Ranking the Radiohead Albums

 

 

In late 1992 a mostly unknown British band, a quintet of lads who had all met in Abingdon boarding school in Oxfordshire... were in a recording studio working on their debut record.

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They'd formed as a band several years earlier as schoolmates, the younger brother of the bassist being the final member to join on lead guitar. The commitments of university put musical ambitions on a back burner for a time, but all five of them still kept in touch and rehearsed together on steady occasion. 

Eventually, 1991 to be precise, they regrouped full-time and built up some demo recordings that attracted some attention. Within that same year and less than a dozen actual gigs under their belt, EMI had signed them to a six record deal (more on that later) with the expectation of a debut record forthcoming. The only stipulation: change the name of the band. They'd been known as On A Friday, a reference back to the ideal weekday in boarding school they'd claim an empty classroom and play. As the story goes, they pivoted to "Radiohead", it being the name of a Talking Heads song on the Head's later album True Stories. 

Their first EP, Drill, didn't land with much success. A full length release was next on the table, and in an attempt to appeal to the emerging American alternative rock market... a pair of American producers in Paul Kolderie and Sean Slade (who had worked with Pixies and Dinosaur Jr) came onboard.  

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Bringing things back to a recording session in late 1992. 

It hadn't been a particularly fruitful session, but Radiohead's lead singer-songwriter Thom Yorke had a song he'd written back when he was in university, proposing they throw it at the wall and see... so the band tried it out. After the second take, the producer Paul Kolderie called the record company to say these fellas had their first single. 

The song was "Creep" and to this day is still Radiohead's most successful single, and still their most famous song quite easily. The music video has over a billion (with a "b") plays on YouTube. 

The band quickly grew extremely sick of playing it live by the mid 90s... stopped performing it entirely for over a decade until sprinkling it in their live sets sporadically (only if it "feels right") in their more recent 2010s tours. "Creep" is one of those tunes that even if you've heard it too much... objectively it's still a darn good song. Way more fun to play on guitar or bass than to listen to (very easy to play) which arguably speaks to its lasting power. Personally as a musician myself who has played many covers, I'd much rather play "Creep" than "Wonderwall" and it's not even close.

From the point of "Creep" onward, they've been at times the biggest rock band in the world... sort of whenever they feel like it. A group notorious for alienating rock fans, but only via taking unexpected musical directions and incorporating experimental electronic work (unlike the excess of late 1990s Oasis). 

They're also known for making headlines with innovative methods of releasing music... and utilizing the internet to maintain a blog (Dead Air Space) for interacting with fans several years before that was a common thing... all while aggressively downplaying the mystique and "larger than life" aspect of being recognizable musical stars in the public eye. Radiohead are just musicians, not heroes... although they certainly have directed their fame and successes towards admirable causes.

Regardless, let us (in the spirit of the band) not play up Radiohead's mythology and instead approach each of these albums individually on their own musical merits, while also how each one fits within the progression of the band's sound. 

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Personally, I've struggled writing this review for so long because there are so many angles you can approach Radiohead from. A friend of mine insists they're better than the Beatles. The freaking Beatles! Not sure I'm all the way there... from a modern perspective I can see the argument... but these are such different eras and very different bands that a comparison isn't entirely fair. And yet... imagine a band as objectively as proficient on their instruments as the Beatles, but so intent upon avoiding the public eye that their exceptional skill isn't perhaps discussed in the same way. I can hear my dad already groaning in protest (hello!) yet I think the comparison in pure objective musical sense is right there.  

I really wanted to approach the Radiohead catalogue with as sharp a technical eye as I could... a task which proved unbearably daunting. People much smarter and more in tune (see what I did there) with music theory than I... could, and indeed have, written books about this band's particular Xs and Os brilliance. Instead, I'll focus on what stands out to me as far as melody, atmosphere and particular sounds, while hopefully still providing some decent insight. All right, lets get started before the wolf at the door gets here.

Also, we are not counting the three The Smile albums in here. Two are fabulous records (especially Wall Of Eyes) that would probably land somewhere in the middle of the list. As would Thom Yorke's incredible The Eraser (I haven't listened to really any of the other solo records by Yorke or the other members).  

(All images courtesy of the Radiohead Public Library... something very cool that if you're reading this article, you should check out)  

 

#9. Pablo Honey (February 1993)

**1/2

 

 

It may be the absolute easiest choice in the history of discography rankings to place Radiohead's debut album at the bottom, even if one of YouTube's most famous music reviewers disagrees.

Frankly, Pablo Honey isn't bad, and it gets somewhat unfairly maligned in comparison to what they'd become... but Honey is like listening to a completely different band. A less attractive duckling in sound and songcraft to what they'd soon achieve. 

In a way it's a cute introduction: not fitting in with their general tone or attitude at all... just existing on its own strange singular street with the catalogue. An easy record to groan at but honestly it's just a very okay but forgettable outing within that era of early/mid 90s alternative distorted guitar rock. What makes it so weird are how few clues there are that this band is about to quickly become what they would indeed become within just four years. 

The biggest weakness is indeed its datedness. Yorke's lyrics are almost lovey-dovey and far less minimalist, abstract or bleak than what he'd later be known for. Lots of Pablo Honey is filled with love laments (even "Creep" in its dark twisted way fits this description). The guitars are noisy and layered heavily through the mix, often existing merely for heavy texture rather than interesting interplay or adding anything meaningful, and there aren't any additional little touches (Nigel Godrich had yet to appear on the scene) that make the production really pop. The tone of the album really just blurs together. Also, there's an awkward sunniness to many of these songs, another thing Godrich would help buff right out of them. 

Some people say this is Radiohead trying to be U2 (and for one song that is extremely on point) but to my ears there are elements of multiple influences like Sonic Youth, Pixies, The Smiths, even early Oasis at points (one figures that's more a 'British rock of the time thing' than a direct influence since Definitely Maybe actually came out a year later).

As an album, it isn't a cohesive listen. Plenty of very forgettable songs.... though there are some terrific moments. "I Can't" is such an opening theme to a 90s sitcom that I can't believe that wasn't a thing. The album closer "Blow Out" is by far the best song on the record, with it's tense reverb guitar buildup and freakout, while "Prove Yourself" is fairly catchy in a singalong way. 

But I'm not a fan of "Stop Whispering" at all... that chorus kinda sucks, and so much else of the record blends together in such an unengaging way that I still get some of these deeper cuts confused with one another. As an album it's far more interesting as an artifact than as music.  

 

 

#8. The King of Limbs (February 2011)

***1/2

 

 

Now the task gets hard. Surely I'm gonna get some hate for putting this one adjacent to the bottom.

My issue has always been how King of Limbs really just plays and flows together like a soundtrack instead of an album. Cool, I guess... but the tone of the music never totally captures my attention or my imagination. Excellent background music for sure, but little of it truly captivates. 

The Live From The Basement sessions of these songs are indeed so, so much better: sounding fuller and more realized, tighter and punchier in their strikes and less like vague atmosphere. If that were actually the studio record instead, this would easily be a couple slots higher on the list. 

There aren't really any "bad" songs here... I don't hate this album, honestly. Alas something has to be the second worst Radiohead album on my list and so here we are. It has its moments: "Codex" is excellent in its haunting simplicity, "Give Up The Ghost" is softly sweet and totally Thom Yorke unleashing his inner Neil Young, "Little By Little" seems to constantly descend further down some haunted rabbit hole and "Seperator" is a decent closer with a weird groove that takes some time to grow on you (at least, it did for me). 

This record is very much a transition into modern Radiohead in that they're not trying to reinvent themselves or their sound quite so much anymore, settling into a comfort zone of stark well crafted art rock. To steal a line from a drummer friend of mine: King of Limbs feels more like an EP than a full length record (and is in fact handily the shortest running time among Radiohead's full length releases).

 

 

#7. Amnesiac (June 2001)

***1/2

 

 

A difficult, uneven album to discuss. Even though these songs were recorded at the same time as Kid A, the band's turbulent internal relations at the time led to the decision to split them into two separate records. It appears a smart move in retrospect, and the lads have gone on to claim the two projects are too distinctly different to have been grafted together. 

I tend to agree. The criticism against Amnesiac has always been how it plays like a bunch of Kid A B-sides... but have you ever listened to Radiohead's B-Sides? Some of them are among their very greatest songs and it's wild so many still never appear on a full length record outside of various anniversary editions and compilations.

Amnesiac is the more experimental record than Kid A (if you can believe it) and as a result is the more disjointed and inconsistent one. Some of the best songs they ever recorded (the chillingly gorgeous "Pyramid Song", the sublime melodies of "Knives Out" and "I Might Be Wrong") are here, as are interesting tunes with far superior live versions, like the distinctive bassline of "Dollars and Cents" or "Like Spinning Plates" (if you've never heard the live version with just Yorke on the piano... hoo boy is it otherworldly). 

For the most part the weirdness and often minimal conceptions do succeed. This album is full of heavy vocal effects, backwards mixing, bizarre time signatures, avant-garde instrumentals and a freaking bizarre jazzy finale (that I'm not a huge fan of). A lot of Amnesiac is truly exceptional, but it's also a very difficult album to listen to start to finish... there are so many twists and turns in tone and direction (unlike it's sibling album which holds together brilliantly). Amnesiac is so claustrophobic with all these sounds seemingly compressing all around and squeezing you in with them. Not ideal for a Radiohead first date.

The sheer randomness of the experiments are its biggest weakness, as the second half of the record starts veering completely into total themelessness. Their later (and stronger) albums do have tons of variations musically and lyrically, but aren't nearly as chaotic or unpredictable. Amnesiac is still a very fine effort though, even if this version of "Morning Bell" ain't great and songs like "Pulk/Pull" never really go anywhere beyond glitchy sounds. 

 

 

#6. The Bends (February 1995)

****

 

 

My very favourite Radiohead album for a considerable time (at least until I was finishing up high school). Like Pablo Honey it suffers by how rooted in 1990s alternative rock it is and these are pretty straight-forward songs (I can play a bunch of them for crying out loud). Still though for what it is, it's pretty damn good and truly Radiohead's first leap forward.

It's a great record for guitar, both electric and acoustic. Thom Yorke is beginning to get very introspective with his lyrics ("Where do we go from here/the words are coming out all weird") while Jonny Greenwood and Ed O'Brien (and Yorke) are building their own combined distinctive triple guitar attack instead of mimicking other bands. Likewise drummer Phil Selway is more of a presence as is bassist Colin Greenwood (truly the two overlooked, forgotten heroes of Radiohead). 

Criticisms of The Bends are that it's merely Pablo Honey only better... I wholeheartedly disagree because the improvement in the songwriting is enormous. Not to mention the diversity throughout this record (even though it is guitar heavy)... I mean there's no way a song so precisely gentle like "Bulletproof... I Wish I Was" or the strangely poppy "High and Dry" could ever exist in this delicate form during the Pablo Honey era of the band. 

I don't have a lot of negatives with this one (a theme which will continue as we progress) beyond how a few songs don't quite land for me as well as others. If you cut a song or two ("Nice Dream" is the casualty in my opinion) you'd have a very tight, very damn good 90s rock record. Ah, it's already that regardless. 

"Planet Telex" is just a perfect opener, with that delayed guitar chord slowly drawing you in until the big riff announces the band with authority. "Bones" is a personal favourite deep cut with some great electric thrash, "Fake Plastic Trees" really shows how they were already bringing considerable depth to their sound and "Black Star" uses the quiet-loud dynamic fabulously. And you've still got "Sulk", "Street Spirit", the title track, "Just" with it's incredible music video. Listening to this record is much like revisiting a photo album from a younger, simpler time.

 

#5. A Moon Shaped Pool (May 2016)

****1/2

 

 

An album that takes some time and repeat listens to reveal its intentions and secrets, and as such seems to have aged extremely well critically. The initial listen and impression is likely "that was weird, unsettling but good? I think?" and then the brilliance of it slowly trickles out upon each revisit. 

It starts with a misleading energetic bang, with the urgent strings of "Burn The Witch" feeling indeed like a "full blown panic attack". Very little of the rest of Moon Shaped Pool carries the jitteriness of that opening track. If anything, it's a sleepy nighttime record... something you listen to while sitting in a chair by a fireplace while contemplating the past moments of your life. So many of these songs are understated, subtle songs with lush instrumentation, especially in the back half. 

"Daydreaming" is somber, self-introspective Radiohead at their very best... taking you along for a journey that may not go anywhere but still means something to you (like a daydream), with Yorke hitting the vocal notes with precision overtop the delicate piano chords. You get plenty of those classic claustrophobic later career Radiohead moments as well, like the cramped buildup of "Ful Stop" or this version of "True Love Waits" (originally appearing fifteen years earlier on the I Might Be Wrong live album) that closes the record. Both versions are haunting in such different ways, with younger Yorke singing it with vain hopefulness while on Moon Shaped Pool there's a matured, bleaker resignation or acceptance to his tone.

Despite all that, this record provides some lighter moments, at least musically (Thom Yorke's lyrics are rarely ever smiles and sunshine). "Decks Dark" is a slow lightly groovy tale about a possible close encounter, "Desert Island Disk" and "The Numbers" are just lovely acoustic guitar driven tunes, with the former describing a kind of spiritual self-discovery (maybe) while the latter is a borderline protest song.         

A terrific record, and as I said one that you really have to listen to a few times to get acclimated with. This is a band that has thrown so many curveballs and wrenches into expectations, that I think here is one time where they played it relatively straight and subtle, much to the surprise of people at the time. 

Regardless, A Moon Shaped Pool seems to find the group settling into a comfortable middle age where they don't feel like they have to reinvent the wheel anymore. Whether this ends up being their last ever full release of new material (it's been almost nine years now, all five of them have solo records while Yorke and Jonny Greenwood seem content to explore their musical directions with The Smile stuff)... this would be an absolutely great final chapter* for such an incredible band.

 

*But lets hope not

  

 

 

#4. Hail To The Thief (June 2003)

****1/2

 

 

 

This is where my list gets a little weird, as I suspect I'm in the minority among fans putting this ahead of A Moon Shaped Pool. The crazier thing is, I so want to put this even higher.

 

By far the most overtly political Radiohead ever got. Outside of music they are very outspoken about a multitude of issues, but almost never this much on record. They don't waste any time either nor do they hold back on the opening track "2+2=5" and what a goddamn killer opener that is. 

Much like the record just below it on this ranking, that opening track is very misleading for the type of record you're about to experience. Sure, there are far more actual guitars and drums on here than the previous two records (something which at the time made many of us very excited... they're playing electric guitars again!) but make no mistake Hail to The Thief is loaded with lots of electronic elements. Which actually are probably the weaker moments of the album, looking back. Songs like "Backdrifts", "The Gloaming" (initially the planned name for the album) and "Sit Down, Stand Up" work fine as sonic experiments but not as well as actual songs. 

Hail To The Thief also suffers by how long the tracklist is. Fourteen songs? I love love this album but you could cut about three and it would be tight and perfect. Even so, within their catalogue I think it's become a forgotten masterpiece because... yikes. Some of these songs are just unbelievable. "Go To Sleep" with it's slick tempo change halfway in... the incredible "There There" playing like a slow building nightmare... "Punchup At A Wedding" is the best elevator music imaginable, the closest the band ever got to being funky... "Where I End And You Begin" is one of my favourite basslines of all freaking time, the whole song coming at you like a haunted train. Even the slower numbers are great: "Sail To The Moon" with its anxious piano lullaby quality, "I Will" playing like a dirge... I haven't even mentioned the closing "Wolf At The Door" where Yorke goes into beat poetry mode and pulls it off (of course he does).  

Within the context of the band's history, Hail To The Thief acts like a bridge, a merging between the electronic driven stuff and their rockier roots. They're playing electric guitars again! But the general feeling of this album is very moody and dark: programmed drum beats and tight, fast sounds are all over the place here. This also suggests where they were about to go with the next album: generally quieter songcraft with the electric guitars, synth atmospheres and computer sounds used as more supporting elements than a main feature.   

I admit, this can be a difficult front to back play. Thief goes in so many dark, abrasive directions that it can be a bit too much at times. And yet... it's so damn good. Listening to this album is like wandering through a dark haunted forest: you'll be okay, probably, but also seriously don't lose yourself along the way. 

After Kid A and Amnesiac were unfairly maligned by many at the time, Radiohead could've easily said "screw it" and recorded a commercial radio-friendly rock record to appease the masses and return to their good graces. Say what you will about the lads, chasing trends over artistic integrity has never been any kind of problem. Hail To The Thief indeed holds up over twenty years later as a weird, beautifully spooky record and it's reservation in my heart is untouchable. Probably the first album of theirs I recall listening to a bunch at the time it was released. 

 

#3. OK Computer (May 1997)

*****

 

 

 

Arguably the best album of the 90s. Arguably. Don't think I quite agree but it's in that discussion no question. 

It's also the best album of all time according to webzone Rate Your Music (edit: it and Kendrick Lamar's To Pimp A Butterfly seem to alternate between the top two spots).

I definitely don't agree with that either, but also... geez man... what an incredible record. Simultaneously a perfect artifact of the zeitgeist of the late 1990s while all of its general themes have aged exceptionally well. In many ways this is Radiohead's Dark Side of The Moon: it's the one everybody knows and is thematically their most relatable record. 

I'll get my criticisms of OK Computer out of the way quickly. First off it really sounds like 1997, that particular and precise feeling of paranoia of that inbetween age just before the internet was about to transform our very society... which again also works in the album's favour as a document of living in those very times. Perhaps it's because so much of Radiohead's absolute best work has such a timeless quality to it, this record being arguably tethered to a specific era (even if its ideas are just as relevant today) is a slight point against it from a purely musical standpoint. The concepts have aged extremely well, but the music itself still sounds like 1997 to me (and for the record I was ten in 1997, I do remember these songs when they came out). 

Second, I just don't like "Let Down" at all. One of my least favourite Radiohead songs and nobody has ever agreed with me on this. Nobody. That chorus is kinda lame! Why isn't anyone with me here? My musician friends have ridiculed me for many years now about my feelings on this. I don't get it!  

That's all I've got to say about the bad stuff. The rest? Good lord. The Bends was a serious leap forward, a British guitar band does good and scores a few hits. OK Computer? Like jumping over Mount Everest. This album is the one that made them the biggest rock band in the world, the new saviors of the genre. Of course, as we know now, Radiohead had no real desire for such things (and have publicly disavowed against the very notion of musical deities).  

This is the first time Nigel Godrich shows up full time as a producer (he'd helped a little on The Bends) and a lot of the changes in atmosphere and diverse sounds surely has to be attributed to him considerably. Godrich seems unafraid to push an artist in a direction (the man eventually worked with and challenged Paul McCartney... Paul f***ing McCartney) and it's clear he has an ability to nudge Radiohead into different sonic directions. One of OK Computer's greatest strengths is how distinctive each song is from the other, yet they all fit together within a tight musical context. The wild jangling guitars of "Electioneering" somehow makes perfect sense next to a brooding downer like "Climbing Up The Walls" or following the almost un-musical "Fitter Happier".       

A lot of OK Computer is also Yorke finding his voice and really coming into his own as a singer. On Honey he was a dude who can wail some angst... The Bends hints at his range between haunting howl and restrained restlessness... but on OK Computer he just does whatever he wants. Subdued? Passionate scream? Anything. He's an absurdly talented singer with a gorgeous voice, a fact he laments ("I wish my voice wasn't so damn pretty" he has joked) but it works perfectly within the context of these incredible songs. It brings such a crucial raw human element to them, flaws and all.

It's a nearly perfect album, if such a thing can exist, and with any of these top three on my rankings here I can't really debate the merits if you prefer either of my runner ups. I have Computer as a bronze medal more for personal taste than anything, even though a bunch of my favourite Radiohead songs are on here. "Karma Police" is freaking Karma Police, no more needs to be said... "Subterranean Homesick Alien" is marvelously spacey (that delayed guitar man) and also one of their best ever song titles... but "The Tourist" might be one of the best songs to close any record ever. For a time I always thought it was a lighter song to ease things after the tension of "Lucky"... whoops! I also thought it was about a nightmarish time Thom Yorke (who notoriously detests cars, I feel ya man) had in a France taxi that was going too fast, which may not be entirely accurate either. I got the France part right, but it was actually Jonny Greenwood who conceived most of it and the lyrics appear to have been inspired by watching tourists zip through a busy French square without slowing down to appreciate the beauty (life perhaps) of what is around them.

Some argue OK Computer is a concept album, which I somewhat disagree with. It certainly has concepts that have aged extremely well, which has given the record a certain revered prescience now nearly three decades since its release. On those merits in a vacuum, it is their best album. Musically however, I just prefer the next two a little more. But I do think there is no argument OK Computer is their most important record. Not just for their own reputation, but this is the moment they really become what they've been ever since... whatever it is you want to call that, which is kind of the point.            

   

 

#2. Kid A (October 2000)

*****

 

 

First things first, we have to get one of the most notorious written music reviews out of the way...

OK Computer made Radiohead the biggest rock band in the world. Kurt Cobain had been gone for three years... Oasis was already falling apart from drugs, creative excess and the Gallagher brothers being the Gallagher brothers... Blur was never really a contender aside from a few popular singles and the garage rock revival led by bands like the The Strokes, The White Stripes or The Hives was still half a decade away. Radiohead could've kept churning out guitar-heavy rock hits like "Paranoid Android", or "Airbag", or "Lucky" and kept the crown indefinitely. Fans and critics alike would've most likely adored it.

The massive success of OK Computer burned out the band both musically and creatively, and now with such a spotlight under them there was severe difficulty and pressure in deciding where to go next. Internal pressure within the group to continue with the guitar-centric melodies conflicted with Thom Yorke's writer's block and severe distaste for bands now imitating their sound, feeling they'd sold out "to the highest bidder". 

Finding guitar a creative dead-end, Yorke embraced electronic music (Aphex Twin the most famous example) and the concept of his voice as just another instrument rather than leading. Rather than focusing on melodies... mere textures, moods and sounds were the goal as he learned on the fly (having little knowledge of electronic instruments beforehand, he claims). This wasn't easy for the band either, their typical creative process having been completely shaken up and with several of the new songs not even requiring traditional rock instruments. There was severe tension among the other members questioning what purpose they would have within this new direction ("awful art-rock nonsense for its own sake" feared Jonny Greenwood). 

Many of the initial sessions yielded nothing of consequence and the band nearly broke up multiple times, thinking if they couldn't reach an album worth releasing that this was curtains. Producer Nigel Godrich, though confused by Yorke's obsessed desire to pivot musical directions, managed to help keep the group together with some creative exercises and eventually the potential of electronic instruments won over the rest of the band. A bunch of songs were recorded, so many that they weren't even sure how to release the record (eventually they were split up, the leftovers of course becoming Amnesiac).

The initial critical reaction to Kid A was one of serious confusion, the record being so uncommercial without any obvious singles (the band did little work to promote it either) that many wondered if they were trying to deliberately alienate their fanbase. Weren't these guys the next great rock band? What's with all the synthesizers, jazzy horns and electronic drum machine shit?   

Like almost everyone, I didn't get it at first. However in my defense, I'd just turned thirteen when Kid A was released and probably listening to a lot of AC/DC or Elvis Costello at the time. (I was a weird kid)

I never dismissed or hated Kid A, even as a 13 year old. In my adolescence I thought it was really strange music but bizarrely interesting at some points. The fuzzy bass hook of "National Anthem", the irresistible guitar attack of "Optimistic", the hypnotic robotic keyboard opening of "Everything In It's Right Place"... little shavings of melody in an intentionally unmelodic album. Now as I've gotten older, have gathered more experience and appreciation of music... this album consistently leaves me in awe how deep, expansive, beautiful and fearless it is.

 

It seems silly now, since time has allowed Kid A to be rightly regarded as a masterpiece. I don't think it took all that long for that to happen... like a lot of people needed the shock to wear off before patiently realizing how brilliant this all actually was. 

Picking out which I think are the outstanding cuts (it's "In Limbo" by the way) isn't the most productive way to approach this album. It's a piece of music mostly lacking in hooks or songs you can even really sing along to ("Optimistic" comes the closest), yet is so intensely memorable by its shifts in mood, tempo, atmosphere and sound. Even the lyrics don't matter, not really: Yorke used a technique (inspired by David Byrne) of picking out random phrases and throwing them together. 

What is that sound, that feel of this album exactly? I don't know... haunting, internal, confined, expansive, hollow, simple, futuristic, technological, melancholy, cold, desperate, harrowing, soft, distant, intimate, hopeful, defeated... it can be anything you hear and or feel it to be. Sometimes the best art is completely open to your own interpretation, whatever you want or need it to be. That's Kid A. Beyond it's objective musical qualities and influences, it's nearly impossible to describe what it is beyond what you actually are hearing. A frightening descent into a cold dystopian wasteland or whimsical detour through a computerized world, maybe something else entirely. You choose. It's a record that simply transcends any regular notion of popular music and still to this day sounds like something that landed from another distant world. 

   

 

#1. In Rainbows (October 2007)

*****

 

 

One of those rare albums I remember exactly where I was when I first listened to it and within five seconds knew: "holy shit this is gonna be really good".

There's of course the notoriety of Radiohead releasing this record at the time as a "pay what you want" type of digital purchase, which was very novel and unheard of back in the days of 2007. Keep in mind, this is way before music streaming platforms... YouTube was still in its infancy (and nobody was uploading songs on there) and even smart phones were a generally new kind of technology. If you wanted music on the go, it was still Discmans and physical CDs or iPods with digital files uploaded from your computer. 

It's not exactly like releasing the album in this way had been planned all along... more like the timing of things aligned rather perfectly for it to happen. Radiohead had fulfilled their six record contractual commitment to EMI after releasing Hail To The Thief and weren't particularly interested in reupping, despite the record company's obvious desire to keep them in the fold. As such, they recorded In Rainbows as an unsigned band and when the time came to figure out how to release the thing, the idea (possibly from one of the band's managers) to offer it as a digital name-your-price download caught on. 

Embracing the digital format for music certainly in hindsight appears significantly ahead of it's time (Radiohead sure seems to have a knack for such things)... although the results of it (large corporations like Apple and later Spotify taking control of the digital music market) were certainly antithetical to the greater type of creative and monetary artist control the band was ultimately hoping for. 

The criticisms of the release at the time remain true today, that such a system is great if you're an enormous famous band like Radiohead but what good does this do lesser known musicians? This is of course a whole other huge discussion and we do need to dive into the music itself, but this manner of how it was released (the first ever major artist to do it this way) is a significant part of the record's legacy.          

 

In Rainbows might be a predictable choice to top the list mostly because it is the most accessible Radiohead album (as accessible as Radiohead can be, obviously). There's an odd warmness to the record, an uneasy undercurrent of peacefulness beneath the usual panic and sense of dread. Not sure how deliberate any of this was: it took them a year of touring to hammer out the songs (they nearly broke up again trying to make the record) and "Nude" was a song they'd been performing live since the OK Computer days.        

It does play like Radiohead stripped down: you don't get the big abstract concepts or soundscapes of Kid A, the programmed glitchiness of Hail To The Thief, the ferocious electric guitars of The Bends, the zeitgeist songwriting of OK Computer or the orchestral layers of A Moon Shaped Pool. Yet, In Rainbows features moments of all of those elements while also being so distinctly its own thing. A precise encapsulation of their many musical directions (thus making it such an essential album in their catalogue) that becomes something entirely different in the process. 

For one, has the band ever sounded this groovy? Songs like "15 Step", "Weird Fishes", "Jigsaw Falling Into Place" all have some serious pep to them, while "All I Need" and "House of Cards" are themselves bringing a more mellow type of groove. If like me, you consider Radiohead's rhythm section considerably underrated... this is the record for you because Colin Greenwood and Phil Selway are in top notch form. The bass sounds so big and smooth, while Selway's drum grooves give either the urgency or perfect light touch each song needs. Meanwhile Ed O'Brien, who I've barely mentioned (a running joke among Radiohead fans it seems) provides just incredible backing vocals and additional guitar throughout the entire record. In Rainbows really does seem like the best record for all five members to fully shine and have their moments.   

The sequencing and flow of the album must also be commended. How many bands can go from the sneering electric guitar freakout of "Bodysnatchers" into the beautifully gentle "Nude" and then into the trippy deep ocean dive of "Weird Fishes" and have it seem so natural? "Faust Arp" is easily the weakest track here, and even it serves as a perfect interlude into the second half of the record. A brief little intermission tune, catch your breath for a moment. 

It's not like Thom Yorke is singing about flowers and sunny days (don't think he's capable of that to be honest) but the sound of this album is so lovely even as it descends into its darker places, and his lyrics on here are much less cryptic and more emotional. "I'm an animal/trapped in your hot car" is a hell of a lyric for a love song, while the closing "Videotape" combines a grim final farewell with a touching memento. It is a notable shift in songwriting for Yorke: mostly gone is the venom or sneering disillusionment, a world weary but open-eyed acceptance underscoring his words instead (though still with a love for abstract phrasing).   

The record is nearly perfect, offering up a vast array of studio brilliance, crystal clean production, memorable songs and immersive moments. My only minor slight against In Rainbows... is that "Jigsaw Falling Into Place" really sounds like the lads doing a Broken Social Scene song. I've thought this for seventeen years, damnit! Maybe it's just me (a true BSS song would have horns and much hornier Kevin Drew lyrics) but it does stand out since later career Radiohead just never sounds this much like anybody else. They're always just so unmistakably themselves, whether it be with a symphony behind them or Phil Selway's crashing cymbals on the fabulous song "Reckoner".            

A simply sublime, marvelous album front to back. Considering everything about it, easily one of (maybe the) most notable musical releases of the 21st century.         

 

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We also have to mention Stanley Donwood, who is for Radiohead as Storm Thorgerson was for Pink Floyd. Yorke met Donwood in art school, later commenting "I figured I'd either end up really not liking this person at all, or working with him for the rest of my life". The latter clearly was true, as Donwood is responsible for every bit of Radiohead (and The Smile, and Yorke's solo stuff) artwork post-Pablo Honey (which non-coincidentally is also Radiohead's worst album cover). 

Radiohead album covers are indeed iconic despite also being so abstract. None of the members ever appear on a cover (unlike Floyd, who did on Piper At The Gates of Dawn and Ummagumma) and each album is so strikingly different in colour, mood, shape and idea from the next it's astonishing that they're all designed by the same guy.  

 

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I sadly have my doubts we'll ever see another Radiohead album, but anything is possible on that front I suppose. Yorke and Jonny Greenwood seem rather content flexing their songwriting muscle with The Smile (also a great band, with a much faster recording process according to Godrich who, shocker, also produced their first album) while the other lads have all released solo material as well (except Colin, who seems much more into book clubs and photography). 

If the five should ever reunite again and unleash another record for our ears... well you know it'll be with maybe four days of notice (a week, tops) and you know it'll likely be absolutely brilliant. They themselves don't like that kind of stuff, the dewy-eyed sentimental appreciation or aggrandizing of public figures... they're only a quintet of musicians from England, that's all... but when together what musicians they are. One of the very greatest bands of all time, no doubt whatsoever.   

And seriously, explore the Radiohead Public Library. It's a hoot.