There's a rumour that they created Kid A to try and hope for a rubbish album to get out of their record contract. If that's true, then Radiohead are possibly the only band that can't pull off a dud album. As for their timeline of evolution, I'm not sure I'd say it was engineered to impress people. Even though I'm too young to have liked them back when they were released, I can understand the surprise Kid A and Amnesiac had amongst the fan base, and while both albums have undoubtedly done wonders for the band's sound, I'm not sure if the reaction at the time was amazement or shock. Probably a bit of both.
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