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Originally Posted by matious
This is the best description of it I've seen, i agree entirely, minus the pablo honey part.
I think trying to call radiohead "pop" is quite a stretch, and a little pretentious.
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Why pretentious? I don't think "pop" is a degrading term. I think it describes music that places a marked emphasis on pleasing melodies. Radiohead have always done so. Sure, they have a number of songs that aren't pop at all, but that's more the exception than the rule. Most their songs are 'pretty', with a clear melodic focus. This is in contrast say to a band like Sonic Youth, whose best music was ugly and abrasive almost all the time.
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They are very catchy at times, and certainly have enjoyed mainstream success, but their lyrical content, image, certainly isn't what i consider pop. They don't follow trends enough.
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You don't have to be mainstream trendy in order to be a pop band. Thom Yorke has said a number of times that Radiohead is pop, and that it is pop music that he loves. I agree that they are 'against the grain' so to speak. That's beyond any doubt. But it's also the idea: to make pop music, but in a way that nobody else does. To be different, edgy. Radiohead are that. But they rarely stray beyond pop.
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If you want a pop version of radiohead listen to Muse or some other gay ****.
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I don't think Muse are much like Radiohead at all. Muse is all about the bombast, the theatrical. Muse are more like a modern early-Queen, or at any rate fit within the poppy prog rock tradition. The only pop version of Radiohead, is Radiohead. Nobody truly sounds quite like them.