Tiger Beat s Ugliest Band in the World poll nine years running, Radiohead removed itself from the competition to give Nickelback a chance.’> After topping Tiger Beat s Ugliest Band in the World poll nine years running, Radiohead removed itself from the competition to give Nickelback a chance. A week ago, Chuck D was likely tipping his baseball cap to the crackers in Radiohead, admiring their decision to digitally self-release their latest album, In Rainbows.

Beyond a determination to bring the recording industry to its knees, what could the whitey-hating Public Enemy loudmouth and the pasty-faced Englishmen of Radiohead possibly have to bond over, you might ask? Well, singer Thom Yorke and company may be among the most ghost-faced rock stars this side of Edgar Winter, but you can damn well believe they know something about getting jiggy.

Admittedly, there’s little evidence of this in their music, which is alternative rock at its most humourless and joylessly self-important. Quite frankly, I’d be the first to call bullshit on the band’s hip-hop fixation if I hadn’t seen it myself. Flash back 12 years, when Radiohead was on a Vancouver press tour to promote its second album, The Bends.

Back in the day a time when major labels could afford Starbucks rather than Folgers classic-roast crystals record companies would fly relatively unknown artists into town to try to break them through face time with journalists and reviewers. On your lucky days, you’d find yourself staring at a hung-over former Michael Jackson backup singer named Sheryl Crow.