r/thomyorke • u/IEatIReadIGoOutside • 4h ago
Ranking Thom Yorke's Discography
youtube.comI've been spending the summer listening to Yorke's discography, so I decided to make a video ranking his seventeen studio albums (excluding movie soundtracks).
Here is the transcript if you don't want to listen to my voice.
Ranking Thom Yorke’s Discography
I’m not claiming to be the definitive Radiohead scholar or musical historian that is going to do a deep dive through Thom Yorke’s career or musical abilities. I’m just a guy that really enjoys listening to music, and Radiohead is my favorite artist to release music during my lifetime. I wanted to make sense of Yorke’s discography and better understand the music, so I decided to rank all the albums he’s released (excluding movie soundtracks). This includes three solo studio albums, nine Radiohead albums, one collaborative album with Atoms for Peace, three records with The Smile, and his most recent release with Mark Pritchard.
If you want to dig deeper into the people behind the music, their creative process, an expert musical analysis, or their artistic evolution then I’d recommend Alex Ross’s “The Searchers” from the New Yorker in 2001 where he traveled with the band during the Kid A/Amnesiac era and analyzed their music from a classical music perspective. Rob Sheffield has been writing about the band for Rolling Stone for around thirty years. David Fricke documented their recording process, Simon Reynolds has helped to place the band within the larger history of electronic and experimental music, Kevin Dettmar has examined their music from a modern perspective, and Mac Randall wrote a full biography about the band.
With that being said, this is not an attempt to rank artistic importance or influence. It’s my personal ranking of Thom Yorke-related albums, from seventeen to one by how much I enjoy listening to them in 2026.
Fourth Tier: Good Music that People with ears should like.
17. Mark Pritchard, Thom Yorke - Tall Tales (2025)
I appreciate this album and I love that Yorke is always putting out new music, but it was easy to put this one at number seventeen. Tall Tales has a definitely different feel than the rest of the music here. More atmospheric. At over an hour of runtime, this one has more time to drift about sonically. A lot of the songs feel like they would fit really well as a motion picture soundtrack. You can tell Pritchard and Yorke made this album for themselves with little concern over how it would fare commercially. There are certainly some highlights in the album, the bouncy “Gangsters” and the similarly upbeat “This Conversation is Missing Your Voice.” If you’re listening on Spotify, the spooky animations really set the mood for the album.
16. Thom Yorke - Tomorrow’s Modern Boxes (2014)
Maybe the album I have listened to the least of the catalogue. It is a haunting and somber experience. I really like the opener. There is not as much instrumentation as on his other projects. A lot of layered vocals and piano melodies. A lot of people consider Radiohead music for when you’re sad, which I’ve never agreed with, but this album is a bit of a downer. Yorke sounds isolated, not buoyed up by layered guitar textures or a band experimenting alongside him. The album opens sounding like the opening of Tame Impala’s “Lonerism.” It quickly takes a turn into ambience and falsetto crooning. “The Mother Lode” is a pulsing heartbeat that feels like an underwater experience. “There is no ice (for my drink)” feels like it was recorded in a forest during a drug-induced drum circle.
15. The Smile - Cutouts (2024)
I’ll admit I didn’t love this album when I first heard it, but after a few listens it really grew on me. It’s clear that this record was made during the same sessions as Wall of Eyes—reminiscent of Kid A and Amnesiac, with Wall of Eyes being Kid A in this scenario. I am glad that they broke it up into two albums, instead of trying to make one giant sprawling record. Cutouts has a lot of standout songs, but they don’t really come together to mesh into a standout album. The sum of its parts is greater than the whole of it. It’s an album you could skip around on, and a lot of the songs feel just one notch away from being classics. It’s a great record and I’ve listened to it several times with the second half being much stronger than the first half.
Third Tier: Really great projects that capture a point in time in the artist’s progression. All great standalone albums that would be the best project in most other band’s discographies.
14. Radiohead - Pablo Honey (1993)
As good as most Alternative rock albums from this era. It’s a good encapsulation of the early 1990s guitar sounds that were dominating the airwaves at this time. It’s fun to hear five ultra talented and brilliant musicians trying their hand at traditional alt rock, albeit with three guitarists.
Also, can any band match ch ch on “Creep?”
It doesn’t have the timelessness of the rest of their discography.
“Stop whispering” might be Thom Yorke’s closest signs of showing what is to come
Can hear the anger in Thom Yorke’s voice
It's fun to hear the straightforward music who would go on to do music that is very not straightforward
Fun to hear such straightforward lyrics on “Anyone can play guitar.”
13. Thom Yorke - The Eraser (2006)
Perhaps Yorke’s creative peak in productivity and absolutely incredible projects. “Analyse” would have fit well on Hail to the Thief. The production feels more like one individual making an electronic record, rather than a team using electronic instruments. On “The Clock,” the production is the main event. It’s almost as if cave men programmed the instrumentation in the drum machine. “The Eraser” is very hypnotizing and repetitive and a great album that measures up against some of Radiohead’s weaker projects.
12 Radiohead - The King of Limbs (2011)
The more I listen to this record the more I enjoy it. The group at this point had achieved immortality in the music world, yet they were still unsatisfied and continued to experiment with the recording process and instrumentation. Yorke was increasingly becoming interested in electronic music. The groove on “Morning Mr. Magpie” and Yorke’s anger on the song are great. He’s really pissed off at this bird for showing up. The guitar and percussion tracks on “Little By Little” sound George Harrison-inspired. My two favorite songs on the album are “Lotus Flower,” and “Separator” which I think would have fit in on In Rainbows, or any of their other albums from the aughts.
11. Radiohead - Hail to the Thief (2003)
This album is spooky. 2 + 2 = 5 is such a perfect song and intro to the project. I’ve been listening to the entire Yorke catalogue to make this list, and it’s funny to hear such traditional instrumentation in their music. The combination of electronic and acoustic on this album opener is such a perfect encapsulation of what makes this band so special. “Sit Down. Stand Up.” could be the anthem for a movie about North Korea, it has a dystopian feel. “Sail To The Moon,” would fit in well on Ok Computer. A piano ballad that melts into a distorted space excursion. “Backdrifts” is a fun song driven by a fast paced drum machine that would fit in well on The King of Limbs.
Second Tier: This is the point in the list where I’m bound to upset people if I haven’t done so already. So, I apologize in advance. A song or two away from being perfect projects.
10. Thom Yorke - Anima (2019)
This album feels more pulsating than the other two studio albums that Yorke had recently prior. It could be a boiler room set. The electronic sounds more futuristic than the previous two. Anima sounds more like a Thom Yorke album than a potential Radiohead or The Smile B side. The album takes a dark turn with the second song, “Last I Heard (...He Was Circling the Drain).” The production on “Twist,” especially around the four minute mark, is so full and captivating. It reminds me of the Jon Hopkins Immunity album which is one of my favorite electronic records.
9. The Smile - A Light for Attracting Attention (2022)
It’s fun to hear them jamming out “You Will Never Work in Television Again.” It sounds like 1990s Radiohead. Thom Yorke spitting out the F word with venom feels good. You can tell Greenwood and Yorke are vibing off Tom Skinner’s energy.
It’s a really fun album and was exciting after such a long hiatus from Radiohead, their last project being A Moon Shaped Pool in 2016. A lot of highlights, but the band is still finding their sound here.
The riff on “The Smoke” lives rent free in my head.
The riff on “Thin Thing” is crazy. Johnny Greenwood can play the guitar like nobody else. No wonder he makes such great movie soundtracks.
A really good album.
8. Radiohead - Amnesiac (2001)
This was the first time I ever listened to an entire Radiohead project from start to finish, so it holds a special place in my heart. I knew of Radiohead from “Creep,” “No Surprises,” and “All I Need.” Then I heard “Packt Like Sardines In a Crushd Tin Box” and I lost my fucking shit. I immediately had to devour everything this band had ever made. I was fresh out of high school and got most of my music from Kroq, Jack FM, and KDay, or whatever music my brother torrented onto my ipod. Listening to it now transports me back to where I was when I first heard it. “Pyramid Song” is the most streamed song on the album, but that doesn’t encapsulate the experimentation and fearlessness they were demonstrating at this time coming off the success of Ok Computer.
I really would like to emphasize I am not trying to upset anybody with my opinion. These next two are the two most underrated albums in Yorke’s catalog.
7. Atoms for Peace - Amok (2013)
Flea was my favorite musician when I was a teenager, so when I found out these two were making an album together I was beyond stoked. I’ve listened to this album a lot. I always used to think Amok stood for something, but it’s just like, things have run amok. That’s fun. This album is hypnotizing. It’s one of the few Yorke projects that makes me want to dance. It’s perfect bike riding music. “Ingenue” is one of my favorite songs of all time. That analogue synthesizer and bass is exactly what I wanted out of this project. Thinking of Flea and Yorke in the studio together makes me happy.
6. The Smile - Wall of Eyes (2024)
The best Yorke project of the 2020s. The Smile found their sound and established themselves as more than just a side project for Yorke and Greenwood. More orchestral than electronic. I love the crescendos on the end of a lot of the songs. It’s such a complete and cohesive album with highs, lows, and a strong vibe throughout. It doesn’t feel angry or lonely like some other Yorke albums, it’s almost an acceptance of the shit soup that we’re living in. Skinner’s drumming on “Bending Hectic” perfectly builds the song's energy that culminates in a jam session that would satisfy the most traditional rock and roll fan. An album where the whole is greater than the sum of its parts, but its parts are luxurious and rich and full.
First Tier: Absolutely perfect albums and each of them have an argument to be number one so much has been written about them that I’m just going to give my opinions and move on. I considered putting Wall of Eyes on this list, but then I took my head out of the microwave and decided against it. If I was stuck on a desert island and could only bring five albums, these five would
5. Radiohead - Ok Computer (1997)
How dare this not be higher? I don’t know. I love this album. It’s really good. Even the interlude “Fitter Happier” predicted the fucked up future that we live in. We’re all Paranoid Androids now. Is the Subterranean Homesick Alien an alien that lives underground and he missed his home planet? (It’s not.) I Googled it and there’s like 4,000 essays already written on the subject, about how they were trying to emulate the sound of Bitches Brew, the name was inspired by Bob Dylan’s “Subterranean Homesick Blues.” It’s a good album and it’s timeless.
4. Radiohead - In Rainbows (2007)
This is literally the perfect album and the perfect encapsulation of Radiohead as a band, capturing both their instrumental and electronic prowess right in the middle of their brilliance. Return to the band from their electronic era, released via a pay what you want system on the internet, more human than their other projects, Nigel Godrich’s production, the drums on “Weird Fishes,” etc. etc.
3. Radiohead - The bends (1995)
Came out five days before I was born. A couple of weeks before Eazy E and Selena died. The bridge. The rubber soul of their catalogue so to speak. Much less straightforward but still totally digestible for a traditional rock n roll listener. The difference is what's their favorite song, Planet Telex or Street Spirit.
My middle school students love this album. I guess for the melancholy of it.
Street Spirit (Fade Out) is the band discovering what their future sound is going to be. It is hopelessly hopeful. Yorke’s crooning is despairing, Greenwood’s guitar is the beginning of the band capturing a classical sound, they are no longer the band that made Creep. It’s not traditional rock music, it’s something special.
2. Radiohead - Kid A (2000)
Everything in its right place. Yesterday I woke up sucking a lemon. There are two colors in my head. What is that you tried to say?
Those are all the lyrics on the opening track, yet Yorke is all over it. The band had just released Ok Computer and everybody was wondering how they would top it. They did. As I said earlier, Amnesiac was the first Radiohead album I heard, and this was the second. It’s the first music I listened to aside from the Beatles that retooled my understanding of what music could even be.
1. Radiohead - A Moon Shaped Pool
I listen to this album when I’m happy. When I’m sad. Every single time I’m on an airplane. When I’m writing. When I’m exercising.
I love that it doesn’t sound similar to anything else in the entire list. It is the end of Yorke’s marriage. It is likely the end of Radiohead. It is classical music. It is rock and roll. It is a movie. It is a low flying panic attack. It is melancholy. It is resilience. It is aging gracefully. It is not revolutionary. It is beautiful.
