This Isn't Happening: Radiohead's "Kid A" and the Beginning of the 21st Century

Steven Hyden chronicles North Oxford’s five-piece rock band as they dismantle their guitar-driven identity following the success of OK Computer. The narrative tracks the 1999 and 2000 sessions in Paris, Copenhagen, and Gloucester, where the group integrated modular synthesizers, jazz structures, and disjointed digital loops to produce Kid A. Hyden contextualizes the music within the anxiety of the early internet era, linking the album’s fragmented lyrics and cold textures to the looming cultural shifts of the 9/11 attacks and the rise of Napster.

Listeners interested in the technical evolution of alternative music and the transition from analog to digital culture will find a detailed timeline of how an anti-commercial record became a commercial success. Readers walk away with an understanding of how Radiohead’s shift in instrumentation influenced modern indie production and helped define the alienation of the new century. The book provides a historical account of why this specific stylistic departure changed how labels market experimental art to a mainstream audience.