While Colin Greenwood said the song was "hardly the radio-friendly, breakthrough, buzz bin unit shifter stations have been expecting," Capitol supported the band's choice for the song as a lead single. Radiohead premiered "Paranoid Android" on the BBC Radio 1 programme "The Evening Session" in April 1997, nearly a month before its release as a single. "Melody Maker" revealed that a Radio 1 producer had to "have a bit of a lie down" after first hearing the song. It was released as a single on 26 May 1997, chosen by the band to prepare listeners for the musical direction of its parent album. Despite an initial lack of radio play, "Paranoid Android" charted at number three on the UK Singles Chart, giving Radiohead their highest singles chart position. As the song's popularity grew, Radio 1 played it up to 12 times a day. Yorke described the song's appearance on Radio 1 as one of his proudest moments of the "OK Computer" era. The track also spent two weeks on Australia's ARIA Singles Chart, where it charted at number 29.