The Best Of

after the band had gone

Radiohead's contract with EMI ended with Hail to the Thief in 2003, and they did not sign again. In Rainbows came out on their own website in October 2007, two months after the investment firm Terra Firma bought EMI. In February 2008 Ed O'Brien told a Canadian radio show that EMI was preparing a greatest hits, and that the band would not be promoting it. It came out in June, on two CDs and on this DVD.

Guy Hands, who ran Terra Firma, told The Guardian in 2019 that the decision to put it out had been his. The band had no say in it. Thom Yorke had his in The Word in May 2008.

We haven't really had any hits so what exactly is the purpose?

Thom Yorke · The Word, May 2008

He added that it was a wasted opportunity, because if the band had been behind it, it might have been good.

the videos

The DVD runs in order from “Creep” to “2 + 2 = 5”, eleven years of promo films. All seven from 7 Television Commercials are here, and so are both “High and Dry” videos, David Mould's British one and the American one in the diner, which Capitol commissioned for America. The 2001 and 2003 films include Shynola's “Pyramid Song”, Michel Gondry's “Knives Out” and Chris Hopewell's “There There”. The last film on the disc is not a promo at all but “2 + 2 = 5” live at Belfort in July 2003, and it is the one film on the disc not commissioned by Dilly Gent, who looked after the band's videos.

Most of the videos are in the Radiohead Public Library, one by one; “Anyone Can Play Guitar”, “Pop Is Dead”, “Stop Whispering” and the American “High and Dry” are not, and “2 + 2 = 5” is there only inside the whole Belfort concert. The DVD has no extras, and Scott A. Gray of Exclaim!, who thought the videos got better as the music did, told fans to hold out for a collection the band were behind.