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    What's The Most Depressing Radiohead Song?

    An analytics specialist created a 'gloom index' to find out.
    by Joe Veix Mar 24, 2017 3 minutes
    Over the course of their career, Radiohead has moved listeners to the verge of tears many times, and fans say that's a good thing.
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    Radiohead has a well-earned reputation for writing music that’s depressing as hell. Reviewers have described the band as “pre-eminent doomsayers” with an “evergreen grimness.” This isn’t to say it’s bad music—far from it—it’s just not the kind of thing most people would play at a pool party. It’s more fitting for, say, the funeral of a suicidal cat.

    It is, perhaps, the most depressing popular band in musical history. But of the roughly 160 songs in their catalog, which is the bleakest?

    Analytics specialist Charlie Thompson looked to the ” that subsequently went viral, he outlined the process in detail. It’s fascinating, and it hints at a whole mess of analytical possibilities using similar techniques. What’s the dirge-iest song by Nick Drake? The happiest song by Metallica?

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