Radiohead retrospective adds almost nothing to classic album covers

For decades, Radiohead's Thom Yorke and the artist Stanley Donwood have been locked in an intense creative partnership.

- Eddy Frankel

They scribble over each other's drawings, scrawl in each other's notebooks, push each other, inspire each other. Their work has been on every Radiohead album cover since 1995's The Bends, every Yorke solo record, every poster and every T-shirt.

Nothing is farmed out to designers or agencies - Radiohead's visual identity has been fully overseen by Donwood and Yorke.

Now, their artistic output is being celebrated at Oxford's Ashmolean Museum. There's no doubt Donwood and Yorke, who met while studying at the University of Exeter, have created some of the most recognisable album covers of their generation. But do they make sense in a huge, historic gallery such as the Ashmolean? Does any of it make for good art? Does it stand up to scrutiny when removed from the context of the records and merchandise it was designed for? It's a nice dream, but nope.