Music
The story of Radiohead told through 10 essential songs
From angst-ridden pre-millennial rock to futuristic electronic experimentation, the Oxford group are less about a genre than a feeling. Let's trace their long, strange trajectory.
Radiohead’s back-catalogue is both vast and chameleonic. They’ve been soundtracking our come-downs for just over 30 years; evolving with us from hyperbolic teens into nuanced and world-weary mid-lifers. Across nine studio albums they’ve carved a space on the world music stage that’s seen them garner three Grammys, 16 Brits, countless Best Album Of All Time accolades; and all while seemingly doing everything in their powers to shake their populism.
Here we’ve worked our way through a ridiculously prolific body of work from a five-piece who formed at an old-money boys’ school in deepest Oxfordshire, to bring you our favourites. And all in the sheepish knowledge that Thom Yorke and Jonny Greenwood probably detest top 10 lists. Clueless's Cher Horowitz would call it “university station cry baby music”. We call it pure genius.
1. Creep
Creep introduced the world to Thom Yorke’s particularly endearing brand of angst. The song that he famously loves to hate came from their Pablo Honey debut and sent them hurtling into the international limelight. It was tailor-made for the marketable Gen X category, but Jonny Greenwood's pre-chorus guitar stabs, 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-centre aesthetic. Kinda adorable, really.
2. Just
Yorke and Greenwood aren’t your archetypal singalong peddlers. But in Just they created an anthem that’s been climaxing sweaty indie parties since its release in 1995. Fans are so accustomed to The Bends’ most ubiquitous track that it’s easy to miss its genius. It’s chock-full of unexpected harmonic shifts, wild dynamics and riffs; 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. Plus, that enigmatic Jamie Thraves-directed video was the talk of common rooms across the country in MTV’s glory days.
3. Street Spirit (Fade Out)
Oppressively sombre yet downright gorgeous, Street Spirit (Fade Out) capped off the unexpected curveball that was The Bends with undeniable grace. 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.
4. Paranoid Android
OK Computer – Radiohead’s third LP – is widely considered to be their coming-of-age. Like when The Beatles discovered LSD or Justin Timberlake brought Sexy Back, it was when they finally appeared to be doing exactly what they wanted and the results were thrilling. Nothing about first single Paranoid Android makes traditional pop-rock sense: the chords don't go together, the sections feel jumbled, there’s no clear narrative, the melodies are strange. But this is exactly what makes it great. Back in 1997, it came as an overt shock to the MTV generation, a towering pop mutation that was and continues to be a singular beast.
5. There There
Radiohead find 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 sixth album, 2003’s Hail To The Thief, but it features one of Yorke's best ever lines: "Just 'cause you feel it, doesn't mean it's there." A beautiful truth.
6. Idioteque
If OK Computer signalled a new dawn for the band, then follow-up Kid A was their reward for its success. Now completely freed from the shackles of major-label intervention, they could do as they creatively pleased. On Idioteque they used a sample of experimental computer music by composer Paul Lansky to evoke an imagined apocalypse through images of climate change and capitalist exploitation. Yorke blends into the noise, unceremoniously looped, cut off and failing to properly communicate. Here they were showing, not telling, and it resulted in one of the most urgent, defining songs of the millennium.
7. Pyramid Song
Pyramid Song was Radiohead's first official single since OK Computer. The piano-led 2001 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.
8. Exit Music (For a Film)
This track was originally heard during the end credits to Baz Luhrmann’s Romeo + Juliet. It not only acts as stage for Yorke’s vocal performance but as a reminder that Radiohead love film and film loves Radiohead. From Jonny Greenwood’s score for There Will Be Blood to Yorke’s recent work for Luca Guadagnino’s remake of Suspiria, Radiohead have soundtracked a lot more than our own meagre existences.
9. Lotus Flower
Before Drake, there was Thom. Whether intentional or not, the video for 2011’s Lotus Flower became an overnight viral furore on account of Yorke’s apparent discovery of the rhythm rug. Lotus Flower wasn't 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; and all on The King Of Limbs, an album with barely any of them.
10. True Love Waits
Yorke would never stoop to the banality of a break-up album. But in A Moon Shaped Pool – their ninth and most recent LP – this is what you have. And on this track – actually an oldie from the Radiohead canon – he imbues an extra layer of feeling by stripping it back to just a piano and a voice. Yorke, prone to the impenetrable lyric, looks us straight in the eyes as he sings, “I’ll drown my beliefs/Just don’t leave”.
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