One of the best-known alternative rock bands, rooted in punk, alterna-pop and new wave, similar to Pink Floyd? You bet.

Comparing bands is almost always controversial. Perceived similarities are so subjective that white one person may find the bands to be strikingly similar, another may find them to be polar opposites.

Radiohead has been compared to Pink Floyd in ways that were unfair to both bands. After the release or Radiohead’s 1997 album OK Computer, the media declared them “the next Pink Floyd” on numerous occasions. Such a statement is unfair to both bands: it places a huge burden on Radiohead to live up to Pink Floyd’s legendary status, and it also overlooks that the next Pink Floyd is, in fact, the next Pink Floyd—they're not dead yet.

You probably won’t find many similarities to Pink Floyd in Radiohead if you start at the beginning. Their first full album, 1992’s Pablo Honey (the title comes from a prank phone call by The Jerky Boys) is essentially punk-pop. It includes catchy grunge-influenced tunes like the great rockers “Ripcord” and “Anyone Can Play Guitar,” as well as quirky ballads like the unavoidable early 90’s rock radio staple “Creep.”In the spectrum of musical styles, the album sits approximately halfway between Nirvana and The Posies. The songs on Pablo Honey are not linked by any overall theme. While the tunes are powerful and sincere, they don’t contain the same level of emotional breadth that Radiohead would soon master on their follow-up albums. It’s interesting that few Radiohead fans call Pablo Honey their favorite Radiohead album; this might be interpreted as evidence of how much the band has grown since.

In 1995 Radiohead released their second album, The Bends. Truly a masterpiece, there are simply no duds on The Bends; each track is a masterpiece. The opening song, “Planet Telex,” though not overtly Floydian, bears some of the Floydian atmospherics and sonic layering that would dominate their next album. Although some members of Radiohead have repeatedly denied liking art rock such as Pink Floyd, the influence of the art rock style is clear on The Bends: adept use of layered guitars, unabashed use of effects, high-end music technology used in onconventional ways, unusual but masterful arrangements, and so on.

Other tracks from The Bends such as “Street Spirit (Fade Out)” show great emotional growth since Pablo Honey. The song could be compared, in several ways, to Pink Floyd’s “Poles Apart” or “A Pillow Of Winds,” with moody arpeggios guiding the soaring, memorable vocal melody. Likewise, “Fake Plastic Trees” is a monumental ballad which perpetually escalates in intensity from beginning to end, like many Pink Floyd tracks.

Radiohead’s continuing rapid growth was again made evident when they released their next album, OK Computer, in 1997. It was this album that prompted the comparisons to Pink Floyd, and with some good reasons, I think.

OK Computer is actually a concept album, though Radiohead themselves would probably balk at the term’s artrock connotations. The somewhat existential album describes the dangers and stresses of living in a society that’s driven by technology: a theme not unlike that of Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon.

The opening track, “Airbag,” describes the adreneline rush and brief sense of immortality that comes from surviving an automobile accident. (The dangers of automobiles is a recurring theme in Thom Yorke’s lyrics, not unlike Roger Waters’ recurrent mentions of his deceased father.)

The second track, “Paranoid Android,” is musically schizophrenic, leaping from oblique fingerpicked patterns at the beginning to vicious, powerful hard rock riffs in the second half of the song, and even traversing a series of odd meters—something usually reserved for artrock and progressive rock. The lyrics, which include the great line “I’m trying to get some rest from all the unborn chicken voices in my head,” are meaningful, yet so indirect as to be confounding. (A bit like many of Syd Barrett’s lyrics.) The ending of the song runs repeatedly through a soaring and almost transcendent chord progression similar to the sequence at the end of Pink Floyd’s “A Saucerful of Secrets.”

Track three, “Subterranean Homesick Alien” continues the artistic, abstract complexities established by the first two. Slide guitar is used to much the same effect as appears in the Floyd’s “Breathe.” After hearing the first three songs of OK Computer, many listeners will probably find it impossibly to believe the band’s claims that they don’t like artrock bands like Pink Floyd. In fact, Radiohead’s guitarist/keyboardist Jonny Greenwood has said that he likes Pink Floyd’s Meddle, particularly “Echoes.”

The Floydian moments on OK Computer continue throughout the album. A prominent slide guitar part toward the end of “Exit Music (For A Film)” is sonically almost identical to the slide guitar in a portion of “A Saucerful of Secrets”and “Echoes.” Somewhat Floydian sounds figure into the atmospheric and creepy “Climbing Up the Walls,” the intensely ironic sweetness of “No Surprises” and the moody, unique ending track, “The Tourist.”

Although there are some clearly Floydian elements to Radiohead’s sound, the Floyd fan who is a Radiohead newcomer should be cautioned that Radiohead is not truly a progressive band in the spirit of the Floyd, Rush, Yes, King Crimson or the like. Unlike most progressive bands, Radiohead doesn’t try to recreate the 1970s in music, and the progressive moments are only a fraction of their entire sound.

I can recommend OK Computer to any Pink Floyd fan who isn't entirely adverse to the 1990s alternative scene. If you can't stand any alternative music, then Radiohead is probably not for you. But if you find some alternative rock, or brit-pop, to be appealing, you should definitely check out OK Computer.

If you find you like OK Computer, then I recommend working backwards, by purchasing The Bends next, and then finally getting Pablo Honey only if you would like something even more raw and grungey than The Bends.

Radiohead are, at this writing, completing the mixdowns for their fourth album, which is expected to be released later this year. The band has described it as a ‘dark’ album, and a progression from OK Computer. Radiohead is touring this year. Tickets for many shows are already on sale.

For more information on Radiohead, see the official Radiohead website, or the excellent web site Planet Telex.

Radiohead fans are also welcome to join the Radiohead email discussion list Airbag.

Dave Ward, former editor of The Steel Breeze Pink Floyd news service, is the administrator of the Radiohead email discussion list Airbag.

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