Radiohead tickled the fancy of fervent fans and unfamiliar masses alike with their heady masterwork OK Computer. This spectacular album's universal appeal has made popular music safe once again for titanic, Floyd-like psychedelic resonances. Impeccable production values highlight big, spacey passages and subtle, concise songwriting on this album, while lead vocalist Thom Yorke's satiny strains cut directly through the melange, turning deep excursions like "Airbag" and "The Paranoid Android" into a catchy, recognizable fantasia. This is classic rock for the 21st century, and a brilliant turn from one of the best bands of the `90s.

Radiohead's debut release snuck up on American music listeners like a snake: not noticed at first, but once seen, impossible to ignore. "Creep," the band's hit single, was both catchy and difficult, an angry, self-deprecating pop song that wound its way around its listeners' ears. Radiohead's second record, The Bends, while not as popular on the radio, won many more fans, positioning the band for further success on both commercial and critical fronts. On its third release, OK Computer, Radiohead doesn't have its former anonymity: It's got to deliver the goods quickly and well. And it does. OK Computer is a powerhouse of a record, with huge pop/rock songs flanked by slower songs that pack the same ultimate punch as the fast ones. The band's songs are defined by lead singer Thom Yorke's insidious vocals and the equally spooky guitar work of Jonny Greenwood and Ed O'Brien. The songs are a unique blend of technology and old-fashioned musicianship, so that the addition of synthesizers and samples doesn't make the songs more rhythmic, but adds another dimension to the overall sound. Listening to the record, you wouldn't initially realize that there are so many computerized noises weaving through the songs, but a closer listen reveals a dense, texturally-rich presentation that relies equally on both musical approaches. It's going to be a Radiohead summer, with initial OKs going to "Climbing Up The Walls," "Paranoid Android" and "Exit Music (For A Film)."

Radiohead follows up on the success of 1993's Pablo Honey (which featured the runaway hit "Creep") with The Bends, another fine example of the band's ability to combine a diversity of musical styles into one highly listenable collection. The Bends also reveals Radiohead's penchant for Euro-influenced rock right from the opener, "Planet Telex," which capably twirls simple U2 themes with `60s psychedelia and then adds a dark, sopping mass of distorted guitars. "Fake Plastic Trees," while somewhat calculated in its arrangement, is about as radio-friendly as you can get, starting with a light, memorable melody draped atop an acoustic guitar and concluding with a progression of plaintive strings, mellow organ and lofty drums. While The Bends sometimes secures a bit of its sound from studio effects (check out the marvelous left-right tremolo on "Bones"), they're never used as a replacement for artistic substance, but rather to add flavor and contrast to the mix. Other easily digestible tracks: the Beatlesish "Just (You Do It To Yourself)" and the Hendrixian-riffed "My Iron Lung."

Compared to the large majority of British bands that seem preoccupied with being trendy, either in an "I'm so beautifully brash and glam" or "I'm so stoned and sentient" kind of way, Oxford's Radiohead is refreshingly unaffected. Its moniker suits it perfectly-here is a band that has spent the vast majority of its life with its head planted between a pair of radio speakers. The group's debut, Pablo Honey, is a celebration of music, plain and simple, offering little in the way of innovation, but plenty of loving commemoration to the many groups that inspired its heartfelt sound: U2, the Byrds, Queen, the Buzzcocks and the Rolling Stones, among others. The record shines with diversity, the band plucking different styles and textures from the air and combining them into stunning new arrangements. Perhaps the best illustration of this is the contrast between light and heavy on Sparse musicianship, including contributions from former Roxy cohort Andy MacKay, Carleen Anderson (Young Disciples), Michael Brook and Maceo Parker, lets Ferry's depth and clarity shine through, as songs like Screaming Jay Hawkins' "I Put A Spell On You," "Will You Love Me Tomorrow," "All Tomorrow's Parties" and "Girl Of My Best Friend" reveal Ferry's undiminished sense of mystery as well as his fascination with a compelling song.

RADIOHEAD's bright star shone on its Pablo Honey, with the crunch of boy's-own-rock given extra flame-fanning bile and arrogance, courtesy of major domo Thom Yorke. "Pop Is Dead" might be a little too obviously didactic and self-referential, but it's a neat pop nugget, full of withering comment, tied up in an anthemic shell and decorated by lagged helter-skelter guitars. The three B-sides are live-"Creep" (their "so fuckin' special" anthem) and "Ripcord" are bristling concert excerpts while "Banana Company" is a radiosession, acoustic Yorke solo, slow and resigned.