Radiohead
United Kingdom, 1991–now
Oxford band formed in 1985. They moved from guitar rock on The Bends and OK Computer to electronic and largely beat-driven writing on Kid A, changing approach with successive albums.
MusicRoots documents 9 artists who influenced Radiohead and 7 artists Radiohead influenced in turn. Every connection cites a published source.
Who influenced Radiohead?
- Silver Apples — Radiohead are among the acts cited as influenced by Silver Apples' pioneering electronic rock.
- Pixies — Thom Yorke has named the Pixies a formative influence — their dynamics haunt The Bends-era Radiohead.
- R.E.M. — R.E.M. were the young Radiohead's model of an ethical art-rock career; Michael Stipe became Yorke's personal mentor on the 1995 Monster tour.
- Miles Davis — Bitches Brew was a documented touchstone for OK Computer — the band has described chasing its layered, deteriorating beauty.
- Talking Heads — The band took its very name from the Talking Heads song 'Radio Head' on True Stories.
- New Order — New Order are among Jonny Greenwood's stated influences — their fusion of guitar band and electronics prefigured Radiohead's own turn on Kid A.
- Can — Kid A and Amnesiac drew openly on krautrock — Can's motorik repetition and studio experiment among the German avant-rock the band absorbed leaving guitar-rock behind.
- Olivier Messiaen — Messiaen's modes and the ondes Martenot entered Radiohead directly through Jonny Greenwood, who has named him a key modern-classical influence and plays the instrument on their records.
- Krzysztof Penderecki — Penderecki's dense string dissonance is a documented Greenwood touchstone — the tone-clusters and glissandi behind Radiohead's darker textures; Greenwood later composed a companion work to Penderecki's.
Which artists did Radiohead influence?
- Muse — Matt Bellamy called Radiohead's The Bends one of the two most important albums of the 1990s; their expansive alt-rock was a formative model for early Muse.
- Okean Elzy — Okean Elzy's sound is built on the alternative-rock and britpop template of 1990s bands like Radiohead, with layered guitars and introspective songwriting.
- Dua Lipa — From the same car journeys. It explains a melancholy in her ballads that the disco records do not account for.
- Travis — Radiohead sit alongside Oasis at the root of Travis's lineage — Healy and Thom Yorke shared a scene and a sensibility.
- Coldplay — Radiohead were a defining influence on Coldplay — Martin has openly held them as the higher standard the band measured itself against.
- Keane — Radiohead were among the influences Rice-Oxley named behind Keane's atmospheric, piano-driven alternative rock.
- Glass Animals — Radiohead's textured, electronic-tinged art-rock is a key influence on Glass Animals' woozy psychedelic pop.