Box Set - Radiohead Album Review

Box Set - Radiohead Album Review

Radiohead

Album Review

All seven Radiohead albums from 1993 to 2003 come together for the first time in a box set, and two other formats. Four of the albums were chart toppers - OK Computer (1997), Kid A (2000), Amnesiac (2001), Hail To The Thief (2003) with debut Pablo Honey peaking at 22 (1993), The Bends at 4 (1995) and I Might Be Wrong showing poorly at 23 (2001).

Despite their current popularity, it took the Oxfordshire quintet some time to hit the big time. Top ten single Creep (1993) was crucial in their progress, though subsequent singles over the next three years languished in the top 30. From 1996's single Street Spirit they bettered themselves with top tenners up to 2001's Pyramid Song - dire song if ever there was. Album-wise, Pablo Honey was a mixture of rough and ready rockers such as Creep and acoustic driven Thinking About You to the shambolic Anyone Can Play Guitar. The Bends a better thought out collection with its dense , textured guitar atmospheres, epitomised on opener Planet Telex, made them household names, bringing their longest chart run, 160 weeks. It also included, up to then, their finest compsition Fake Plastic Trees, featuring Tom Yorke's deft falsetto, peaking lowly at 20 as a single. It was Street Spirit (with Yorke sounding like Coldplay's Chris Martin) that effectively cracked them as a singles band. It was their first top ten single. Next album OK Computer brought them greater fame and a purple patch of top ten singles - Paranoid Android, the delightful and most commercial No Surprises (which everybody knows but can't name the band), and their biggest hit to date Karma Police, by which time they were sounding more of a stadium act. Changing their musical direction altogether, Kid A still topped the charts but divided fans and critics as it delved more into electronica, and as it happens turned out to be their weakest, and least adventurous. Musically, it was a disaster, either they were struggling, lost ,or even arrogant, with twitchy synth rambler Idioteque being a classic example. Opening track on Amnesia, didn't bode well either. Continuing their almost experimental electronica, Radiohead bore little resemblence to their formative years. Track 6, Knives Out proved the most interesting of an average bunch. It took three songs in on Hail To The Thief (Sail To The Moon) to show they still had some kind of songwriting capability, though it wasn't great by any means. Finally, they seemed to break the slumber on sprightly Go To Sleep : its driving beat and edgy riifs were a refreshing return to earlier form, but the album remained lack lustre. It did close however, with what can only be called a near opus, in Radiohead terms, with stirring A Wolf At The Door.

Eight-tracker I Might Be Wrong catches them live at venues in Oxford, Berlin, Oslo and Los Angeles. It's not the kind of album that you'd want to release to push your profile because it's quite forgettable.

They may well be posh boys from Abingdon Oxfordshire, but in this reviewer's estimation, Radiohead is yet to make a great album, and that includes their latest, In Rainbows. In 2005, Rolling Stone, the world's numero uno music magazine ranked them as 73rd on their list of greatest artists in history. A fair judgement.

File under : Seriously overrated.

Elly Roberts

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