Radiohead Radiohead Radiohead

Radiohead formed during the late 1980s, originally under the name On A Friday (referring to the only time all band members were able to practice). After forming in 1988, the band disbanded for a couple of years so that bandmembers can devote on college and other work, before resurfacing in 1991 with their first demoes. Their first one—the Manic Hedgehog Demo (named after an Oxford record shop) —brought the band to another gig in the Jericho Tavern. In the meantime they had already been on the cover of Curfew, a magazine based in Oxford. Things moved fast. On A Friday were booked for gigs frequently. Various record labels showed interest and finally EMI signed the band. Now they had to concede that the critic in Curfew had a point: their name was at best mundane. They decided to swap it for the title of a cod-reggea tune Radio Head on Talking Heads' True Stories album and the record is a band favorite. It would later be a major influence on their own Kid A.

The debut release was a self-produced EP. "Not a clever move" admits Chris Hufford. "A huge conflict of interests. I think Thom was very insecure of my involvement. I'd had that happen to me as an artist when one of our managers acted as producer. There was definately some friction on that front. Otherwise it was a treat, we fired out the songs." The 4-track Drill EP came out in March 1992 with Prove Yourself as the lead track. It reached 101 in the UK singles chart. It was time to find new producers. Paul Kolderie and Sean Slade, who produced Buffalo Tom's "Let me come over" and later helmed Morphine, came on board.

Then the band came up with their "Scott Walker song"—"Creep". Striking a highly popular and sympathetic note of similar self-loathing among fans, "Creep" was released around the same time as other so-called "slacker" anthems such as Beck's "Loser". The band weren't unanimously pleased with "Creep" and, until recently, refused to play it, believing that its meaning had been misinterpreted and given too much weight by fans. Legend says that Jonny's famous guitar crunches were supposedly an attempt to ruin a song he didn't like. "Jonny played the piano at the end of the song and it was gorgeous" notes Kolderie. "Everyone who heard 'Creep' just started going insane. So that's what got us the job doing the album." The album was finished in three weeks in an Oxford studio.

The single "Creep" was released in September 1992, while the album was scheduled for February next year. Meanwhile, unbeknownst to the band, a San Francisco radio station called "Live 105" had just named Pablo Honey its favourite record of the year and quickly crossed over onto L.A.'s KROQ and other West Coast stations. The single eventually peaked at a modest #34 in the US, but Pablo Honey went gold. A year after its original release, a reissued "Creep" finally hit the UK charts, peaking at #7. Pablo Honey was a solid, if unremarkable recording, that lacks both the force and experimentation of their later work. Regardless, their potential was evident with songs like the aforementioned "Creep", "Anyone Can Play Guitar", "Thinking About You" and "You". Because the album kept on breaking around the world, the Pablo Honey supporting tour lumbered into its second year.

The band tried new songs on the road, which helped in making their second album in 1995—the more significant The Bends. It was unexpectedly and suprisingly more mature than their previous, considering the fact they had been marked as one-hit-wonders. However the edifice marked "follow-up to Creep" cast a long shadow over the sessions. "It was either going to be Sulk, The Bends, Nice Dream or Just," remembers producer John Leckie. "We had to give those absolute attention, make the amazing, instant smash hits number 1 in America. Everyone was pulling their hair and saying, 'It's not good enough! We were trying too hard.'"

The solution was a change of scene: they quit the studio and toured Australia and the Far East. "It made them re-evaluate what they were good at and enjoyed doing," claimed their manager Chris Hufford. "Playing live again put the perspective back on what they'd lost in the studio." The EP My Iron Lung (1994) was released between the two albums while the band were touring and saw them in a transitional stage between the poppy simplicity of Pablo Honey and the musical depth of their next album. Having worked the songs in on the road, they returned to Britain and completed the album in a fortnight. Drawing heavily on 1960s influences as well as the then popular music exemplified by groups such as the Pixies and R.E.M., the album was a significant step forward for the group with Yorke's vocal style to the fore. Tracks such as "Planet Telex", "Street Spirit (fade out)" and "Fake Plastic Trees" were striking, original and indicators of the group's subsequent developments.

Despite that it was not a Britpop album, it was associated with the movement and in early 1996 — widely praised a year after the album's release — Radiohead took part in Cool Britannia, battling famous acts like Oasis, Blur, Pulp and Suede. Now, The Bends is considered by many critics and fans as one of the best albums of the mid-1990s.
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