Radiohead

Abingdon

Radiohead began in Abingdon, Oxfordshire, in 1985, when members of a school band called On a Friday were pupils at Abingdon School. The line-up has never changed: Thom Yorke on vocals, guitar and keyboards, Jonny Greenwood on guitar, keyboards and other instruments, Colin Greenwood on bass, Ed O'Brien on guitar and backing vocals, and Philip Selway on drums. In late 1991 EMI asked them to change the name, and they became Radiohead. On 21 December 1991 they signed a six-album deal with the label.

From Creep to OK Computer

Creep was a hit in 1992 and 1993 and reached number 7 in Britain when it was reissued. Pablo Honey followed in February 1993, then The Bends in March 1995. From OK Computer onward, Nigel Godrich produced their records. That album, released in May 1997, was the first of theirs to enter the British chart at number one. OK Computer was recorded in 1996 and early 1997 in a converted shed near Didcot and a mansion near Bath, with strings added at Abbey Road. The US Library of Congress added it to the National Recording Registry in 2014.

The tour for OK Computer wore Yorke down. Out of that stress came the beginnings of How to Disappear Completely, which he started writing in Toronto in June 1997, three years before it reached a record.

Kid A

The band spent from January 1999 to April 2000 making Kid A, working in Paris, Copenhagen, a mansion at Batsford Park in Gloucestershire and their own new studio in Oxfordshire. With no deadline, plenty of unfinished ideas and Yorke struggling with writer's block, they split the sessions into two parts to develop electronic sounds. They thought about a double album, and half of the material was saved for Amnesiac, which appeared in May 2001.

Kid A came out in October 2000 and entered the Billboard 200 at number one, their first American chart-topper, as well as topping the British chart. It won the Grammy for Best Alternative Album and was nominated for Album of the Year. Reviews at first were divided, and its Metacritic score stands at 80. It is credited with pioneering internet-based promotion of an album. Its tracks include The National Anthem, built on a bassline Yorke wrote at sixteen. Brent DiCrescenzo of Pitchfork gave it a perfect score.

Independence

Hail to the Thief arrived in June 2003, and a break followed its tour, from 2003 to 2006. In Rainbows (October 2007) was self-released as a pay-what-you-want download, a move seen as a landmark for how music is distributed. The King of Limbs followed in February 2011, with Clive Deamer joining as a second touring drummer, and A Moon Shaped Pool in May 2016. XL Recordings took over their retail releases from 2011 and acquired the back catalogue in April 2016.

After the A Moon Shaped Pool tour came a second hiatus, from 2017 to 2021. In 2021 the band reissued Kid A and Amnesiac together as Kid A Mnesia, with a free digital exhibition, but planned touring was dropped because of the pandemic. In 2025 they toured Europe for the first time in seven years, and their website now announces dates in Australia and Japan for 2027.

Beyond the band

Members have kept busy outside the group. Yorke made The Eraser (2006) and later solo records, formed Atoms for Peace, and with Jonny Greenwood and the drummer Tom Skinner started The Smile, which toured from 2022 to 2024. Selway and O'Brien have released solo albums, and Jonny Greenwood has scored films including There Will Be Blood and Phantom Thread.

Radiohead entered the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2019, with David Byrne speaking at the ceremony. They are the most Mercury Prize-nominated act, with five albums shortlisted, and have won six Grammys and four Ivor Novellos. By 2011 they had sold more than 30 million albums. AllMusic's Stephen Thomas Erlewine called them a touchstone for adventurous rock, and the NME's Gavin Haynes, writing in 2014, dubbed them his generation's Beatles.