Most astonishing two-album runs in the history of rock music

Radiohead - The Bends (1995) and OK Computer (1997)

There might be many who would have 2000's Kid A coupled with OK Computer and that would also make sense. The reason The Bends is here is because the group's first record, Pablo Honey, was decent, but far from great. Everyone knew "Creep" but how many can name another worthy track off the first record? What makes The Bends special is that we did not truly expect the rock grandeur because we did not know the band was capable of such.

After grunge began to be less dominant in the rock world, music fans needed a band like Radiohead to emerge. But they weren't simply another English band such as Oasis. Thom Yorke, Jonny Greenwood, and mates made it plainly clear that they could do a lot more than give us pop hits. They worked through their music fully and developed gems such as "Fake Plastic Trees."

Somehow, the Chicago Tribune gave the album only one star out of four. They likely lost a lot of credibility by doing so.

The band then took another leap with OK Computer and left the pure arena rock of previous work and started tinkering with their sound. The gall of a bunch of Englishmen doing so on the third album, only what they produced was spectacular.

The chaos of "Climbing Up the Walls" was followed by the stark beauty of "No Surprises." The disjointed, yet effective, "Paranoid Android" appeared on the same album as the bombastic "Electioneering." Radiohead had created a brave world that few other bands had the talent to exist in.