"One day I am gonna grow wings, a chemical reaction..."

I was browsing a music message board today and there was a thread in which people were listing what they considered to be Radiohead's best song. I was pleasantly surprised to see a lot of people listing "Let Down" from the albumOK Computer. "Let Down" has always been one of my favorite Radiohead songs, dating way back to when I recorded a copy of the album on cassette before my brother Michael left home and went to college, but because of the cassette's limited size, I was only able to get the first half of the album on the cassette. Anyway, I listened to the first half of the album over and over, and "Let Down" became one of my favorite songs. The final verse of this song contains perhaps the greatest moment of any Radiohead song.

Reading this thread force me to listen to "Let Down" and some other songs from the album. While looking at the tracklist in iTunes, it struck me how remarkable the album really is, especially the first half. The first six songs ("Airbag", "Paranoid Android", "Subterranean Homesick Alien", "Exit Music (for a Film)", "Let Down", and "Karma Police") constitute one of the best and most consistently great runs on any album ever recorded. I'm struggling to think of another album that can match that six-song run.

I feel my annual period of listening obsessively to Radiohead may have begun tonight.