Radiohead overview and influence
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Radiohead, its five members and other actors, are a band that has drawn widely and deeply from musical and other works of the past, synthesizing them into something unique and modern yet not without precedent. Radiohead, comprising its music, ideologies, images, and myths, defined and redefined by itself, by its fans, and by the press, and has arguably been the strongest influence on the development of the modern alternative rock music scene. As Dave Matthews from the Dave Matthews Band put it, "listening to Radiohead makes me feel like I'm a Salieri to their Mozart. They're without a doubt the most important band of recent memory."
Overview
Fans, music critics, and fellow musicians tend to regard the band Radiohead as among the most creative and risk-taking groups of their era. As one writer described them after interviewing songwriter Thom Yorke, "Radiohead is a band with little interest in rehashing past glories, a band that treats its commercial success as a license to experiment further rather than as a winning formula that it must try to repeat." Radiohead's music is often more complex than that of most other pop musicians, particularly those with its level of popularity, incorporating a wide range of influences across genres and time periods. When asked, band members identify with the punk and post-punk movements rather than with progressive rock.
Since the mid 1990s the band's reputation has grown with a series of albums that increasingly abandoned rock's musical cliches, as well as addressing social and political themes including globalization and environmental disaster. Some criticise Radiohead for being pessimistic, lyrically obtuse, too serious, or for lacking in conventional tunefulness, and they have never been one of the most commercially successful bands in the world (nor a favourite of most radio stations); however their commercial success remains quite high, and frontman Thom Yorke is considered to be a sort of anti-rock star (Yorke frequently plays down his own personality and fame, preferring to let the music speak for itself). Yorke's falsetto voice is perhaps the most identifiable current connecting the band's changing sounds.
Radiohead has sometimes been described as an "outsider" band within the mainstream, or vice versa. Some fans see them as natural inheritors of the mantle of R.E.M., U2, Pink Floyd or even the Beatles, though Radiohead has not enjoyed the same commercial success as these groups, who at moments in their careers had one hit single after another and crossover potential with every segment of the population. Radiohead, in contrast, is seen as a cult band. However, their 1990s albums, particularly OK Computer, remain popular and continue to appear on critics' lists, and their genre-bending albums of the 2000s have inspired a new generation of listeners.
The People of Radiohead
Thom Yorke is chiefly responsible for lyrics and songwriting, but the rest of the band contributes ideas. Lead guitarist Jonny Greenwood in particular is a versatile multi-instrumentalist; he is the only member of the band with formal musical training, often writing orchestral arrangements both for Radiohead songs and under his own name, and can play keyboard, string, woodwind and brass instruments as well as the Ondes Martenot.
Unlike most rock bands, Radiohead has three members comfortable in the role of guitarist; on their first three albums, Jonny is usually found on lead, Thom on rhythm, and Ed O'Brien playing auxiliary, often with effects, creating a rich, layered wall of guitar sound. Kid A features comparatively sparse guitar work, because guitarists either don't all contribute to the same tracks at once, or switch off to play other instruments. Although guitars are still present on most Kid A songs, and more still on the newer Amnesiac and Hail to the Thief, the resulting change in texture in favour of other instruments made some old fans wish for a return to a more traditional line-up. Concerts still feature plenty of three guitar action, however, and often, more rock-accessible arrangements of "experimental" tracks. Radiohead is generally held to be an excellent live band. They have been voted as such by readers of several music magazines, and their concert recordings are widely bootlegged and shared online. Glastonbury Festival founder Michael Eavis declared Radiohead's appearances at the festival in 1997 and 2003 among the high points in its decades-long run.
In recent years band members have embraced less clearly defined musical roles. For example, bassist Colin Greenwood wrote much of "Dollars & Cents", a track on Amnesiac, by playing string samples from Alice Coltrane's work on top of a simple bassline, inspiring his brother Jonny's subsequent arrangement. Yorke, who usually plays regular guitar, switched on "The National Anthem" to bass, the instrument usually played by Colin. For the live version of the song "There There," the relaxed lineup holds but the migration away from rock instrumentation is reversed: drummer Phil is joined by usual guitarists/keyboardists/sound manipulators Jonny and Ed, who each play conga drums on the song, while Phil sings backing vocals.
Producer Nigel Godrich worked with the band from the 1995 recording of The Bends, where he was a young assistant to producer John Leckie and engineered the album, to 2004. He co-produced four consecutive albums with the band: OK Computer, Kid A, Amnesiac, and Hail to the Thief, as well as several intermittent EPs. According to interviews Godrich, who was largely unknown before his work on OK Computer but has since become highly sought-after, contributed significantly to Radiohead's sound and has sometimes been dubbed the "sixth member" of the band. Radiohead are currently working on their seventh album with Mark 'Spike' Stent.
Graphic artist Stanley Donwood met Yorke at the University of Exeter, and has collaborated with Yorke to produce the artwork for the band's albums since their 1994 My Iron Lung EP; the two received a Grammy award in 2002 for their limited edition book version of Amnesiac. Yorke works with Donwood under an alias, usually "Tchock", "Tchocky", or "Dr. Tchock," all short for "The White Chocolate Farm," a name under which he is credited in the liner notes of The Bends. Donwood and Yorke also created the band's official website, [Radiohead.com].
Radiohead's Influence on Music
Radiohead, along with Nirvana, Pearl Jam, Pixies, and other mostly American bands (Radiohead was known early on as the "British Nirvana"), was influential in defining the alternative rock sound heard on radio in the early 1990s, with their hit "Creep." Subsequent Radiohead singles, even hits, have neither adhered to the so-called grunge style, nor enjoyed such extensive radio play and cultural influence. Although Radiohead has made cutting edge music videos with directors who went on to wider fame, such as Jonathan Glazer and Michel Gondry, they are usually more renowned for their cohesive albums than their singles.
Radiohead's mid-1990s albums, particularly The Bends, have been influential in popularizing emotional, melodic, multilayered British rock music, whose current adherents include such popular bands as Coldplay, Doves, Travis, Muse, and Keane. Many fans of either Radiohead or these newer bands see little specific connection between the work and outlook of Radiohead and that of newer Britpop bands. The bands themselves have sometimes written the comparisons off as media hype.
Travis' resemblances to Radiohead are easily explained; singer Fran Healy has a Yorke-like falsetto, but smoother, and Nigel Godrich produced several of their albums, giving their more populist songwriting a modern OK Computer-ish sheen. Chris Martin of Coldplay is known as a huge fan of Radiohead and Thom Yorke, going so far as to describe his own band as "eager dogs yapping at their heels." The press has often taken Martin's lead in characterizing Coldplay as Radiohead-derivative, but the names of U2, Jeff Buckley, Echo & the Bunnymen and others are equally mentioned.
Members of Radiohead have not made many comments on the issue; it seems clear that the band isn't particularly keen on the new generation of Britpop musicians: when asked in 2001 by MTV, "How do you guys feel about the fact that bands like Muse, Travis and Coldplay are making a career sounding exactly like your records did in 1997?", Yorke criticised Muse's singer/songwriter Matt Bellamy for what he felt was an attempt to directly imitate him. Of the others he has replied simply: "Good luck with Kid A." (Ross, 2001). However, as Radiohead aren't professed fans of the past generation of Britpop musicians such as Oasis and Blur, either, their real opinion is hard to discern (Blur and Radiohead have confessed to a mutual respect and Jonny Greenwood reportedly is a fan of former guitarist Graham Coxon's solo albums, but Radiohead appears to draw most of their inspiration from bands of other scenes, or no scene at all).
The album OK Computer has had some influence, in its ambitious conceptual scope, its track order (one writer called OK Computer the first great album designed to make full use of the CD format), and in its lush but sonically detailed production style. Music with a mix of acoustic instrumentation and electronic effects has become increasingly common in recent years, both in the mainstream and the independent music scene, although how much of this is due to the album's own influence is unknown and unverifiable; OK Computer's sound, while somewhat unique in the mid-'90s rock landscape, was indebted to previous recordings by other artists and bands, some of them far more popular than Radiohead.
Radiohead's work in the current decade has also introduced sounds deriving from experimental electronic music, post-bop and free jazz, and 20th century classical music to some pop and rock listeners previously unaware of them. Evidence of such effect is widespread but almost entirely anecdotal. Radiohead-related online message boards, particularly the popular At Ease forums, comprise many users with an interest in such music, lists that quantify such interest, and many stories of Radiohead as a "gateway drug" to the music world beyond the rock and indie rock mainstream. A recent example of viral marketing by Universal Media Group, in which a website purporting to be warning against the dangers of experimental "noise" music (but really an underhanded promotion of Universal rocker Andrew WK), testifies to their position as such. The fictitious "Mothers Against Noise," as given voice by Universal, warned their counterparts to destroy Radiohead CDs in childrens' possession: "They use a lot electronic noise and noise imagery within compositions and it may on the surface seem harmless but once our kids get hooked on dissonance they will only go further down the road for a bigger kick."
Artists both inside and outside the pop music world have drawn on Radiohead (see Radiohead by others). Jazz pianist Brad Mehldau's trio has done freewheeling covers of "Paranoid Android", "Exit Music (For a Film)", and "Everything In Its Right Place", among others. American classical pianist Christopher O'Riley, also host of the public radio show From the Top, has performed and recorded dozens of his Radiohead song arrangements in recent years, making them the basis of two CDs and a regular part of his concert repertoire; O'Riley says he was drawn to the layering of sound in Radiohead's music. Acclaimed novelist Michael Cunningham cited OK Computer as an album, which "for reasons I can't begin to explain... subtly but palpably helped shape" The Hours.
The mere quality of Radiohead's work has had influence, inspiring other musicians to challenge themselves. Following The Bends, Michael Stipe of R.E.M. described his view of the situation: "Radiohead are so good, they're scary." Dave Matthews wrote of wanting to give up whenever he hears a new Radiohead album and realises it's as good or better than the last: "Listening to Radiohead makes me feel like I'm a Salieri to their Mozart." Billy Corgan cited his appreciation of Kid A, along with his hatred of Britney Spears, as one reason he disbanded the Smashing Pumpkins. Shortlist Prize-winning Brooklyn band TV on the Radio named an early EP "OK Calculator" in homage to Radiohead. Another outspoken fan of Radiohead's music is U2's frontman Bono. He was disappointed when the band declined participation in the Live 8 concerts. He said the following: "It's very difficult for people, they can do whatever they want as far as I am concerned. They are that great, they're that special to me. If they don't want to do this, then fair play to them. I would love to see them, Thom if you heard this, I've a little missile on the way."
Radiohead has not had quite the effect on the music world one might expect from the hype and comparisons to legendary bands of the past that are frequently thrown around in the media. OK Computer was supposed to "save rock n roll," according to some excitable critics; it may have been more of the last gasp of the classic rock ideal, before even the band themselves thought better of it and moved on. Impassioned claims were made that Kid A, three years later, would break down genre boundaries or upend the blandness of the charts by debuting at #1 in the US, although the predicted revolution in popular tastes has not (yet) come to pass, and the album turned out to be more perfectly of its time than ahead of it. In the eyes of some, Hail to the Thief was supposed to crystallise musical dissent against George W. Bush and Tony Blair. This did not happen, as the title and the far more vague lyrics went mostly unnoticed even in an atmosphere of Dixie Chick disc-burnings, and the album was noted as another good entry by Radiohead and then set aside, perhaps because the band, who denied such a specific political intent, wanted it that way.
Kid A and its then-unique, largely Internet-based promotional campaign (and early online leaking) in 2000 may have had some effect on music industry practices, but for now Radiohead's influence remains subtle, though wide, as they are seen as more a beacon of artistic integrity and creative light than the originators of a particularly new style that can be easily latched onto or copied by other bands, at least copied more than superficially. It is precisely their perceived adherence to their own artistic vision, which references the musical past both known and lesser known while simultaneously remaining attuned to the present, that makes Radiohead experimental, accessible, yet not quite the likely standard bearers for a new wave of music.
Radiohead by others: Covers, interpretations & remixes
- Reggae and dub artists including Toots and the Maytals, Horace Andy and Sly & Robbie have contributed to a tribute to OK Computer, entitled Radiodread, set for release in September 2006.
- Australian musician Frank Bennett gave an unconventional makeover to Radiohead's hit "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 a 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". The Anything Goes album, released in February 2004, includes a re-working of the track "Everything in its Right Place" from Radiohead's Kid A. All three albums are on Warner Bros. Mehldau's Live in Tokyo album from 2004 (on Nonesuch) includes a 19-minute, live rendition of "Paranoid Android". The Brad Mehldau Trio's 2005 album Day is Done features a cover of "Knives Out" from Amnesiac.
- In 2003, classical pianist Christopher O'Riley released True Love Waits, a collection of Radiohead tracks from various albums arranged for solo piano. It was published by Sony Music. In 2005 O'Riley released his second Radiohead tribute, Hold me to this (on World Village/Harmonia Mundi), containing his piano interpretations of 14 different Radiohead songs, including b-sides. O'Riley also performs his piano interpretations of Radiohead songs as a part of his concerts.
- Alt-country musicians Gillian Welch and David Rawlins have performed Radiohead's "Black Star" live.
- The Section, a string quartet known for adapting popular music, released two albums on 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 and Hail to the Thief.
- At the 2003 Download Festival, popular glam rock band The Darkness first performed their pop metal 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 and melodramatic falsetto. Many saw the cover as "ironic."
- British pop-jazz artist Jamie Cullum included a cover of "High and Dry" in his 2003 album "Twentysomething". Cullum later released his version as a single.
- Post rock/avant jazz collective The Cinematic Orchestra covered Radiohead's "Exit Music (for a film)" for the 2006 compilation , which also includes covers of the band by other artists.
- 2006 compilation also featured a version of "Nice Dream" by electronic musician Matthew Herbert.
- American singer-songwriter John Mayer has performed the song "Kid A" live numerous times, and included it as a b-side on the "Bigger Than My Body" single.
- The Japanese rock band Plastic Tree is reputed to have adopted their name from Radiohead's "Fake Plastic Trees."
- British artist KT Tunstall covered "Fake Plastic Trees" live on the radio in her piano pop style.
- The folk/bluegrass trio Nickel Creek has covered "Just" from Radiohead's The Bends in concert. They have also covered "There There."
- Following the release of OK Computer, Massive Attack was said to be working on a remix of the entire album. This project was ultimately dropped, but a song from the acclaimed electronic group's 2006 hits album samples Radiohead's "The Bends."
- Popular DJ Paul Oakenfold remixed Radiohead's "Street Spirit" and "Everything in its Right Place." These remixes never saw official release.
- In 2006, hip-hop band The Roots covered Radiohead's "Everything In Its Right Place" at the Radio City Music Hall with neo soul musician Bilal. The band are professed fans of Radiohead. Bilal's own cover of "High and Dry" appears on the 2006 compilation . Roots member Ahmir (?uestlove) produced a version of "Morning Bell" for the same release.
- The jazz trio The Bad Plus has covered "Karma Police" live in their trademark "deconstructive" fashion. Their version is now featured on the 2006 compilation .
- Californian musical comedy duo Hard 'n Phirm, comprising Chris Hardwick and Matt Phirman, released a bluegrass medley of over 15 Radiohead songs entitled "Rodeohead" on their debut album Horses and Grasses ([Hard 'n Phirm website]).
- Heavy metal band Anthrax covered Radiohead's "The Bends."
- In 2000, spoof act Richard Cheese included a lounge-music restyling of the song "Creep" on his first album Lounge Against the Machine. The song culminated in a partial rendition of Radiohead's "Fitter Happier".
- In 2003, electronic pop artist Moby, who was the closing act at the Glastonbury Music Festival, did a cover of the Radiohead song "Creep", lamenting that if the band would not play it anymore, he would. Moby has since covered the song several more times. At the same festival, singer-songwriter Damien Rice also covered the song. For a full list of artists who have covered the song, see "Creep" article.
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