at a glance...

Hometown: Oxford, England
Year Formed: 1987

Members:
Thom Yorke -vocals, guitar
Jonny Greenwood -guitars
Ed O'Brien -guitars
Colin Greenwood -bass
Phil Selway -drums

Bands In The Family:
UNKLE, Badly Drawn Boy, Unbelievable Truth, R.E.M., Björk, PJ Harvey

Notes:
On A Friday relied on hometown support of their first EP, Drill, before signing a major-label deal. Changing their name to Radiohead (from a Talking Heads song) the band released Pablo Honey in 1993, spawning the anti-hero smash, "Creep." The song became so engrained in the U.S. mainstream conscience, Radiohead were immediately written off as one-hit wonders. Their second album, the lush and complex The Bends, prevented the pundits from burying the band. While it saw brisk sales, critics raved, ranking Radiohead as one of the premiere bands in the world, a positioned solidfied by the 1997 release of OK Computer, which debuted at No. 1 in their home country's charts. A consensus best album choice by critics, OK Computer even convinced conservative NARAS members to give the band a Grammy nomination for Album of the Year, which the band snubbed by refusing to attend or perform at the ceremony. Initial plans for Massive Attack to remix the entire album fell through in deference to Massive Attack's release of Mezzanine. Instead, to satisfy fans, Radiohead released Airbag, a six-song EP featuring several B-sides from their UK singles. The band's groundbreaking music videos and tour film (available on 7 Television Commercials and Meeting People Is Easy, respectively) further displayed the band's artistic bent and desire to expand boundaries. The highly-anticipated Kid A arrived in 2000.

Links:
Radiohead Mothership
We Love Radiohead

You can almost pinpoint the moment, a few seconds into "Let Down," when reality hits you: Radiohead are a great band.

By that point they've cranked up the metallic gears of "Airbag," pinballed around the schizoid mini-opera "Paranoid Android" and staggered through two desperate, emotional ballads ("Subterranean Homesick Alien" and "Exit Music (From a Film)"). By the time "Let Down" slips into its beautiful descending melody, OK Computer has won another convert.

Could this be the same band that sneaked onto MTV with "one-hit wonder" tattooed all over their signature song, "Creep"? Well, no, it couldn't. The Bends, their excellent sophomore album, saw to that. But OK Computer is not so much a natural progression as a wild, blind leap of ambition.

First off the cliff are the Greenwood brothers and their guitars. It's clear from the impressionistic sketching on "Airbag" and "Climbing Up The Walls" that they've scrapped the rule book; the result is some consistently surprising, often dazzling guitar playing.

Their ambition is matched, if not surpassed, by Thom Yorke's dedication to the cause. Yes, he's still miserable, but here he mines his desperation with a keen eye and sharp tongue. "Lucky" is sad yet brutally sarcastic, while "Karma Police" is downright wisecracking. Yorke's aim is true, and OK Computer is a bullseye.