Radiohead are a tricky group to tackle – not because they’re particularly avant garde or noisy – it’s their fans. They’re evangelical. If you’re not a fan to begin with, ten minutes with a Radiohead acolyte and you’re ready to hate them eternally.

However, one aspect of this occasional reappraisal thing we do, is to try and sidestep the noise and see if certain bands are worthy of the hype or standing which they’ve amassed over the years. Of course, Radiohead are a hugely important group, but we haven’t listened to them despite having many of the same reference points in our mutual record collections.

We know enough that they’re interested in leftfield electronic music, prog, various alt. rock, post rock and all that – same here! So with that, we’re going to dive into their back catalogue and try and ignore the nagging voices of the fans we’ve met over the years, and see what’s what.

PABLO HONEY (1993)

1993 was a funny time for indie music in the UK – just pre the Britpop boom, and post the jangle of the ’80s stuff. In fact, the UK was still in the thrall of grunge, which is where ‘Creep’ came in, being a pretty decent stab and quiet-loud-quiet-loud rock. In the Radiohead canon, you imagine that this is thought of as naive, with some fondness. ‘Anyone Can Play Guitar’ sounds very of its time, as the rest of the record is pretty much diminishing returns.

At this juncture, Radiohead sound like they’re in the league similar to groups like The Longpigs that followed them, and their potential wouldn’t be realised just yet. On the strength of ‘Pablo Honey’ alone, you can easily imagine an alternative timeline where they end up also-rans.

THE BENDS (1995)

While still very much a trad rock LP, ‘The Bends’ is really where you have to take Radiohead seriously. It’s almost like it’s their ‘Revolver’ or something, with the scope much broader in reach, and the songs getting mildly experimental. ‘My Iron Lung’ rips, as does ‘Just’ – but it’s in the softer moments where you can feel the band expanding.

‘High and Dry’ is classic indie ballad/anthem, as is ‘Nice Dream’, and the title track is a remnant of the the first album sound, but clearly, much better. If this is Radiohead at their most ‘pop’, you can easily see why it was so fantastically popular. Sure, it’s a bit wet in places, but that’s the rub with a sensitive English band like this. It’s what you sign up for.

OK COMPUTER (1997)

This is the period where Radiohead explode into the stratosphere. Oasis had got too cokey and lumpen, Blur were making eyes at bands like Pavement, leaving Radiohead to become the the Big Band That Sounded English, which was important in the ’90s. You always need one, and they really were it alongside The Verve with ‘Urban Hymns’. After the lager burps of Britpop, the record buying public were looking for someone to come for their feelings. The Verve were dealing with ennui of British life, and Radiohead here, leaned into the unease and paranoia of modern living.

‘Paranoid Android’ sounds like it was patched together, and is really fun for it. The big guns however, come from again, the softer moments, like the album before it. ‘Karma Police’ and ‘No Surprises’ sound like some pre-Millennial gloomcore version of Dark Side Pink Floyd. If you don’t like Pink Floyd, then you’re probably wondering what the fuss is about ‘OK Computer. ‘Fitter Happier’, at the time, sounded hilarious, and it still sounds hilarious now – you get what they were going for, but big belly laughs abound for the duration.

Either way, it’s fair to say that an album that talks about the worry of technology, corporate greed, and alienation isn’t going to be for everyone. Some see it as an artistic triumph, others general miserablism – it’s definitely the latter, and artistic decisions are subjective. Either way, it was the album that would shape the future for the group.

KID A (2000)

At the time, ‘Kid A’ was hailed as a brave leap into new territory for rock music – provided you only listened to rock music. There was a sense at the time, which prevails now, that this is an album made by a band who bought the Warp Records back catalogue and simply went ‘let’s do that’. If you were already listening to leftfield electronic(a) at the time, you will have heard a lesser version of what you already loved. However, if you look at Oasis’ ‘Standing On The Shoulder Of Giants’ and had been listening to Travis LPs, then this could well have blown your mind.

As far as electronics versus guitars, this year saw Primal Scream ditching the need for vowels with the blistering ‘XTRMNTR’, leaving ‘Kid A’ sounding a bit pale and wan. That said, in 2026, it is remarkable how ordinary it sounds – it’s basically a pretty straightforward rock album, but with some drum machines and filtered vocals. You have to hand it to the group for doing something that could have ruined them, but Radiohead fans embraced the move and it left the band able to do whatever the fuck they wanted in the future, which is all any creative person wants, really.

AMNESIAC (2001)

Radiohead’s penchant for a mournful slowie, by this point, is getting grating. There’s sections of this album that sound like someone down the pub taking the piss out of the group. ‘You And Whose Army?’ is not even pitch black miserable. It’s kinda funny. Along with ‘Pyramid Song’ and ‘Dollars And Cents’, you’re thinking about duffing them up and taking their lunch money.

That said, there’s moment where it sounds like they’ve been listening to Tortoise albums, which are much better. ‘Knives Out’, save for Thom Yorke’s infernal whinging, is definitely more like the fun Post Rock stuff that was doing the rounds at the turn of the Millennium.

HAIL TO THE THIEF (2003)

By this point, Radiohead are fully a Post Rock Post Prog group. Funny timings and discordant stuff going down, and honestly, musically speaking, this is what they were always threatening to do. Again, Yorke’s dreadful moaning persists, but at least the weirds have been married to something with a bit more structure.

‘Mysomatosis’ is, thanks to leaning on Add N To X’s music, is as good as anything they’ve ever released. ‘The Gloaming’ is a good bit of clicky business, and ‘Where I End And You Begin’ is decent fare. Still, far from the towering artistic achievement that some devotees will beat you over the head with, but as Radiohead albums go, this might be the best to date.

IN RAINBOWS (2007)

Remember when they gave this away for free? Right, now that’s out of the way, what’s the album like? Well, thankfully, it sounds like a band that have taken the handbrake off, marrying the electronic stuff with the Tortoise fandom, and finally sounding rather comfortable in it. ’15 Step’ is Radiohead remembering to write a song with their experiments, and ‘Bodysnatchers’ remembered that an irritated Thom Yorke is better than one wallowing.

‘Weird Fishes/Arpeggi’ still sounds like one of the theme tunes to Old Fools And Horses when it kicks off, but again, is markedly better in terms of marrying actual songwriting to the weirdness they strove for post ‘OK Computer’. There’s still a host of mawkish stuff which is chewy, but this is ‘Hail To The Thief’ on steroids, and surely is the best Radiohead album they release in their career. Right? This is what they were threatening to do, this entire time.

THE KING OF LIMBS (2011)

We won’t check what the received wisdom is on these things, but it sounds for all the world like an album that some fans will try and convince other fans that it’s their favourite. Mainly, because it’s a bit of a mess and requires a few listens to get into the mindset for it. It sounds like, once again, the group being annoyed by previous successes, and trying to drive their car into a ditch. So, y’know, it’s intentionally a bit of a mess. And it is. That’s exactly what it is.

A MOON SHAPED POOL (2016)

There’s a lot of reverb on this album. It’s basically drowning in it. Apt, you suppose, what with the word ‘moon’ and ‘pool’ being in the title of the LP. By this point, you get the sense that this is a group doing exactly the kind of thing that only Radiohead fans want, which is disaffected music with moments of eeriness that can be viewed as ‘ethereal’ or ‘beautiful’. However, if you’re not in the club, then you might find yourself willing the album to fight out of its own skin and get on with it.

There’s some songs on it, sure, but it picks up where the previous album left off, sprucing things up a bit along the way. Still, after the last two albums which showed a more versatile group, old long face and misery guts are back, and the whole thing is rather deflating and not in a fun way. Ah well, we’ll always have ‘Myxomatosis’.