ARTIST

Radiohead

Who will ever figure how last year's hype band becomes this year's underdog, and then next year's underdog hype sensation? Oxford, England's Radiohead are the prime example of such an affliction. They started as a grunge-wannabe band with their Gen X-posing hit "Creep." Immediately, it was recognizable that singer Thom Yorke possessed an intriguing voice, but the material was laughably weak on their debut album, Pablo Honey.

For The Bends, the band joined up with producer John Leckie and tightened up some decent material to make what became a critically celebrated release. "Fake Plastic Trees" had real tension coursing through its pop soul. The organ, in particular, sounded especially eerie as Yorke worked himself into a frenzy by the song's end. The rest of the album was a definite improvement.

But while the group continued to play shows and develop a decent cult following, something more bizarre occurred. Months before OK Computer, the band's third album, was released, a buzz of sorts was created within the industry. People were talking about Radiohead as if they'd done something incredible and were about to unleash it on the masses. In the midst of an electronica revolution that seemed permanently stalled, Radiohead was to deliver the next rock monument. When it arrived, it seemed impossible that so many people had gotten excited about what was essentially a dull progressive rock album that used spoken-word bits and computer samples to augment what was a run-of-the-mill rock album, with an unusual nod to the sound U2 discarded at the onset of the '90s.

Instead of embracing their newfound popularity, Radiohead thumbed their collective noses at it. In 2000 the band released Kid A, a brave and experimental work that likely left some of the bandwagon-jumpers in the dust. Nonetheless, the album, influenced by the likes of Can, Alice Coltrane, Public Image Ltd., and Sigur Ros, managed to debut at the top of the Billboard 200, thanks to Radiohead's growing popularity.

Kid A was followed by the similar-in-spirit Amnesiac in 2001. In fact, the album was primarily composed of tracks, such as the Smiths-like "Knives Out," that were recorded during the Kid A sessions.

Radiohead returned in 2003 with yet another bold effortm, Hail To The Thief, proving that the band was more interested in challenging themselves than ruling the rock world.

Written by Rob O'Connor