Phil Selway says Kid A has its choruses

Phil Selway does not accept that Kid A has no choruses. Interviewed for Orlando Weekly's review of the album, he points to “Optimistic”, “How to Disappear Completely” and even “Morning Bell”. The obvious landmarks take time to find, he concedes, but once a listener settles into the record you do find those landmarks and you do find the melodies and you do see where the hooks are¹.

The paper's unsigned review is less convinced. It finds a record led by keyboards and largely ambient, with no obvious radio single and nothing likely to grab a listener as quickly as “Paranoid Android” or “Creep”. Kid A repays repeated plays, the reviewer allows, but it is easier to admire than to like.

Selway puts the change down to the end of the OK Computer tours, which he calls the close of the band's first phase. Radiohead were still much the same band as when they started 14 years earlier, and had done all they could with that setup. They went in looking for new ways of working and set out to break down the fixed idea of who did what. Thom Yorke, he says, put it well: they broke the band up and put it back together with the same people.