160-652: Kid A is the fourth studio album by the English rock band Radiohead , released on 2 October 2000 by Parlophone . It was recorded with their producer, Nigel Godrich , in Paris, Copenhagen, Gloucestershire and Oxfordshire. Departing from their earlier sound, Radiohead incorporated influences from electronic music , krautrock , jazz and 20th-century classical music , with a wider range of instruments and effects. The singer, Thom Yorke , wrote impersonal and abstract lyrics, cutting up phrases and assembling them at random. In
320-551: A box set of Radiohead material recorded before In Rainbows , released in the same week as the In Rainbows special edition. Commentators including the Guardian saw the move as retaliation for the band choosing not to re-sign with EMI. In June 2008, EMI released a greatest hits album, Radiohead: The Best Of . It was made without Radiohead's involvement and contains only songs recorded under their contract with EMI. Yorke
480-403: A double album , but felt the material was too dense, and decided that a series of EPs would be a "copout". Instead, they saved half the songs for their next album, Amnesiac , released the following year. Yorke said Radiohead split the work into two albums because "they cancel each other out as overall finished things. They come from two different places." He observed that deciding the track list
640-600: A minimalist and textured style with more diverse instrumentation, including the ondes Martenot , programmed electronic beats, strings , and jazz horns. It debuted at number one in many countries, including the US, where it became the first Radiohead album to debut atop the Billboard chart and the first US number-one album by any UK act since the Spice Girls in 1996. This success was attributed variously to marketing, to
800-541: A pedal organ , influenced by the songwriter Tom Waits . Radiohead added harp samples and double bass , attempting to emulate the soundtracks of 1950s Disney films. Radiohead also worked on several songs they did not complete until future albums, including " Nude ", " Burn the Witch " and " True Love Waits ". Kid A incorporates influences from electronic artists on Warp Records such as 1990s IDM artists Autechre and Aphex Twin ; 1970s Krautrock bands such as Can ;
960-575: A ring modulator . In November 1999, Radiohead recorded a brass section inspired by the "organised chaos" of Town Hall Concert by the jazz musician Charles Mingus , instructing the musicians to sound like a "traffic jam". The strings on " How to Disappear Completely " were performed by the Orchestra of St John's and recorded in Dorchester Abbey , a 12th-century church about five miles from Radiohead's Oxfordshire studio. Radiohead chose
1120-403: A "commercial suicide note" and "intentionally difficult", and longed for a return to Radiohead's earlier style. Fans were similarly divided; along with those who were appalled or mystified, many saw it as the band's best work. Yorke denied that Radiohead had set out to eschew expectations, saying: "We're not trying to be difficult ... We're actually trying to communicate but somewhere along
1280-467: A 2000 tour of Europe in a custom-built tent free of advertising; they also promoted Kid A with three sold-out North American theatre concerts. Kid A received a Grammy Award for Best Alternative Album and a nomination for Album of the Year in early 2001. It won both praise and criticism in independent music circles for appropriating underground styles of music; some British critics saw Kid A as
1440-619: A North American tour, their first there in three years, in June 2001. With a string of sold-out dates, The Observer described it as "the most sweeping conquest of America by a British group" since Beatlemania , succeeding where bands such as Oasis had failed. Recordings from the Kid A and Amnesiac tours were released on I Might Be Wrong: Live Recordings in November 2001. In July and August 2002, Radiohead toured Portugal and Spain, playing
1600-412: A band trying so hard to make a 'difficult' album that they felt it beneath them to write any songs". Rolling Stone published a piece mocking Kid A as humourless, derivative and lacking in songs: "Because it was decided that Radiohead were Important and Significant last time around, no one can accept the album as the crackpot art project it so obviously is." Some critics felt Kid A was unoriginal. In
1760-430: A band." In later years, The Bends appeared in many publications' lists of the best albums of all time, including Rolling Stone 's 2012 edition of the "500 Greatest Albums of All Time" at No. 111. In 1995, Radiohead again toured North America and Europe, this time in support of R.E.M. , one of their formative influences and at the time one of the biggest rock bands in the world. Attention from famous fans such as
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#17327828108461920-657: A child and became fluent in German. He credited his older sister, Susan, with introducing him and Jonny to "miserable" bands such as the Fall , Magazine and Joy Division . He said: "We were ostracised at school because everyone else was into Iron Maiden ." Greenwood and his brother attended Abingdon School , a private school for boys in Oxfordshire. When he was 12, he met the future Radiohead singer Thom Yorke . Their future bandmates Ed O'Brien , whom Greenwood met during
2080-701: A collaboration between Greenwood, Godrich, the Israeli composer Shye Ben Tzur and Indian musicians, was released in November 2015, accompanied by a documentary directed by Anderson . In April 2016, Radiohead's back catalogue was acquired by XL Recordings , which had released the retail editions of In Rainbows and The King of Limbs and most of Yorke's solo work. XL reissued Radiohead's back catalogue on vinyl in May 2016. Radiohead began work on their ninth studio album in September 2014. In 2015, they resumed work in
2240-594: A converted apple shed in the countryside near Didcot , Oxfordshire. In August 1996, Radiohead toured as the opening act for Alanis Morissette . They resumed recording not at a studio but at St. Catherine's Court , a 15th-century mansion near Bath . The sessions were relaxed, with the band playing at all hours of the day, recording in different rooms, and listening to the Beatles , DJ Shadow , Ennio Morricone and Miles Davis for inspiration. Radiohead released their third album, OK Computer , in May 1997. It found
2400-668: A dance piece by the Merce Cunningham Dance Company , which debuted in October 2003 at the Brooklyn Academy of Music . Radiohead's sixth album, Hail to the Thief , was released in June 2003. Its lyrics were influenced by what Yorke called "the general sense of ignorance and intolerance and panic and stupidity" following the 2000 election of US President George W. Bush . The album was promoted with
2560-413: A deadlock, Radiohead toured Asia, Australasia and Mexico and found greater confidence performing their new music live. However, troubled by his new fame, Yorke became disillusioned with being "at the sharp end of the sexy, sassy, MTV eye-candy lifestyle" he felt he was helping to sell to the world. The My Iron Lung EP and single, released in 1994, was Radiohead's reaction, marking a transition towards
2720-455: A departure from industry practice, Radiohead released no singles and conducted few interviews and photoshoots. Instead, they released short animations and became one of the first major acts to use the internet for promotion. Bootlegs of early performances were shared on filesharing services, and Kid A was leaked before release. In 2000, Radiohead toured Europe in a custom-built tent without corporate logos. Kid A debuted at number one on
2880-452: A difficult moment. The string orchestration for "How to Disappear Completely" was influenced by the Polish composer Krzysztof Penderecki . Jonny Greenwood's use of the ondes Martenot on several songs was inspired by Olivier Messiaen , who popularised the instrument and was one of Greenwood's teenage heroes. Greenwood described his interest in mixing old and new music technology, and during
3040-552: A fan-made video of the performance, Radiohead for Haiti , was released via YouTube and torrent with Radiohead's support and a "pay-what-you-want" link to donate to Oxfam. Radiohead also released the soundboard recording of their 2009 Prague performance for use in a fan-made concert video, Live in Praha . The videos were described as examples of Radiohead's openness to fans and positivity toward non-commercial internet distribution. In June 2010, Yorke and Jonny Greenwood performed
3200-588: A favourable review, but wrote that it "never is as visionary or stunning as OK Computer , nor does it really repay the intensive time it demands in order for it to sink in". The NME was also positive, but described some songs as "meandering" and "anticlimactic", and concluded: "For all its feats of brinkmanship, the patently magnificent construct called Kid A betrays a band playing one-handed just to prove they can, scared to commit itself emotionally." In Rolling Stone , David Fricke called Kid A "a work of deliberately inky, often irritating obsession ... But this
3360-582: A guitarist and suddenly it's like, well, there are no guitars on this track, or no drums." Radiohead experimented with electronic instruments including modular synthesisers and the ondes Martenot , an early electronic instrument similar to a theremin, and used software such as Pro Tools and Cubase to edit and manipulate their recordings. They found it difficult to use electronic instruments collaboratively. According to Yorke, "We had to develop ways of going off into corners and build things on whatever sequencer, synthesiser or piece of machinery we would bring to
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#17327828108463520-711: A job as a sales assistant at the record shop Our Price in Oxford. In late 1991, the EMI sales representative Keith Wozencroft visited Our Price and struck up conversation with Greenwood. When Wozencroft mentioned that he was moving to a position as an A&R scout at the EMI subsidiary Parlophone , Greenwood gave him a copy of On a Friday's latest demo. On a Friday signed a six-album recording contract with EMI and changed their name to Radiohead. By 2011, Radiohead had sold more than 30 million albums worldwide. They were inducted into
3680-562: A landmark record of the 1990s and the Generation X era, and one of the greatest albums in recording history. In 1998, Radiohead performed at a Paris Amnesty International concert and the Tibetan Freedom Concert . In March, they and Godrich entered Abbey Road Studios to record a song for the 1998 film The Avengers , " Man of War ", but were unsatisfied with the results and it went unreleased. Yorke described
3840-412: A large advance, but had instead wanted control over their back catalogue. Radiohead self-released their seventh album, In Rainbows , on their website on 10 October 2007 as a download , for any amount users wanted, including £0. The landmark pay-what-you-want release, the first for a major act, made headlines worldwide and created debate about the implications for the music industry. Media reaction
4000-587: A live webcast from their studio, featuring a performance of new music and a DJ set. By 2000, six songs were complete. In January, at Godrich's suggestion, Radiohead split into two groups: one would generate a sound or sequence without acoustic instruments such as guitars or drums, and the other would develop it. Though the experiment produced no finished songs, it helped convince O'Brien of the potential of electronic instruments. On 19 April 2000, Yorke wrote on Radiohead's website that they had finished recording. Having completed over 20 songs, Radiohead considered releasing
4160-469: A loop, a riff, a mumbled line of text, have been set in concrete and had other, lesser ideas piled on top." The Guardian critic Adam Sweeting wrote that "even listeners raised on krautrock or Ornette Coleman will find Kid A a mystifying experience", and that it pandered to "the worst cliches" about Radiohead's "relentless miserabilism". Several critics found the free jazz of "The National Anthem" discordant and unpleasant. Several critics felt Kid A
4320-466: A mansion in Batsford Park , Gloucestershire. The lack of deadline and the number of incomplete ideas made it hard to focus, and the group held tense meetings. They agreed to disband if they could not agree on an album worth releasing. In July, O'Brien began keeping an online diary of Radiohead's progress. Radiohead moved to their new studio in Oxfordshire in September. In November, Radiohead held
4480-544: A marketing campaign for his alma mater, Cambridge University , posing for a photo with students from both state and private schools for a poster titled "Put Yourself in the Picture". The poster was "designed to break down some of the stereotypes that deter able students from applying to Cambridge" and encourage more applicants from state schools . Greenwood contributed bass to two soundtracks by his brother, Jonny, Bodysong (2003) and Inherent Vice , and on his score for
4640-427: A modest hit, but Radiohead's growing fanbase was insufficient to repeat the worldwide success of "Creep". The Bends reached number 88 on the US album charts, and remains Radiohead's lowest showing there. Jonny Greenwood later said The Bends was turning point for Radiohead: "It started appearing in people's [best-of] polls for the end of the year. That's when it started to feel like we made the right choice about being
4800-660: A new band, Atoms for Peace , to perform his solo material, with musicians including Godrich and the Red Hot Chili Peppers bassist Flea . They played eight North American shows in 2010. In January 2010, Radiohead played their only full concert of the year in the Los Angeles Henry Fonda Theater as a benefit for Oxfam . Tickets were auctioned, raising over half a million US dollars for the NGO's 2010 Haiti earthquake relief. That December,
4960-487: A non-album single, also sold poorly. O'Brien later called it "a hideous mistake". Some critics compared Radiohead to the wave of grunge music popular in the early 1990s, dubbing them " Nirvana -lite", and Pablo Honey initially failed to make a critical or a commercial impact. The members of Radiohead expressed dissatisfaction with the album in later years. In early 1993, Radiohead began to attract listeners elsewhere. "Creep" had been played frequently on Israeli radio by
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5120-492: A number of new songs. For their next album, they sought to explore the tension between human and machine-generated music and capture a more immediate, live sound. They and Godrich recorded most of the material in two weeks at Ocean Way Recording in Los Angeles. The band described the recording process as relaxed, in contrast to the tense sessions for Kid A and Amnesiac . Radiohead also composed music for "Split Sides",
5280-650: A panel in the annual sixth-form conference run by Radley College in collaboration with School of St Helen and St Katharine , speaking about digital rights management . In 2013, he soundtracked a Dries van Noten runway show, performing solo bass guitar. In 2018, he reviewed Michael Palin's book Erebus: The Story of a Ship for the Spectator . In late 2022, Greenwood toured Australia as part of Nick Cave and Warren Ellis's band. He appears on their live album Australian Carnage . Greenwood joined Cave's North American tour in September 2023, and contributed bass to
5440-564: A piano dirge , for the War Child charity album Help: A Day in the Life . The album was sold online, with "I Want None of This" the most downloaded track, though it was not released as a single. In late 2006, after touring Europe and North America with new material, Radiohead re-enlisted Godrich and resumed work in London, Oxford and rural Somerset , England. Recording ended in June 2007 and
5600-428: A product". Instead of releasing traditional music videos for Kid A , Radiohead commissioned dozens of 10-second videos featuring Donwood artwork they called "blips", which were aired on music channels and distributed online. Pitchfork described them as "context-free animated nightmares that radiated mystery", with "arch hints of surveillance". Five of the videos were serviced as exclusives to MTV, and "helped play into
5760-581: A sale. I knew the internet was [generating sales], but I couldn't prove it because every record had MTV and radio with it. [After Kid A was a success], nobody in the industry could believe it because there was no radio and there was no traditional music video. I knew at that point: this is the story of the internet. The internet has done this. – Capitol executive Robin Sloan Bechtel, 2015 Though Radiohead had experimented with internet promotion for OK Computer in 1997, by 2000 online music promotion
5920-592: A school production of the opera Trial by Jury , and Philip Selway were also pupils. Greenwood bought his first guitar when he was 15. He and Yorke had classical guitar lessons with the Abingdon music teacher, Terence Gilmore-James, who introduced them to jazz, film scores, postwar avant-garde music , and 20th-century classical music . Greenwood said he began playing bass out of necessity, as O'Brien already played guitar. He taught himself by playing along to New Order , Joy Division and Otis Redding . He said
6080-506: A short section of it and used it to write the song. Yorke said it was "an attempt to capture that exploding beat sound where you're at the club and the PA's so loud, you know it's doing damage". "Motion Picture Soundtrack" was written before Radiohead's debut single, " Creep " (1992), and Radiohead recorded a version on piano during the OK Computer sessions. For Kid A , Yorke recorded it on
6240-559: A six-album recording contract with EMI. At EMI's request, they changed their name; "Radiohead" was taken from the song "Radio Head" on the Talking Heads album True Stories (1986). Yorke said the name "sums up all these things about receiving stuff ... It's about the way you take information in, the way you respond to the environment you're put in." Radiohead recorded their debut EP, Drill , with Hufford and Edge at Courtyard Studios. Released in May 1992, its chart performance
6400-471: A soundtrack, Subterranea , to The Panic Office , an installation of Radiohead artwork in Sydney, Australia. Yorke and Selway released their solo albums Tomorrow's Modern Boxes and Weatherhouse in late 2014. Jonny Greenwood scored his third Anderson film, Inherent Vice ; it features a version of an unreleased Radiohead song, "Spooks", performed by Greenwood and members of Supergrass . Junun ,
6560-558: A statement, Yorke responded: "We don’t endorse Netanyahu any more than Trump , but we still play in America. Playing in a country isn't the same as endorsing the government. Music, art and academia is about crossing borders not building them, about open minds not closed ones, about shared humanity, dialogue and freedom of expression." Colin Greenwood Colin Charles Greenwood (born 26 June 1969)
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6720-515: A string arrangement composed by Jonny Greenwood. Later that month, another new song, " These Are My Twisted Words ", featuring krautrock -like drumming and guitars, was leaked via torrent , possibly by Radiohead. It was released as a free download on the Radiohead website the following week. Commentators saw the releases as part of Radiohead's new unpredictable release strategy, without the need for traditional marketing. In 2009, Yorke formed
6880-462: A surprise set at Glastonbury Festival , performing Eraser and Radiohead songs. Selway released his debut solo album, Familial , in August. Pitchfork described it as a collection of "hushed" folk songs in the tradition of Nick Drake , with Selway on guitar and vocals. Radiohead released their eighth album, The King of Limbs , on 18 February 2011 as a download from their website. Following
7040-709: A third of OK Computer sales. It is certified platinum in the UK, Australia, Canada, France, Japan and the US. Kid A was widely anticipated. Spin described it as the most anticipated rock record since the 1993 Nirvana album In Utero . According to Andrew Harrison, the editor of Q , journalists expected it to provide more of the "rousing, cathartic, lots-of-guitar, Saturday-night-at- Glastonbury big future rock moments" of OK Computer . Months before its release, Pat Blashill of Melody Maker wrote: "If there's one band that promises to return rock to us, it's Radiohead." After Kid A had been played for critics, many bemoaned
7200-536: A website, radiohead.tv, where short films, music videos, and studio webcasts were streamed. Hail to the Thief debuted at number one in the UK and number three on the Billboard chart, and was eventually certified platinum in the UK and gold in the US. The singles " There There ", " Go to Sleep " and " 2 + 2 = 5 " achieved heavy circulation on modern rock radio. At the 2004 Grammy Awards , Radiohead were again nominated for Best Alternative Album , and Godrich and
7360-411: A weird kind of anonymity rather than something distinctive and original". The Melody Maker critic Mark Beaumont called it "tubby, ostentatious, self-congratulatory, look-ma-I-can-suck-my-own-cock whiny old rubbish ... About 60 songs were started that no one had a bloody clue how to finish." Alexis Petridis of The Guardian described it as "self-consciously awkward and bloody-minded, the noise made by
7520-438: Is pop, a music of ornery, glistening guile and honest ache, and it will feel good under your skin once you let it get there." Spin said Kid A was "not the act of career suicide or feat of self-indulgence it will be castigated as", and predicted that fans would recognise it as Radiohead's best and "bravest" album. Billboard described it as "an ocean of unparalleled musical depth" and "the first truly groundbreaking album of
7680-548: Is a really liberating feeling." Jonny Greenwood described it as a turning point for the album: "We knew it had to be the first song, and everything just followed after it." Yorke wrote an early version of " The National Anthem " when the band was still in school. In 1997, Radiohead recorded drums and bass for the song, intending to develop it as a B-side for OK Computer, but decided to keep it for their next album. For Kid A , Greenwood added ondes Martenot and sounds sampled from radio stations, and Yorke's vocals were processed with
7840-409: Is acclaimed as a landmark record and one of the best albums in popular music, with complex production and themes of modern alienation . Their fourth album, Kid A (2000), marked a dramatic change in style, incorporating influences from electronic music , jazz , classical music and krautrock . Though Kid A divided listeners, it was later named the best album of the decade by multiple outlets. It
8000-456: Is an English bassist and a member of the rock band Radiohead . Along with bass guitar , Greenwood plays upright bass and electronic instruments . With his younger brother, the guitarist Jonny Greenwood , Colin attended Abingdon School in Abingdon , England, where they formed Radiohead. Radiohead have achieved acclaim and have sold more than 30 million albums. Greenwood was inducted into
8160-456: Is bass, Greenwood said each Radiohead member contributed to song development. He said he did not think of himself as a bass player and was "just in a band with other people". Among his influences are Booker T and the MGs , Bill Withers , Curtis Mayfield , Peter Hook and J Dilla . In 2008, Mojo wrote that Greenwood and Selway were "surely the most inventive rhythm section working close to
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#17327828108468320-677: Is less prominent than on previous Radiohead albums, guitars were still used on most tracks. "Treefingers", an ambient instrumental, was created by digitally processing O'Brien's guitar loops. Many of Yorke's vocals were manipulated with effects; for example, his vocals on the title track were simply spoken, then vocoded with the ondes Martenot to create the melody. Yorke's lyrics on Kid A are less personal than on earlier albums, and instead incorporate abstract and surreal themes. He cut up phrases and assembled them at random, combining cliches and banal observations; for example, "Morning Bell" features repeated contrasting lines such as "Where'd you park
8480-549: The Billboard Hot 100 ; it was Radiohead's first song to enter the chart since "High and Dry" (1995) and their first US top 40 since "Creep". In July, Radiohead released a digitally shot video for " House of Cards ". Radiohead held remix competitions for "Nude" and " Reckoner ", releasing the separated stems for fans to remix. In April 2008, Radiohead launched W.A.S.T.E. Central, a social networking service for Radiohead fans. In May, VH1 broadcast In Rainbows – From
8640-583: The New York Times , Howard Hampton dismissed Radiohead as a "rock composite" and wrote that Kid A "recycles Pink Floyd 's dark-side-of-the-moon solipsism to Me-Decade perfection". Beaumont said Radiohead were "simply ploughing furrows dug by DJ Shadow and Brian Eno before them". The Irish Times felt the ambient elements were inferior to Eno's 1978 album Music For Airports and its "scary" elements inferior to Scott Walker 's 1995 album Tilt . Select wrote: "What do they want for sounding like
8800-511: The 100 greatest artists of all time , and included five of their albums in its lists of the " 500 Greatest Albums of All Time ". Radiohead were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2019. The members of Radiohead met while attending Abingdon School , a private school for boys in Abingdon, Oxfordshire . The guitarist and singer Thom Yorke and the bassist Colin Greenwood were in
8960-527: The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time . Kid A won the Grammy Award for Best Alternative Album and was nominated for the Grammy Award for Album of the Year . Radiohead released a second album of material from the sessions, Amnesiac , in 2001. In 2021, they released Kid A Mnesia , an anniversary reissue compiling Kid A , Amnesiac and previously unreleased material. Following the critical and commercial success of their 1997 album OK Computer ,
9120-658: The British Army as a bomb disposal expert . The Greenwood family has historical ties to the British Communist Party and the socialist Fabian Society . As a teenager, Greenwood read historical works such as The Communist Manifesto and Ragged-Trousered Philanthropists , fiction by American writers including Richard Ford and John Cheever , and films by Jean-Luc Godard , Derek Jarman and Michelangelo Antonioni . Greenwood lived in Germany as
9280-648: The Coachella and Glastonbury festivals. They were joined again by Deamer. The tours included a performance in Tel Aviv in July 2017, disregarding the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions campaign for an international cultural boycott of Israel . The performance was criticised by artists including Roger Waters and Ken Loach , and a petition urging Radiohead to cancel it was signed by more than 50 prominent figures. In
9440-528: The EMI A&;R representative Keith Wozencroft at a record shop and handed him a copy of the demo. Wozencroft was impressed and attended a performance. That November, On a Friday performed at the Jericho Tavern to an audience that included several A&R representatives. It was only their eighth gig, but they had attracted interest from several record companies. On 21 December, On a Friday signed
9600-507: The Hail to the Thief tour, Radiohead went on hiatus to spend time with their families and work on solo projects. Yorke and Jonny Greenwood contributed to the Band Aid 20 charity single " Do They Know It's Christmas? ", produced by Godrich. Greenwood composed soundtracks for the films Bodysong (2004) and There Will Be Blood (2007); the latter was the first of several collaborations with
9760-554: The Kid A and Amnesiac tours. Kid A reached number one on Amazon's sales chart, with more than 10,000 pre-orders. It debuted at number one on the UK Albums Chart , selling 55,000 copies in its first day – the biggest first-day sales of the year and more than every other album in the top ten combined. Kid A also debuted at number one on the US Billboard 200 , selling more than 207,000 copies in its first week. It
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#17327828108469920-619: The Kid A sessions, including "Life in a Glasshouse", featuring the Humphrey Lyttelton Band . Radiohead stressed that they saw Amnesiac not as a collection of B-sides or outtakes from Kid A but an album in its own right. It topped the UK Albums Chart and reached number two in the US, and was nominated for a Grammy Award and the Mercury Music Prize . Radiohead released " Pyramid Song " and " Knives Out " as singles, their first since 1998. Radiohead began
10080-420: The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a member of Radiohead in 2019. Greenwood has contributed to solo projects by the other members of Radiohead, and has collaborated with musicians including Tamino , Gaz Coombes , Nick Cave and Warren Ellis . In 2024, he published a book of his photographs of Radiohead. Colin Greenwood is the older brother of the Radiohead guitarist Jonny Greenwood . Their father served in
10240-499: The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in March 2019. On being in a band with his brother, Jonny, Colin said: "Beyond the normal brotherly thing, I respect him as a person and a musician." Greenwood mostly plays fingerstyle, and said he was unskilled with plectrums . He mainly uses Fender basses and Ampeg and Ashdown amplifiers. He also plays double bass on tracks such as " Pyramid Song " and "You and Whose Army". While his main role
10400-515: The UK Albums Chart and became Radiohead's first number-one album on the US Billboard 200 . It was certified platinum in the UK, the US, Australia, Canada, France and Japan. Its new sound divided listeners, and some dismissed it as pretentious or derivative. However, at the end of the decade, Rolling Stone , Pitchfork and the Times ranked it the greatest album of the 2000s, and in 2020 Rolling Stone ranked it number 20 on its updated list of
10560-478: The UK singles chart when EMI rereleased it in September. To build on the success, Radiohead embarked on a US tour supporting Belly and PJ Harvey , followed by a European tour supporting James and Tears for Fears . Radiohead began work on their second album in 1994 with the veteran Abbey Road Studios producer John Leckie . Tensions were high, with mounting expectations to match the success of "Creep". To break
10720-486: The US charts , the album eventually met with mainstream recognition there, earning Radiohead their first Grammy Awards recognition, winning Best Alternative Album and a nomination for Album of the Year . " Paranoid Android ", " Karma Police " and " No Surprises " were released as singles, of which "Karma Police" was most successful internationally. OK Computer went on to become a staple of "best-of" British album lists. In
10880-471: The University of Exeter , Yorke played with the band Headless Chickens, performing songs including future Radiohead material. He also met Stanley Donwood , who later became Radiohead's cover artist. In 1991, the band regrouped in Oxford, sharing a house on the corner of Magdalen Road and Ridgefield Road. They recorded another demo, which attracted the attention of Chris Hufford, Slowdive's producer and
11040-589: The jazz of Charles Mingus , Alice Coltrane and Miles Davis ; and abstract hip hop from the Mo'Wax label, including Blackalicious and DJ Krush . Yorke cited Remain in Light (1980) by Talking Heads as a "massive reference point". Björk was another major influence, particularly her 1997 album Homogenic , as was the Beta Band . Radiohead attended an Underworld concert which helped renew their enthusiasm in
11200-603: The 2008 film Woodpecker . He played bass on the albums Amir (2018) and Sahar (2022) by the Belgian-Egyptian singer Tamino , the album World's Strongest Man (2018) by Gaz Coombes , and on " Brasil " from Earth (2020), the debut solo album by his Radiohead bandmate Ed O'Brien . He contributed beat programming to Yorke's song "Hearing Damage" from the soundtrack to The Twilight Saga: New Moon , and on "Guess Again!" from Yorke's album Tomorrow's Modern Boxes (2014). In 2004, Greenwood participated on
11360-765: The 2024 album Wild God by Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds . Greenwood joined the Bad Seeds on their 2024 tour after their bassist, Martyn P. Casey , fell ill. That October, Greenwood published a book, How to Disappear: A Portrait of Radiohead , comprising his photographs of Radiohead taken between 2003 and 2016. In December 1998, Greenwood married Molly McGrann , an American literary critic and novelist. They have three sons, Jesse, born in December 2003; Asa, born in December 2005; and Henry, born in December 2009. They live in Oxford. Greenwood enjoys writers such as Thomas Pynchon , V.S. Naipaul and Delmore Schwartz . He
11520-509: The 21st century". The music critic Robert Christgau wrote that Kid A was "an imaginative, imitative variation on a pop staple: sadness made pretty". The Village Voice called it "oblique oblique oblique ... Also incredibly beautiful." Brent DiCrescenzo of Pitchfork gave Kid A a perfect score, calling it "cacophonous yet tranquil, experimental yet familiar, foreign yet womb-like, spacious yet visceral, textured yet vaporous, awakening yet dreamlike". He concluded that Radiohead "must be
11680-532: The American TV show Saturday Night Live . The performance shocked viewers expecting rock songs, with Jonny Greenwood playing electronic instruments, the house brass band improvising over "The National Anthem", and Yorke dancing erratically to "Idioteque". Rolling Stone described the Kid A tour as "a revelation, exposing rock and roll humanity" in the songs. In November 2001, Radiohead released I Might Be Wrong: Live Recordings , comprising performances from
11840-472: The Aphex Twin circa 1993, a medal?" In an NME editorial , James Oldham wrote that the electronic influences were "mired in compromise", with Radiohead still operating as a rock band, and concluded: "Time will judge it. But right now, Kid A has the ring of a lengthy, over-analysed mistake." Rob Mitchell, the co-founder of Warp, felt Kid A represented "an honest interpretation of [Warp] influences" and
12000-564: The Astoria , was released in 1995. By late 1995, Radiohead had already recorded one song that would appear on their next record. " Lucky ", released as a single to promote the War Child charity's The Help Album , was recorded in a brief session with Nigel Godrich, the young audio engineer who had assisted on The Bends. Radiohead decided to self-produce their next album with Godrich, and began work in early 1996. By July they had recorded four songs at their rehearsal studio, Canned Applause,
12160-524: The Basement , a special episode of the music television show From the Basement in which Radiohead performed songs from In Rainbows . It was released on iTunes in June. From mid-2008 to early 2009, Radiohead toured North America, Europe, Japan and South America to promote In Rainbows , and headlined the Reading and Leeds Festivals in August 2009. Days after Radiohead signed to XL, EMI announced
12320-573: The Capitol president, Ray Lott, likened the situation to unfounded concern about home taping in the 1980s and said: "I'm trying to sell as many Radiohead albums as possible. If I worried about what Napster would do, I wouldn't sell as many albums." Yorke said Napster "encourages enthusiasm for music in a way that the music industry has long forgotten to do". The commercial success of Kid A suggested that leaks might not be as damaging as many had assumed. The music journalist Brent DiCrescenzo argued that
12480-816: The German band Can had used their studio in Cologne, recording everything they played and then editing it. As the studio would not be complete until late 1999, Radiohead began work in Guillaume Tell Studios, Paris, in January 1999. Radiohead worked with the OK Computer producer Nigel Godrich and no deadline. Yorke, who had the greatest control, was still facing writer's block. His new songs were incomplete, and some consisted of little more than sounds or rhythms; few had clear verses or choruses. Yorke's lack of lyrics created problems, as these had provided points of reference and inspiration for his bandmates in
12640-573: The La Fabrique studio near Saint-Rémy-de-Provence , France. The sessions were marred by the death of Godrich's father and Yorke's separation from his wife, Rachel Owen , who died from cancer in 2016. Work was interrupted when Radiohead were commissioned to write the theme for the 2015 James Bond film Spectre . After their song, " Spectre ", was rejected, Radiohead released it on the audio streaming site SoundCloud on Christmas Day 2015. Radiohead's ninth studio album, A Moon Shaped Pool ,
12800-546: The Moon , although Yorke said the lyrics were inspired by observing the "speed" of the world in the 1990s. Yorke's lyrics, embodying different characters, had expressed what one magazine called "end-of-the-millennium blues" in contrast to the more personal songs of The Bends . According to the journalist Alex Ross , Radiohead had become "the poster boys for a certain kind of knowing alienation" as Talking Heads and R.E.M. had been before. OK Computer received acclaim. Yorke said he
12960-528: The Napster leak profoundly affected the way Kid A was received, surprising listeners who would patiently download new tracks to find they comprised "four minutes of ambient noise". Radiohead rearranged the Kid A songs to perform them live. O'Brien said, "You couldn't do Kid A live and be true to the record. You would have to do it like an art installation ... When we played live, we put the human element back into it." Selway said they "found some new life" in
13120-491: The R.E.M. singer Michael Stipe , along with distinctive music videos for "Just" and "Street Spirit", helped sustain Radiohead's popularity outside the UK. The night before a performance in Denver, Colorado, Radiohead's tour van was stolen, and with it their musical equipment. Yorke and Jonny Greenwood performed a stripped-down acoustic set with rented instruments and several shows were cancelled. Their first live video, Live at
13280-590: The Radiohead consensus." Selway and Jonny Greenwood appeared in the 2005 film Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire as members of the fictional band the Weird Sisters . Radiohead began work on their seventh album in February 2005. Instead of involving Godrich, Radiohead hired the producer Spike Stent , but the collaboration was unsuccessful. In September 2005, Radiohead contributed "I Want None of This",
13440-444: The UK and in the US. The success was Radiohead's highest chart placement in the US since Kid A . It became their fifth UK number-one album and sold more than three million copies in one year. The album received acclaim for its more accessible sound and personal lyrics. It was nominated for the Mercury Music Prize and won the 2009 Grammy awards for Best Alternative Music Album and Best Boxed or Special Limited Edition Package. It
13600-471: The US Billboard 200 and number seven on the UK Albums Chart . It was nominated for five categories in the 54th Grammy Awards . Two tracks not included on The King of Limbs , " Supercollider" and "The Butcher ", were released as a double A-side single for Record Store Day in April. A compilation of King of Limbs remixes by various artists, TKOL RMX 1234567 , was released in September. To perform
13760-588: The US. It was the fifth Radiohead album nominated for the Mercury Prize , making Radiohead the most shortlisted act in Mercury history, and was nominated for Best Alternative Music Album and Best Rock Song (for "Burn the Witch") at the 59th Annual Grammy Awards . It appeared on several publications' lists of the best albums of the year. In 2016, 2017 and 2018, Radiohead toured Europe, Japan, and North and South America, including headline shows at
13920-462: The album in its entirety on a bus from Hollywood to Malibu. Rob Gordon, the vice president of marketing at Capitol Records , the American subsidiary of Radiohead's label EMI, praised the album but said promoting it would be a "business challenge". No advance copies of Kid A were circulated, but it was played under controlled conditions for critics and fans. On September 5, 2000, it was played for
14080-426: The album's leak on the file-sharing network Napster a few months before its release, and to advance anticipation based, in part, on the success of OK Computer . Although Radiohead released no singles from Kid A , promos of " Optimistic " and " Idioteque " received radio play, and a series of "blips", short videos set to portions of tracks, were played on music channels and released free online. Radiohead continued
14240-441: The album. Yorke said this was to avoid the stress of publicity, which he had struggled with on OK Computer , rather than for artistic reasons. He later said he regretted the decision, feeling it meant much of the early judgement of the album came from critics. Radiohead were careful to present Kid A as a cohesive work rather than a series of separate tracks. Rather than give EMI executives their own copies, they had them listen to
14400-488: The arty mystique that endeared Radiohead to its core audience", according to Billboard . Much of the promotional material featured pointy-toothed bear characters created by Donwood. The bears originated in stories Donwood made for his young children about teddy bears who came to life and ate the "grown-ups" who had abandoned them. Everything in the industry at that point was like, "The internet isn't important. It's not selling records" – everything for them had to translate to
14560-614: The band came close to breaking up: "That felt like it could go either way, it could break ... But we came in the next day and it was resolved." The album was mastered by Chris Blair in Abbey Road Studios , London. Radiohead worked on the first track, " Everything in Its Right Place ", in a conventional band arrangement in Copenhagen and Paris, but without results. In Gloucestershire, Yorke and Godrich transferred
14720-406: The band experimenting with song structures and incorporating ambient , avant-garde and electronic influences, prompting Rolling Stone to call the album a "stunning art-rock tour de force". Radiohead denied being part of the progressive rock genre, but critics began to compare their work to Pink Floyd . Some compared OK Computer thematically to the 1973 Pink Floyd album The Dark Side of
14880-579: The band members picked their instruments "because we wanted to play music together, rather than just because we wanted to play that particular instrument. So it was more of a collective angle, and if you could contribute by having someone else play your instrument, then that was really cool." Greenwood read English at Peterhouse, Cambridge , between 1987 and 1990, and read modern American literature including Cheever, Raymond Carver and other postwar American writers. While at Peterhouse, he worked as an events and entertainments officer. After graduating, he took
15040-480: The band's early period, Yorke emerged as the main songwriter. According to Colin, the band members picked their instruments because they wanted to play together, rather than through any particular interest: "It was more of a collective angle, and if you could contribute by having someone else play your instrument, then that was really cool." They played few gigs, and focused on rehearsing in village halls in Oxfordshire. The area had an active independent music scene in
15200-466: The car?" and "Cut the kids in half". Yorke denied that he was "trying to get anything across" with the lyrics, and described them as "like shattered bits of mirror ... like pieces of something broken". Yorke cited David Byrne 's approach to lyrics on Remain in Light as an influence: "When they made that record, they had no real songs, just wrote it all as they went along. Byrne turned up with pages and pages, and just picked stuff up and threw bits in all
15360-538: The case was dropped under the Jordan ruling , which sets strict time limits on trials. Radiohead released a statement condemning the decision. A 2019 inquest returned a verdict of accidental death . After the King of Limbs tour, the band members worked on further side projects. In February 2013, Yorke and Godrich's band, Atoms for Peace, released an album, Amok . The pair made headlines that year for their criticism of
15520-532: The co-owner of Oxford's Courtyard Studios. Hufford and his business partner, Bryce Edge, attended a concert at the Jericho Tavern; impressed, they became On a Friday's managers. According to Hufford, at this point the band had "all of the elements of Radiohead", but with a rougher, punkier sound and faster tempos. At Courtyard Studios, On a Friday recorded the Manic Hedgehog demo tape, named after an Oxford record shop. In late 1991, Colin happened to meet
15680-432: The depression he experienced on the OK Computer tour, feeling he could not speak. The refrain of "How to Disappear Completely" was inspired by R.E.M. singer Michael Stipe , who advised Yorke to relieve tour stress by repeating to himself: "I'm not here, this isn't happening". The refrain of "Optimistic" ("try the best you can / the best you can is good enough") was an assurance by Yorke's partner, Rachel Owen , when Yorke
15840-399: The director Paul Thomas Anderson . In July 2006, Yorke released his debut solo album, The Eraser , comprising mainly electronic music. He stressed it was made with the band's blessing, and that Radiohead were not breaking up. Jonny Greenwood said: "He had to get this stuff out, and everyone was happy [for Yorke to make it] ... He'd go mad if every time he wrote a song it had to go through
16000-470: The engineer Darrell Thorp received the Grammy Award for Best Engineered Album . In May 2003, Radiohead launched radiohead.tv, where they streamed short films, music videos and live webcasts from their studio. The material was released on the 2004 DVD The Most Gigantic Lying Mouth of All Time . A compilation of Hail to the Thief B-sides, remixes and live performances, Com Lag (2plus2isfive) ,
16160-497: The equation and then integrate that into the way we would normally work." O'Brien began using sustain units on his guitar, which allow notes to be sustained infinitely, combined with looping and delay effects to create synthesiser-like sounds. In March, Radiohead moved to Medley Studios in Copenhagen for two weeks, which were unproductive. The sessions produced about 50 reels of tape, each containing 15 minutes of music, with nothing finished. In April, Radiohead resumed recording in
16320-484: The free music streaming service Spotify . Yorke accused Spotify of only benefiting major labels with large back catalogues, and encouraged artists to build their own "direct connections" with audiences instead. In February 2014, Radiohead released an app, Polyfauna , a collaboration with the British digital arts studio Universal Everything, with music and imagery from The King of Limbs . In May, Yorke contributed
16480-404: The grand piano he had recently bought. " Everything in Its Right Place " was the first song he wrote. His lack of knowledge of electronic instruments inspired him, as "everything's a novelty ... I didn't understand how the fuck they worked. I had no idea what ADSR meant." The guitarist Ed O'Brien had hoped Radiohead's fourth album would comprise short, melodic guitar songs, but Yorke said: "There
16640-578: The greater depth they aimed for on their second album. It was Radiohead's first collaboration with their future producer, Nigel Godrich , then working under Leckie as an audio engineer , and the artist Stanley Donwood . Both have worked on every Radiohead album since. Though sales of My Iron Lung were low, it boosted Radiohead's credibility in alternative circles, creating commercial opportunity for their next album. Having introduced more new songs on tour, Radiohead finished recording their second album, The Bends , by 1995, and released it that March. It
16800-560: The greatest band alive, if not the best since you know who". One of the first Kid A reviews published online, it helped popularise Pitchfork and became notorious for its "obtuse" writing. Radiohead Radiohead are an English rock band formed in Abingdon , Oxfordshire , in 1985. They comprise Thom Yorke (vocals, guitar, piano, keyboards); brothers Jonny Greenwood (guitar, keyboards, other instruments) and Colin Greenwood (bass); Ed O'Brien (guitar, backing vocals); and Philip Selway (drums, percussion). They have worked with
16960-431: The highest bidder and I was simply doing its bidding. And I couldn't handle that." Yorke suffered from writer's block and could not finish writing songs on guitar. He became disillusioned with the "mythology" of rock music, feeling the genre had "run its course". He began to listen almost exclusively to the electronic music of artists signed to the record label Warp , such as Aphex Twin and Autechre . Yorke said: "It
17120-648: The images as "aggressively weird to the point of taking the piss ... All five of Radiohead had been given the aspect of gawking aliens." Yorke said: "I'd like to see them try to put these pictures on a poster." Q projected the images onto the Houses of Parliament , placed them on posters and billboards in the London Underground and on the Old Street Roundabout , and had them printed on key rings, mugs and mouse mats, to "turn Radiohead back into
17280-573: The influential DJ Yoav Kutner , and in March, after the song became a hit there, Radiohead were invited to Tel Aviv for their first show overseas. Around the same time, "Creep" became a hit in America, a " slacker anthem" in the vein of " Smells Like Teen Spirit " by Nirvana and " Loser " by Beck . It reached number two on the Billboard Modern Rock chart , number 34 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart, and number seven on
17440-407: The lack of guitar, the obscured vocals and the unconventional song structures. Some called it "a commercial suicide note". The Guardian wrote of the "muted electronic hums, pulses and tones", predicting that it would confuse listeners. In Mojo , Jim Irvin wrote that "upon first listen, Kid A is just awful ... Too often it sounds like the fragments that they began the writing process with –
17600-426: The late 1980s, but it centred on shoegazing bands such as Ride and Slowdive . On a Friday played their first gig in 1987, at Oxford's Jericho Tavern . On the strength of an early demo, On a Friday were offered a record deal by Island Records , but they decided they were not ready and wanted to go to university first. They continued to rehearse on weekends and holidays, but did not perform for four years. At
17760-401: The line, we just seemed to piss off a lot of people ... What we're doing isn't that radical." The album was ranked one of the best of all time by publications including Time and Rolling Stone; Rolling Stone , Pitchfork and the Times named it the best album of the decade. Radiohead's fifth album, Amnesiac , was released in May 2001. It comprised additional tracks from
17920-448: The members of Radiohead suffered burnout . The songwriter, Thom Yorke , became ill, describing himself as "a complete fucking mess ... completely unhinged". He was troubled by new acts he felt were imitating Radiohead and became hostile to the music media. He told The Observer : "I always used to use music as a way of moving on and dealing with things, and I sort of felt like that the thing that helped me deal with things had been sold to
18080-470: The most of any act. Seven Radiohead singles have reached the top 10 on the UK singles chart : "Creep" (1992), " Street Spirit (Fade Out) " (1996), " Paranoid Android " (1997), " Karma Police " (1997), " No Surprises " (1998), " Pyramid Song " (2001), and " There There " (2003). "Creep" and " Nude " (2008) reached the top 40 on the US Billboard Hot 100 . Rolling Stone named Radiohead one of
18240-780: The new songs and it was wonderful." Later that year, Radiohead toured Europe in a custom-built tent without corporate logos, playing mostly new songs. The tour included a homecoming show in South Park, Oxford , with supporting performances by Humphrey Lyttelton (who performed on Amnesiac ), Beck and Sigur Rós . According to the journalist Alex Ross , the show may have been the largest public gathering in Oxford history. Radiohead also performed three concerts in North American theatres, their first in nearly three years. The small venues sold out rapidly, attracting celebrities, and fans camped overnight. In October, Radiohead performed on
18400-515: The number of people killed by state terrorism is measured in swimming pools filled with blood. Donwood said this image "haunted" him during the recording of the album, calling it "a symbol of looming danger and shattered expectations". Yorke and Donwood cited a Paris exhibition of paintings by David Hockney as another influence. Yorke and Donwood made many versions of the album cover, with different pictures and different titles in different typefaces. Unable to pick one, they taped them to cupboards of
18560-585: The orchestra as they had performed pieces by Penderecki and Messiaen . Jonny Greenwood, the only Radiohead member trained in music theory , composed the string arrangement by multitracking his ondes Martenot. According to Godrich, when the orchestra members saw Greenwood's score "they all just sort of burst into giggles, because they couldn't do what he'd written, because it was impossible – or impossible for them, anyway". The orchestra leader, John Lubbock , encouraged them to experiment and work with Greenwood's ideas. The concerts director, Alison Atkinson, said
18720-476: The paintings and manipulated them with Photoshop . While working on the artwork, Yorke and Donwood became "obsessed" with the Worldwatch Institute website, which was full of "scary statistics about ice caps melting, and weather patterns changing"; this inspired them to use an image of a mountain range as the cover art. Donwood said he saw the mountains as "some sort of cataclysmic power". Donwood
18880-571: The past. The group struggled with Yorke's new direction. According to Godrich, Yorke did not communicate much, and according to Yorke, Godrich "didn't understand why, if we had such a strength in one thing, we would want to do something else". The lead guitarist, Jonny Greenwood , feared "awful art-rock nonsense just for its own sake". His brother, Colin, did not enjoy Yorke's Warp influences, finding them "really cold". The other band members were unsure of how to contribute, and considered leaving. O'Brien said: "It's scary – everyone feels insecure. I'm
19040-431: The period as a "real low point"; he and O'Brien developed depression, and the band came close to splitting up. After the success of OK Computer , Radiohead bought a barn in Oxfordshire and converted it into a recording studio. They began work on their next album with Godrich in early 1999, working in studios in Paris, Copenhagen, and Gloucester before their new studio was completed. Although their success meant there
19200-440: The producer Nigel Godrich and the cover artist Stanley Donwood since 1994. Radiohead's experimental approach is credited with advancing the sound of alternative rock . Radiohead signed to EMI in 1991 and released their debut album, Pablo Honey , in 1993. Their debut single, " Creep ", was a worldwide hit, and their popularity and critical standing rose with The Bends in 1995. Their third album, OK Computer (1997),
19360-438: The protracted recording and more conventional rock instrumentation of In Rainbows , Radiohead developed The King of Limbs by sampling and looping their recordings with turntables . It was followed by a retail release in March through XL, and a special "newspaper album" edition in May. The King of Limbs sold an estimated 300,000 to 400,000 copies through Radiohead's website. The retail edition debuted at number six on
19520-660: The public for the first time at the IMAX theatre in Lincoln Square, Manhattan . Promotional copies of Kid A came with stickers prohibiting broadcast before September 19. At midnight, it was played in its entirety by the London radio station Xfm . MTV2 , KROQ , and WXRK also played the album. Rather than agree to a standard magazine photoshoot for Q , Radiohead supplied digitally altered portraits, with their skin smoothed, their irises recoloured, and Yorke's drooping eyelid removed. The Q editor Andrew Harrison described
19680-541: The recording sessions Yorke read Ian MacDonald 's Revolution in the Head , which chronicles the Beatles ' recordings with George Martin during the 1960s. The band also sought to combine electronic manipulations with jam sessions in the studio, saying their model was the German band Can. Kid A has been described as a work of electronica , experimental rock , post-rock , alternative rock , post-prog , ambient , electronic rock , art rock , and art pop . Though guitar
19840-521: The recordings were mastered the following month. In 2007, EMI was acquired by the private equity firm Terra Firma . Radiohead were critical of the new management, and no new deal was agreed. The Independent reported that EMI had offered Radiohead a £3 million advance, but had refused to relinquish rights to the band's back catalogue. An EMI spokesman stated that Radiohead had demanded "an extraordinary amount of money". Radiohead's management and Yorke released statements denying that they had asked for
20000-674: The recordings. On 16 June 2012, an hour before gates were due to open at Toronto's Downsview Park for the final concert of Radiohead's North American tour, the roof of the venue's temporary stage collapsed , killing the drum technician Scott Johnson and injuring three other members of Radiohead's road crew . After rescheduling the tour, Radiohead paid tribute to Johnson at their next concert, in Nîmes, France, in July. In June 2013, Live Nation Canada Inc, two other organisations and an engineer were charged with 13 charges under Ontario health and safety laws. In September 2017, after several delays,
20160-528: The release of their debut single, " Creep ", that September, Radiohead began to receive attention in the British music press, not all of it favourable; NME described them as "a lily-livered excuse for a rock band", and "Creep" was blacklisted by BBC Radio 1 as "too depressing". Radiohead released their debut album, Pablo Honey , in February 1993. It reached number 22 in the UK charts. "Creep" and its follow-up singles "Anyone Can Play Guitar" and " Stop Whispering " failed to become hits, and " Pop Is Dead ",
20320-552: The rhythmically complex King of Limbs material live, Radiohead enlisted a second drummer, Clive Deamer , who had worked with Portishead and Get the Blessing . In June, Radiohead played a surprise performance on the Park stage at the 2011 Glastonbury Festival, performing songs from The King of Limbs for the first time. With Deamer, Radiohead recorded The King of Limbs: Live from the Basement , released online in August 2011. It
20480-436: The rock mainstream". In 2014, NME readers voted Greenwood one of the 40 best bassists of all time. In 2024, Far Out named him the third-most underrated bassist, describing him as a "master of rhythm of space" and citing his bassline for " How to Disappear Completely " as his best: "His style to a tee, the laid-back but focused walking groove underpins its profoundly dreamlike nature." In 1997, Greenwood participated in
20640-416: The same year, Radiohead became one of the first bands in the world to have a website, and developed a devoted online following; within a few years, there were dozens of fansites devoted to them. OK Computer was followed by the year-long Against Demons world tour, including Radiohead's first headline Glastonbury Festival performance in 1997. Despite technical problems that almost caused Yorke to abandon
20800-587: The same year; the guitarist Ed O'Brien was one year above, and the drummer Philip Selway was in the year above O'Brien. In 1985, they formed On a Friday, the name referring to their usual rehearsal day in the school's music room. The band disliked the school's strict atmosphere—the headmaster once charged them for using a rehearsal room on a Sunday—and found solace in the music department. They credited their music teacher for introducing them to jazz , film scores , postwar avant-garde music , and 20th-century classical music . While each member contributed songs in
20960-403: The session was more experimental than the orchestra's usual bookings. " Idioteque " was built from a drum machine pattern Greenwood created with a modular synthesiser. It incorporates a sample from the electronic composition "Mild und Leise" by Paul Lansky , taken from Electronic Music Winners , a 1976 album of experimental music . Greenwood gave 50 minutes of improvisation to Yorke, who took
21120-487: The song to a Prophet-5 synthesiser, and Yorke's vocals were processed in Pro Tools using a scrubbing tool. O'Brien and the drummer, Philip Selway , said the track helped them accept that not every song needed every band member to play on it. O'Brien recalled: "To be genuinely sort of delighted that you'd been working for six months on this record and something great has come out of it, and you haven't contributed to it,
21280-588: The songs when they came to perform them. In mid-2000, months before Kid A was released, Radiohead toured the Mediterranean, performing Kid A and Amnesiac songs for the first time. Fans shared concert bootlegs online. Colin Greenwood said: "We played in Barcelona and the next day the entire performance was up on Napster. Three weeks later when we got to play in Israel the audience knew the words to all
21440-404: The stage, the performance was acclaimed and cemented Radiohead as a major live act. Grant Gee , the director of the "No Surprises" video, filmed the band on tour for the 1999 documentary Meeting People Is Easy . The film portrays the band's disaffection with the music industry and press, showing their burnout over the course of the tour. Since its release, OK Computer is often acclaimed as
21600-441: The studio kitchen and went to bed. According to Donwood, the choice the next day "was obvious". In October 2021, Yorke and Donwood curated an exhibition of Kid A artwork at Christie's headquarters in London. Radiohead minimised their involvement in promotion for Kid A , conducting few interviews or photoshoots. Though " Optimistic " and promotional copies of other tracks received radio play, Radiohead released no singles from
21760-405: The time. And that's exactly how I approached Kid A ." Radiohead used Yorke's lyrics "like pieces in a collage ... [creating] an artwork out of a lot of different little things". The lyrics are not included in the liner notes, as Radiohead felt they could not be considered independently of the music, and Yorke did not want listeners to focus on them. Yorke wrote "Everything in Its Right Place" about
21920-595: The typical formalities of record promotion, placing them on the same level as Beyoncé and Kanye West ". In May 2009, Radiohead began new recording sessions with Godrich. In August, they released " Harry Patch (In Memory Of) ", a tribute song to Harry Patch , the last surviving British soldier to have fought in World War I , with proceeds donated to the British Legion . The song has no conventional rock instrumentation, and instead comprises Yorke's vocals and
22080-517: The world could experience the music at the same time, and preventing leaks in advance of a physical release. A special "discbox" edition of In Rainbows , containing the record on vinyl, a book of artwork, and a CD of extra songs, was also sold from Radiohead's website. The retail version of In Rainbows was released in the UK in late December 2007 on XL Recordings and in North America in January 2008 on TBD Records , reaching number one in
22240-405: Was "amazed it got the reaction it did. None of us fucking knew any more whether it was good or bad. What really blew my head off was the fact that people got all the things, all the textures and the sounds and the atmospheres we were trying to create." OK Computer was Radiohead's first number-one UK chart debut, and brought them commercial success around the world. Despite peaking at number 21 in
22400-517: Was Radiohead's first US top-20 album, and the first US number one in three years for any British act. Kid A also debuted at number one in Canada, where it sold more than 44,000 copies in its first week, and in France, Ireland and New Zealand. European sales slowed on 2 October 2000, the day of release, when EMI recalled 150,000 faulty CDs. By June 2001, Kid A had sold 310,000 copies in the UK, less than
22560-541: Was also broadcast by international BBC channels and released on DVD and Blu-ray in January 2012. The performance included two new songs, " The Daily Mail" and "Staircase ", released as a double A-side download single in December 2011. In February 2012, Radiohead began their first extended North American tour in four years, including dates in the United States, Canada and Mexico. On tour, they recorded material at Jack White 's studio Third Man Records , but discarded
22720-415: Was critical of the release, calling it a "wasted opportunity". In 2009, EMI reissued Radiohead's back catalogue in expanded editions. As social media expanded around the turn of the decade, Radiohead gradually withdrew their public presence, with no promotional interviews or tours to promote new releases. Pitchfork wrote that around this time Radiohead's "popularity became increasingly untethered from
22880-534: Was developed using extensive looping and sampling . A Moon Shaped Pool (2016) prominently featured Jonny Greenwood's orchestral arrangements. Yorke, Jonny Greenwood, Selway and O'Brien have released solo albums. In 2021, Yorke and Jonny Greenwood debuted a new band, the Smile . By 2011, Radiohead had sold more than 30 million albums worldwide. Their awards include six Grammy Awards and four Ivor Novello Awards , and they hold five Mercury Prize nominations,
23040-494: Was driven by dense riffs and ethereal atmospheres, with greater use of keyboards. It received stronger reviews for its songwriting and performances. While Radiohead were seen as outsiders to the Britpop scene that dominated music media at the time, they were finally successful in the UK, as the singles " Fake Plastic Trees ", " High and Dry ", " Just ", and " Street Spirit (Fade Out) " became chart successes. "High and Dry" became
23200-471: Was followed by Amnesiac (2001), recorded in the same sessions. Hail to the Thief (2003), with lyrics addressing the war on terror , blended the band's rock and electronic sides, and was Radiohead's final album for EMI. Radiohead self-released their seventh album, In Rainbows (2007), as a download for which customers could set their own price , to critical and chart success. Their eighth album, The King of Limbs (2011), an exploration of rhythm,
23360-467: Was frustrated with the band's progress. The title Kid A came from a filename on one of Yorke's sequencers . Yorke said he liked its "non-meaning", saying: "If you call [an album] something specific, it drives the record in a certain way." The Kid A artwork and packaging was created by Yorke with Stanley Donwood , who has worked with Radiohead since their 1994 EP My Iron Lung . Donwood painted on large canvases with knives and sticks, then photographed
23520-501: Was inspired by a photograph taken during the Kosovo War depicting a square metre of snow full of the "detritus of war", such as military equipment and cigarette stains. He said: "I was upset by it in a way war had never upset me before. It felt like it was happening in my street." The red swimming pool on the album spine and disc was inspired by the 1988 graphic novel Brought to Light by Alan Moore and Bill Sienkiewicz , in which
23680-428: Was no chance of the album sounding like that. I'd completely had it with melody. I just wanted rhythm. All melodies to me were pure embarrassment." The bassist, Colin Greenwood , said other guitar bands were trying to do similar things, and so Radiohead had to change and move on. After the success of OK Computer , Radiohead bought a barn in Oxfordshire and converted it into a recording studio. Yorke planned to use it as
23840-462: Was no longer pressure from their record label, tensions were high. The members had different visions for Radiohead's future, and Yorke suffered from writer's block , influencing him toward more abstract, fragmented songwriting. O'Brien kept an online diary of their progress. After nearly 18 months, recording was completed in April 2000. Radiohead's fourth album, Kid A , was released in October 2000. A departure from OK Computer , Kid A featured
24000-408: Was nominated for five other Grammy awards, including Radiohead's third nomination for Album of the Year . Yorke and Jonny Greenwood performed " 15 Step " with the University of Southern California Marching Band at the televised award show. The first single from In Rainbows , " Jigsaw Falling into Place ", was released in January 2008, followed by " Nude " in March, which debuted at number 37 in
24160-462: Was not "gratuitously" electronic. He predicted it might one day be seen in the same way as David Bowie 's 1977 album Low , which alienated some Bowie fans but was later acclaimed. In a retrospective, the Rolling Stone journalist Rob Sheffield wrote that the "mastery of Warp-style electronic effects" had appeared "clumsy and dated" at the time of Kid A 's release. AllMusic gave Kid A
24320-426: Was not just a matter of choosing the best songs, as "you can put all the best songs in the world on a record and they'll ruin each other". He cited the later Beatles albums as examples of effective sequencing: "How in the hell can you have three different versions of ' Revolution ' on the same record and get away with it? I thought about that sort of thing." Agreeing on the track list created arguments, and O'Brien said
24480-433: Was not widespread, with record labels still reliant on MTV and radio. Donwood wrote that EMI was not interested in the Radiohead website, and left him and the band to update it with "discursive and random content". To promote Kid A , Capitol created the "iBlip", a Java applet that could be embedded in fan sites. It allowed users to stream the album, and included artwork, photos and links to order Kid A on Amazon . It
24640-483: Was poor. As it was difficult for major labels such as EMI to promote bands in the UK, where independent labels dominated the indie charts , Radiohead's managers planned to have Radiohead use American producers and tour aggressively in America, then return to build a following in the UK. Paul Kolderie and Sean Slade , who had worked with the US bands Pixies and Dinosaur Jr. , were enlisted to produce Radiohead's debut album, recorded quickly in Oxford in 1992. With
24800-459: Was positive, and Radiohead were praised for finding new ways to connect with fans. However, it drew criticism from musicians such as Lily Allen and Kim Gordon , who felt it undercut less successful acts. In Rainbows was downloaded an estimated 1.2 million times on the day of release. Colin Greenwood explained the internet release as a way of avoiding the "regulated playlists" and "straitened formats" of radio and TV, ensuring fans around
24960-483: Was pretentious or deliberately obscure. The Irish Times bemoaned the lack of conventional song structures and panned the album as "deliberately abstruse, wilfully esoteric and wantonly unfathomable ... The only thing challenging about Kid A is the very real challenge to your attention span." In the New Yorker , the novelist Nick Hornby wrote that it was "morbid proof that this sort of self-indulgence results in
25120-518: Was refreshing because the music was all structures and had no human voices in it. But I felt just as emotional about it as I'd ever felt about guitar music." He liked the idea of his voice being used as an instrument rather than having a leading role, and wanted to focus on sounds and textures instead of traditional songwriting. Yorke bought a house in Cornwall and spent his time walking the cliffs and drawing, restricting his musical activity to playing
25280-547: Was released digitally in May 2016, followed by retail versions in June via XL Recordings. It was promoted with music videos for the singles " Burn the Witch " and " Daydreaming ", the latter directed by Anderson. The album includes several songs written years earlier, including " True Love Waits ", and strings and choral vocals performed by the London Contemporary Orchestra . It became Radiohead's sixth UK number-one album and reached number three in
25440-526: Was released in April 2004. In May 2003, Radiohead embarked on a world tour and headlined Glastonbury Festival for the second time. The tour finished in May 2004 with a performance at the Coachella Festival in California. Hail to the Thief was Radiohead's final album with EMI; in 2006, The New York Times described Radiohead as "by far the world's most popular unsigned band". Following
25600-458: Was used by more than 1000 sites, and the album was streamed more than 400,000 times. Capitol also streamed Kid A through Amazon, MTV.com and heavy.com , and ran a campaign with the peer-to-peer filesharing service Aimster , allowing users to swap iBlips and Radiohead-branded Aimster skins. Three weeks before release, Kid A was leaked online and shared on the peer-to-peer service Napster . Asked whether he believed Napster had damaged sales,
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