I HAVE BEEN CHALLENGED

INSPIRED BY A CHALLENGE STEPHEN I HAVE SET FORTH A TOP 10 RADIOHEAD SONG LIST FOLLOWED BY STUPID LITTLE BLURBS CHECK HIS OUT AT http://www.livejournal.com/users/thekingofcool

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10) True Love Waits (Live, I Might Be Wrong EP) - One of my favorite Radiohead traditional ballads - it is formulaic in the sense that it follows Radiohead's formula for ballads - simple background, honest vocals, and lyrics with double meanings. But it's a damn good formula and I think musically (I would say Fake Plastic Trees is lyrically superior) this is my favorite of their ballads.

9) Bulletproof...I Wish I Was (The Bends) - I really <3 the layered guitar and Thom's fragile vocals and the pretty chilling harmonies. The lyrics are both self-deprecating and comforting at the same time, which is an odd and slightly perplexing juxtaposition of emotions. It's a very pretty and a very disturbing song at the same time.

8) Paranoid Android (OK Computer) - Supposedly this song was inspired by a Beatles song in that they took three separate songs, jammed them together, and tried to make it work. Long story short, they did. The first part is pretty good at setting the mood but the song really takes off when the guitar solos kick in and the song builds to an AMAZING climax with the harmonizing and overdramatic vocals that close the song out.

7) Like Spinning Plates (Live, I Might Be Wrong EP) - The original version off Amnesiac is really good but hearing it live it's twice as good. The haunting piano line is more effective in creating a surreal atmosphere than the distorted whatever-it-is (spinning plates? turntables?) off the LP version. The lyrics are cryptic as usual but just odd enough to set you on edge, and combined with the piano line you have yourself an EXCELLENT SONG.

6) Street Spirit (Fade Out) (The Bends) - The deceptively simple but mesmerizing acoustic part at the beginning is quite an amazing background for Thom's powerful vocals, which really carry the song through to the finish. Cryptic as always, but a fantastic closer to a fantastic album.

5) There, There (Hail to the Thief) - Probably their most complex single. The multi-layered approach really works here at building a nice atmosphere over which Thom's vocals soar gracefully. The video to this song is quite perfect, showing Thom stumbling through caricatured haunted woods perpetually bewildered.

4) Airbag (OK Computer) - It's really hard to think of how strange this song is and yet how it is a pretty perfect opener for what is in my opinion the best album of our generation. The guitar parts don't seem to go anywhere at first and the vocals don't really flow easily but somewhere in the muddled mess a fantastic song emerges and I <3 it.

3) Fake Plastic Trees (The Bends) - It's really a very striking ballad, sung very affectingly and very honestly. It's a pretty simple yet very touching song about materialism and Thom's honest delivery lends it the punch it needs to raise it above pretty much every midtempo ballads of this sort. It is a depressing but a very valid view of our society.

2) Everything in Its Right Place (Kid A) - I haven't listened to Kid A much lately because the cold sterile feel of the album is just a little offputting. It's fantastic in its own right but there is something to be sad about just jamming out rather than putting together a calculated masterpiece. At any rate, you can't ask for a much better opener. Warped lyrics and warped synths blended together until you are left with a cosmic mishmash of sounds that are neither coming nor going but sort of swirling in place - kinda describes the whole album, no?

1) Let Down (OK Computer) - This song will take you by surprise. It starts off very innocently, with understated vocals and a simple guitar part but the next verse adds a greater melodic range until the bridge and finally the amazing climax where, in what the great Sean Sun called the quintessential Radiohead moment, Thom begins to harmonize with himself and the Jonny Greenwood's lead guitar until the whole thing comes crashing down in a moment of blissful freedom. The chattering synths at the end are pretty much the perfect way to ease the song into silence. It's quite fitting that after soaring so high that song finishes with a graceful tinkling decrescendo straight into your memory banks.

HONORABLE MENTIONS BECAUSE I AM A RADIOHEAD WHORE - IN CHRONOLOGICAL ORDER KIND OF

Creep (Pablo Honey)
High and Dry (The Bends)
Just (The Bends)
My Iron Lung (The Bends)
The Trickster (My Iron Lung Single)
Exit Music for a Film (OK Computer)
Karma Police (OK Computer)
Climbing up the Walls (OK Computer)
Polyethylene (Parts 1 & 2) (Airbag/How Am I Driving? EP)
The National Anthem (Kid A)
Idioteque (Kid A)
Morning Bell (Kid A)
Pyramid Song (Amnesiac)
Knives Out (Amnesiac)
Like Spinning Plates (Amnesiac)
2+2=5 (Hail to the Thief)
Scatterbrain (Hail to the Thief)