Radiohead have entered the US singles chart with a song from their album OK Computer that has gone viral on social media 28 years after its release.
Let Down, the third single from the British band’s 1997 album, entered at No 91 on the Billboard Hot 100 this week after rising in popularity on TikTok.
It marks only the fourth time the band have charted in the US. In 2008, the song Nude, from the album In Rainbows, entered the chart at No 37 for one week. Before that, 1995’s High and Dry peaked at No 78, staying on the Billboard 100 for eight weeks. The band’s most successful single in the US is Creep, released in 1993, which stayed in the charts for 20 weeks, peaking at No 34.
The band have been far more commercially successful in Britain, having scored seven Top 10 singles. Let Down spent seven weeks on the UK singles chart when it was released, peaking at No 85.
The song was used in the season one finale of Disney+’s hit show The Bear but has soared in popularity on TikTok in recent months, with users commenting on the song’s emotional nature. The most liked video using the song shows AI-generated fictional couples from famous films taking a selfie with their imaginary children. It has racked up 4.2m likes.
Another viral video shows a man looking around before approaching his wife with the words on screen: “Why am I crying at this video of my husband looking for me and then finally finding me.”
OK Computer is widely considered one of the greatest albums of all time. In 2015, it was added to the Library of Congress’s National Recording Registry. The band has not released an album since A Moon Shaped Pool in 2016. In March, they registered a new limited liability partnership, RHEUK25 LLP, prompting speculation that a new project is under way.
Band members came together last summer to rehearse before an expected reunion. Colin Greenwood, the band’s bassist and brother of the lead guitarist and keyboardist, Johnny, told NME: “We got together in the summer just for a couple of days and just ran through all the songs and picked up where we left off in 2018. It was really fun and nice to see everyone.
“We were going to do three or four days but knocked it on the head after two because it was fine and we could still do it. My brother said that we’d just need a couple of weeks’ rehearsal and we could go on the road, no problem.”
The band have faced backlash for performing in Israel in 2017. At the time, the band’s frontman, Thom Yorke, said: “Playing in a country isn’t the same as endorsing its government.”
This criticism has intensified since October 2023. At a solo concert in Melbourne last October, Yorke was heckled by a man who asked him: “How could you be silent?” A flustered Yorke rebuffed him and briefly left the stage.
