In the first year of this blog, Radiohead’s Ok Computer celebrated its 20th year of existence and I made a major feature in which I wrote a song-by-song review every Friday up to the anniversary of its release, which landed on a Friday, (Editor’s note: ‘On a Friday’ is the original name of Radiohead. Funny, huh?). You can check that review here.

Plans of doing a retrospective review of Ok Computer‘s follow-up, Kid A, which turns 20 this year, were already in my mind but turns out the anniversary of its release lands on a Friday too. How about that?!

So I’m repeating the segment, 10 songs for 10 Fridays up to October 2nd, when I will publish a full-album Essentiality Review. And I’m calling it Kid-Ays (and I don’t care what you think about it).

First up is ‘Everything In Its Right Place’.

If there’s one thing that magnifies Kid A‘s utterly unexpected arrival at the turn of the century, is its opening track. It is the ideal evidence of what Radiohead had been up to for the previous three years. A cold-sounding array of cascading robotized keyboards introduce the track, and the album, in a striking note. Moreover, when Thom Yorke’s voice finally comes in, it is heavily processed as if the band had decided to hide its music behind an electronic curtain.

I just can imagine the reaction to this first glance to a new Radiohead album, specially after the instant classic they’ve released in 1997, but there’s enough evidence in the internet to have an idea. Fans and critics were at the very least, greatly surprised and many were even disgusted and taken aback. Understandable. However, the track is now one of the band’s most recognizable, fan-favorite and even a live-staple. Because, despite its aesthetic, the melody and wall-of-sound type of production make it an earwormy, alienated ballad very keen with the technological upheaval that the new millenium was bringing with it.

The main synth line engulfs you in a perpetually tide-high sea and in the moment you think you’re drowning Thom Yorke’s voice arrives to embrace you. What is he talking about exactly? Who knows? But you know that the title makes sense just because he is singing it through what only seems like impending doom. And all that follows is constant repetition of the melody, as if you’re having a recurring dream in the same night. It’s difficult to be straightforward when it comes to a track like this one, specially the one that practically rips any expectation you could have of the present album. It is just brilliant.

As I’ll try to evidence in the coming weeks, Kid A was more than an ambitious electronic deviation, but ‘Everything In its Right Place’ certainly showcases that if the band leaned into that kind of effort, something we’ve seen repitedly in the last 20 years, the results are quite marvelous.