[SuchFriendsAreDangerous]

I would like to add two things.

What radiohead was starkly original only in the context of the diametric shift in 1990s music it represented. Radiohead had managed, (somehow I don't know since their guitar work aside from a few tracks was softer than edgy), to be some kind of mainstream college rock/alternative/borderline grunge and when they shifted towards this organic synergy of college rock, distorted guitar work blended with harmonic, ambient, and electronic music that was a radical shift in direction which honestly, no one in the mainstream predicted. Just as Nevermind just blew away hairbands and Michael Jackson, so do did OK Computer and I think more so Kid A later push away the alternative/grunge era and bring in both the resurgence of art rock bands (all these "The ..." bands) and also electronic music out of the rave closet and into the top 40.

This is comparable would say more so to when Bob Dylan went electric than to when the Beatles went psychedelic, because in all honesty, I would say that the psychedelic Beatles was an insincere corporate experiment that further was not very good or very innovative more so just popular. If your talking about the British Invasion and the Beatles initial successes, I also think that isn't applicable to Radiohead, as the Beatles didn't invent a sound so much as a marketing strategy.