Radiohead are<!-- This article is written in British English, which commonly treats collective nouns as plural. Please do NOT change "ARE" to "IS". Thank you. --> an English rock band formed in Abingdon, Oxfordshire, in 1985. The band members are Thom Yorke (vocals, guitar, keyboards); the brothers Jonny Greenwood (guitar, keyboards, other instruments) and Colin Greenwood (bass); Ed O'Brien (guitar, backing vocals); and Philip Selway (drums). They have worked with 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), is acclaimed as a landmark record and one of the greatest 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 was followed by Amnesiac (2001), recorded in the same sessions. Radiohead's final album for EMI, Hail to the Thief (2003), blended rock and electronic music, with lyrics addressing the war on terror.
Radiohead self-released their seventh album, In Rainbows (2007), as a download for which customers could set their own price, to critical and commercial success. Their eighth album, The King of Limbs (2011), an exploration of rhythm, was developed using extensive looping and sampling. A Moon Shaped Pool (2016) prominently featured Jonny Greenwood's orchestral arrangements. Four of the members have released solo albums, and in 2021 Yorke and Jonny Greenwood debuted a new band, the Smile. After a hiatus, Radiohead toured Europe in 2025.
As of 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, 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 the 100 greatest artists of all time and included five Radiohead 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.
History
1985–1992: formation and first years
thumb|[[Abingdon School, where Radiohead formed]]
The members of Radiohead met while attending Abingdon School, a private school for boys in Abingdon, Oxfordshire. The bassist Colin Greenwood and the guitarist and singer Thom Yorke were in the same year; the guitarist Ed O'Brien was one year above, and the drummer Philip Selway was in the year above O'Brien. When O'Brien and Yorke formed a band, they asked Colin to play bass. They asked Selway to join after playing their first show with a drum machine. Colin's brother, the multi-instrumentalist Jonny Greenwood, was three years below Colin and Yorke and the last to join. 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.
thumb|upright=0.9|Advertisement placed in the Oxford music magazine [[Nightshift (magazine)|Curfew announcing On a Friday's change of name]]While each member contributed songs in 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. Oxford had an active independent music scene in 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, 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 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. At Courtyard Studios, On a Friday recorded the Manic Hedgehog demo tape, named after an Oxford record shop. and "Creep" was blacklisted by BBC Radio 1 as "too depressing".
Pablo Honey was released 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", 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 an impact.
In early 1993, Radiohead began to attract listeners elsewhere. "Creep" had become a hit in Israel after it was played frequently by the influential DJ Yoav Kutner, and, in March, 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, and number seven on the UK singles chart when EMI rereleased it in September. followed by a European tour supporting James and Tears for Fears. Troubled by his 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. To break a deadlock, Radiohead toured Asia, Australasia and Mexico and found greater confidence performing their new music.
The My Iron Lung EP, released in 1994, was Radiohead's reaction, marking a transition towards 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.
Radiohead finished recording their second album, The Bends, by 1995, and released it that March. It was driven by dense riffs and ethereal atmospheres, with greater use of keyboards. 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 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.