Music
The story of Radiohead told through 10 essential songs
Radiohead have a discography full of classic songs -- these are their best.
Radiohead have been around for just over 30 years now and in that time they have released nine studio albums. You can usually find their work ranking highly on lists that name the greatest albums of all time. The British band's impact on the world is undeniable, so we had to make a list of their best songs.
Whittling down such a varied and challenging discography over such a long period of time is a difficult task. But we summoned the strength to pull through the pain and tears simply by being loose with the definition of "best." We went with a mix of fan favourites and critical favourites that matched our own, as well as a few personal picks because, well, we're greedy. We also had a rule of having at least one song per album, with an emphasis on culturally and musically important tracks.
It wasn't easy, but here are the 20 best Radiohead songs:
1. Creep
We're kickstarting this list with the song that kickstarted Radiohead's career, from their Pablo Honey debut. But including "Creep," a song that the band itself loves/hates (but mostly hates), isn't a joke or a concession. Yes, the track was tailor-made for the marketable Gen X category, but Jonny Greenwood's pre-chorus guitar stabs, Thom Yorke's soaring vocals during the bridge, and the lyrical focus on alienation can now be heard as loving precursors to Radiohead's continued experimentation and left-of-center aesthetics. Kinda adorable, really.
2. "True Love Waits"
"True Love Waits" was considered a classic long before it appeared on 2016’s A Moon Shaped Pool. That's how obsessed Radiohead fans are. The live show staple song also shows Yorke at one of his most lyrically fragile states, so it makes sense that nearly all performances feature him solo with just an ol' six-string. The recorded version updates the song with simple piano accompaniment, tender and flickering like lighters in the air at a stadium show.
3. "Just"
Radiohead fans are so accustomed to "Just," from The Bends that it's easy to forget (just) how bizarre the song is. Unexpected harmonic shifts, wild dynamics, riffs coming out its ears. But it was Jonny Greenwood's guitar solos that somehow out-weirded them all, sending off one of the most unique and peculiar rock songs of the 1990s. And it has an extraordinary video (dir. Jamie Thraves) to match that people are still talking about today.
4. "Fake Plastic Trees"
You've heard this song before, even if you haven't actually heard *this* song before. "Fake Plastic Trees" was exactly the type of bombastic, overly dramatic, highly marketable song that Radiohead copycats exploited for over a decade. But nothing even comes close to the unique qualities of "Fake Plastic Trees" (qualities that Radiohead's label at one point tried to eliminate). And hey, check out those lyrics; this ain't some sort of run-of-the-mill ballad.
5. "There, There"
Radiohead finds their groove on "There, There," a track that pays rhythmic homage to Can, driven by toms and crunchy guitar riffs. It's one of the more understated cuts on the Bush/Blair-era bluntness of Hail to the Thief, but it features one of Yorke's best deliveries of one of his best lines: "Just 'cause you feel it, doesn't mean it's there." A beautiful truth.
6. "The Tourist"
You won't find "The Tourist" on pretty much any list of this kind, because it's not canonized or "important" in the way that so many Radiohead songs are. But this Johnny Greenwood-penned track is on this list because it's gorgeous slow-motion musicality matches Yorke's plead for "idiot" tourists to "slow down." It's a slightly humorous poetic gesture in the face of an increasingly hyperactive, sped-up world, and it's more relevant with each passing year.
7. "Lotus Flower"
Before the "Hotline Bling" meme, there was the "Lotus Flower" meme. In the song's video, Yorke moves his body in bizarre, hypnotic, sometimes ludicrous ways, inspiring edits and remixes and gifs like Drake. But unlike Drake, it wasn't an intentional marketing ploy to get a #1 hit. In fact, "Lotus Flower" wasn't even released as a single, but it charted anyway, received three Grammy nominations, and went on to become a fan favourite. It also boasted one of Radiohead's most beautiful choruses on an album with barely any of 'em (i.e. "The King of Limbs").
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8. "Exit Music (For a Film)"
If you want to show someone how versatile Yorke's voice is, look no further than "Exit Music (For a Film)." The song -- originally heard in a different form during the end credits to the Romeo + Juliet remake from 1996 -- moves from Yorke's rumbling baritone to a bridge section that sees his voice slowly moving up the scale until the song's riveting climax, the distorted bass, pummelling drums, synth pads and guitar complementing his astounding vocal performance. It ends in musical catharsis, fitting for a tragedy.
9. "Pyramid Song"
One of the more touching, conventionally "emotional" tracks to come out of the Kid A/Amnesiac sessions, "Pyramid Song" was Radiohead's first official single since OK Computer (Radiohead didn't release any from Kid A). The piano-led song always felt homeless: it was one of the handful of tracks performed before Kid A but not released on it; it was oddly placed on Amnesiac; and the unconventional time signature produced a feeling of dislocation and uprootedness. But the song is undeniable, about as rapturous as Radiohead has ever been.
10. "Treefingers"
The media's insistence that Kid A lacked guitar was always overstated, but it was certainly a surprise to discover that even "Treefingers," the notorious ambient instrumental placed midway through the album, was crafted by Yorke running Ed O'Brien's guitar loops through his sampler. While those weaned on alternative rock had troubles processing its musical vocabulary and textural excavations, the song remains one of Radiohead's most daring tracks, emphasizing space and a physicality best felt rather than simply "heard."
11. "I Will"
One of our top personal favourites, "Like Spinning Plates," doesn't make an appearance on this list, but "I Will" -- the backwards version which laid the foundation for "Like Spinning Plates" -- is a nice compromise. The track, originally heard as a rehearsal clip during Grant Gee's Meeting People Is Easy documentary, is a short, haunting number, recorded in a stripped-down, reverb-less, harmony-driven version on Hail to the Thief. The live version is by all accounts superior (even the extended Hail to the Thief version is better), but no matter what form it takes, the song shows Yorke's incredible mastery of harmony and melody, especially when in the minor register.
12. "Talk Show Host"
Another track related to the 1996 Romeo + Juliet remake, but also released as a B-side on the "Street Spirit" single, "Talk Show Host" has long been a fan favourite, even before OK Computer dropped in 1997. The song is 20 years old, but it’s impossible combination of sparse guitar, crawling basslines, and programmed-sounding beats sounds so ahead of its time that it'd fit right in on 2011's "The King of Limbs."
13. "Bloom"
Radiohead have a knack for choosing first songs to start their albums, from "You" and "Planet Telex" to "Airbag" and "Everything In Its Right Place." But "Bloom," with its hypnotic textures, complex patterns and unexpected flugelhorn, set a tone for The King of Limbs that the rest of the album never quite matched. And as brilliant as it all sounded, it was Colin Greenwood's exceptional bassline that made the track truly stand out, placing it alongside "Airbag," "Talk Show Host" and "The Amazing Sounds of Orgy" (among many others) as his shining moments.
14. "Pearly*"
Another incredible B-side among many, "Pearly*" originally appeared on Radiohead's "Airbag" EP, but gained its reputation for its blazing live rendition, which was much more propulsive, energetic, and uninhibited, pushing their rock aesthetic to its most destructive and extreme end. It’s since been included on the OKNOTOK 20 year anniversary reissue of OK Computer, released in 2017. The song's fiery conclusion is preceded by the sole moment of reprieve: a falsetto Yorke over distorted arpeggios, a cleansing after the nasty dissonance and sexual lyrics.
15. "How to Disappear Completely"
"How to Disappear Completely," perhaps the most accessible song on Kid A, has huge significance for the band. For Yorke, it was deeply personal, the lyrics derived in part from advice that R.E.M.'s Michael Stipe gave him during the OK Computer tour to cope with the stress of fame and the drudgery of touring ("I'm not here / This isn't happening"). For Jonny Greenwood, the song's string arrangements helped set off his career in composition, leading to high-profile soundtrack work for directors like Lynne Ramsay and Paul Thomas Anderson. Did I mention how stunning the song is?
16. "Street Spirit (Fade Out)"
Oppressively somber yet downright gorgeous, "Street Spirit" capped off the unexpected curveball that was The Bends with undeniable grace. Here, Radiohead's artistry couldn't be questioned anymore, the band's commitment to pushing rock into new areas and us into new ways of feeling made readily apparent. It was this song that helped wipe the slate clean, so to speak, before the mammoth OK Computer changed everything for the band and modern rock music.
17. "Kid A"
Like "The Tourist," "Kid A" isn't an immediate fan favourite, but it was the first track we heard that most clearly demarcated a turning point in Radiohead's use of vocals. If one of Yorke's goals was to destroy his voice/persona after OK Computer, then "Kid A" was a perfect example. For this song, Yorke read random lyrics drawn from a hat and ran it through the Ondes Martenot (an electronic instrument from 1928 that precedes the synthesizer) while Jonny Greenwood improvised its melody. It was a true musical experiment, and it resulted in one of the most unique songs in their discography. Even John Mayer does a solid cover of it -- think about that for a second.
18. "Nude"
"Nude" was first heard during the tail end of Radiohead's OK Computer tour and, like with "I Will," widely so when it appeared in expanded form at the end of the film Meeting People Is Easy. That epic, organ-laden (and better) version was transformed 10 years later into the dub-inflected, groove-oriented wonder that appears on 2007's In Rainbows. Similar again to "I Will" and other minor-key tracks of that era -- "Exit Music," "Bishop's Robes," "Lucky" -- the draw here is Yorke's impeccable grasp of harmony.
19. "Paranoid Android"
Nothing about "Paranoid Android" -- the first single off OK Computer -- makes sense: The chords don't go together. The sections feel jumbled. There's no clear narrative. The melodies are too strange. The choir sounds cut off. The song's too long! But these are also reasons why it's one of Radiohead's best songs. "Paranoid Android" was their first truly original artistic statement, an overt shock to the MTV generation, a towering pop mutation that was and continues to be its own singular beast, sounding like nothing else before or after it.
20. "Idioteque"
Radiohead somehow turned a short sample of experimental computer music by composer Paul Lansky into the best song of their career. The track, carried by a violent, blown-out electronic beat, evoked an imagined apocalypse through images of climate change and capitalist exploitation. Yorke not only embodies the fear and disgust and greed and confusion of such a future, but also blending into the noise himself, unceremoniously looped, cut off and failing to properly communicate. With "Idioteque," Radiohead were showing, not telling, and it resulted in one of the most urgent, defining songs of the millennium.
