Radiohead - Pablo Honey (1993)

At some point in the early 21st century, Radiohead became something more
than a band: they became a touchstone for everything that is fearless and
adventurous in rock, inheriting the throne from David Bowie, Pink Floyd,
and the Talking Heads. The latter group gave the band its name - it's an
album track on 1986's True Stories - but Radiohead never sounded much like
the Heads, nor did they take much from Bowie, apart from their willingness
to experiment.

Instead, they spliced Floyd's spaciness with U2's messianic arena rock
heft, bridging the gap with guitar skronk borrowed from the '80s American
underground. Jonny Greenwood's jagged, brutal interjections on "Creep," the
band's 1993 breakthrough hit, recalled the ugly noise of the Pixies and
Nirvana, a sound that translated over the expanse of an ocean, but in the
throes of the alternative rock explosion of the mid-'90s, Radiohead were
the odd band out.