Radiohead: an enigma wrapped inside a conundrum concealed within a mystery, hiding behind a bloke dancing like a deranged cockerel in heat. Who are Radiohead, and why? For decades the personalities at play within the band have remained unfathomable. But with recent years featuring a run of solo projects from Jonny Greenwood (2019’s Volume 1: Partita No 2 in D minor and Volume 2: Industry, Water); Ed O’Brien (2019’s single Santa Teresa); Phil Selway (2014’s Weatherhouse); and Colin Greenwood (nothing, actually), we’re beginning to colour in those formless blanks loitering behind Thom Yorke. Finally, we can answer the question that’s been devouring every Guardian reader’s soul since 1997. Which Radiohead solo member are you?
1. As a member of Radiohead, you are famously partial to scratchcards. Finally, one comes in! How do you spend the windfall?
a) Whack it all behind the bar at a celebratory recital of your latest masterwork Three Matching Moneybags for piano and orchestra.
b) More flotation tanks.
c) One-on-one career-development training from Phil Collins.
d) Have yourself uploaded to the mainframe of the next probe heading for the Saturnian moon of Titan. They’ll finally “get” you there.
e) Um, invest it wisely in renewable energy? To be honest, no one knows the first thing about you.
2. Your weekly clowning class is cancelled due to all the sides you split last week, leaving you in an event-filled community centre with a couple of hours to kill. Which class do you take?
a) An amateur recorder group – hope we’re learning a Telemann sonata!
b) Drone yoga.
c) Assertion therapy.
d) Voodoo Trevor’s Shake Out Your Demons primal energy dance lessons.
e) Probably something charitable, you look the type.
3. The darts has finished early. What do you watch next?
a) Darren Aronofsky’s Black Swan.
b) A 10-hour YouTube compilation of the most surreal bits from In the Night Garden, then just close your eyes and have a Netflix-and-chill of the mind.
c) Inside Llewyn Davis. Chokes you up every time.
d) Inception, watched on a laptop that contracted the Storm Worm virus in 2006.
e) QI repeats on Dave like the rest of us, at a guess.
4. You are invited on to Celebrity Storage Hunters as the team partner of Rebekah Vardy. What are you most hoping to vulture-pick from the last tawdry possessions of the bankrupt and destitute?
a) An original 1928 ondes martenot you can shift on to Philip Glass for a tasty profit.
b) The world’s largest collection of magic-eye pictures.
c) A Wilco songbook.
d) A prototype Ultramagnetic Spotify Disruptor.
e) It doesn’t matter, you’ll be standing quietly at the back letting Giles and Mary from Gogglebox get on with it.
5. At the premiere of Fast & Furious 18, you run into a Marvel Studios exec who is so desperate to make use of your magnetic screen presence with a cameo in an Avengers film that they offer you the opportunity to invent your own character. What’s your superhero and special power?
a) Vibrato; exudes pristine acoustics.
b) Dr Zoneout; his snore is hypnotic.
c) The Incredible Blunt; you wouldn’t like him when he’s bored.
d) Erratic Man; able to glitch between dimensions at will.
e) Innocuoso; invisibility.
6. Renowned for your witty and ribald public speaking, you are asked by close friend Dapper Laughs to be his best man. As usual you organise the stag do for Magaluf, but the personalised mankinis for you, Terry, Calvin and Pervy Dave fail to arrive. What’s your last-minute replacement?
a) Costumes from Paul Thomas Anderson’s There Will Be Blood. He owes you a favour.
b) Hooded robes left over from your last ominous procession.
c) The Bends T-shirts all round. Remember choruses?
d) Video-mapped body stockings displaying fractal images of the impulses in the brain that dictate marital misery. Bowler hats.
e) Whatever draws the least possible attention.
Answers
Mostly As You are classical nut and film score composer Jonny Greenwood. Bravo, maestro!
Mostly Bs You are swarthy, somnambulant dreamboat Ed O’Brien. Judging by the first track to be released from your solo album, you could ambient for England.
Mostly C You are aspiring neo-folk solo artist Philip Selway. You’d like your life to have more tunes in it, but avoid telling your friends.
Mostly Ds You are the man machine Thom Yorke 2.0. Whenever you try to warn people about the encroaching technological apocalypse, they tell you it sounds like their Skype is crashing.
Mostly Es You are Colin Greenwood. Nope, us neither.
