Amnesiac (album) - Reception

Reception

Amnesiac received positive reviews from most music critics. At Metacritic, which assigns a normalised rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, the album holds an average score of 75, five points lower than its sister album Kid A, indicating "generally favorable reviews". Pitchfork Media founder Ryan Schreiber gave Amnesiac 9.0 out of 10, writing that "Quality aside, the questionable sequencing of Amnesiac does little to hush the argument that the record is merely a thinly veiled b-sides compilation (...) Still, Amnesiac's highlights were undeniably worth the wait, and easily overcome its occasional patchiness." Awarding the album three-and-a-half out of five stars, AllMusic critic Stephen Thomas Erlewine wrote that Kid A and Amnesiac "clearly derive from the same source and have the same flaws (...) the division only makes the two records seem unfocused, even if the best of both records is quite stunning, proof positive that Radiohead are one of the best bands of their time." Guardian critic Alex Petridis gave Amnesiac four stars out of five, writing that "with the benefit of hindsight, Kid A's wilful racket now recalls the clatter of a rattle being thrown from a pram. Tantrum over, Radiohead have returned to their role as the world's most intriguing and innovative major rock band." In Pitchfork's 2010 review of the "Special Collectors Edition" reissue, Scott Plagenhoef wrote that "More than Kid A – and maybe more than any other LP of its time – Amnesiac is the kickoff of a messy, rewarding era (...) disconnected, self-aware, tense, eclectic, head-turning – an overload of good ideas inhibited by rules, restrictions, and conventional wisdom."

Amnesiac was ranked as one of the best albums of the 2001 by several music publications; the Village Voice Pazz and Jop poll ranked it #6, Alternative Press #1, the Los Angeles Times No. 5, and Rolling Stone #10. In 2009, Pitchfork Media ranked Amnesiac the 34th best album of the 2000s; in 2010, Rolling Stone ranked it the 25th. In 2012, Rolling Stone ranked the album No. 320 in their updated version of The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time.

Amnesiac was nominated for the Mercury Music Prize in 2001, losing to PJ Harvey's Stories from the City, Stories from the Sea (for which Yorke provided guest vocals). It was the fourth consecutive Radiohead album nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Alternative Album, and the special edition won a Grammy Award for Best Recording Package in the 44th Grammy Awards.