Radiohead recorded their debut release, the Drill EP, with Chris Hufford and Bryce Edge at Courtyard Studios. Released in March 1992, its chart performance was very poor. Subsequently, the band enlisted Paul Kolderie and Sean Slade—who had worked with US indie bands Pixies and Dinosaur Jr.—to produce their debut album, recorded quickly in an Oxford studio in 1992.[8] With the release of the "Creep" single late in the year, Radiohead began to receive attention in the British music press, not all of it favourable. NME described them as "a lily-livered excuse for a rock band",[12] and "Creep" was blacklisted by BBC Radio 1 because it was deemed "too depressing".[13]

The band released their debut album, Pablo Honey, in February 1993. It stalled at number 22 in the UK charts, as "Creep" and its anthemic follow-up singles "Anyone Can Play Guitar" and "Stop Whispering" failed to become radio or video hits. "Pop Is Dead", a non-album single later disavowed by the band, sold equally poorly. Some critics compared the band's early style to the wave of grunge music popular in the early 1990s—to the extent of Radiohead being dubbed "Nirvana-lite"[14]—yet Pablo Honey failed to make either a critical or a commercial splash upon its initial release.[12] Despite shared influences with popular guitar-heavy acts, and some notice for Yorke's falsetto voice, the band toured only British universities and clubs.[15]
    
"Creep"
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"Creep" was Radiohead's first hit. This sample features Jonny Greenwood's guitar distortion before the chorus. According to legend, the effects were an attempt to sabotage a song Greenwood initially disliked.[16]
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In the first few months of 1993, Radiohead began to attract listeners elsewhere. "Creep" had been played very frequently on Israeli radio by influential DJ Yoav Kutner, and in March, after the song became a hit in that country's charts, Radiohead were invited to Tel Aviv for their first live gig overseas.[17] Around the same time, the San Francisco alternative radio station KITS added the song to its playlist. Soon other radio stations along the west coast of the United States followed suit. By the time Radiohead began their first North American tour in June 1993, the music video for "Creep" was in heavy rotation on MTV.[10] The song rose to number two on the US modern rock chart, entered the lower reaches of the top 40 pop chart, and finally hit number seven in the UK singles chart when EMI re-released it in Britain late in the yearrelocation services
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