2.) Radiohead - Kid A (2000)

Oh my god! It's not number one! I can't believe it.

Okay, moving on - Kid A is a million things if its one, but most importantly it's art. It's a masterpiece. It's stirring and it's gorgeous and its scope is huge, it's both cold and amazingly soulful sometimes within the same moment. It was a new beginning sonically and the last of its kind in terms of how most people heard it. It's everything you've heard it was and more. Everything that has needed to be said about Kid A has been said and all the lauds are true. It is brilliant. But you don't need to hear this from me. If you're following this list you're infinitely aware of how good Kid A is. Of how important Kid A is in the scheme of rock music. So, I'm gonna shut up and just talk about fond memories I have of a record that is surely one of the best ever.

Kid A was released in 2000. I was a junior in college. I lived in Martyr's Court with six other dudes. I was really excited for Kid A. I mean really excited. People were still listening to music via CD then. Kid A was kind of the end of that era, actually. Some of us dinosaurs keep on keeping on, but most people have stopped caring about having the media. About holding it in their hands. It's just rubbish to them.

The release of Kid A was an exciting thing for me and for some of my friends who had heard so much about it and had spent so much time already loving Radiohead that we couldn't wait. I went and bought Kid A the day it came out. I went by myself. I loved record shopping by myself. Listening to music, for me, has always been an intensely personal experience. I bought Kid A at the big Tower records on 68th and Broadway. I only bought Kid A. It was tunnel vision. I didn't even browse. I walked in. I grabbed it. I paid for it and I left. I brought a discman with me to the store. I popped Kid A in and I walked around the city. I had no destination, I just knew I wanted to spend my day walking around and hearing this record. I listened three times and then one more on the train and then I don't know how many times after it.

I was never going to not like Kid A. I didn't have it in me. It was too important, too big and ultimately too good. As much as I love the record is also how much I loved that time in music. When you had to go and get something you wanted to hear. When it wasn't so easy. In a way, it makes me sad that kids won't have that connection to music, but I'm old maybe they'll have new connections that will be just as good. Hopefully they'll get records like Kid A to connect with because then, they're still lucky.