Music Folks

Radiohead: From Oxfordshire Schoolboys to Rock’s Great Experimenters

October 14, 2026 · by Music Folks

Radiohead are the band that kept changing the rules. Five friends from an Oxfordshire school, they broke through with the bruised guitar anthem “Creep,” then spent the next three decades refusing to repeat themselves: the widescreen rock of OK Computer, the electronic left turn of Kid A, the pay-what-you-want release of In Rainbows. Few bands of their size have taken so many risks, and fewer still have kept so many listeners along for the ride.

Quick Facts

Formed: 1985, Abingdon, Oxfordshire, England (as On a Friday)
Members: Thom Yorke, Jonny Greenwood, Colin Greenwood, Ed O’Brien, Philip Selway
Genre: Alternative rock, art rock, electronic
Key albums: The Bends (1995), OK Computer (1997), Kid A (2000), In Rainbows (2007), A Moon Shaped Pool (2016)
Key songs: “Creep,” “Paranoid Android,” “Karma Police”
Awards: Three Grammys for Best Alternative Music Album; Rock and Roll Hall of Fame (2019)

On a Friday

The five members met at Abingdon School, a private boys’ school near Oxford, and formed a band in 1985 called On a Friday, named after the day they rehearsed. Brothers Colin and Jonny Greenwood, singer Thom Yorke, guitarist Ed O’Brien and drummer Philip Selway played their first gig at the Jericho Tavern in Oxford in 1987. On December 21, 1991, they signed a six-album deal with EMI, which asked them to change their name. They became Radiohead.

“Creep” and The Bends

Their debut single, “Creep,” came out in 1992 and was initially passed over by BBC Radio 1, which found it too depressing. It caught on anyway, reaching No. 34 on the Billboard Hot 100, and a 1993 re-release took it to No. 7 in the UK. It anchored the debut album Pablo Honey (1993), and The Bends (1995) followed two years later, showing there was far more to the band than one hit.

OK Computer

OK Computer (1997) turned Radiohead into one of the most celebrated bands in the world. It won the Grammy for Best Alternative Music Album, and two of its songs, “Paranoid Android” and “Karma Police,” brought Ivor Novello Awards in 1998.

Kid A and Reinvention

Instead of making OK Computer again, the band went somewhere stranger. Kid A (2000) traded big guitar songs for electronic textures, and it still went to No. 1 in the US a week after its October release. It won a second Grammy for Best Alternative Music Album. Amnesiac (2001), drawn from the same period, and Hail to the Thief (2003) completed their run on EMI.

In Rainbows and the Price Tag

Free of their record deal, Radiohead released In Rainbows as a download on October 10, 2007, and let fans pay whatever they wanted, including nothing. It is widely cited as the first pay-what-you-want release by a major act. The physical edition still went to No. 1 in the UK and the US and brought the band a third Grammy for Best Alternative Music Album. The King of Limbs (2011) and A Moon Shaped Pool (2016) followed. By 2011 the band were reported to have sold more than 30 million albums worldwide.

Life Outside the Band

The members have stayed busy between records. Yorke has released solo albums including The Eraser (2006) and Anima (2019), led the group Atoms for Peace, and in 2025 put out Tall Tales with producer Mark Pritchard. Yorke and Jonny Greenwood formed The Smile with drummer Tom Skinner, releasing three albums between 2022 and 2024. Greenwood has become one of cinema’s most admired composers, scoring films such as There Will Be Blood and Phantom Thread and earning three Oscar nominations, most recently for One Battle After Another. O’Brien and Selway have released solo albums too, with O’Brien’s Blue Morpho arriving in May 2026.

In 2019 Radiohead were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame by David Byrne.

Back on the Road

In September 2025 the band announced their first tour in seven years: 20 arena shows across Madrid, Bologna, London, Copenhagen and Berlin. It opened in Madrid on November 4, 2025, and Rolling Stone’s verdict on the opening night was simple: “It was worth the wait.” Two Copenhagen shows were pushed back after Yorke developed a severe throat infection, so the run finished on December 16. In September 2026 they announced 21 shows for 2027 in Australia and Japan.

Where They Are Now

As of October 2026, Radiohead are active but in no hurry to make a new record. In May 2026 O’Brien told NME the band had not even discussed another album, and their plan is to tour roughly one continent a year. That suits a band whose catalog keeps finding new listeners, and whose habit of doing things their own way has influenced how artists record, release and think about their music.

Sources

Tagged: 1990s, Alternative, British