Few rock singers of the alternative era were as original or as instantly unforgettable as Thom Yorke, and his band Radiohead became one of the biggest acts of the 1990s and 2000s for their challenging and unpredictable music. The group's original name was On a Friday before being changed to Radiohead, which they'd swiped from the title of a song on Talking Heads' True Stories. By late 1991, the band was signed to Parlophone in the U.K. and Capitol in the U.S., as an EP, Drill, came and went without much fanfare. Released in 1993, the group's full-length debut, Pablo Honey, appeared to be suffering the same fate until American radio/MTV made a surprise hit out of the Nirvana-esque alternative anthem "Creep." Radiohead's fan base grew considerably over the course of their next two releases, 1995's The Bends and 1997's OK Computer, the latter being voted Greatest Album of All Time in the British magazine Q shortly after its release. One of the world's top rock bands by this time, Radiohead attempted to alienate their newly found Top 40 audience with their next release, 2000's abstract Kid A, but instead found it debuting at the top of the U.S. charts (despite the absence of a video or single being released from the album). Yorke returned with ANIMA, his third solo album, in June 2019. Produced by Godrich, ANIMA was also accompanied by a short film directed by Paul Thomas Anderson.
Yorke was born on October 7, 1968, in Wellingborough, England. His left eye was paralyzed from birth and remained shut until the age of six. He underwent a total of five operations; the last operation was botched and he almost lost all sight in that eye.
