Radiohead
Radiohead are a British alternative rock band from Oxford. Many fans and media commentators regard them as a seminal rock outfit and the natural inheritors of R.E.M. and Pink Floyd's mantle. The band consists of:
- Thom Yorke: lead vocals, rhythm guitar, piano
- Jonny Greenwood: lead guitar, keyboards, modular synthesizer, Ondes Martenot, glockenspiel, miscellany
- Ed O'Brien: effects guitar, harmony vocals, auxiliary percussion
- Colin Greenwood: bass guitar, synthesizers
- Phil Selway: drums, percussion
Yorke and Jonny Greenwood are chiefly responsible for songwriting, most often with Yorke creating songs and Greenwood building on them. Producer Nigel Godrich has worked with the band since the recording of The Bends, where he assisted producer John Leckie, and has contributed significantly to their sound, often being dubbed the "sixth member" of the band. Another major contributor has been Stanley Donwood, who has produced the artwork for the band's albums since their My Iron Lung EP in collaboration with "Dr. Tchock" – a pseudonym for Yorke. Donwood and Yorke met at the University of Exeter, and together produce the official band website, Radiohead.com.
The band's early music compares with artists such as Elvis Costello, Pixies, Pink Floyd, R.E.M., U2, Talking Heads, The Beatles, The Smiths, and Mancunian post-punk acts The Fall, Joy Division, and Magazine. Later albums resemble German art-rock band Can, the avant-garde electronic group Kraftwerk, electronic artists such as Autechre and Aphex Twin, and jazz pioneers such as Charles Mingus and Miles Davis.
Although Radiohead are not a Britpop style band, many believe that their seminal albums - OK Computer and The Bends - have been particularly influential for contemporary bands, like Athlete, Coldplay, Keane, Muse and Travis. However, it has become clear that the band isn't so keen on the new generation of Britpop musicians, inspired by Radiohead's work though they may be. When asked in 2001 by MTV, "How do you guys feel about the fact that bands like Travis, Coldplay, and Muse are making a career sounding exactly like your records did in 1997?", Yorke replied: "Good luck with Kid A." (Ross, 2001)
History
(1991–1995) One hit wonders and rise to success: Pablo Honey and The Bends
Radiohead formed during the late 1980s, originally under the name On A Friday (referring to the only day they could practise during the week). Prior to this Thom, Colin and Ed were in punk-band TNT which soon disbanded. Thom left, Ed and Colin followed closely after, the trio soon became friends with Phil Selway from the year above them in Abingdon. Jonny Greenwood, Colin's younger brother, became the final addition to the band when Colin took him along to rehersals as a shortcut to babysitting him, soon he began to take his keyboard along and play any parts they wanted on top. It was a long time before Jonny became an official member of the band. After forming in 1988, the band disbanded for a couple of years so that band members could devote themselves to study and other work. In 1991, the band reemerged to release its first demo tapes. Their first one – the Manic Hedgehog Demo (named after an Oxford record shop) – brought the group to another gig in the Jericho Tavern. In the meantime, the band had already appeared on the cover of Curfew, a magazine based in Oxford. Things went fast as On A Friday started to being booked for gigs frequently. Various record labels showed interest and eventually the group signed a 6-album recording contract with EMI. Responding to the critic in Curfew who characterised their name as mundane, the band decided to swap it for the title of a cod-reggae tune, "Radio Head" on Talking Heads' True Stories album. The record is a band favourite and would later be a major influence on their own Kid A.
The band's debut release was a self-produced EP, described by Chris Hufford as "not a clever move." "A huge conflict of interests. I think Thom was very insecure of my involvement. I'd had that happen to me as an artist when one of our managers acted as producer. There was definitely some friction on that front. Otherwise it was a treat, we fired out the songs." The 4-track Drill EP came out in March 1992 with Prove Yourself as the lead track. It reached 101 in the UK singles chart. The band hired Paul Kolderie and Sean Slade, who produced Buffalo Tom's "Let me come over," as producers. The album was finished in three weeks in an Oxford studio. Although representing a style from which the band would later move, songs like the big self-loathing hit "Creep," "Anyone Can Play Guitar," "Thinking About You," and "You" were popular. Because the album kept on breaking around the world, the Pablo Honey supporting tour lumbered into its second year.
| Music Samples |
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| "Just" from The Bends (info) |
The hire of the producing legend John Leckie to make their next record – The Bends – showed that the band have further developed like musicians and the latter contributed significantly to the sound of the album. The band spent some time attempting to duplicate their earlier success. Previous producers Colderie, Hufford and Slade participated in the mixing process and the selecting tracklisting. Recalling these sessions, Leckie said: "It was either going to be Sulk, The Bends, Nice Dream, or Just,". "We had to give those absolute attention, make them amazing, instant smash hits number 1 in America. Everyone was pulling their hair and saying, 'It's not good enough! We were trying too hard!'"
Thereafter, the band responded by seeking a change of scenery, quitting the studio and touring Australasia and the Far East. Trying new songs while touring, helped in making their second album. Hufford claimed that "it made them re-evaluate what they were good at and enjoyed doing. Playing live again put the perspective back on what they'd lost in the studio." The EP My Iron Lung (1994) was released between the two albums while the band were touring and saw them in a transitional stage between the pop-like Pablo Honey and the musical depth of their sophomore album. Having worked the songs in on the road, they returned to Britain and completed the album at once in a fortnight in late 1994. It was swiftly mixed and released in May the following year 1995. The album drew heavily on 1960s influences as well as the then-popular music exemplified by groups such as the Pixies and R.E.M.
Although not regarded as a properly Britpop album, it was associated with the movement and in early 1996 – widely praised a year after the album's release – Radiohead took part in Cool Britannia, battling famous acts like Oasis, Blur, Pulp, and Suede. Now, The Bends is considered by many critics and fans as one of the best albums of the mid-1990s.
(1996–1998) At the height of popularity: OK Computer
Radiohead began writing OK Computer in early 1996 at their rehearsal studio, Canned Applause, a converted fruit shed with the latest recording equipment. By July they had recorded four songs with producer Nigel Godrich. Having learned from The Bends, they decided to perform the songs live before completing the record. After recording four songs in Canned Applause in July and August, they tried them on tour and then without pressure, recorded the rest near the end of in St. Catherine's Court – a mansion owned by actress Jane Seymour.
In 16 June 1997 OK Computer was released and received even greater acclaim than The Bends, featuring prominently in many "best album" polls, then and now. It found Radiohead introducing uncommon musical elements, experimenting with ambience and noise to create a set of songs that many consider to be a high point of late-twentieth century rock music. It received a Grammy Award for Best Alternative Album and was followed by their big "Against Demons World Tour". Grant Gee, the director of the "No Surprises" video, accompanied the band on their tour and filmed it, which resulted in the "on the fly" documentary Meeting People Is Easy, which showed the band starting from their first and foremost tours and finishing in their late burn-out dates in middle 1998.
| Music Samples |
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| "Lucky" from OK Computer (info) |
The band released two EPs No Surprises/Running From Demons (1997) and Airbag/How Am I Driving? (1998), which differ only by a couple of songs. The more notable is the second, which has few songs that could best be described as a bridge between the progressive alternative rock of OK Computer and their subsequent experimental work.
OK Computer and The Verve's final album – Urban Hymns – were regarded as a boost to the already dying Britpop movement, despite the fact that both records departed from the style. Nevertheless OK Computer is regarded by some as one of the greatest rock albums and still tops various charts. It defined Radiohead as top superstars and elevated them to the pantheon of the greatest bands of 90s, among such seminal acts as R.E.M, U2, Nirvana and Oasis.
(1999–2001) Experimental work: Kid A and Amnesiac
Exhausted by their fame and on the verge of burning out following the end of the "Against Demons World Tour" in middle 1998, the band spent the next year in relative quiet. Thom Yorke admitted that after the tour the band was close to splitting up, and that he himself had fallen into depression for a time. Colin Greenwood said: "It felt a bit like we were in a dead-end street and that was really frustrating." The band only appeared at the Amnesty International Concert in Paris (10 December 1998), and Thom and Jonny performed at the Tibetan Freedom Concert in Amsterdam, where a new song, "Pyramid Song", made its live debut.
The band however were still working on the follow-up, but rather chaotically and were less organised than previous times. Thom said: "I think it was the first time we didn't have a clue what we were going to do, what we were doing. We were just experimenting. We've been in this state for about a year, just fooling around, trying out stuff and listening to what we did, then it finally started to get into shape ... after about 18 months." But, after O'Brien's collaboration for the BBC drama series "Eureka Street" in middle 1999, the band holed completely in the studio to record. The amount of the material was huge – about 40 new songs, from which they chose 30 for their subsequent two records.
Radiohead refused to make a follow-up of OK Computer in the same musical vein and chose to be even more ambitious than before, creating an experimental electronic album with minimal guitar work that complemented the lyrical and musical hooks of their earlier work with a more minimalist style. Yorke explained that the band wanted "to experiment and find new angles, leave the old paths. We tried to treat the album like a song, let the album develop itself rather than giving it a shape and moulding it into a shape, and it worked. It was a completely different way we used for work and it was rather liberating."
The album's arrangements have been likened to a meeting of Pink Floyd and Aphex Twin. Their fourth record Kid A was released in October 2000. The band cited Alice Coltrane, Charles Mingus and Paul Lansky as influences, as well as the entire back catalogue of Warp Records. Kid A received a Grammy Award for Best Alternative Album just as its predecessor did, which fired them to superstardom. The band were accused by some critics for creating a radio-unfriendly record, though most of the band's fans hailed it as a masterpiece, and it is now considered by some to be one of their finest records and greatest achievements.
The follow-up Amnesiac, which was released in June of the following year, comprised further tracks from the same recording sessions. Conceived as two separate sequences of songs, the two albums are similar in style and influences; linked by two different versions of the song, "Morning Bell." Amnesiac is often viewed by critics as the less accomplished of the two works and has been criticised for its lack of cohesion. However, most fans and a growing number of critics refer to this lack of continuity as a deliberate device used by Radiohead to distinguish Amnesiac from Kid A. The album was received very well and nearly reached Kid A's sales, marking a further musical exploration of the band. There is even a division in the opinion of some fans about which of the two albums is better.
After its release, the band staged their own mini-festival in Oxford's South Park, featuring Beck, Sigur Rós, Supergrass, Humphrey Lyttelton (who played trumpet on "Life in a Glass House", the closing track on Amnesiac), and themselves. Initially the band wanted to release "I Might Be Wrong" as their new single after "Pyramid Song" and "Knives Out", but soon the idea expanded into a full-fledged live record. In the fall of 2001, they released their first live album: I Might Be Wrong: Live Recordings, featuring performances from Berlin, Paris, London and a couple of other concerts as well as including one unreleased track, "True Love Waits".
(2002–2004) Mixing from everything: Hail to the Thief
The recording process for their next record, Hail to the Thief, was remarkably different from those for the previous three studio albums. They were comparable more to the pace of the Bends sessions, rather than the usual holing up in a studio for months. The band elected to take their new material on the road in Portugal and Spain during July and August 2002 prior to recording it. With the songs fleshed out and finalised during the tour, the band completed the album in a Los Angeles studio in a fortnight. In 2003 the band released their sixth album, which was rooted in less overt experimentation than its two immediate predecessors but was still a long way from their earlier guitar-driven material. It was received very warmly by both fans and critics alike and surpassed the previous two albums' sales.
Thereafter, Radiohead embarked on a vast international tour, lasting about a year. It saw the band visiting Australia and Japan for the first time since their OK Computer tour in 1997–1998, more than 6 years previous. Many Australian fans were deeply upset by the cancellation of the last show merely hours before its scheduled start due to problems with Yorke's throat. Radiohead headlined the main (Pyramid) stage on the Saturday of the Glastonbury 2003, to huge crowd acclaim and positive press reviews. The same year, Jonny Greenwood, with the help of his brother Colin Greenwood, recorded and produced the soundtrack to the avant-garde documentary movie Bodysong.
About one year after the release of Hail to the Thief, Radiohead released a new EP entitled COM LAG (2plus2isfive), while on their 2004 tour in Australia and Japan. With 10 tracks, COM LAG is longer than the average Radiohead EP. It features live takes, remixes, and different versions of Hail to the Thief-era songs, as well as a handful of acoustic and electronic numbers. The band finished touring and promoting Hail to the Thief in mid-2004 with an acclaimed performance at the Coachella Festival.
(2005) Next recording sessions
Free of any contractual obligations, the band spent the rest of 2004 devoting themselves to solo projects and recordings with other artists, before working again. The band only gave note of themselves as a whole, releasing the DVD The Most Gigantic Lying Mouth Of All Time in December 2004. Jonny Greenwood, along with Phil Selway, will have a cameo role in the next Harry Potter movie – HP and the Goblet of Fire. Jonny became a composer for the BBC, charged with creating classical pieces. He and Thom participated in the Band Aid 20 project, playing respectively guitar and piano, collaborating with myriad of famous artists.
The band entered the studio on September 7 to record "I Want None of This" for the War Child benefit album Help: A Day in the Life, which was released online on September 9. Hard copies of the album, released by Independiente Records will be in stores on September 26.
After a year out of the spotlight Radiohead returned again to recording sessions. On 12 May the big on-line community Green Plastic reported that Radiohead are working on 15 songs at the moment with two of them described as "already done and amazing" – possibly the two aforementioned tracks. The band first got together back in January 2005 and Thom played a bunch of his new songs for the others. According to GP, "They are in high spirits and happy to be playing together." Having never heard the songs before, the rest of the band just jumped in and started adding their own parts. The whole recording process has been described as "unorganised" and very different than the usual ways Radiohead has recorded before.
It's unknown whether Nigel Godrich will produce the album, but it's very likely. It's been reported that Godrich is frequently visiting the studio, where the band is recording, and that Thom gave him a tape with some new songs. Also, Godrich has reportedly just finished producing Paul McCartney's new album, (Chaos and Creation in the Back Yard), and Godrich possibly would return to the studio, helping the band. According to the band, the new LP should be finished by December 2005 with a tentative release date in February or March 2006. Touring will possibly begin several weeks before the release of the album. At this point it is unknown what the new album will sound like, but considering the band's taste for experimentation, new sounds are highly expected. Possible titles include "Business School for the Dead" and "Down is the New Up", which were painted with implying tone in the band's web-site.
In June 2005 Thom Yorke told NME, that sessions for their new album remind him of working on Kid A. [1] He said that early sessions had seen the band changing the way they work, reminding him of the change between the third and fourth album. He said: "It's going well. It's a bit like Kid A - we're going through a period of change. But that's good. We'll get there". Songs touted for the record include "House Of Cards", "Last Flowers Till The Hospital", "Arpeggi" and possibly the live favorite "Big Ideas (Don't Get Any)". Additionally, on the Radiohead studio blog, the band named two songs being mixed, "Pigsee" and "Mornin' Mi Lord."
It's been revealed that it's unlikely that the band would re-sign with EMI. On the journal of the official site Radiohead.com, Thom Yorke posted: "we have no record conntract.as such. any offers?..what we would like is the old EMI back again, the nice genteel arms manufacturers who treated music a nice side project who werent to bothered about the shareholders. ah well not much chance of that.... [sic]". Their management also dismissed recent rumours that Warner Music were lining up to sign the band, saying: "The band (are) not looking for a record company in any way, shape or form. They are out of a contract, but they're not actively looking for another one. They're getting on with doing what they do."
Thom also said that on August 18 they were entering the proper studio "with 192 faders which is a lot of choice a bit like the supermarket and it may all go off before we get to it so we have to eat quick." Another statement from the band’s management revealed that the group are "putting some ideas together in the new studio" to "see where they want to go with the next step musically". On August 25, Thom said that they had finished 6 days of recording sessions and that after a couple of weeks they would repeat it.
Given the current schedule and Radiohead's propensity for summer albums, fans should look for LP7 sometime around June 2006.
Discography
===Studio albums=== (6 albums with 71 tracks)
EPs
- Drill (1992)
- Itch (1993, Japan/New Zealand)
- My Iron Lung (1994, #24 UK)
- Live Au Forum (1995, France)
- The Bends Pinkpop (1996, Netherlands)
- No Surprises/Running From Demons (1997, Japan only)
- Airbag/How Am I Driving? (1998, #56 US, US only)
- Amnesiac College EP (2001, US college radio)
- I Might Be Wrong: Live Recordings (2001, #22 UK, #44 US)
- COM LAG (2plus2isfive) (2004, #37 UK, Japan)
Multimedia
Videos
- Live at the Astoria (1995, VHS)
- 7 Television Commercials (1997, VHS/DVD)
- Meeting People Is Easy (1999, VHS/DVD)
- The Most Gigantic Lying Mouth Of All Time (2004, DVD)
Books
- Radiohead: An Illustrated Biography by Nick Johnstone (1997, ISBN 0711965811)
- Radiohead: From a Great Height by Jonathan Hale (1999, ISBN 1550223739)
- Radiohead: Hysterical and Useless by Martin Clarke (2000, ISBN 0859653323)
- Exit Music: The Radiohead Story by Mac Randall, (2000, ISBN 0385333935)
- Radiohead: Back to Save the Universe by James Doheny (2002, ISBN 1560253983)
- Radiohead: A Visual Documentary by Tim Footman and Billy Dancer (2002, ISBN 1842401793)
- The Music and Art of Radiohead edited by Joseph Tate (2005, ISBN 0754639800)
Radiohead by others
- Australian musician Frank Bennett gave an unconventional makeover to Radiohead's song "Creep" on his 1996 album "Five O'Clock Shadow", performing it in the style of Frank Sinatra. The album is out of commercial distribution, but The Official Frank Bennett website provides mp3 downloads of his recordings.
- In September 1998, American jazz pianist Brad Mehldau included his version of Radiohead's "Exit Music (For a Film)" on his album The Art Of The Trio, Vol. 3. In August 2002 he released the album Largo which featured Radiohead's "Paranoid Android". Both of these tracks are taken from OK Computer. The Anything Goes album, released February 2004, includes a re-working of the track "Everything in its Right Place" from Radiohead's Kid A. All three albums were released by Warner Brothers. His Live in Tokyo album from 2004 (on Nonesuch) includes a 19-minute, live rendition of "Paranoid Android".
- The Section, a popular music string quartet, released two albums (on independent record label Vitamin Records) covering Radiohead: 2001's Strung Out On OK Computer, a track for track reprise of OK Computer; and 2003's Enigmatic, which draws mostly from Kid A and Amnesiac with a few tracks from The Bends.
- In 2003 classical pianist Christopher O'Riley recorded True Love Waits, a collection of Radiohead tracks from various albums arranged for solo piano. It was published by Sony Music. On 12 April 2005 Christopher O'Riley released his second Radiohead tribute. "Harmonia Mundi" is the name of the new label for the True Love Waits follow-up. Hold me to this contains 14 new piano interpretations of Radiohead songs.
- At the 2003 Download festival glam rock band The Darkness first performed their heavy rock cover of Street spirit (fade out). The cover greatly increases the tempo of the original song, and is performed on electric guitars with heavy distortion. This was met with much praise from the general public and Darkness fans, but with a mixed response from Radiohead fans - many of whom thought this heavy cover betrayed the maudlin roots of the original song.
- British pop-jazz artist Jamie Cullum included a cover of "High and Dry" in his 2003 album "Twentysomething".
- American singer-songwriter John Mayer has performed the song "Kid A" live numerous times, and included it on the "Bigger Than My Body" single.
- It has also been reported on various Radiohead News fansites that Radiohead are participating in the next Help album, supporting the WarChild Foundation. The compilation is titled Help: A Day in the Life, and the idea for the compilation is to get many different artists together (including Gorillaz, Razorlight, The Zutons, Manic Street Preachers, Bloc Party, Hard-Fi, The Coral, Elbow and Maximo Park), and have them each record a song in a 24 hour time period, and release it on the internet for purchase, as well as in record stores. The 2005 Help album also marks the 10 year anniversary of the first Help album which was released in 1995 and featured Radiohead's "Lucky" which was later featured on OK Computer. The album has been finished and Radiohead's track is called 'I Want None of It.'
External links
General links
- Radiohead.com – The official Radiohead website. The Messageboard has gathered a cult following. Members of the band occasionally post there.
- Track Resource – A very comprehensive list of every officially released version of every radiohead song. Includes scans of the releases from which each version is found.
- At Ease – The largest fansite with detailed information on the band. Has an extremely popular message board.
- Green Plastic – Another large Radiohead fan and news site.
- ne pas a.v.a.l.e.r. – The main French fansite very detailed section on songs and discs. Very active forum.
- Dead Air Space – Radiohead's blog for its 7th LP
Lyrics links
- Radiohead Lyrics @ Rare-lyrics – Unofficial collection of Radiohead lyrics (various errors and typos, though).
- Monkey Picture Soundtrack – An independent transcription and analysis of Radiohead's lyrics, devoted to demystifying Yorke's unclear vocal deliveries.
- Radiohead Unpackt – An in-depth interpretation of OK Computer, Kid A, and Amnesiac
- Pulk-Pull – An on-going investigation of the band's music and art.
References
- Ross, Alex (August 20 and 27, 2001). The Searchers: Radiohead's unquiet revolution. The New Yorker.
- RIAA Certiification
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