Daveportivo's Cultural Evaluation Facility

Taken from the album of the same name The Bends is one the ultimate live anthems, a track you simply have to hear live before you die. With it's soaring crashing riffs, it's monsterous huge vocals, everything about this track is absolutely epic. This is Radiohead the rock gods, this track is designed to conquer festival feilds, for thousands of people to scream back every last word and then jump like mad men. A perfect rock and roll thrill ride, with an IQ.

So Radiohead have jumped across genres and soundscapes with effortless ease throughout their long and winding career but one realm that nobody could have predicted back in the Pablo Honey days, they'd end up on the dance floor. Yes Radiohead love to groove, 15 Steps squechles and crackles beneath the weight of a monsterous thudding baseline before a delicate ethereal guitar line is laid over the top. Avante gaurd dance rock at it's finest? Probably, but who cares this is just a brilliant track, now let's dance.

When it comes to the ultimate Radiohead anthem Just might just well be it. Constantly topping polls as the fans favourite track. It's a great sing along with Thom weaving his scathing vocals ("can't get the stink off, he's been hanging round for days"), then that huge chorus and mamoth riff comes in and all hell breaks lose. Combine the genius of the song with one of the greatest music videos of all time, and you have a true classic.

One of the most recognisable and powerful openings to any Radiohead track. When you hear that think thud of piano keys you know it could only be one track. Amnesiac will always be a record too dark and too bleak for some, but with tracks as gorgeous and as subversive as Pryramid Song and You And Whose Army it can't be considered anything less than essential. Pryramid Song is considered by many the greatest piece of music Radiohead have ever written, and they may well be right.

"I'm On A Roll, I'm On A Roll" could there be a more tragically beautiful opening to a more perfect track in rock history. With moments this tender and haunting is it any surprise OK Computer is regarded as the greatest album of all time. It's maccabre, it's bleak but most of all it's beautiful, a ballad like no other. One of the most affecting tracks I've ever heard.

Now picking the most beautiful Radiohead song is a thankless task, you'll always upset someone, their back catalogue is so deep, and so varied, and so emotionally charged, but for me there can be only one; Exit Music (For A Film). Radiohead's wish of course came true when this wonderous peice of music, that still makes the hair on my arms stand on end, was used as the exit music to Romeo & Juilet, a perfect song, for a perfect moment. If I wanted everyone to cry at my funeral, then this is the track I'm picking.

Okay it's time to lighten things up, with the riff that never stop giving, this pulsating beast, is the Radiohead National Anthem. This was the moment when half the world thought the millenium bug had ruined their new Radiohead LP and the other half of the world realized that Radiohead's brilliance had transcend all definition. Perfect vocals, perfect guitar, dance, hold hands, kiss, cry, jump, whatever, this song is mind warping genius.

I have to say ordering the top three was an absolute nightmare, I could probably flip the top three songs around forever without ever feeling happy but unfortunately the mighty Idioteque must take the bronze medal. This is the ultimate Radiohead dance floor slayer, the skipping fucked up beat, and that huge break down "Ice Age Coming, Ice Age Coming" there's nothing quite like sliding spazmodically accross a dancefloor and screaming that aloud. Who would have thought all those years ago that in the 21st Century that Radiohead would be turning Worhty farm into the world's biggest rave.

As I write this I cannot comprehend how I have not put this track at number one. I mean seriously, this track has it all, it's just perfect. Lyrically it's just sublime, whenever I get round to my greatest ever lyrics list you can garen-damn-tee that "January has April Showers, And two and two, will always equal five" will be right atop the list. As a song it's structured so deftly, it's this long emotional build, with goregous lyricism and lofty vocals before this massive visceral breakdown shrouded in crunching guitars, feedback and of course Tom's manicial ravings. Yet with all this genius it's only number two, so what's number one you ask?...

This song is the ultimate chiller. It's so uncomfortable. It's sparse, haunting, it feels like you've been left stuck alone on a ghostly glacail plane. It's desolate, it's scary, it's skips and repeats, tortured vocals echo and reverb throughout, all your technology is broken, it's a nightmare, but it's a beautiful nightmare. Everything In It's Right Place set the entire tone for Kid A the most ground breaking album of my life time, this was Radiohead but everything most definitely wasn't in it's right place, and yet somehow it was. Glorious, artistic and brilliant. It feels utterly inhuman and devoid of emotion, and yet it's one of the most powerful and touching tracks I've ever heard in my life. It's a wonderous contradiction and it will forever be my favourite Radiohead track (at least until the next time I hear 2+2=5). And best of all if your lucky enough to see it live, it'll never sound the same twice.