05 JONNY GREENWOOD

The guitarist who is impossible to pin down

It’s hard to play like Greenwood and it’s even harder to write like him. His parts aren’t confined to conventional shapes and patterns, so he produces arresting and unexpected sounds. His most famous four seconds—the percussive Big Muff stabs before the chorus of Creep – began as his attempt to ruin a song he hated, and ended up making the track. For the rest of his career, he has been similarly fearless about shaking things up. He experiments freely with avant garde, modern classical and jazz influences, always either sidestepping clichés or recontextualising them so they sound fresh again.