Artist

Radiohead

Formed in Abingdon, Oxfordshire, England, 1985 9 studio albums 2 dives so far

Five schoolfriends from Abingdon, near Oxford, who turned anxiety into one of the most restless catalogues in modern rock. Radiohead formed in 1985 as teenagers and kept the same five members the whole way: Thom Yorke on voice and guitar, Jonny and Colin Greenwood on guitar and bass, Ed O’Brien on guitar, Philip Selway on drums. They broke through in the early 1990s with a guitar sound that fit the era, then spent the rest of their career refusing to repeat it. The Bends sharpened them; OK Computer made them a generational band; Kid A tore up the guitars and started again with electronics and dread. What runs through all of it is a particular unease, a sense of a world that has quietly stopped working, set to music that is far more beautiful than the feeling should allow. They are a band that gets called the most important of their time and seems faintly uncomfortable with the title. Start with the record that earned it.

Worth knowing

The five of them met at the same boys' school in Abingdon and have never once changed the lineup, which is rare for a band this long-running. For years they were called On a Friday, after the day they rehearsed. Radiohead came later, lifted from a Talking Heads song, only once a label asked them to pick something that did not sound like a school covers act.