Radiohead (every album, every song)

Formed at their Oxfordshire secondary school in the mid-eighties, Radiohead have gone on arguably to be not only the most important rock group of the 1990s, but also the most significant post-rock group of the new century. Few would have predicted such greatness when their 1993 debut Pablo Honey appeared, revealing an infatuation with The Pixies and, in ‘Creep’ featuring a lead single deemed ‘too depressing to be playlisted on BBC Radio 1. They went on to deliver two of the era-defining albums of the ‘90s in The Bends and OK Computer, the latter in particular redefining what could be achieved in the realm of guitar- based rock. In the early 2000s they radically rewrote the rulebook both for themselves and for popular music, largely eschewing guitar rock for the experimental, electronic Kid A and Amnesiac. In 2016 they issued their ninth album A Moon Shaped Pool – the latest in a series of works that has seen the group restlessly finding new approaches to both composition and recording. This book examines each album (and each peripheral song, from singles, B-sides and EPs) with stories and analysis of every officially released track.