I wish I was special. That's all Thom Yorke and the rest of Oxford, England's Radiohead asked for back in 1993, when their debut album, Pablo Honey, had its first taste of fame courtesy of the self-loathing "Creep." But in an era when grunge was king, Radiohead only seemed destined to be special for 15 minutes, tops. Two years later, though, they came screaming back in the midst of the Britpop invasion with arguably one of the greatest guitar rock albums of the '90s, The Bends, setting the stage for the 1997 release of arguably one of the greatest albums, ever: OK Computer. All of a sudden, Radiohead were a lot more than special; they were epic. And when fame hit, they seemed to relish it about as much as the late Kurt Cobain had before them - which is to say, not at all. But instead of checking out, Radiohead just changed direction; they jettisoned all the elements that fans and critics seemed to love the most about them (namely, the guitars and soaring melodies), and returned with the willfully understated, electronica-steeped Kid A. It ended up being the most acclaimed album of their career to date. Clearly, by that point, Radiohead could do no wrong, with Yorke, Jonny Greenwood, Ed O'Brien, Colin Greenwood and Phil Selway given free rein by their faithful following to do pretty much anything they wanted: ambient soundscapes, loopy experimentation, even solo albums and obscure soundtracks. Radiohead rewarded that loyalty - and made music history - in late 2007 by offering their new album, In Rainbows, as a pay-anything-you-want-or-pay-nothing-at-all download on their Web site. The reaction across the board was ecstatic, except perhaps from the suits at the major record labels who probably never in their worst nightmares imagined a day when one of the biggest bands on earth would so easily (and creatively) prove to the world that the old music industry model was all but completely irrelevant.