In early , Radiohead began work on a follow-up to OK Computer. Although there was no longer any pressure or even a deadline from their record label, tension during this period was high. Band members all had different visions for Radiohead's future, and Yorke was experiencing writer's block, influencing him toward a more abstract, fragmented form of songwriting. Radiohead secluded themselves with producer Nigel Godrich in studios in Paris, Copenhagen, and Gloucester, and in their newly completed studio in Oxford.
Eventually, all the members agreed on a new musical direction, redefining their instrumental roles in the band. After nearly 18 months, Radiohead's recording sessions were completed in April In October Radiohead released their fourth album, Kid A, the first of two albums from these recording sessions. A departure from OK Computer, Kid A featured a minimalist and textured style with more diverse instrumentation, including the ondes Martenot, programmed electronic beats, strings, and jazz horns.
It debuted at number one in many countries, including the US, where its debut atop the Billboard chart marked a first for the band, and the first US number one album by any UK act since the Spice Girls in This success was attributed variously to marketing, to the album's leak on the file-sharing network Napster a few months before its release, and to advance anticipation based, in part, on the success of OK Computer.
Although Radiohead did not release any singles from Kid A, promos of "Optimistic" and "Idioteque" received radio play, and a series of "blips", or short videos set to portions of tracks, were played on music channels and released freely on the internet.
The band had read Naomi Klein's anti-globalisation book No Logo during the recording, and they decided to continue a summer tour of Europe later in the year in a custom-built tent free of advertising; they also promoted Kid A with three sold-out North American theatre concerts. It won both praise and criticism in independent music circles for appropriating underground styles of music; some mainstream British critics saw Kid A as a "commercial suicide note", labelling it "intentionally difficult" and longing for a return to the band's earlier style.
Radiohead's fans were similarly divided; along with those who were appalled or mystified, there were many who saw the album as the band's best work. Yorke, however, denied that Radiohead had set out to eschew commercial expectations, saying: "I was really, really amazed at how badly [Kid A] was being viewed We're not trying to be difficult We're actually trying to communicate but somewhere along the line, we just seemed to piss off a lot of people What we're doing isn't that radical.
Radiohead's fifth album, Amnesiac, was released in June It comprised additional tracks from the Kid A recording sessions, plus one track recorded after Kid A's release, "Life in a Glasshouse", featuring the Humphrey Lyttelton Band. Radiohead stressed that they saw Amnesiac not as a collection of B-sides or "leftovers" from Kid A but an album in its own right.
Radiohead embarked on a world tour, visiting North America, Europe and Japan. They recorded the new material in two weeks in a Los Angeles studio with Godrich, adding several tracks later in Oxford, where they continued their work into the next year. The band described the recording process as relaxed, in contrast to the tense sessions for Kid A and Amnesiac.
Radiohead's sixth album, Hail to the Thief, was released in June , combining guitar rock with electronic music. Its lyrics were influenced by what Yorke called "the general sense of ignorance and intolerance and panic and stupidity" following the election of US President George W. The album debuted at number one in the UK and number three on the Billboard chart, and was eventually certified platinum in the UK and gold in the US. In May , Radiohead embarked in on a world tour and headlined Glastonbury Festival.
The tour finished in May with a performance at the Coachella Festival. In , Yorke told Time: "I like the people at our record company, but the time is at hand when you have to ask why anyone needs one. And, yes, it probably would give us some perverse pleasure to say 'Fuck you' to this decaying business model. Following the Hail to the Thief tour, Radiohead went on hiatus to spend time with their families. In July , Yorke released his debut solo album, The Eraser.
He told Pitchfork: "I've been in the band since we left school and never dared do anything on my own It was like, 'Man, I've got to find out what it feels like,' you know? Radiohead began work on their seventh album in February with no record label.
In an effort to "get out of the comfort zone", they decided against involving producer Godrich, with whom they had recorded five albums, and hired producer Spike Stent. The collaboration with Stent was unsuccessful and ended in April The album was sold online, with "I Want None of This" the most downloaded track, though it was not released as a single. In late , after touring Europe and North America with new material, the band resumed work with Godrich in London, Oxford and rural Somerset, England.
Work was finished in June and the recordings were mastered the following month. The pay-what-you-want release, the first for a major act, made headlines worldwide and sparked debate about the implications for the music industry.
According to Mojo, the release was "hailed as a revolution in the way major bands sell their music", and the media's reaction was "almost overwhelmingly positive"; Time called it "easily the most important release in the recent history of the music business". Colin Greenwood explained the internet release as a way of avoiding the "regulated playlists" and "straitened formats" of radio and TV, ensuring fans around the world could all experience the music at the same time, and preventing leaks in advance of a physical release.
O'Brien said the self-release strategy sold fewer records, but made more money. A special "discbox" edition of In Rainbows, including a second disc from the recording sessions, vinyl and CD editions of the album, and a hardcover book of artwork, was also sold and shipped in late Songs About Movies.
Favorite Musical Artists. My Favorite Musicians. Michel Gondry music videos. See all related lists ». Share this page:. No matter how many times you hear the song, the second chord still sails beautifully out of the blue. In the turn from G to B, the note B is the pivot point. Pedals, banging away through everything.
It also helps sell records: whether playing guitar rock or sampling spaced-out electronica, Radiohead affix their signature.
Through the years, many bands have thrown bits and pieces of jazz and classical into their mix. The Beatles were by far the best at this kind of genre assimilation.
Lesser psychedelic and prog-rock bands turned orchestral crescendos and jazz freak-outs into another brand of kitsch. Riffs are always switching registers, bouncing from treble to bass, breaking through the ceiling or falling through the floor.
There are times when Radiohead seem to be practicing a new kind of classical music for the masses. The guitarists set aside their instruments for a while and taught themselves to use heaps of electronic equipment.
Both albums were also heavily influenced by jazz, especially by Mingus, Alice Coltrane, and Miles Davis in his fusion phase. Behind this creative frenzy, however, was an ongoing debate about the direction of the band. The five of them often have to thrash out issues among themselves: how to balance tours with family life; how to keep the media at bay; how, simply, to get along.
In this case, Yorke was fed up with the kind of verse-and-chorus music Radiohead had made throughout the nineties, and not everyone else agreed. In the end, I think the debate was redundant, because the band ultimately kept doing what it has always done—zigzagging between extremes. Whenever we really did try to impose an aesthetic from the outside—the aesthetic being, say, electronic—it would fail.
All the drama was just a form of procrastination. Radiohead may change direction once again. I jumped in the river, what did I see? Black-eyed angels swam with me. We all went to heaven in a little rowboat There was nothing to fear and nothing to doubt. You notice that he sings from the chest, breathing through his phrases. You also notice the plain mystery of his piano chords. Laced with suspended tones, they hang mysteriously in the air, somewhere between serenity and sadness.
In true rock-star style. He keeps his wrists high, as if Terence Gilmore-James were looking over his shoulder. Yorke is the essential spark of the Radiohead phenomenon. Like all greatly gifted people, he is not always easy to be around. When a stranger approaches him, wanting unscheduled attention, he can be unsettlingly mute. He is, by his own admission, temperamental and chronically dissatisfied. But his fault-finding circles back to the music, which is why the other band members go along with it.
When he is happy, it feels like history in the making. Curled up on a dressing-room sofa after a show, he comes across as warm, alert, and faintly mischievous.
We want to kind of mellow it all out a bit. Just chill the fuck out. There was mild Radiohead mania all over New York. In her bag, she carried a letter from Thom Yorke, written in his own hand, with advice on how to make yourself happy. They have worked hard in America, logging time in the middle of the country as well as on the coasts.
They are noted in the music business for being polite and unproblematic. Not trash-headed and stupored, as you might expect. This place is just too huge to generalize about. When I was in college, I took six months off to ride around in Greyhound buses, and I got a sense of it. Fans who worry that Radiohead are losing touch with rock and roll can always look to this man, who enjoys the role of the guitar hero, even if he also sometimes kneels down in front of his samplers and molds the music into a smear of color.
Radiohead checked into a Denver hotel on June 19th. Fans descended on Red Rocks the following morning, squatting on a half-mile flight of steps that leads to the arena. Down at the bottom was a group of college students, from Pepperdine and the University of Colorado at Boulder.
Matt delivered a critique of the band, speaking rapidly, as if from memory. The world is lame, ridiculous. Yet here we are. In a matter of minutes, Matt had summed up everything that has been written about Radiohead in the past few years. Rock critics, like adolescent fans, have feisty friendships with the bands they admire, lacing hero worship with contempt.
Fa fa fa. Blip blip. EMI bit at the group's demo, signing them in and suggesting they change their name. Next, the group entered the studio with producers Paul Kolderie and Sean Slade to record their full-length debut. The first fruit from these sessions was "Creep," a single released in the U.
The British music weeklies slagged it, radio didn't play it, and it limped to number 78 on the charts. Pablo Honey , the band's full-length debut, appeared in February , supported by the single "Anyone Can Play Guitar," but neither release gained much traction in their native U. By that point, however, "Creep" started to gain attention in other territories. First, the song became a hit in Israel, but the bigger waves came from the United States, which was in the throes of the alternative rock revolution.
Influential San Francisco radio station KITS added "Creep" to their playlist and it spread along the west coast and onto MTV as it became a genuine hit, nearly topping Billboard's Modern Rock chart and reaching 34 on the Hot , a big achievement for a British guitar band. A re-released "Creep" turned into a British Top Ten hit, peaking at number seven in the autumn of The band who'd had no success suddenly had more than it could handle.
Radiohead kept touring Pablo Honey into , but no subsequent hits were forthcoming, raising the specter of the band as a possible one-hit wonder -- a criticism that weighed heavily on the group, who were anxious to record their new songs.
They received the opportunity early in , entering the studio to work with producer John Leckie -- then best-known for his work with the Stone Roses -- with My Iron Lung , an EP released in late , being the first music released from the sessions. Muscular and ambitious, the EP provided a good indication of what would come on 's The Bends. Released in March , The Bends not only found Radiohead growing musically -- it was dense and expansive, without skimping on songs -- but also in reputation, as critics in the U.
Radiohead 's rise may have been assisted by the mania cultivated by Brit-pop, a term that didn't quite suit the band -- they were far artier and rock-oriented -- but nevertheless stoked interest in indie guitar bands, which the quintet certainly was. Over in the U. During and , the group recorded new material with Nigel Godrich -- an engineer on The Bends sessions who was now the band's producer -- with songs slowly creeping out during the course of the year.
The latter showed up on OK Computer , the June album that proved pivotal in Radiohead 's career. A breakthrough is precisely what OK Computer turned out to be, a record that proved pivotal not just for Radiohead but for the direction of '90s rock. Greeted with enthusiastic reviews and corresponding strong sales, OK Computer closed the doors on the hedonism of Brit-pop and the dour after-effects of grunge while opening a new path to sober, adventurous art-rock where electronics co-existed with guitars.
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