Marvelous!!
If ever there were a perfect time to release a Best Of Radiohead, it’d probably be now. A band just off the back of a triumphant and innovative return to music making, with an enormous back-catalogue of absolute “tunes” and a certain dignified maturity. Yes, now is definitely the right time. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you the essential grouping of Radiohead bumf, carefully condensed to fit the palm of your hand.
Had it not been for them, alternative music, as we know it, would have been very different and very monotonous. They have influenced countless bands and evidently they are the source of sounds for the likes of Muse and Kasabian. Radiohead were the original innovators, before their time, always forward-thinking and bursting with vibrancy and pioneering ideas.
Tracks like 'Just', 'Paranoid Android', 'Karma Police', 'Creep', 'No Surprises', 'High And Dry', 'I Might Be Wrong', 'Talk Show Host' and 'The National Anthem' are so immensely brilliant. They’re examples of sheer musical genius on Radiohead’s part. Thom Yorke and his mob have a miraculous surface to their music, you can’t quite pinpoint what is so brilliant about them, perhaps it’s the infectious lyrics, the rasping guitars, the subtle/fragile melodies, the tossed in occasional erroneous note or maybe even all those collectively, but whatever it is, it entirely captivates the listener. It soothes, it provokes…it’s marvellous. The fragility and sense of atmosphere in their music is absolutely breathtaking.
Sure, their critics, call them melancholy, miserable have-a-go music heroes but they cannot deny the greatness of Radioheads achievements. This best of album is testament to how brilliant a band they are and how far they’ve come. This is one greatest hits disk that is indispensable to any music-lovers collection. If you’re serious about alternative music then you seriously need to own this.