Phil Selway tells the Boulder Weekly why “Creep” caught on

Phil Selway put the success of “Creep” down to the song itself when the Boulder Weekly interviewed him ahead of Radiohead's show with Belly at the Glenn Miller Ballroom in Boulder, Colorado. Talking to Teresa Younger, he would not settle for the usual talk of disaffected youth. It was a good song, he said, with a strong melody, a good arrangement, good words and a feeling anyone could share.

The interview ran on 14 October, in a paper then in its first year. Selway told Younger that in a country as small as Britain, papers such as Melody Maker could make or break a band, and that the British press had not known what to make of Radiohead at first. Signing straight to a major label had made them look like a record company's attempt to buy into the indie scene.

Once “Creep” took off in America, he said, the British had to think again, since Radiohead were the first new British band to have real success in the States.