The Radiohead Hit Song That Thom Yorke Hates

Radiohead is one of the most influential bands of our age, and plenty of their fans would probably be more than happy to remove the words "one of" from that sentence. From their early grunge-ish stylings and the groundbreaking, Britpop-infused alt-rock sound of The Bends, to the legendary OK Computer and the many peculiar albums that lay beyond, the band has never been afraid to explore new sonic plateaus. Really, the only consistent thing in their sound has been Thom Yorke, the guitarist-singer whose tortured falsetto wails have played no small part in putting the band (Radio)head and shoulders above the competition.

Historically, Radiohead's music hasn't exactly been known for its warm and positive outlook, and as the lyricist and singer of the group, Yorke might just have a little bit to do with that. Knowing this, it's not exactly difficult to assume that the frontman might dislike the occasional song in the band's playbook. But which one bears the dubious honor of being the least liked of the bunch? Let's take a look at the Radiohead hit song that Thom Yorke hates.

While it's tempting to think that Thom Yorke might harbor a secret animosity toward "Paranoid Android," "Street Spirit (Fade Out)," "There There," or some other well-liked Radiohead tune, the real answer is what you were probably secretly suspecting all along: "Creep," one of the band's most famous songs. As Fraser McAlpine of the BBC tells us, Yorke simply calls the song "crap," and he's far from the only one. In fact, those famous, violent dead noise blasts just before the chorus kicked in were guitarist Jonny Greenwood's deliberate attempt to sabotage the song. It probably goes without saying that this didn't work, seeing as "Creep" was the song that broke them through on the international stage. 

Though Radiohead refused to play "Creep" live for years, their dislike for "Creep" has mellowed down in recent years. In a 2016 interview with Q Magazine (via Pitchfork), Yorke notes that the band decided to randomly bring the song back in their repertoire in a concert where a random dude kept shouting for it, and Yorke played a couple of bars to mess up with him. The crowd response was overwhelming, and just like that, the song was back on the menu. "We just said, 'Let's see what the reaction is, just to see how it feels,'" Yorke says about the decision, and later elaborates: "Songs go into phases where they don't feel right and then they come back."