Pablo Honey also suffers from inconsistent songwriting. The self-pitying lyrics sound weirdly naïve next to the cynicism of their later material. Their influences - U2, Scott Walker, the Smiths, - push through into pastiche territory at times. Radiohead's identity was still malleable at the time. Its alterna-rock pose, and especially its ubiquitous single "Creep," drew plenty of unflattering comparisons.Īnd Pablo Honey is not without flaws. Grunge was peaking when it came out in '93. Pablo Honey also suffered from poor timing. It preceded one of the most fertile creative runs in rock history few albums wouldn't pale in comparison. Really, though, its middling reputation comes partially due to circumstance. Pablo Honey, Radiohead's first album, routinely gets knocked as their worst.
#RADIOHEAD DISCOGRAPHY LIST FREE#
If you disagree - and oh, will some of you ever disagree - then feel free to crush my list like a bug in the ground with your comments. Here are all eight of their full-length albums, analyzed and examined, and ranked from worst to best. So now is as good of a time as any to reflect on Radiohead’s catalog. Said Yorke during the press cycle for The King Of Limbs: “None of us want to go into that creative hoo-hah of a long-play record again … I mean, it’s just become a real drag.” (Then again, The King Of Limbs concludes with Yorke informing the listener that, “If you think this is over, then you’re wrong.”) The band has expressed growing (and characteristic!) dissatisfaction with the process of writing and recording albums. Beneath the swathes of digital gauze and strange sound is a Beatles-style hit machine.Īfter eight albums, Radiohead may be close to the end of their creative arc. Even at their most challenging and experimental, Radiohead ruthlessly edits their music into catchy, pop-sized chunks. That populism is musical as well as political. (Not even Kid A and Amnesiac - more on that later.)īut Radiohead has achieved their status as one of the last consensus-building rock bands because of their broad populist streak. For a high-profile band with so much to lose, Radiohead has historically been relentlessly ambitious. When most people think of Radiohead now, they think of Radiohead the iconoclasts: the band that resurrected progressive rock with OK Computer, dove headlong into experimental music with Kid A, and precipitated an entirely new business model with In Rainbows.
A year later, the band recorded a song called “Creep,” and the rest is history. Pressured by their label, the band changed their name to Radiohead, after a Talking Heads song. After a university-born hiatus through the late ’80s, On A Friday signed a six-album deal with EMI without ever touring. Unlike so many of their contemporaries, On A Friday did not spend years slugging it out in the indie tour circuit before achieving broader success - their path to glory was more in the classic-rock mold. The band’s awkward original moniker was On A Friday - their usual practice time. The band - consisting throughout its existence of Thom Yorke (vocals, guitar, piano, electronics), Jonny Greenwood (lead guitar, various other instruments), Colin Greenwood (bass, synths), Ed O’Brien (guitar, backing vocals), and Phil Selway (drums) - formed in 1985 in the music rehearsal room of their Oxfordshire boys’ school. Like that daub of black goo, Radiohead’s origins were inauspicious. He was referring to a blob of alien goo that would go on to spawn the monster that drives the Alien series, but he just as easily could’ve been talking about Radiohead. “Big things have small beginnings.” So says Michael Fassbender’s character in Prometheus.
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