Are Radiohead Britpop?

Short Answer

No. They were around at the same time, but spiritually and sonically, they were on a different planet. Possibly literally.

---

---

Long Answer

Radiohead don’t fit. Never did. Yes, Pablo Honey came out in 1993, the same year as Modern Life Is Rubbish. And yes, “Creep” got them lumped in with the rest of the British guitar bands briefly playing at grunge. But from The Bends onwards, they weren’t looking at Blur or Oasis. They were looking at paranoia, technology, alienation, and what it meant to be human in the oncoming digital gloom.

Britpop was about confidence, cheek, pastiche, pride. Radiohead didn’t do confidence. They did unease. They did self-doubt. They didn’t write about park life or cigarettes and alcohol. They wrote about disconnection, dread, and feeling like a malfunctioning machine.

By the time OK Computer landed in 1997, Britpop was still half-drunk at Knebworth and Radiohead were already packing for the apocalypse. That album didn’t kill Britpop because it was better. It killed Britpop because it showed just how small it had started to sound.

So no, Radiohead weren’t Britpop. They were the beginning of the end. And the start of something else entirely.