All their albums are near-perfect/perfect except Pablo Honey which simply blows it except for a few songs. Each album evokes a particular mood depending how i feel, but a good mood at that.

best cut from every album
Pablo Honey - Creep
The Bends - The Bends
OK Computer - Climbing Up The Walls
Kid A - Everything In Its Right Place
Amneisiac - Like Spinning Plates
Hail To The Thief - Where I End And You Begin

If i had to pick an album though, i'd pick amnesiac because its the most intricate, specific, and overall diffferent one.

Dragonfly, i think you pretty much nailed it with the song list..although street spirit kicks ass (ill never forget the slow motion video)

as for albums i personally think ok computer and kid a run neck in neck for artistic statements but (and im probably alone on this one) i think musically amnesiac was as good or even a bit better than kid a
in a seperate category the bends is one of the top ten albums of the 90's
pablo honey doesn't make the top 100

im curious to see where they go next

kid a
simply because they pushed themselves the most on it

reread the lyrics on amnesiac. i have a theory that it connects the storyline from OK Computer and Kid A...

First of all...Dragonfly, what are you talking about?

Second, it is funny to see everyone having such passionately different views..."OK Computer is the greatest album ever" "The Bends is overrated" "Amnesiac is clearly the best" "Hail to the Thief is clearly the best." That one band can stir such divergent opinions from similarly devoted fans speaks volumes about its talent. As for me I would say

OK Computer
The Bends
Kid A
Hail to the Thief
Amnesiac
Pablo Honey
And I'm really curious to see what sort of sound they can come up with next.

As for songs? starting from earlier stuff...

Creep, Thinking About You
Street Spirit, Fake Plastic Trees, Nice Dream
Paranoid Android, Let Down, Lucky
Everything in Its Right Place, Motion Picture Soundtrack, Optimistic, (National Anthem is great live too)
I Might be Wrong, Like Spinning Plates
Wolf at the Door, 2+2=5
It is really pointless to "rank" Radiohead songs, so I just throw a bunch of the particularly great ones together...

Their best albums are OK Computer and The Bends.
Favourite songs include:
Paranoid Android
Exit Music (For A Film)
Pyramid Song
Climbing Up The Walls
Karma Police
Just
My Iron Lung
Street Spirit
Creep
(that list could go on and on, I love their music)

I thought their cover of 'Nobody Does It Better' was brilliant aswell.

Before I heard Kid A, I thought outside of Creep, Radiohead was incredibly over-rated. After hearing Kid A a few times, I was thouroughly addicted. I think that album allowed me to really appreciate everything that radiohead really is..., but now that i can do that, my favorite listen is definetely The Bends. I think it has maybe more GREAT tracks than almost every other album. ever. But within the context of the other albums. I've seen them live since Kid A, and The Bends tracks were the obvious highlight. So, yeah:

Bends
Kid A
-
-
Ok Computer
Amnesiac/Hail to the Thief
-
Pablo Honey

I own three original copies of KID A! (2 cd's, 1 cassette). I had the first CD, and picked up a cassette at bargain price for my old car. Then when returning home, both were in shipment, so I picked up another copy of KID A on CD to cover that six weeks.... So now 1 CD is in the house, and one CD is in the car. And the cassette is somewhere....

So, it will come as no surpise that KID A is my favourite.

Not since Talking Heads in the early 80's (and didn't they all think I was a freak at school until Stop Making Sense came along) has a band dominated my music listening as Radiohead has.

Rankings? I may as well.

1. Kid A 2. OK Computer 3. Hail To The Thief 4. Amnesiac 5. The Bends... And as a matter of fact, I don't have Pablo Honey.

My favourite song would have to be 'Lucky', 'Everything in its Right Place' and 'You and Whose Army?'

I remember being disappointed when "Kid A" came out -- like everyone else, I wanted another "OK Computer". But it was probably the smartest move Radiohead could have made to depart from making OK Computer 2.0. Nothing could possibly compete with that labum -- whether you love it or not, there is probably not another labum of the last ten years that was so universally REVERED by critics and discerning members of the public. Now, when I listen to "Kid A", I love it, but I didn't for a while.

Still, I have to be boring and put "OK Computer" at the top -- the sheer sonic and lyrical and emotional scope of the album makes everything else you hear sound like a little appetizer. I have had a love affair with pretty much every song on it, and could hardly choose my favourite. "Let Down"? "No Surprises"? "Paranoid Android?" "Airbag?" "Exit Music (for a film)"? "Lucky?"

Is there a more heartbreaking moment in modern music than Thom Yorke singing, in "Lucky", "It's gonna be a glo-o-o-rious day" with devastating irony?

But I must admit, "The Bends" is great too. How many times, I wonder, have I sung "Fake Plastic Trees" at the top of my lungs in the privacy of my own home?

i am inclined to say "kid a". it was the album that got me into the music that i love today, and sounds so technically flawless, yet so ragged at the same time that it makes for an experience unlike their other albums (though OKC comes close). i have a deep affection for the album, also.

i have high hopes for their next release, too, judging by thom's recent performances (playing a few new tunes that sound nice, as well as old favorites including "reckoner" and "big ideas").

Well, I listened to new music religiously for 35 years before Kid A came out and I heard and taped a "sneak preview" of it on local station KROQ, and that pretty much was the second coming of the Beatles that night. It elevated Radiohead from a super band to godlike status and was one of the more transcendental musical experiences which I've ever had. For me, it was comparable to listening to the Beatles as they unfolded 1965-1969.

Britain's Channel Four has announced the results of a fan's music poll on the greatest albums of all time, with "OK Computer" resting in first place, so it must be true ... LOL

quote:

Originally posted by Peewee:
Britain's Channel Four has announced the results of a fan's music poll on the greatest albums of all time, with "OK Computer" resting in first place, so it must be true ... LOL

Radiohead frequently tops the lists of Brit mags like Q, Mojo, and Uncut as well. Those wacky Brits...what with their lousy food, bad teeth, and great taste in music!

Okay..the discussion here spurred me to listen to Hail to the Thief a few more times and reassess it...

I just don't like it! I think Backdrift is a great song, but the rest sounds just like flat experimentation.

I listened to Kid A to make sure I still liked Radiohead, and I liked it a lot. So...I do still like Radiohead, but I just don't like Hail to the Thief! Or Amnesiac for that matter. It just seemed like complexity lacking substance to me. So I'm sorry, I just don't get that album.

Well, COME ON, GUYS, you don't actually GET credit for not getting the best albums ever made!!! Let's get serious for at least a sec.

Bobthespirit...I have come across your kind before, and I really don't know what to say. The Bends, OK Computer, and Kid A are starting to look like a Bringing It all Back Home-Highway 61-Blonde on Blonde or Beggars Banquet-Let It Bleed-Sticky Fingers-Exile on Main Street type of thing...a string of albums by an artist or band at its peak that will probably never be topped. I'd agree with you that Hail to the Thief and Amnesiac were not as strong as the albums that came before them, but that doesn't make them bad, or even mediocre. There are some really cool songs on them, and while not as uniformly excellent as their predecessors, they should not be written off as "flat experimentation."

I listen to them, and I don't enjoy them. I suppose they're 'good' on the grand spectrum of released music, solidly above average....but nothing special. It does nothing for me.

If that makes me some sort of evil person who doesn't appreciate the amazingness of an album you like, paxsoprano, then I'm sorry I can't force myself to like what everybody else likes.

You and I can both be evil, bob.

I've tried and I still don't get Hail to the Thief. But I also don't really care for Amnesiac that much, either. Do I think they're "bad" or "mediocre"? Well, I'll put it this way: I don't ever listen to them. I added them to my MP3 player but I've not actively listened to either one (excepting when mark f harangued me into listen to Hail again over the summer) since I first bought them.

I guess I don't think they're "bad." They're "mediocre" for Radiohead (which still makes them better than a lot of bands out there. In the end, I just don't like them nor do I find them interesting enough to listen to them regularly.

The tastemakers can say what they will about me, but I just don't get either record. And I've certainly tried to listen to them, both subjectively as a Radiohead fan and objectively as a music fan. I was once told by someone that I'm not truly a Radiohead fan since I don't like those two records. I guess the scads of import cd-singles I've purchased and the fact that I've seen them live four times means nothing.

I'll agree with you that I listen to "The Bends" or "OK Computer" straight through much more often than "Amnesiac" or "Hail to the Thief." When I listen to Amnesiac I usually just listen to a few tracks like "I Might Be Wrong" or "Like Spinning Plates;" I don't have much patience for "Hunting Bears" or "Dollars and Cents." "Hail to the Thief" is more consistent than most people give it credit for, it just lacks the outstanding tracks like "Let Down" and "Paranoid Android." So in conclusion, I guess we pretty much agree...I just get offended when people diss Radiohead records, sorry.

I rediscovered Radiohead through Amnesiac, though I was aware of their 90's pop hit with Creep. I didn't really understand Amnesiac, until I heard several of the songs translated into a live performance much later, and now I really enjoy it (gawd they're better live than on the records? how is that possible? *head explodes*).

This still did not make me like Morning Bell on any album it's on. Anyway, I got Hail and that was it. I bought the rest of their albums. Some might say that this is going about things a bit backwards, but Radiohead is now one of my greatest loves musically. As far as my faves list goes I would have to rank their albums as far as personal listenability:

1:Hail To the Thief (dense, it's like a book)
2:I Might Be Wrong (live album that should be longer)
3:Kid A (sonically gorgeous throughout)
4:OK Computer (Parinoid Andriod is me (then again so is Scatterbrain)
5:Amnesiac (angular in good places and bad)
6:The Bends (yes we can fly)
7:Pablo Honey (can we fly?)

My favorite top ten tracks are:
1: Knives Out
2: Go To Sleep
3: A Wolf At the Door
4: Scatterbrain
5: Idioteque
6: No Surprises
7: Bulletproof...I Wish I Was
8: Parinoid Android
9: A Punch Up At a Wedding
10: I Might Be Wrong