All Nine Radiohead Albums Ranked From Worst to Best
Few bands have shaped modern music the way Radiohead has. Across three decades, they’ve gone from scrappy Britpop newcomers to the architects of some of the most inventive, haunting, and influential albums of our time.
Ranking their discography isn’t about declaring winners and losers. Except for Pablo Honey every Radiohead album has its defenders and hidden depths. But if you’re new to the band, or if you just want to argue with me about whether In Rainbows should beat Kid A (fair), here’s one take on ranking Radiohead’s nine studio albums, from weakest (relatively speaking) to undeniable masterpiece.
9. Pablo Honey (1993)
Do we really need to say anything here? Let’s move on.
8. The King of Limbs (2011)
Built around looping rhythms and electronic textures, The King of Limbs feels more like a sketchbook than a full statement. I usually enjoy when an artist known for “big” statement albums takes a break and makes a shorter, more casual work (GNX by Kendrick Lamar being a recent example), but here I’m just not sure what Radiohead wanted this album to be.
Nothing here bores me to tears. There are moments of hypnotic beauty (“Lotus Flower,” “Codex”), but it never quite coalesces into anything meaningful.
7. Hail to the Thief (2003)
Hail to the Thief throws everything at the wall and not everything sticks. It’s almost like they made a concentrated effort to make a more accessible, song-based album but they couldn’t help themselves from indulging in some of the electronic experimentation they’d been doing recently. Most of the songs are great on their own but they don’t flow all that well with each other.
But when it works, it’s thrilling: the jagged menace of “2 + 2 = 5,” the eerie calm of “Sail to the Moon,” the creeping dread of “There There.” It’s overlong and can feel more like someone’s playlist than a unified album, but it’s also Radiohead at their most restless.
6. Amnesiac (2001)
Recorded during the same sessions as Kid A and often treated as that album’s little brother, Amnesiac is a less cohesive and important statement. But it’s also full of great music and showcases the band’s experimental streak at its boldest. There’s more guitar than Kid A and it’s fun to think of how the two could have been combined into one “super” album of material. But it’s a testament to how much Amnesiac does work as its own entity that you can’t ultimately picture any of its songs mixed with the Kid A ones.
“Pyramid Song” is one of their most beautiful recordings; “You and Whose Army?” is quietly epic; “Life in a Glasshouse” closes things with smoky, jazzy unease.
5. A Moon Shaped Pool (2016)
Radiohead’s most recent album is lush, beautiful, and melancholy. By this point Jonny Greenwood had been moonlighting in classical composition and film scores for a while and here he brings plenty of interesting string arrangements that act more like a lead instrument (and less like the supporting strings you’d occasionally find in other Radiohead songs).
More tranquil overall than usual, it deepens the Radiohead sound in new ways without going back to the well of snarling guitars and pulsing electronics. Given that they haven’t released an album since, it’s possible that they view this as a summation of the band. If so, it’s a pretty damn good one.
4. The Bends (1995)
Now we’re at the undisputed essentials. The leap from Pablo Honey to The Bends is staggering and here, Radiohead find an anthemic and emotive voice that shows what a unique band they can be. I’ve spoken to many people who still think this is the apex of the band.
As great an album as it is though, for me there’s no doubt here is the right spot for it. The best songs (“High and Dry”, “Fake Plastic Trees”, “Street Spirit”) have lost none of their power in the 30 years since it’s been released. But if I’m being honest there are a handful of tracks that have faded a bit for me. Not that I dislike them now, but I just don’t get as excited to hear them.
3. In Rainbows (2007)
The pay-what-you-want release made headlines, but the music is what endures. In Rainbows is a perfect encapsulation of the Radiohead sound in the 2000s. It incorporates the electronic experimentation of Kid A/Amnesiac but is warmer than those records. It also has the directness of Hail to the Thief while being more focused as a whole.
Tracks like “Weird Fishes/Arpeggi,” “Nude,” and “Reckoner” showcase Radiohead at their most gorgeous, but in a more unique way than songs on The Bends. It’s an album that breathes, and feels more grand than its relatively short 42 minutes would suggest. All in all it’s just about perfect.
2. Kid A (2000)
When Radiohead followed OK Computer with this icy, abstract, electronic masterpiece, it shocked the world. Gone were the guitars and choruses; in their place were glitchy beats, ambient washes, and Yorke’s voice as just another instrument.
It was polarizing at the time, but it’s now seen as one of the defining albums of the 21st century. It’s not without its flaws. The title track doesn’t hold up well anymore and though I have nothing against “Motion Picture Soundtrack”, I often prefer to end on “Morning Bell”. But these are small nitpicks that don’t dent the stunning achievement of the album as a whole. A bold reinvention that influenced everyone from indie rockers to EDM producers.
1. OK Computer (1997)
You saw this coming. OK Computer is not just Radiohead’s best album, it’s one of the greatest albums ever made. A sprawling, eerie exploration of alienation in the modern world, it made Radiohead perhaps the most important band of their generation.
The scope of this album still amazes. From the epic, multi-part “Paranoid Android” to the haunting “Exit Music (For a Film)” to the aching “No Surprises,” each song is not only amazing but fits in perfectly with the others. It’s hard to do justice to it in words, if you haven’t heard it yet drop everything and do so right now.
Wrapping Up
So that’s it then. Nine albums, nine very different statements, one band that never stood still.
Maybe you’d put Kid A over OK Computer, or slide In Rainbows into the top spot. That’s the beauty of Radiohead: every fan has their own favorites, because every album has its own distinct world.
What’s your ranking?
