Radiohead – The Bends

While Radiohead saw its stock rising in 1994, it wasn't until 1995's The Bends that it really became a blue chip band. And for good reason. The quintet honed its talent for bombastic Brit Rock, yet still preserved an edge of unpredictability. Even singles like the title track didn't give in to the kind of swooning guitar clichés usually embraced by commercial radio. If the CD proved anything, it was that Radiohead could find solid ground between pop experimentation and the tradition of born-in-the-bone, balls-out rock. --Nick Heil

It was with this album that Radiohead established itself as one of Britain's finest. The lyrics are clearer, the vocals more realized, and the musicianship more striking than in previous records. There is much gloom in the world of Radiohead.

Radiohead – OK Computer

Radiohead's third album got compared to Pink Floyd a lot when it came out, and its slow drama and conceptual sweep certainly put it in that category. OK Computer, though, is a complicated and difficult record: an album about the way machines dehumanize people that's almost entirely un-electronic; an album by a British "new wave of new wave" band that rejects speed and hooks in favor of languorous texture and morose details; a sad and humanist record whose central moment is Thom Yorke crooning "We hope that you choke." Sluggish, understated, and hard to get a grip on, OK Computer takes a few listens to appreciate, but its entirety means more than any one song. --Douglas Wolk

When I first listened to this I noticed how different it sounded, not only from other bands but from Radiohead's previous offerings. Here there was much more of a reliance on electronic sounds. There is a fusion of traditional and electronic sounds that Radiohead was unable to maintain in later records. It swings between moments of isolation