For guitar junkies only vaguely familiar with Radiohead’s music, the attention that the press lavishes on the British quintet, combined with the band’s distinct lack of overtly flashy guitar work, can give the impression that the group is little more than a fashionable fetish or media darling. It’s no secret that guitarists Jonny Greenwood, Ed O’Brien, and Thom Yorke don’t appear to give a damn about traditional notions of 6-string greatness (as evidenced by their disinterest in interviews related to their craft). But guitar fanatics should take note anyway, because their neurotically subversive musicianship is remarkable as much for its anti-establishment inventiveness as it is for its heroic avoidance of guitar histrionics and clichés. It’s why, for many, Radiohead’s triple-guitar anti-threat, combined with Yorke’s tortured, quirky falsetto, stark synthscapes, and bittersweet orchestral melodies, provides the perfect soundtrack for life in a world wracked by needless suffering, conspiracy, and high-tech isolation.

Greenwood, O’Brien, Yorke, drummer Phil Selway, and bassist Colin Greenwood (Jonny’s older brother) joined forces while teenagers at a school for boys in Oxfordshire, England, and were influenced by bands such as Pink Floyd, Sonic Youth, R.E.M., U2, and My Bloody Valentine. Yorke, the band’s primary songwriter, often strums Fender Strats and Teles, Rickenbackers, and a Gibson ES-125 through a Vox AC30. O’Brien plays Strats, Teles, and Rickenbackers through Vox AC30 and Mesa/Boogie amps, and has a penchant for deploying hordes of effect pedals, which he uses as instruments in themselves, as well as to torture eerie sounds from his guitar and to mutate Yorke’s vocals. Greenwood plays Fender Telecasters and Starcasters through AC30s, as well as being a stompbox aficionado—but he is also a classically trained multi-instrumentalist who adds dimension to Radiohead tracks by writing string arrangements and using piano and other keyboards, harmonica, glockenspiel, a laptop running Max/MSP software, and a Korg Kaoss Pad fed by Yorke’s vocal mic.

Beyond its music, Radiohead has made a serious impact on the industry itself. In one of the most rock-n-roll moves ever, the band gave the one-fingered salute to record labels in late 2007, releasing In Rainbows from its own website and letting fans pay as much—or as little—as they wanted. The gambit brought mountains of publicity and admiration from marketing types, and, naturally, it delighted fans that treasure the band’s willingness to venture into the unknown.

INSPIRED

OK Computer, 1997
From the epic, crisply distorted guitar-and-cello intro on “Airbag” to the dreamy clean chords dripping with delay in “Subterranean Homesick Alien,” the simple acoustic guitar and stompbox-driven sound implosions of the radio hit “Karma Police,” and the bell-like Rickenbacker tones of “No Surprises,” OK Computer is a dystopian tour de force of songcraft and lush guitar layers melded to intricate arrangements and unforgettable melodies. To fully appreciate the guitar genius, break out your headphones and dig not just the amazingly varied guitar tones and performances, but also the divinely warped noises that O’Brien and Greenwood coax from their axes and pedalboards. Each listen uncovers a new gem.

In Rainbows, 2007
Despite the widespread publicity about Radiohead’s history-making decision to release In Rainbows directly from its Web site, the real story here is how the band triumphantly retains its trademark sounds while injecting the cohesive set of new songs with a loose, irresistible soulfulness not heard on earlier efforts. Previously, few would’ve thought Radiohead could make you want to dance, but the track “15 Steps” starts the album with perhaps the band’s funkiest groove ever and its bolstered by Greenwood’s inimitable clean comping. Other highlights include the fuzz-o-riffic guitars in “Bodysnatchers,” the pensive fingerstyle and winsome strings of “Faust Arp,” and the R&B-infused “Reckoner.”

REQUIRED

The Bends, 1995
Many Radiohead fans would argue that this sophomore effort was the band’s best album ever. And it’s a great place to start if you love accessible alt-rock with tons of guitar. Indeed, The Bends’ provocative cavalcade of crunchy power chords, bristling riffs, jangly acoustics, and stilted licks awash in delay and rotary effects built upon all that was great about the band’s first hit, “Creep,” and signaled to the world that there was a fresh new guitar/songwriting force to be reckoned with.

Hail to the Thief, 2003
Heralded as a long-overdue middle ground between The Bends and the extremely experimental albums that followed OK Computer (2000’s Kid A and 2001’s Amnesiac), Thief saw the return of bracingly prominent guitar work—the furious 6-string whirlwind of “2+2=5,” the cranked-AC30 climax of “There There,” and the wistful, harmonically rich chording of “Scatterbrain” being highlights.

TIRED

Pablo Honey, 1993
The complex, sparkling clean chords and solo mayhem of “Blow Out” and the unlikely worldwide hit “Creep” provided exhilarating glimpses of the inventiveness and songwriting savvy to come on later albums, but Radiohead’s debut also reveals a band whose shirtsleeves were still rather brightly emblazoned with its influences. Still, many guitarists will love its loud-and-proud smorgasbord of more straightforward rock guitar.

Kid A, 2000
While plenty of die-hard Radiohead fans lauded the band’s fearless, albeit bleak, traipse into meandering techno experimentalism, this effort’s almost complete lack of recognizable guitars (save for unremarkable chord work on “Optimistic” and backdrops in a couple of other arrangements) and jettisoning of song form can be alienating to those who
converted during the band’s OK Computer and Bends eras.