People gave Radiohead a lot of flack in the late nineties, particularly with the release of Amnesiac and Kid A. The massive critical acclaim which Radiohead recieved after the release of 1997′s OK Computer seemed to make the task of issuing a followup all the more difficult. Really, it’s not hard to see why; OK Computer is, without a doubt, Radiohead’s greatest album, a perfect harmony of the wailing guitar and technological sound Thom Yorke and Co. strove to combine in their music. So, how to continue?

From what I gather, fans were rather confused with Kid A, and eventually, Amnesiac’s release. Both records, recorded together in the span of a couple months, had a particularly difficult incubation process; simply put, Yorke didn’t know how to move forward.

What resulted is best described as an amalgamation of all the electronically-driven parts of OK Computer – on steroids, might I add. The album was unconventional in a number of ways, with some tracks consisting mainly of orchestrated noise and samples, while others garbled Yorke’s vocals to the point of incomprehensibility. While all this might have been good under the influence of a great deal of drugs, it seemed to alienate a great deal of fans.

The thing is, fans approached both albums expecting the conventional – more OK Computer, more of The Bends. What they got, instead, was an evolution of the band, one that was driven by many of the bandmember’s widening interests. Thom Yorke, beginning with OK Computer, had an increasing facsination with electronic music and sample, going insofar as to mention computer as one of the intstruments in his latter albums’ liner notes. Johnny Greenwood, meanwhile, had begun composing and orchestrating larger, string-based arrangments, first for motion picture soundtracks, and eventually, the band itself.

In my opinon, Amnesiac and Kid A have grown on me over the years, to the point where I hold both in incredibly high regard – just below OK Computer. There’s a noticeable lack of guitar on both albums, relegated to a significantly small portion of tracks. But that absence is easily made up for, what with Yorke’s increasing use of Piano and keyboard – not to mention the oft-haunting, but beautiful soundscapes both Yorke and Greenwood create with their layered ambient tracks.

For me, at least, the evolution Radiohead demonstrates here is what defines both albums. Afterall, if they played the same songs year after year, it wouldn’t just be boring; they would cease to be Radiohead.

And instead, we’d have to call them The Rolling Stones.