Some people argue that Radiohead is the most important rock act in the last twenty years. Peter Gabriel, for one, has said something to that effect. I would concur. There are many reasons to be fascinated by this band, and I will be writing about a lot of them as we go along. But the most important quality of their music is rarely discussed: the way it is written. (As a matter of fact, the largest determining factor for the way any music sounds is the way it is written.) Rarely in rock do artists make large strides in compositional technique. This group did.
The evolution of their music is easy to hear if one listens to their albums chronologically. The breakthrough album (for this listener anyway) was their 1997 release, OK Computer. On the first listen, it is almost immediately clear that there is something very different happening on this entire recording, and it all stems from the process that the music went through as it was being composed. (I recommend Alex Ross' August 20, 2001 article for The New Yorker, entitled "The Searchers: Radiohead's Unquiet Revolution" for a lengthier discussion of this process.) Essentially, the first drafts of the songs are written and introduced to the band by Thom Yorke. They are then revamped by Jonny Greenwood (an accomplished classical composer as well as one of the band's guitarists), and then each member of the band is given the responsibility of writing his own part. It is not uncommon for the band to work on a song for over a year before recording a final version, which is very rare in pop or rock music. The result is music that is both unified and varied. Virtually every one of their songs is an individual creation of great originality and depth.
It's my contention that this way of working has shown a way forward for rock music, because it is based on the concept of counterpoint, rather than building through chord progressions. More on this tomorrow. Suggested listening: "Paranoid Android", "Sail to the Moon", "Weird Fishes".