I often discuss how Radiohead is one of those rare bands whose albums get better as they go, whereas most bands' works decline in quality as their discography grows.
I view Kid A as a record that not only redefined Radiohead, but really changed the course of pop music. Kid A was defiant...a sonic middle finger commercially speaking, insisting on being what it was (nightmarish, beautiful, icy, detached, magnificent...all the things we love about it) and accomplishing that in the face of what everyone expected of it.
I view Amnesiac as a kind of extension of Kid A, and usually listen to it as though that's precisely what it is. I rarely play Kid A without following it up with this album. I used to wish they had released them together as a double album until I realized that I can simply play the two back to back and pretend that's just what they did. Fun!
Now, Kid A and Amnesiac being what they are, I view the rest of Radiohead's catalog as the organic machinery that surrounds the nucleus of these two records. Orbiting closest to the center, of course, I find OK Computer and In Rainbows performing the most vital functions.
OK Computer seems in hindsight to be so much like a prelude to what immediately followed, but this idea in no way diminishes the power and importance of this brilliant album, while In Rainbows conversely seems less like any kind of epilogue than it does a necessary evolution of what came before it.
More on the periphery of all of this I see Hail to the Thief, the Bends and the King of Limbs, each flashing and dimming with a bit more frequency and in no particular sequence...though to be fair tKoL hasn't had much time to sink in for me as of yet.
Of course, don't get me wrong...each of these three records are absolutely brilliant and vary from 7.5/10 to 9/10, depending on the weather.
I haven't listened to Pablo Honey in like, 15 years. Not fair to say much about it, but I suspect there's a reason it's been so long since I've given it a whirl.
-Suckin' on a Lemon Ghost Jam
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