It’s very bittersweet to hear so many people say that they’ve tried with Radiohead and it just doesn’t work for them. On the one hand, I feel bad that they don’t share my awe of this band’s output, and, on the other, there’s hope that someday it will click, and that day will be something special.
If anyone is going to give the best band in the universe another shot, I’d say two things (which are kind of my personal guideposts for music discovery in general):
1) don’t worry about making sense of the lyrics until you’ve given yourself space and time to HEAR all of the SOUNDS; think of them as an instrumental band and try to listen to them that way; some of the most interesting parts of Radiohead songs are the zany instrumental parts that bridge the lyrical fragments in the songs; there are some bands where the lyrics hold most of the value, and Radiohead is not one of those bands -they are musicians, not storytellers
2) turn it up so you can hear the full palette of SOUNDS - Radiohead isn’t background music to put on at a party because of a vibe it projects (well maybe that’s what they were trying to do with King of Limbs...who knows), it’s an overstuffed menagerie of carefully curated sounds - if it’s not loud enough, you won’t really hear half of what’s going on in the songs
**suggested 90 mins of listening based on points 1 and 2:
- “Just” from The Bends: starts out sounding like a crisp, conventional pop/rock song (albeit with lots of different kinds of guitar sounds), but notice how it takes a meandering detour 2 mins in, and then from 3:10 or so to the end of the song just goes off the rails
- “Paranoid Android” from OK Computer - that little interlude at 2 mins in that morphs the song into something else and then weaves in and out through the next minute or so of the song and then comes back in again at like 5:39 to the end of the song
- “subterranean homesick alien” - just the first 30 seconds or so - it sounds like a magical watery world filled with bubbles
- “Climbing Up the Walls” - nice gradual build in this song and then 3:08-3:45 is just face-melting and gives me chills every time I hear it
- i think those 3-4 songs tee you up nicely to just listen to Kid A in it’s entirety and think about the POWER MOVES they are flexing throughout that album; remember, volume UP!!
- then just enjoy everything that comes next, especially: “you and whose army?” [i like to superimpose this over the battle of helm’s deep in my head and 1:48 is that magical pivot point when Gandalf shows up on the ridge with the sun and 1:55 is when they start charging down the mountain into the fray], “like spinning plates,” “i might be wrong,” “backdrifts” [a glitchy, minimalist banger], “reckoner,” but these are just personal faves and every Radiohead fan will have a radically different list.
*If at least one of these songs doesn’t make you say “holy buckets,” then I give up.
and I was right all along 
