Q ranks Radiohead 11th of 50 bands that changed the world

Q has put Radiohead 11th in its list of 50 bands that changed the world, in the April 2004 issue. The Sex Pistols top the list, ahead of the Beatles and Nirvana.

The magazine credits Radiohead with making prog respectable. A weak first album in Pablo Honey, an unexpected American hit in “Creep” and a long spell of bad haircuts might have finished a lesser band, it says, and it puts their survival down to the bond they formed at school in Abingdon as On a Friday. Thom Yorke was nicknamed “Salamander” there, for his lazy eye.

The same issue has a question-and-answer session with Tears for Fears. Roland Orzabal covered “Creep” around 1993 or 1994, when it was Radiohead's only hit, and says he did it as a joke and enjoyed changing some of the words. Told that the band had not liked it, he put on a show of devastation, while making clear he still does not like them.

But my apologies right now to Thom Yorke. I do appreciate what they have gone on to do... immensely.

Roland Orzabal¹

Ed O'Brien has complained that Tears for Fears treated Radiohead “like pigs” when they were the support act. Orzabal denies doing anything to them. It was a single show with many bands on the bill, he says, Radiohead kept complaining about the monitors, and the stage manager, as he remembers it, was angry with them. Curt Smith points out that he was not in the band at the time, and says he would have been kinder if he had been.

Q's top three, and Radiohead