Hail To The Thief Turns 20

With a catalog as hallowed as Radiohead’s, nearly every album has its acolytes. Save, perhaps, the “they weren’t quite themselves yet” prologue of Pablo Honey and maybe the now-sidelined The King Of Limbs, you wouldn’t be pressed to find people who locate Radiohead’s singular masterpiece at any given point in their career. You still have the people who prefer the early, more rock-oriented Radiohead of The Bends and OK Computer, and those who just as fervently uphold the turn-of-the-millennium freakout of Kid A as the band’s most visionary work. Its quick followup sequel Amnesiac has long been mythologized as the one that’s maybe secretly their best. (It’s not.) Many of my fellow millennials hold In Rainbows dear as “our” Radiohead album, and there are days where I want to argue the otherworldly A Moon Shaped Pool is the gorgeous, underrated conclusion to almost everything in Radiohead’s arc. And then there is Hail To The Thief, which, ever since it arrived 20 years ago today, may be the Radiohead album the band and fans alike have wrangled over the most.