The British five-piece, Radiohead, has gained critical acclaim for their adventurous music over the past two decades. The quintet of Thom Yorke (vocals, guitar), Johnny Greenwood (guitar), Colin Greenwood (bass), Ed O’Brien (guitar) and Phil Selway (drums) also recently released a new album, A Moon Shaped Pool this year.
5. Airbag
The first song from the critically acclaim Ok Computer album is a fantastic mix of everything that is great about Radiohead. The song starts off with crunching guitar before drumming and Thom Yorke’s vocals set the mood.
This song also typifies the 90s era when technology started to get more involved in our lives. The song is sung without any melodramatics, it is simple and to point. The outro and main riff have an eerie feel that something is drastically changing.

4. Just
This is one of my all-time favourite songs, mainly because of the guitar work from Johnny Greenwood who penned the guitar riff and melodies after a bet to see if he could play as many different chords and notes as possible in one song. The pacing of the song is also great with slower verses and faster choruses before all mayhem breaks loose after the bridge with a fantastic solo of clean and distorted guitar parts.

3. Karma Police
Another ingeniously written song from Thom Yorke’s pen that looks at the concept of karma and when giving enough is really enough in the eyes of some people.
“This is what you get when you mess with us” is an iconic line to all Radiohead fans. The ending of the song with the drums and piano where the lyric “I lost myself” gets repeated over and over is worth listening to the song alone. The desperation in Yorke’s voice is immeasurable.

2. Fake Plastic Trees
This song hit the airwaves in 1995 already and focuses on the plastic and fake nature of society. This song actually would be much more applicable to this day and age. The song has a slow and soft pace but works fantastically well in bringing the listener in. Yorke tells the story with his voice leading the way on the musical journey. The lyric “A fake plastic watering can for a fake plastic Chinese rubber plant,” sums up the nature of the song.
Those opening lyrics are so well written that they urge you to listen further.

1. Paranoid Android
This is Radiohead’s piece de resistance – song that firmly placed them as one of the super bands of our lifetime. The intro with the acoustic guitar and strange guitar effects set the scene.
Yorke’s high-pitched vocals take this further before a short rock build-up adds some much-needed oomph to the song.
The song has distinct sections that differ vastly, but still create a coherent picture to the listener.
The mixture of progressive and alternative rock has struggled to combine this well since. Rolling Stone also placed the song at number 256 on its list of the 500 greatest songs of all time.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zIklhgI-m2s