1 History

Radiohead first came to international attention when their single "Creep" received extensive airplay and charted in many countries. Striking a highly popular and sympathetic note of similar self-loathing among fans, "Creep" was released around the same time as other so-called " slacker" anthems such as Beck's "Loser". The band later came to hate "Creep" and, until recently, refused to play it, believing that its meaning had been misinterpreted and given too much weight by fans. The band at the height of their popularity Colin Greenwood, Phil Selway, Jonny Greenwood, Thom Yorke, Producer Nigel Godrich, Ed O'BrienRadiohead's first album, Pablo Honey ( 1993), which included "Creep", was a solid if unremarkable recording that lacks both the force and experimentation of their later work. Drawing heavily on 1960s influences as well as the then popular grunge music exemplified by groups such as Nirvana, Radiohead were considered a less than significant band. The EP My Iron Lung ( 1994) was released between the two albums, and saw the band in a transitional stage between the poppy simplicity of Pablo Honey and the musical depth of their next album The Bends. It was a significant step forward for the group with Yorke's vocal style to the fore. Tracks such as "Planet Telex", "Sreet Spirit [fade out]" and "Fake Plastic Trees" were striking, original and indicators of the group's later developments. Widely praised at the time of its release, The Bends is considered by many critics as one of the best albums of the mid- 1990s.

After a year of solid touring, the band recorded their next album, 1997's OK Computer, in a studio located in the Oxford countryside. The album received even greater acclaim than The Bends, featuring prominently in many "best album" polls, then and now. OK Computer found Radiohead taking musical risks uncommon in the Britpop world, experimenting with ambience and noise to create a set of songs that many consider to be a high point of late-twentieth century rock music. With worldwide commercial success, Radiohead toured extensively, documenting their 1997- 1998 tour on Super 8 and later released on DVD in 1999 as Meeting People Is Easy. In 1998, the band released their fifth EP, Airbag/How Am I Driving? , which fills the gulf between the progressive rock of OK Computer and their subsequent experimental work on Kid A and Amnesiac.

Exhausted by their fame and on the verge of burnout following the OK Computer tour, the band spent the latter part of 1998 in relative quiet, performing only occasionally. In 1999 they returned to the studio to record Kid A, a defiantly experimental album that complemented the lyrical and musical hooks of their earlier work with a more minimalist style. The album's arrangements have been likened to a meeting of Pink Floyd and Aphex Twin. The album was released in October 2000. The band cited Alice Coltrane , Charles Mingus and Paul Lansky as influences, as well as the entire back catalogue of Warp Records.

, The next album, Amnesiac, which was released in June of the following year, was comprised of further tracks from the same recording sessions as Kid A. Conceived as two separate sequences of songs, the two albums are similar in style and are linked by two different versions of the same song: "Morning Bell." After the release of this album, the band staged their own mini-festival in Oxford's South Park, featuring Sigur Ros, Supergrass, Humphrey Lyttelton (who played trumpet on "Life in a Glass House", the closing track on Amnesiac), and themselves. It was at this concert that the band finally played "Creep," after having refused to perform the song for many years.

In 2003 the band released their sixth album, Hail to the Thief, which was rooted in less overt experimentation than its two immediate predecessors but was still a long way from their earlier guitar-driven material. The album's title raised controversy in the U.S., being interpreted as a reference to the 2000 U.S. Presidential election. The band deny this claim. In the June 2003 issue of Spin Magazine, Thom Yorke was quoted as saying "If the motivation for naming our album had been based solely on the U.S. election, I'd find that to be pretty shallow", but he conceded that he had heard the phrase on a radio program describing the United States' 1888 presidential election. An unfinished version of the album was stolen, apparently from the recording studio where they were working, and uploaded to the internet several weeks before it was officially released. Unfortunately for them, the original album recordings also met the same fate, but the band remained adamant, didn't pull the album for an earlier date, and released it on the announced day: June 9, 2003.

The recording process for Hail to the Thief was remarkably different from those for the previous three studio albums. Rather than holing themselves up in a studio for months on end, the band elected instead to take their new material on the road in Portugal and Spain during July and August of 2002 prior to recording it. With the songs fleshed out and finalised during the tour, the recording process took only 20 days in a Los Angeles studio. After the album was finished, Radiohead embarked on a big tour, which continued for about an year. It saw the band visiting Australia and Japan for the first time for 7 years, since their OK Computer tour in 1997. Radiohead headlined the main (Pyramid) stage on the Saturday of the Glastonbury festival, to crowd acclaim and positive press reviews. They omitted the traditional fan-pleasing "Creep", to no-one's surprise, but the crowd got to hear it when it was covered by Sunday night's headliner, Moby. Meanwhile, Jonny Greenwood, with the help of his brother Colin Greenwood, recorded and produced the soundtrack Bodysong for the avant-garde documentary of the same name.

Exactly the same happened with COM LAG (2plus2isfive): the band release their EP one year ( 2004) after Hail to the Thief. The difference with COM LAG is that it's a bit longer than their previous releases. While the first half is filled with standalone songs like Airbag/How Am I Driving? and My Iron Lung, the second half consists of b-sides, recording demos and different versions of some of the album's songs. In the middle of the year, drummer Phil Selway stated that the band will probably start recording their next LP in 2005. He said in an interview for NME that such a marked change in direction with next album as Kid A is unexpected. To be more specific, the band needs just some time not thinking about music and getting with the right motivation for recording.

By now all the members of the band are working on separate projects. Jonny Greenwood became "Composer in Residence" for the BBC, charged with creating modern classical pieces for the BBC Concert Orchestra. There are a few rumours and reports that Thom is working on solo project, and Phil Selway is involved with the Samaritans' Health organization. Most recently, Jonny (on guitar) and Thom (on piano) combined their talents with sir Paul McCartney (on bass) for the Band Aid 20 project to commemorate the 20th anniversary of the original song, which featured stars like George Michael, Duran Duran and Phil Collins. The project is helmed by Radiohead producer in staff - Nigel Godrich. It features collaborations of members from the most famous bands in the world - like Damon Albarn of Blur, Bono of U2, The Thrills, Sugababes and The Darkness. It is expected to be released November 29, 2004.

2 Discography

2.1 Studio albums

			UK	US	(approximative genre overview)
1st	( 1993)	Pablo Honey	#22	#32	indie rock
2nd	( 1995)	The Bends	#4	#88	alternative rock
3rd	( 1997)	OK Computer	#1	#21	progressive rock
4th	( 2000)	Kid A	#1	#1	experimental ambient rock
5th	( 2001)	Amnesiac	#1	#2	experimental abstract rock w/jazz
6th	( 2003)	Hail to the Thief	#1	#3	electro progressive rock

2.2 EPs

• Drill ( 1992)
• Itch ( 1993)
• My Iron Lung ( 1994)
• No Surprises/Running From Demons ( 1997)
• Airbag/How Am I Driving? ( 1998); #56 US (album chart)
• ( 2001); #23 UK (album chart), #44 US (album chart)
• COM LAG (2plus2isfive) ( 2004); #37 UK (album chart)

2.3 Singles

• "Creep" ( 1992); #7 UK, #34 US
• "Anyone Can Play Guitar" ( 1993); #32 UK
• "Pop Is Dead" ( 1993); #42 UK
• "Stop Whispering" ( 1993) *U.S. only
• "My Iron Lung" ( 1994); #24 UK
• "Planet Telex/High & Dry" ( 1995); #17 UK, #78 US
• "Fake Plastic Trees" ( 1995); #20 UK
• "Just" ( 1995); #19 UK
• "Street Spirit (Fade Out)" ( 1996); #5 UK
• "Paranoid Android" ( 1997); #3 UK
• "Karma Police" ( 1997); #8 UK
• "Let Down" ( 1997) (U.S. promo only)
• "No Surprises" ( 1998); #4 UK
• "Optimistic" ( 2000) (promo only)
• "The National Anthem" ( 2000) (promo only)
• "Idioteque" ( 2000) (promo only)
• "How to Disappear Completely" ( 2000) (promo only)
• "Pyramid Song" ( 2001); #5 UK
• "Knives Out" ( 2001); #13 UK
• "I Might Be Wrong" ( 2001) (promo only)
• "There There." ( 2003); #4 UK
• "Go To Sleep." ( 2003); #12 UK
• "2 + 2 = 5" ( 2003); #15 UK

2.4 VHS and DVDs

• Live at the Astoria ( 1995) VHS
• Seven Television Commercials ( 1997) VHS/DVD
• Meeting People Is Easy ( 1999) VHS/DVD
• 7 Television Commercials ( August 5, 2003) DVD
• The Most Gigantic Lying Mouth Of All Time ( December 1, 2004) DVD

2.5 Books

• by Nick Johnstone ( 1997)
• Radiohead: From a Great Height by Jonathan Hale ( 1999)
• Radiohead: Hysterical and Useless by Martin Clarke ( 2000)
• Exit Music: The Radiohead Story by Mac Randall ( 2000)
• Radiohead: Back to Save the Universe: The Stories Behind Every Song by James Doheny ( 2002)
• Radiohead: A Visual Documentary by Tim Footman and Billy Dancer ( 2002)
• The Music and Art of Radiohead by Joseph Tate ( 2005)

3 Radiohead by others

Radiohead's music has inspired musicians from other disciplines, from string quartet to classical and jazz piano.

In September 1998, Canadian jazz pianist Brad Mehldau included his version of Radiohead's "Exit Music (For a Film)" on his album The Art Of The Trio, Vol. 3 . In August 2002 he released the album Largo which featured Radiohead's "Paranoid Android". Both of these tracks are taken from OK Computer. The Anything Goes album, released February 2004, includes a re-working of the track "Everything in its Right Place" from Radiohead's Kid A. All three albums were released by Warner Brothers.

The Section, a string quartet of violin, viola and cello, released two albums (on independent record label Vitamin Records ) covering Radiohead: 2001's Strung Out On OK Computer is a track for track replica of OK Computer ; while 2003's Enigmatic draws mostly from Kid A and Amnesiac and a few tracks from The Bends.

In 2003 pianist Christopher O'Riley recorded True Love Waits, a collection of Radiohead tracks from various albums arranged for solo piano. It was published by Sony Music.

4 Radiohead Messageboard

The Radiohead Messageboard (also called RHMB) is an online messageboard on Radiohead's official website, which has gathered a cult following. Members of the band occasionally post there.

5 Similar bands

• Palo Alto

6 External links

• Radiohead.com – The band's official website
• At Ease – The largest fansite with detailed information on the band. Has an extremely popular message board.
• Green Plastic Radiohead – Another Radiohead fan and news site.
• Monkey Picture Soundtrack – An independent transcription and analysis of Radiohead's lyrics, devoted to demystifying Yorke's unclear vocal deliveries.
• Pulk-Pull – An on-going investigation of the band's music and art
• Radiohead Unpackt – An in-depth interpretation of OK Computer, Kid A, and Amnesiac
• Rodeohead – a humorous Country & Western medley of Radiohead songs.
• Slowly Downward – website of Stanley Donwood
• Climbing Up The Walls – a Radiohead fan site
• Radiohead Lyrics – Unofficial collection of Radiohead lyrics.

Alternative musical groups Rock music groups British musical groups *

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