“It pretty much half killed us. Whether the band would continue was in the balance”: The Radiohead album that almost broke up the band, turned the music industry on its head - and became their best record

In Rainbows cover.

It’s no secret that many bands write their best and most enduring material in their early years, buoyed by youthful vigour and a hunger for recognition. All too often, fame and fortune can render an artist complacent, diluting the inspiration that spurred them on to reach such creative heights in the first place.

Radiohead aren’t your average band, though. That much was evident from the very first notes of their era-defining 1992 debut single, Creep, which - in the words of Conan O’Brien - raised self-loathing to the status of an art form, introducing this group of downcast, floppy-haired Oxfordshire lads, barely a few years out of school, to a worldwide audience.