Rolling Stone critic Ken Micallef names Amnesiac album of 2001

Ken Micallef has made Amnesiac his album of the year. Of the 29 critics whose lists Rolling Stone published on 26 December, he is the only one to put a Radiohead record at the top. Two more have it in their top ten. Bill Crandall, at number seven, rates it almost as good as Kid A without the surprise and says the new version of “Morning Bell” justifies the whole exercise. Chris Rubin, at ten, ties it to the band's show at the Hollywood Bowl.

The magazine's introduction says a surprising number of its critics shrugged off the hype around the year's Radiohead and Tool albums. Radiohead still turn up as a yardstick: Rob O'Connor, picking Travis's The Invisible Band, sums it up as Radiohead with hummable songs.

Denver's Westword has both Amnesiac and the live I Might Be Wrong among the pop and rock records in “Discmania”, its unranked look back at 2001 out today. Kurt Brighton notes that Kid A made plenty of best-of lists while fewer people got inside Amnesiac. He finds a human warmth in its electronics, or at least despair that passes for it, and songs that sound bleak at first and end up comforting. Patrick Casey thrills to the live record but hears a one-dimensional band set on melancholy, and wonders whether this is the second coming of Syd Barrett.