Radiohead album a winner with critics

The band Radiohead's chart-topping Kid A - which baffled many on its release - is the album of the year, in the view of leading music critics.

The band Radiohead's chart-topping Kid A - which baffled many on its release - is the album of the year, in the view of leading music critics.

The return of the Oxford quintet after a three-year gap saw it largely ditch the guitar-led sound that had made them reluctant stars.

But 40 prominent writers have ranked the experimental album as the top release of 2000 in a survey compiled by the online retailer amazon.co.uk.

Critics had been slow to warm to the album because of its huge departure from traditional song structures and its general strangeness. But they have now placed it ahead of Eminem's The Marshall Mathers LP and Primal Scream's Xtrmntr in the company's "Best Of 2000" round-up.

Radiohead found two of their albums - OK Computer and The Bends - in the top five of the Virgin All Time top 1000 albums based on a huge international poll earlier this year.

Contributors for the new poll came from music magazines such as Gramophone, Mojo, Q and NME, as well as from national newspapers.

Although contemporary pop and rock dominates the list, the country star Johnny Cash comes in at number nine, while the conductor, Sir Simon Rattle, is in 13th place with Mahler's 10th symphony.