Re-issues are on the whole an exercise in milking the cash cow dry and on the basis of their Radiohead Collector's Editions EMI have at least proved themselves to the music industry's best metaphorical dairy farmers. They've all been compiled with a remarkable amount of TLC collating b-sides, live tracks and television performances from the time into a package that comes close to justifying its asking price.
As such, the recent release of the Kid A edition stands out as the stray soya milk of the bunch. The DVD is pared down to a few Jools Holland clips and with no b-sides on offer the extra CD is restricted to tracks taken from a session at the Canal+ Studios in Paris. This isn't a case of EMI skimping either, there was never an official single taken from Kid A and the promotional campaign was orchestrated mainly online with a series of 'Blips' set to music taken from the record.
What the listener is essentially left with are the same ten songs that comprised the original LP and one question: "Nine years on has Kid A stood the test of time?" The answer, despite the various qualms that been thrown at the album (no guitars, should have been doubled up with Amnesiac, commercially obstinate), comes up affirmative for all these flaws and more.
It is often said the mark of a great record is that it emerges ahead of its time carving its own little niche in the world. Kid A did so to such an iconoclastic degree that people still don't really know how to deal with it. From Everything In It's Right Place to Motion Picture Soundtrack it simply stands apart. Thankfully the deluxe treatment hasn't made an ounce of difference to this status.
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