Introduction

Pigeonholed at first with the “alternative” rock bands that debuted in the wake of Nirvana’s success in the early 1990s, the British group Radiohead has continued to explore new musical idioms and to bring experimental ideas and structures into the mainstream, thereby inviting comparisons to performers ranging from Pink Floyd to the Beatles. Radiohead’s music—described as ethereal, dense, mournful, and majestic—features the tenor voice of its lead singer and lyricist, Thorn Yorke, whose sound is among the most distinctive in rock music today. Yorke founded Radiohead in collaboration with the bassist Colin Greenwood in about 1988; shortly afterward, the group expanded to include the guitarist Ed O’Brien, the drummer Phil Selway, and the guitarist Jonny Greenwood.

Early Lives

The members of Radiohead were all born within four and a half years of one another in England (with the exception of Yorke, who was born in Scotland and spent his early years there). The oldest of the five is Phil Selway, whose date of birth is May 23, 1967; the youngest is Jonny Greenwood (November 5, 1971). In between are Thorn Yorke (October 7, 1968), Colin Greenwood (January 26, 1969), and Ed O’Brien (April15, 1969). All of them attended the Abingdon School, a private boys’ boarding and day school near Oxford. Colin Greenwood and Yorke became friends there when they discovered that they shared a liking for both crossdressing and the post-punk bands Joy Division and Magazine. They decided to form a band themselves. Their first recruit was Ed O’Brien, whom they approached because he seemed “cool,” as one of them put it, and reminded them of the British rock icon Morrissey, the vocalist of the band the Smiths. Christening themselves On a Friday, the trio played a few gigs in 1988, accompanied by a drum machine. After the machine broke down, they sought out Phil Selway, who was playing with another band but agreed to join them. Before long Greenwood’s younger brother, Jonny, asked to become a member of their group. Although they considered him too young and inexperienced, they occasionally allowed him to perform with them, on harmonica.

Lives’ Work

Each member of the band attended a different college. Yorke studied fine art and literature at the University of Exeter; O’Brien majored in politics at the University of Manchester; Colin Greenwood and Selway both studied English, the former at Cambridge University and the latter at the University of Liverpool; and Jonny Greenwood dropped out of college after three months. When the young men returned home on school holidays, they practiced and performed together. After the last of the four older musicians graduated from college, they re-formed the group, in Oxford, with Jonny Greenwood as a full member on guitar. Inspired by the title of a song on the 1986 Talking Heads album True Stories, they changed their name to Radiohead. After their first official gig, in 1991, they received more than 20 contract offers from record companies. They still had not made a deal when, in early May 1992, they released the EP Drill and opened shows for such established rock acts as PJ Harvey, Tears for Fears, and James. Soon afterward they signed to the EMI/Capitol record label and, in September 1992, released their first single, “Creep.” The alienation and romantic frustration expressed in the song-its lyrics proclaim, “I’m a creep / I’m a weirdo / What the hell am I doing here? / I don’t belong here”-were to take their place among the group’s major themes. “Self-loathing is something we can all relate to,” Ed O’Brien explained, as quoted by David Sprague in Billboard (May 15, 1993). The single became a minor hit in England. It was followed by the singles “Anyone Can Play Guitar” and “Pop Is Dead.”

In February 1993 Radiohead released their first album, Pablo Honey, which consisted primarily of mid-tempo, plaintive songs with a heavy focus on guitars. For the most part both the British and American music press ignored the recording. Although noting that it offered “clever lyrics and good hooks,” Mario Mundoz wrote for the Los Angeles Times (June 27, 1993) that the album did not “really deliver anything you haven’t heard before, steering too close to Smiths-like melodies and trying ever so hard to be depressed in the way the Cure popularized.” Despite the lack of attention, Radiohead continued to work hard, embarking that summer on a tour of Europe, during which they opened for other acts. The band’s fortunes suddenly changed when American MTV and alternative radio stations started playing “Creep” heavily, apparently having recognized that the song’s self-deprecatory lyrics and sharp guitar bursts fit comfortably with the grunge-rock scene that was so prominent at that time. The band soon supported Belly and Tears for Fears on a U.S. tour, during which they found that most concertgoers were interested only in “Creep.” Thanks to its success in the U.S., “Creep” was re-released in England at the end of 1993, and this time it made the Top 10, while Pablo Honey sold enough copies to earn a gold certification. Radiohead spent the summer of 1994 performing dates around the world. During the year that followed their return to England, the group released Iron Lung, a series of EPs, which featured a continuation of the Pablo Honey sound with an increased emphasis on low-key acoustic numbers.

Eager to change the media perception that they were a one-hit wonder, Radiohead entered the studio with the producer John Leckie to record their sophomore album. The first results were heard in February 1995, when the single “High and Dry,” a soaring acoustic ballad and their most sophisticated record until then, was released. In The Bends, which was released the following month, the group added a stronger dose of synthesizers and offered more dynamics than on their debut album. The lyrics, again mostly self-deprecatory, this time tackled the themes of isolation and loneliness as they applied to society in general, rather than just the singer; most critics found them to be of a higher quality than the group’s earlier efforts. “Fake Plastic Trees,” a mostly acoustic song about lonely people in an age defined by marketing, was released as a single in May 1995 and quickly became a fan favorite.

The Bends received strong reviews from some members of the press, who compared Radiohead favorably to such rock legends as U2 and complimented the band for writing songs that were more mature than their earlier work. “What makes The Bends so remarkable is that it marries such ambitious, and often challenging, instrumental soundscapes to songs that are at their cores hauntingly melodic and accessible,” Stephen Thomas Eriewine wrote for the All Music Guide (on-line). Other critics were less friendly. “The sonics are frequently more compelling than the songs they embellish,” Mark Jenkins complained in the Washington Post (April 7, 1995). American radio and MTV ignored the singles from The Bends, which were very different from “Creep,” and record sales were low. Similarly, in Britain, during a summer in which the airwaves were dominated by anthemic Britpop by the likes of Blur, Oasis, and Pulp, Radiohead’s somber musings were not popular.

Meanwhile, the band continued to perform live, supporting R.E.M. on their Monster tour. The third single of The Bends, “Just,” was released in August 1995, and thanks to its louder guitars and stark, haunting video, Radiohead began to be noticed again. In 1996 rock radio and MTV began to play “Fake Plastic Trees” in heavy rotation, and The Bends returned to the British Top 10 and went gold in America. During the first half of 1996, the band toured to promote The Bends. Then they began work on their third album. Released in July 1997 and titled OK Computer, the album found Radiohead moving in distinctly new directions, combining progressive-rock experimentation with punk fury. For some tracks the band abandoned conventional song structures and used various synthesizers and production effects, taking their cue from such diverse sources as the film music of Ennio Morricone, Bitches Brew-era Miles Davis, and 1970s German psychedelia. Yorke’s lyrics, which in some songs were much more abstract than before, did not dwell on his personal life. “I came to the realization I was being selfish in the past,” he was quoted as saying on MTV (on-line), “and that was a good thing. It happened after The Bends. A drunk bloke comes up in the bar or a girl comes up in the street and says, ‘Thank you, that record helped me through a difficult time.’ And you stop being the selfish wanker you’ve always been. . . . I think there was a genuine point where it really was important for me to say things on a personal level to get these things sorted out for myself. But once it was out, it was done. With this album, I am moving on.”

Containing multiple sections and ambitious lyrics, “Paranoid Android,” the first single from OK Computer, was compared to Queen’s multi-part operatic single “Bohemian Rhapsody.” “Please could you stop the noise,” Yorke sang, “I’m trying to get some rest from all the unborn chicken voices in my head.” The surreal animated video of “Paranoid Android” attracted a lot of attention as well. The singles “Karma Police” and “No Surprises” received heavy airplay in both England and the United States. OK Computer was acclaimed in the press, with several magazines naming it “album of the year.’’ Noting for All Music Guide (online) that it had “establishe[d] Radiohead as one of the most inventive and rewarding guitar-rock bands of the ‘90s,” Stephen Thomas Erlewine declared that OK Computer was “a thoroughly astonishing demonstration of musical virtuosity, and becomes even [more] impressive with repeated listens, which reveal subtleties like electronica rhythms, eerie keyboards, odd time signatures, and complex syncopations.’’ Apparently surprised by all the praise, Radiohead’s members insisted that they didn’t think the record worthy of the hype. Yorke told Aidin Vaziri for Guitar Player (October 1997), for example, “We got bored with being just a rock band, and we started considering what else was going on around us. Rock wasn’t speaking to us. There was no intention to be difficult. Every record we make is, to some extent, the band absorbing stuff we’ve fallen in love with and then attempting to pay homage to it-and failing.’’ The EP Airbag/How Am I Driving (1998), released while the band was touring, featured all the bonus tracks on the singles from OK Computer.

Radiohead returned to the studio in 1999 to record their highly anticipated fourth album. Difficulties soon arose, however, because Yorke suffered a bout of writer’s block and then, having become fascinated by such experimental electronica acts as Aphex Twin and Autechre (Sean Booth and Rob Brown), would often bring only programmed drum machines or other electronic sound equipment to the studio. “It was about generating bits of work that may be incomplete and may not be going anywhere,” Yorke told Danny Eccleston for Q (October 1999). “And by the time you finish it, it may be unrecognizable. But it might be far better than what you started with. That’s what I hoped we were trying to do-regardless of where the music was coming from, and regardless of which members of the band were involved.” His colleagues struggled with Yorke’s new vision. “If you’re going to make a different-sounding record,” O’Brien told Eccleston, “you have to change the methodology. And it’s scary—everyone feels insecure. I’m a guitarist and suddenly it’s like, well, there are no guitars on this track, or no drums. [We] had to get our heads round that. It was a test of the band, I think.” Despite such stumbling blocks, Radiohead continued recording, and in 2000 its new tracks began to be heavily circulated over the Internet, on Napster and other servers. Although arguments about choices of songs for the new album almost caused the musicians to split up, they launched a tour of Europe and Great Britain over the summer, during which they introduced many of their new songs. Kid A, released in October 2000, surprised many listeners by its reliance on a minimalist electronic sound and the near absence of conventional songs. In one song, “The National Anthem,” the group incorporated avant-garde, Mingus-style horns. In others, Jonny Greenwood experimented with little-known instruments, using the Ondes Martenot, an electronic instrument that consists of a keyboard, a ribbon, and a ring and is best known for its use in the work of the 20th-century French composer Olivier Messiaen and in the theme of the television series Star Trek. Its unusualness notwithstanding, Kid A debuted on the American and British album charts at number one, thus becoming the first British album to hit the number-one spot in the U.S. since 1997.

Although critical reaction to Kid A was more reserved than it had been for OK Computer, most reviewers seemed to like it. In Entertainment Weekly (October 6, 2000), David Browne wrote, “Songs float by on the faintest of heartbeat pulses, intergalactic noises streaking like comets across the melodies. Ecclesiastical keyboards gently nudge the songs along.” Browne concluded that despite its weaknesses, “it is a genuinely challenging work in a generally unchallenging time.” In All Music Guide (on-line), Stephen Thomas Erlewine judged Kid A to be “a record that’s intentionally difficult to grasp, which makes it seem deeper on first listen than it actually is. . . . The music is never seductive-it’s self-consciously alienating, and while that can be intriguing at first, there’s not enough underneath the surface to make Radiohead’s relentless experimentation satisfying. Still, an experiment that yields mixed results still yields results, and there are some moments here that positively shimmer with genius.” “With us, it’s never going to be a case of ‘let’s tear up the blueprint and start from scratch,”’ Jonny Greenwood told Simon Reynolds for the Wire (July 2001). “When the Kid A reviews came out accusing us of being willfully difficult, I was like, ‘If that was true, we’d have done a much better job of it.’ It’s not that challenging-everything’s still four minutes long, it’s melodic.” The band’s decision not to release any singles from Kid A or to make videos related to it prompted some in the press to accuse Radiohead’s members of pomposity. In response, O’Brien explained to Oldham, “There weren’t any singles of Kid A because there weren’t any singles on the record as far as we’re concerned. We didn’t do videos because there weren’t any singles. There’s no great mystique to it.”

In June 2001 Radiohead released their fifth album, Amnesiac, culled from the same recording sessions that generated Kid A. Although expected to be a return to the more conventional sound of The Bends, the record turned out to be even more dense and experimental than Kid A. Nevertheless, it topped the charts in the United Kingdom, while hitting the number-two position in the United States. As with Kid A, the album drew heavily from minimalist electronica, with lyrics heavy with paranoid phrases that were reminiscent of nursery rhymes. “You can see the shared genes: the jazz spasms and electronic pulsings, the chill blood, and most of all, the chronic hypersensitivity to the world outside,” Victoria Segal noted in her favorable review for NME (on-line). “It feels like a record that would blister if you touched it, allergic to modern life, shut away in a protective tent. It reports on half-remembered contact and conflict, blurred images seen through milky plastic.” “The human touch and its visceral impact are no longer central to the music,” Jon Parales wrote in his critique of the album for Rolling Stone (June 21, 2001, on-line). “The songs on Amnesiac are barely populated vistas, subdued and ambient but not at all soothing. Electric guitars are scarce, and never heroic. Instead, there are semiautomatic rhythm loops, indecipherable background voices, pockets of static, and writhing string arrangements with electronic penumbrae. And when the band does write a melody with a grand arc, the arrangements leave Yorke sounding not triumphant but stranded.” Stephen Thomas Earlewine, in the All Music Guide (on-line), wrote, “Amnesiac plays like a streamlined version of Kid A, complete with blatant electronica moves and production that sacrifices songs for atmosphere.”

Hail to the Thief, a mix of piano and guitar rock, electronics, and lyrics inspired by war, was the band’s final album for their record label, EMI and was released in 2003. Radiohead self-released their seventh album, In Rainbows, in 2007 as digital download. Customers could set their own price for the music. The album saw chart success. Their eighth album, The King of Limbs was self-released in 2011 and was an exploration of rhythm and quieter textures.

After the King of Limbs tour, Radiohead entered hiatus with band members working on solo projects. On Christmas Day 2015, Radiohead released a new song, “Spectre”, on the audio streaming site SoundCloud. On January 21, 2016, it was announced that Radiohead would begin a new world tour in July with several festival dates.

Current band members:

Personal Lives

Because of the somber take on modern life in their music, many listeners have assumed that the members of Radiohead are cynical and depressed, but the men have insisted that that is not the case. Many of their lyrics, they have maintained, are based on one incident and do not reflect an overarching view of life. The performers are often described as low-key and polite; Yorke, however, who told Jon Wiederhorn for Rolling Stone (September 7, 1995) that he has “always been melodramatic about everything,” is known for his emotional outbursts. “The only time I feel comfortable is when I’m in front of a mike,” Yorke confessed to Wiederhorn. “I’m obsessed with the idea that I’m completely losing touch with who I am, and I’ve come to the conclusion that there isn’t anything to Thorn Yorke other than the guy that makes those painful songs.”

Further Reading