richard teague

The primal Blawan remix of Bloom is gripping.The Codex remix is hypnotic. However, this is a hard album to listen to from beginning to end, as it is essentially other people's take on Radiohead, and they don't exactly go for the sing-along style of remixes here now, do they?

Like Spinning Plates is reason enough to buy this live Kid A/Amnesiac album. It's also interesting to see part of the journey of Everything In Its Right Place, as it has evolved in in live iterations over the years. Every song here adds something to the studio versions, although True Love Waits showed up much later.

More traditional in style than the later albums, with hints of Nirvana, U2 and the Pixies. However, Fake Plastic Trees and Street Spirit are to this day some of Radiohead's best songs. Great opening with Planet (Xeros) Telex. My Iron Lung feels like it had something to prove.

Let Down sounds so much fuller on the remastered version OKNOTOK. Very cohesive album with vastly different range of songs from the subversive lullaby No Surprises to the clowning of Karma Police, the intimacy of Exist Music and the epic Paranoid Android. The first album I got because I heard it was so good. After 3 listens it all fell into place.

Remember the shock of hearing Everything in its Right Place for the first time, and the Charlie Parker horns on National Anthem? Idiotique has a kick, and the wobbly title track is really different. How to Disappear Completely and Motion Picture Soundtrack have it though.

Apparently Radiohead said they found their swagger with this album. Great opening on 2 + 2=5. Where I End and You Begin is my favourite (see the From the Basement version too). There, There and Sail To The Moon are top notch. With 14 tracks, not all songs created equally though - Scatterbrain, We Suck Young Blood.

We finally get True Love Waits stripped down to its haunting bare bones. Aside from Ful Stop, the orchestral Burn The Witch is somehow the song with the most drive. Present Tense is disarming and true gem. Daydreaming is hypnotic with the most surprising but essential counterpoint sounds at the end of the song. Do you remember those old electric organs that you would quickly switch on and push down the reverb buttons? Check out Decks Dark.

This is their best. The sound is the most sublime and it has very accessible songs, even if there's not a regular 4/4 time signature or verse/chorus structure to be found. When the guitar comes in on 15 Step; the swell after the second verse of Nude; the ever adjusting syncing on Videotape; the last 60 seconds of Jigsaw Falling into Place and everything after the deafening crash at the start of Reckoner.

Lotus Flower and Codex are highlights. Everyone loves Bloom, but the much maligned Morning Mr Magpie is something special. During the music keeps changing throughout, responding directly to the content of the lyrics. The hurried tempo puts you on edge wary of the thieving magpie. When it steals your memories - the music tentatively tries to "remember" itself, and when it finally steals your melody, the music strips down bit by bit until you're left with the vacuum cleaner. Listen and see for yourself.

Pyramid Song, You and Whose Army? and Like Spinning Plates are stand outs, but Dollars and Cents will catch up to you. Well, they all do, actually.