My Favourite Band

To say that I am passionate about Radiohead is almost an understatement.

In my opinion, Thom Yorke & Co. have made the most honest, beautiful music of the 21st century, in addition to being extremely intriguing while doing so.

First of all, let's talk about the media fiasco Radiohead started last October when guitarist Johnny Greenwood entered this post on the band's website, Dead Air Space:

"Hello everyone.

Well, the new album is finished, and it's coming out in 10 days;

We've called it In Rainbows.

Love from us all.

Jonny"

Shortly after the media was alerted of the upcoming album, Radiohead released more details of its release, including the fact that it was available as a download online starting October 10th and that you could decide how much you wanted to pay for it. This was a previously unheard-of method for releasing an album, and hundreds of news sources published articles about it shortly after its announcement.

With the online, pay-what-you-want technique of releasing their album, Radiohead blazed a trail on which many others would soon follow. Several popular bands including Nine Inch Nails announced in the following months that they too had dropped their record labels and were going to be releasing their albums online. Just last week, British band Bloc Party made their 3rd full-length album available for download online prior to a physical release of the record this October.

The greatness of Radiohead, however, started long before their revolution of the music industry as we know it.

Radiohead started as a band called On A Friday, playing in local clubs and venues around Oxfordshire, the town in England where all of them grew up and went to school together. Prior to getting signed to Capitol records, their producer, Nigel Godrich, suggested that they perform under the moniker "Radiohead", taken from a Talking Heads song of the same name. Their first album, Pablo Honey, sucked.

Pablo Honey included the song "Creep", in which Thom Yorke sings about his odd physical appearance and how people usually don't accept him right away. No one in England really liked the song, but it was a big hit in the States. To this day it is Radiohead's most popular song in the mass media, while at the same time being the band's least favorite song to play live.

After Pablo Honey, Radiohead turned in a more awesome direction and started writing songs like Just, Fake Plastic Trees, and My Iron Lung to go on their album The Bends. That album made them pretty popular across the world, and prepared their fans for, in my opinion, the best album ever.
OK Computer was released in 1997, and included the songs Paranoid Android, Karma Police, and Climbing Up the Walls. Popular music website Pitchfork gave the album a perfect 10 (which is insane) and fans across the world soon realized how awesome this album really was.

After OK Computer, Radiohead took some time off to reinvent themselves, and did a wonderful job, as is evident in their next two releases, Kid A and Amnesiac. The two albums were recorded during the same session at Nigel Godrich's studio in the year 2000, and had more of an ambient, electronic feel to them. Kid A was really really good and also received 10 Pitchforks, while Amnesiac was less successful. Their next album released in 2003 was called Hail to the Thief, and was also really really good.

So there you have it.
Radiohead.
They're my favo(u)rite band and they should be yours too, if you want.