Radiohead: The Best Of is a greatest hits album by the English rock band Radiohead. It was released on 2 June 2008 by Parlophone Records in the UK and by Capitol Records in the US, subsidiaries of EMI. It contains songs from Radiohead's first six albums, recorded while they were under contract with EMI. Radiohead had no creative input and were critical of the release.
The Best Of debuted at number four on the UK Albums Chart. While reviewers praised the songs, some felt the compilation was unnecessary, did not suit Radiohead's music, and contained too many songs from Radiohead's early albums. In 2016, after Radiohead's back catalogue was transferred to XL Recordings, The Best Of was removed from streaming services.
Content
The standard edition of The Best Of contains 17 tracks from Radiohead's first six albums.[1] The special edition contains a second CD with 13 additional tracks, including the B-side "Talk Show Host" and a performance of "True Love Waits" from I Might Be Wrong: Live Recordings (2001).[2] A DVD compilation with 21 music videos, including nine never before released on DVD, was also released.[3]
Radiohead recorded their first six albums under contract with EMI. In 2007, after Radiohead did not renew their contract, EMI released The Best Of and a box set of Radiohead albums to boost their revenue.[4] Radiohead had no creative input into the releases and were reportedly "enraged", seeing best-of compilations as typical of artists in decline.[4] The singer, Thom Yorke, said:
There's nothing we can do about it. The work is really public property now anyway... It's a wasted opportunity in that if we'd been behind it, and we wanted to do it, then it might have been good ... And now it's like when you move house – you don't want to peer through the window and see what they've done with the wallpaper because it will only upset you.[5]
Radiohead: The Best Of debuted at number four on the UK Albums Chart.[citation needed] In 2016, Radiohead's back catalogue was transferred to XL Recordings.[6]The Best Of and the "special editions" of Radiohead albums, issued by EMI in the same year without Radiohead's approval, were removed from streaming services.[6][7]
The Pitchfork critic Scott Plagenhoef praised the songs, but felt the compilation was unnecessary as Radiohead did not have a "winding, difficult discography to navigate". He wrote that the standard edition contained too many songs from their 90s albums The Bends and OK Computer, and that the expanded edition missed an opportunity to collect B-sides or rarities.[2] In Consequence of Sound, Alex Young also criticised the lack of songs from Radiohead's later EMI albums, and said Radiohead's discography did not lend itself to compilations. However, he felt The Best Of achieved its goal of giving new listeners a starting point.[10]
The IGN critic Todd Gilchrist wrote that The Best Of was "a great buy for a budding Radiohead fan", but otherwise "superfluous", and that Radiohead's music did not lend itself to "singles or other forms of pop digestibility".[11] In The Times, Ben Machell also found it superfluous, but wrote that it was otherwise a "near-perfect compilation".[9] In 2019, NME named The Best Of the 12th-best greatest hits album, writing: "It's actually a foolproof collection of their best The Bends and OK Computer-era material. Just don't tell Thom you like it."[12]
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