Radiohead on the Modern Rock Charts

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Their best song? Most surprising rank?

Poll Results

OptionVotes
Let Down – #29 (9/13/1997) 13
There, There – #14 (6/21/2003) 11
Fake Plastic Trees – #11 (6/3/1995) 11
Just – #37 (11/11/1995) 8
Creep – #2 (6/12/1993) 7
Lotus Flower – #33 (4/9/2011) 4
High And Dry – #18 (2/3/1996) 4
Optimistic – #10 (11/11/2000) 3
I Might Be Wrong – #27 (6/9/2001) 3
Karma Police – #14 (3/7/1998) 3
Stop Whispering – #23 (10/23/1993) 2
Bodysnatchers – #8 (2/23/2008) 2
Go To Sleep – #32 (9/27/2003) 1


LimbsKing, Friday, 28 February 2014 14:50 (eleven years ago)

Let Down all the way for me

LimbsKing, Friday, 28 February 2014 14:50 (eleven years ago)

at last, a chance to poll some Radiohead songs

I never did nothing to no curry (Noodle Vague), Friday, 28 February 2014 14:51 (eleven years ago)

Another Radiohead thread!

*throws confetti*

**votes for Creep**

Bipolar Sumner (Branwell Bell), Friday, 28 February 2014 14:53 (eleven years ago)

In new and surprising ways

LimbsKing, Friday, 28 February 2014 14:54 (eleven years ago)

There, There, Optimistic or Lotus Flower.

I wish to incorporate disco into my small business (chap), Friday, 28 February 2014 14:56 (eleven years ago)

paranoid android was never a single? used to hear pretty often on the radio

silverfish, Friday, 28 February 2014 15:00 (eleven years ago)

Let Down all the way for me

EveningStar (Sund4r), Friday, 28 February 2014 15:12 (eleven years ago)

voted there, there over let down. didn't realize fake plastic trees had done that well! for some reason i thought high and dry was the big altradio hit. had also forgotten that 'bodysnatchers' got the radio push and did pretty well (had kinda forgotten 'bodysnatchers' period tbh).

balls, Friday, 28 February 2014 15:29 (eleven years ago)

The Paranoid Android video definitely got play on MTV, and it was a single in Europe. Don't remember hearing it on altradio (at least in California).

LimbsKing, Friday, 28 February 2014 15:35 (eleven years ago)

Would never in a million years have named Bodysnatchers as their biggest hit after Creep.

What is wrong with songs? Absolutely nothing. Songs are great. (DL), Friday, 28 February 2014 17:33 (eleven years ago)

^^ me too

The student run alt rock station in Champaign played "Paranoid Android" all the time for about a month, but then would only trot it out for special countdowns or whatever.

an enormous bolus of flatulence (jon /via/ chi 2.0), Friday, 28 February 2014 18:12 (eleven years ago)

Are there going to be many more Radiohead polls? An artist poll is due to run in a few weeks time and I'm wondering if it'll be worth it.

nate woolls, Friday, 28 February 2014 18:16 (eleven years ago)

also voted there there over let down

brimstead, Friday, 28 February 2014 18:21 (eleven years ago)

if possible i would have voted for the coda of karma police, though.

brimstead, Friday, 28 February 2014 18:22 (eleven years ago)

Voted for "There There" just to imagine the unfettered joy on Ed O'Brien's face when he realized he could play chords.

Bryan Fairy (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Friday, 28 February 2014 18:24 (eleven years ago)

Why is Paranoid Android not in here? It was one of their biggest radio hits here in Mexico.

Moka, Friday, 28 February 2014 18:48 (eleven years ago)

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/c/cd/Paranoid_Android_CD1.jpg

Moka, Friday, 28 February 2014 18:48 (eleven years ago)

It was definitely a single.

Moka, Friday, 28 February 2014 18:48 (eleven years ago)

I think this is a poll of their placements on Billboard's Modern Rock Chart?

joe perry has been dead for years (underrated aerosmith bootlegs I have owned), Friday, 28 February 2014 18:50 (eleven years ago)

Oh ok, I was just looking at the charts and realized it never got released on the US as a single. That's odd though considering it was their highest single in the UK charts up to that point (at #3, creep didn't get higher than #7)

Moka, Friday, 28 February 2014 18:52 (eleven years ago)

let down was not a single, iirc, it got played a lot right before/right when okc dropped.

brimstead, Friday, 28 February 2014 18:55 (eleven years ago)

Yeah let down doesn't appear as a single.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radiohead_discography#Singles

Moka, Friday, 28 February 2014 19:09 (eleven years ago)

optimistic is literally the only decent radiohead song

real myst opportunity (sleepingbag), Friday, 28 February 2014 19:16 (eleven years ago)

radiohead sux

afriendlypioneer, Friday, 28 February 2014 19:19 (eleven years ago)

Just realized it was nine months between let down and the end-of-year / Grammy hype / critical okc resurgence that led to karma police the next march

LimbsKing, Friday, 28 February 2014 19:28 (eleven years ago)

Six months, rather

LimbsKing, Friday, 28 February 2014 19:29 (eleven years ago)

They were also touring the US at the time.

Virginia, Plain and Tall (C. Grisso/McCain), Friday, 28 February 2014 19:38 (eleven years ago)

(I did not actually vote for Creep)

((Of these songs, probably There There or Let Down or maybe Fake Pla-aaastic Trees but it's mystifying what songs are on this list, TBH))

Bipolar Sumner (Branwell Bell), Friday, 28 February 2014 20:05 (eleven years ago)

let down

kornrulez6969, Saturday, 1 March 2014 02:03 (eleven years ago)

my local alt-rock station played "Just" WAY more than the national average at the time, for a while i could expect to hear it every morning, really really great radio song. still maybe my fav Radiohead song period, which they had a bunch of songs that sounded like that.

MISTERSNRUB (some dude), Saturday, 1 March 2014 02:23 (eleven years ago)

Voted for "There There" just to imagine the unfettered joy on Ed O'Brien's face when he realized he could play chords.

― Bryan Fairy (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Friday, February 28, 2014 6:24 PM

But Ed O'Brien plays drums on There There?

Oh sod it, HTTT is my favourite RH album so I'm voting for that one. Also, the video is absolutely amazing. Anything where Thom Yorke gets turned into a tree gets my vote.

Bipolar Sumner (Branwell Bell), Saturday, 1 March 2014 08:41 (eleven years ago)

No, wait, I'm not.

Did you ever have the experience of listening to music by an artist you are normally ~obsessed with~ while not in the grip of that particular obsession and find yourself astonished to discover that a particular track is... y'know, only *music*? And not a magical key to a gateway to a sublime experience of dizzying emotional heights? And it's kind of shocking, because you're expecting *that* experience, and it's just guitars and drums and someone singing over the top?

Just a reminder, shocking though it is, that the emotional transcendence of a track lies between one's own ears and expectations, rather than being encoded in the actual musical notes. I don't know why this shocks me, but it always does.

Bipolar Sumner (Branwell Bell), Saturday, 1 March 2014 08:50 (eleven years ago)

There There is my choice for best song here but I gotta give it up for Just as the song (& video! ) that first made me a fan

Drugs A. Money, Saturday, 1 March 2014 09:29 (eleven years ago)

The just video! I paused and slo-mo'd it, couldn't figure out what he said at the end

LimbsKing, Saturday, 1 March 2014 13:16 (eleven years ago)

just remembered NV spoiling his ballot paper by scrawling FAUST ARP across it which i think is my all-time fav ilx thing. still makes me feel profoundly happy to think about

ogmor, Saturday, 1 March 2014 13:41 (eleven years ago)

Voted Let Down but could have easily chosen There There or Just

Sandy, Saturday, 1 March 2014 14:06 (eleven years ago)

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

System, Saturday, 8 March 2014 00:01 (eleven years ago)

Gravity always wins. Mostly because I'm just perplexed by their later life singles choices.

claim you hate me; read my twitter account ~religiously~ (Branwell Bell), Saturday, 8 March 2014 00:04 (eleven years ago)

No "Anyone Can Play Guitar"?

Mr. Snrub, Saturday, 8 March 2014 00:16 (eleven years ago)

I vaguely remember Vegetable getting airplay circa 1993

LimbsKing, Saturday, 8 March 2014 06:33 (eleven years ago)

voted There There because I didn't notice Let Down somehow

HTTT is severely underrated so I don't mind so much

ultros ultros-ghali, Saturday, 8 March 2014 15:44 (eleven years ago)

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

System, Sunday, 9 March 2014 00:01 (eleven years ago)

People like Let Down? Always a low point on OKC for me. The Easy Star All stars version is miles better

inside out trousers (dog latin), Sunday, 9 March 2014 10:21 (eleven years ago)

Was it even a single ?

inside out trousers (dog latin), Sunday, 9 March 2014 10:24 (eleven years ago)

CD singles were released to radio stations for airplay in America but I don't think a full commercial release ever happened

Frontier Psychiatrist, Sunday, 9 March 2014 10:34 (eleven years ago)

It was going to be a single, but they hated the video so much they decided to cancel it. The original plan was to make a video for every song on OK Computer. That would've been AWESOME.

Mr. Snrub, Sunday, 9 March 2014 16:24 (eleven years ago)

Let Down is always the one that sticks in my head, but then again, I've spent a lot of my life in airports.

claim you hate me; read my twitter account ~religiously~ (Branwell Bell), Sunday, 9 March 2014 16:27 (eleven years ago)

apparent from the HttT singles, which I managed to miss completely (still never heard the album, still don't care), this list encompasses a lot of my favorite RH... maybe I'll feel differently in another ten years, but right now, I have much more patience for them as a "modern radio rock" band than a "conceptual art-rock album" band

merciless to accomplish the truth in his intelligence (bernard snowy), Sunday, 9 March 2014 16:40 (eleven years ago)

(... challops, I know; but I've just heard OKC & Kid A SO MANY TIMES, y'know?)

merciless to accomplish the truth in his intelligence (bernard snowy), Sunday, 9 March 2014 16:42 (eleven years ago)

* "apparent" = "apart"

merciless to accomplish the truth in his intelligence (bernard snowy), Sunday, 9 March 2014 16:42 (eleven years ago)

okay I just downloaded previously-unheard "There There" & inexplicably-missing-from-my-itunes "Creep", and made a playlist of the top 10; will report back with findings

merciless to accomplish the truth in his intelligence (bernard snowy), Sunday, 9 March 2014 16:53 (eleven years ago)

"let down" is melodramatic and dismissable in some moods but in others it's the ideal pink floyd/smiths synthesis that attracted me to radiohead in the first place. hysterical and useless!

reggie (qualmsley), Sunday, 9 March 2014 17:00 (eleven years ago)

yeah, it's easily one of their most accessible songs post-The Bends; I don't think they did anything else that straightforward until "House of Cards" (NB I love both songs, and will probably still be rocking The Bends when I die)

merciless to accomplish the truth in his intelligence (bernard snowy), Sunday, 9 March 2014 17:17 (eleven years ago)

The "one day I am gonna grow wings" coda of let down gets me every time. Really picks you up when you're feeling down (and not many radiohead sons can say that)

LimbsKing, Sunday, 9 March 2014 17:25 (eleven years ago)

"let down" would be a great contemp-country ballad

rhyme heals all goons (m bison), Sunday, 9 March 2014 17:31 (eleven years ago)

No bcuz the chorus is a dead skunk

Reality, that incessant contrarian (Drugs A. Money), Sunday, 9 March 2014 19:20 (eleven years ago)

So... the only song in here that wasn't actually a single won the poll.

Moka, Sunday, 9 March 2014 20:26 (eleven years ago)

K, I just double checked and it seems it did actually chart. Wikipedia isn't listing it as a single so it charted but it seems like it wasn't actually released?

http://www.billboard.com/artist/277326/radiohead/chart?f=377

Moka, Sunday, 9 March 2014 20:32 (eleven years ago)

this has been covered in-thread, apparently the single shipped to radio stations but was never commercially released

merciless to accomplish the truth in his intelligence (bernard snowy), Sunday, 9 March 2014 20:34 (eleven years ago)

The numbers after the song titles are chart positions on the modern rock tracks chart

LimbsKing, Sunday, 9 March 2014 23:56 (eleven years ago)

People outside the US getting confused about how US radio charts work.

inside out trousers (dog latin), Monday, 10 March 2014 10:02 (eleven years ago)

okay so far the major revelation of this poll is just how awesome the "Fake Plastic Trees"-->"Just" sequence is—shoulda dropped the two (weak) songs that separate them on the album!

merciless to accomplish the truth in his intelligence (bernard snowy), Monday, 10 March 2014 12:02 (eleven years ago)

I love nice dream, could do without bones.

LimbsKing, Monday, 10 March 2014 13:43 (eleven years ago)


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