In fact, Yorke, Greenwood, and Selway, along with guitarist Ed O’Brien and Greenwood’s brother Colin on bass, have been doing some variation of this since attending school together in the mid-’80s.īut on A Moon Shaped Pool, that sense of the half-understood sublime, conveyed most powerfully through Yorke’s fragile upper register and foreboding keys, remained undimmed. Radiohead’s ascent from the relatively inauspicious college-rock poses of their major-label debut, 1993’s Pablo Honey, to the swelling grandeur of 1995’s The Bends, and on through the textural subtlety of 1997 masterpiece OK Computer has been well documented by a rapturous music press. But then again, almost as much has been said about 2000’s electronics-embracing Kid A, its 2001 kindred spirit Amnesiac, and 2003’s Bush-baiting consolidation move Hail to the Thief. Plus, for all the business-model significance of the surprise, pay-what-you-want approach to 2007’s In Rainbows, the music itself was as direct, euphoric, and meticulous as any in Radiohead’s catalogue. It’s hard to argue that that even the slinky, in-the-moment grooves of The King of Limbs have been underpraised. What was most impressive, then, about A Moon Shaped Pool was that despite having such a full, respected body of work, Radiohead clearly continued to hone their craft. Now, more than twenty-five years after its debut album, the band is being inducted to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, whether it likes it or not - so what better time to take stock of the group’s entire catalog? Radiohead’s dependably strong material makes for an exceptionally tough discography to rank. They’ve also been unusually prolific, with more songs than Vulture ranked by Billy Joel and more than twice as many as Led Zeppelin. A reputation for albums, not singles, means some Radiohead songs work crucially in context but don’t reward à la carte listening - what to do with those? (If “Treefingers” plays and Kid A isn’t around, does it make a sound?) What’s more, Radiohead has also made a name for itself as an act with some pretty great B-sides, so those have to be included, no matter if the band’s recent streaming change has made them a little harder to find.īut a line has to be drawn somewhere: no side projects, solo releases, or remixes, and no songs the band has performed live but not put on a proper record (including “Spooks,” a 2006 instrumental that found its way, in non-Radiohead form, onto the Inherent Vice soundtrack). “Pop Is Dead,” Pablo Honey (Collector’s Edition) So as Radiohead themselves once put it: I might be wrong.Īs they also put it: How can you be sure?ġ58.įinally, when a band’s allure is partly the type of enigmatic elegance that earned Yorke his millions, it’s only natural that people will disagree. “Nothing Touches Me,” Pablo Honey (Collector’s Edition) Thom Yorke said he wrote this 1993 non-album single - the band’s third, issued before the re-release and eventual climb of “Creep” - “as a kind of epitaph to 1992.” That’s probably a fine place to leave it.ġ57. This spot would’ve been taken by another pre- Pablo Honey B-side, the psych-pop trifle “Philippa’s Chicken” - both from the days when Radiohead were called On a Friday - if a BBC Radio 1 Evening Session of that one had appeared on the 2009 expanded version of Pablo Honey. Yorke reportedly said in the group’s first interview it’s “based on an artist who was imprisoned for abusing children and spent the rest of his life in a cell, painting. But the song is about isolating yourself so much that one day you realize you haven’t got any friends.” Whatever the inspiration, the song falls below the band’s later standards. Pablo Honey has a deserved reputation for being of its time. The punk-posing sneer - Yorke hadn’t figured out his voice just yet - and preachy lyrics about a “dangerous bigot, but we always forget” keep this toward the bottom of the pile. “Faithless the Wonder Boy,” Pablo Honey (Collector’s Edition) Points for the cacophonic ending, though.ġ55.
“Inside My Head,” Pablo Honey (Collector’s Edition) Is the “can’t put the needle in” repetition on the fuzzed-out chorus a reference to heroin? The band demurs, and this jangling soft-loud stomper, the B-side to second single “Anyone Can Play Guitar,” doesn’t really warrant any parents worrying.ġ54.
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