Best Radiohead Albums, ranked: Everything in its right place
Is your favourite number one?
Radiohead have released records since the early 90s, so choosing the best Radiohead album was always going to be some task.
They may not have released a new album collectively in 2019, but ultimate hero David Byrne inducted the band into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in May, so it feels like the perfect time to reappraise the Oxford art-rockers’ oeuvre.
From their early grunge experiments to acclaimed flirtations with prog, techno, jazz and folk, Thom Yorke, Ed O’Brien, Phil Selway and brothers Jonny and Colin Greenwood have consistently acquitted themselves as one of the most innovative and articulate groups of all time.
So here - in a listicle format that we know the band would love - is your guide to their diverse back catalogue.
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10. TKOL RMX 1234567 (2011)
Not a studio album, but a compilation of King Of Limbs remixes by some of Radiohead’s favourite producers and DJs. It’ll surprise nobody to learn that the always-reliable Four Tet and Caribou turn in strong interpretations, but it’s some of the less-celebrated names that are responsible for the most compelling reworkings. Pearson Sound’s radical rerub of ‘Morning Mr Magpie’ is particularly fine, as is Canadian DJ Jacques Green’s euphoric take on ‘Lotus Flower’.
9. The King Of Limbs (2011)
Not just the shortest album of Radiohead’s career but their most divisive. Repeated listens suggest that it was largely unfairly maligned. Take ‘Lotus Flower’: it might be more notable for a promo video that made Thom Yorke a meme, but its complex percussive thrust remains utterly irresistible. Elsewhere, polyrhythms abound, basslines slink, and Thom Yorke keens enigmatically: really, what’s not to like?
8. Pablo Honey (1993)
The aural equivalent of adolescent you: equal parts self-loathing and misplaced superiority complex, complete with ill-advised haircut. Radiohead’s grunge-lite debut isn’t wholesale terrible - beneath the blown out production, ludicrous rock posturing and hammy teen angst is actually some strong songwriting - but execution-wise it’s pretty laboured and self-absorbed. Oh, and ‘Thinking About You’ is about wanking.
7. Amnesiac (2001)
After the palette cleanser that was Kid A, Radiohead’s fifth LP almost felt like a natural progression. That’s not to say Thom Yorke and co were playing it safe. Conceived in the same sessions as songs from Kid A, Amnesiac shares the same experimental spirit, moving between the Squarepusher-ish glitch of ‘Packt Like Sardines...’, the Charles Mingus-inspired swing of ‘Pyramid Song’ and the haunting, reverse tape loops of ‘Like Spinning Plates’.
6. A Moon Shaped Pool (2016)
Where a mutual affection for Warp Records directed much of Radiohead’s output post-OK Computer, A Moon Shaped Pool found them combining those IDM influences with a set of reference points extending from Solid Air-era John Martyn to Erased Tapes-esque minimalism. Divorce, the rise of the Right and Jonny Greenwood’s soundtrack work were all influential too on what is, understandably, a contemplative and spacious set...