48 Idioteque

RADIOHEAD 2000

“Idioteque” is the foreboding, spellbinding centerpiece of Radiohead’s eradefining 2000 album Kid A, a squinting image of dystopia set to a glacially slamming beat. The song began as a 50-minute synth collage by Johnny Greenwood, which Thom Yorke digested, pulling out, as he later put it, “a section of about 40 seconds in the middle of it that was absolute genius.” From there, the band built a quaking glitchcore opus, driven by some of the most genuinely freakedout vocals Yorke ever delivered. And somehow it still became a monster stadium-rock moment in Radiohead’s live sets.