"Fake Plastic Trees"

Radiohead
(Capitol, 1995)

What's this? An ear-shattering power ballad about "girls in the '80s"? Or a carefully constructed mini-epic that prefigures the ambition of OK Computer? Both, and more -- it's Radiohead's most effective mixture of emotional outpouring and prog-rock smarts. Whether he's blowing through the ceiling or sobbing in the corner, Thom Yorke manages to be all we wanted -- if not all the time, then certainly this time.

-- Sean Richardson