One album was hailed as a cold, electronic left turn. The other, Amnesiac, followed in 2001, stranger and more jazz-scarred, as if the same dream had been filmed from a different angle. Radiohead recorded both Kid A and Amnesiac in the same sessions, yet for two decades they lived as separate records. On November 5, 2021, the band finally put them back together as Kid A Mnesia, a reissue that added a third disc of unheard material from those sessions.
The double album that wasn't
The story starts with a decision that almost didn't happen. Radiohead had enough music from the 1999–2000 sessions to release a double album. They considered it, then backed away: the material felt too dense to take in one sitting. So the songs split into Kid A and Amnesiac, two albums that changed how rock bands could use electronics. The 2021 collection reversed that call, gathering both records and a bonus disc called Kid Amnesiae.
That bonus disc is where the real intrigue lives. It opens a door into the sessions' hidden corners. 'Like Spinning Plates ('Why Us?' Version)' turns an electronic track into a piano arrangement. 'If You Say the Word' pairs delicate fingerpicking with a sinister groove and the eerie hum of an ondes Martenot. 'Follow Me Around' is a solo acoustic performance by Thom Yorke that name-checks Margaret Thatcher. And 'Pulk/Pull (True Love Waits Version)' reveals the harsh industrial skeleton that became the Amnesiac track 'Pulk/Pull Revolving Doors'.
The disc also gathers stray B-sides and alternate takes: 'Fog', 'Fast-Track', a different 'Morning Bell', and isolated strings from 'How to Disappear Completely' and 'Pyramid Song'. Critics seized on this material. The Times called Kid Amnesiae the 'real gem' of the reissue. NME went further, saying the bonus disc felt like a full album and offered a 'secret history' of how two landmark records were made.
Chieftain Mews and the TikTok buildup
The announcement itself was an exercise in misdirection. Radiohead spent months on TikTok posting short videos with a character called Chieftain Mews. Then, on September 7, 2021, they revealed Kid A Mnesia alongside the digital single 'If You Say the Word'. Fans who had been watching odd clips suddenly understood the buildup. The reissue arrived on vinyl, CD, cassette, and digital formats, and it topped Billboard's Top Alternative Albums and Top Rock Albums charts.
What made the release feel bigger than a standard reissue was the attempt to turn the albums into a space you could walk through. Radiohead had planned a physical art installation, but logistics and the pandemic killed it. Instead, in November 2021, they released Kid A Mnesia Exhibition, a free digital app for PlayStation 5, macOS, and Windows. Built over two years with several studios, it let listeners move through the albums' artwork and music in a virtual environment.
The critical response was near-unanimous. On Metacritic, the collection earned 97 out of 100 across 10 reviews, a mark the site classifies as universal acclaim. Reviewers framed the collection as proof that Kid A and Amnesiac were always two halves of one statement. The bonus disc, more than the familiar albums, became the reason to return: a set of fragments that finally made the original sessions feel complete.
Five years on, the reissue still matters because it changed how the two albums are understood. They were never separate experiments. They were one dense, sprawling body of work that Radiohead chose to split apart. Kid A Mnesia put the pieces back on the table, not as a remaster, but as a reunion of recordings that had been waiting in the dark since the turn of the millennium.