OPINION: Radiohead's Albums Ranked from Best to Worst

I’m not sure how much of an introduction Radiohead needs for this column. The very fact that you are reading a music blog means that you are probably aware of who they are. However, just in case you are a little late to the party, Radiohead is an English alternative rock band. They are one of the most important and influential bands of all time. In this article, I will rank Radiohead’s discography, best to worst.

#1) In Rainbows

I love In Rainbows. Better than any other Radiohead CD, it manages to be weird, yet accessible. It runs the gauntlet of electronic weirdness, riff rock, tortured ballads, yet it flows wonderfully. It was also revolutionary in its distribution method. While out of a record contract, Radiohead decided that they were going to release the album by themselves online. The price? Whatever the consumer wanted to pay for it. At the time, this was revolutionary and, since then, they have inspired many other bands to follow suit. Hell, it is a selectable payment method on CD hosting site, Bandcamp. Thanks Radiohead. In Rainbows is different, without being self-indulgent, and artistic while still being very listenable. Also, it has “Reckoner” on it. Come on. Need I say more?

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#2) Amnesiac

Amnesiac and I have a weird relationship. When it was initially released, I thought it sounded like a worse version of Kid A, and all it really made me want to do was revisit that album. However, the more I listened to Amnesiac the more I appreciated it for what it was. Rather than a collection of Kid A tossoffs, I started to view Amnesiac as a companion to Kid A. A sequel of sorts. My mind ran with the idea, and I love to listen to the two back to back. The self-referencing and similar style of the two albums was so unlike Radiohead. I grew to love them as two heads to the same body, almost as a double CD, and the budding music geek inside of me fell in love with this two-headed body. I prefer it to Kid A (mostly because of "Pyramid Song") but not by much, which is why…

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#3) Kid A

... is next. Many of my friends loved OK Computer when it first came out. At that time, I was knee-deep in old punk music and couldn’t have given a shit about whoever sang that "Karma Police" song. Nonetheless, when Kid A came out, I had aged a bit, and decided that I’d check out what all the buzz was about. I was blown away. Kid A was like no other CD in my collection, or anything I had every really heard before. The singer sounded sad, not angry. The guitar sort of came and went as it pleased. Sometimes there was no guitar at all. There were bleeps and boops and weird effects to which I'd had no exposure beforehand. I was completely taken by Kid A and, for a period of time, it was literally the only CD I would listen to. I wanted to spend more time in the world that it had to offer me. For being the first album to make me listen to music in a different way, I place Kid A as the third best album Radiohead has made.

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#4 The Bends

The Bends is great. It’s not the Radiohead album that I listen to the most, but if I were to make a Radiohead greatest hits playlist, it would have a strong showing. It has some of the best live Radiohead songs on it. “Street Spirit” and “Just” transfer so well to a live setting and they certainly hold their own against some of Radiohead’s strongest work. Working against it, though, is that it is a bit of a slow starter; “My Iron Lung” and “High and Dry” don’t do much for me. That said, The Bends works really well as an entry point to Radiohead’s daunting discography. Also, at the time, it was certainly a nice taste at what they were capable of.

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#5 Hail to the Thief

I want to love Hail to the Thief. It has some of my very favourite tracks on it. “Where I End and You Begin” and “There There” will be perennial favourites of mine. Unfortunately, the album suffers from being very inconsistent. It feels like for every good song here, there is one that I will always skip. Songs like “Backdrifts” and “We Suck Young Blood” are some of Radiohead’s weakest songs. To its credit, however, it does have my favourite album cover of all Radiohead CDs. So there’s that. The band themselves have even discussed having some regret over the album, wishing that they had taken more time recording it, or trimmed it down. I agree with them. Ultimately though, its moments of brilliance are enough to for me to rank it over…

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#6 Ok Computer

I can understand why OK Computer is so beloved. Coming out of England in 1997, its contemporaries were Blur and Be Here Now. I can certainly see how OK Computer would have been a breath of fresh air from that. The song writing is strong all the way through, but moments that I absolutely love are few here…only “Exit Music” and “Lucky” are must-listens for me. I think context is important here. As previously mentioned, I heard Kid A before I heard this, and it definitely seemed like a sonic step backwards. It was too straightforward and almost seemed like a different band than the Radiohead that I thought I knew. I respect OK Computer more than I like it, but respect is important…

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#7 The King of Limbs

I don’t respect The King of Limbs. After releasing a CD in 2007, Radiohead took 4 years off. The only other time Radiohead had taken that long of a break between albums, they produced In Rainbows, so, naturally, I had high expectations for whatever they would come out with next. It would be hard to overstate just how disappointed I was with The King of Limbs. The album’s songs don’t seem to go anywhere. “Lotus Flower” and “Codex” were really the only songs that held my attention whatsoever. Lasting only 8 songs and having a running time of under 40 minutes, I figured this was some ploy by Radiohead, that surely a second half was coming to this CD. The last track was called “Separator” and in it Thom sings “If you think this over, then you’re wrong.” It made perfect sense; another half was on the way! Then Thom Yorke came out and said that that wasn’t the case. I wasn’t impressed. I wonder how many people would listen to this CD if it wasn’t Radiohead.

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#8 Pablo Honey

I have a pet peeve. When rock radio stations insist on playing “Creep” rather than any other Radiohead song, it drives me mental. Pablo Honey doesn’t have any songs that I listen to on a regular basis, the style seems so separated from Radiohead's usual quality. It feels like Radiohead was trying to emulate the grunge rock sound that was popular at the time. Copying seems so against Radiohead's ethos. None of the songs here rank with anything on the rest of their CDs. It is the worst Radiohead album by a margin, and that’s why it ends up here on this list.

You can follow Josh Custodio on Twitter @_allmyfriends