Everything in Its Right Place" and "Motion Picture Soundtrack" ([[BookEnds the first and last tracks on the album]]).

* CommonKnowledge: ''Kid A'' is often referred to as the album where Radiohead abandoned the use of guitar.In reality, most of the album's tracks still used guitar, just not always in the conventional way. In fact, only two tracks are entirely devoid of guitar, those being "Everything in Its Right Place" and "Motion Picture Soundtrack" ([[BookEnds the first and last tracks on the album]]).