DEEP DISCOG DIVE: Radiohead

you know this reminds me of an old campfire song my mother used to sing it goes something like this see this is what happens when i don't know how to start videos welcome back to the deep discog dive many thanks to all of you who voted in the last deep discog dive decision as i mentioned last time that poll decided the next three artists that i cover in the series and then i'll be picking the last one for the year which means i won't be running another poll until 2021 unless 2020 just loops in on itself and we just keep living this year indefinitely which you don't know won't happen that said you are still welcome to leave comments suggesting artists for me to cover this month's artist is one that i'm kind of surprised we haven't covered yet just considering they're long and storied history today we're talking about garfield i mean radiohead let's dive in [Music] radiohead was born in 1985 in abingdon oxfordshire the band consists of tom york primarily on lead vocals johnny greenwood primarily on guitar colin greenwood on bass ed o'brien also primarily on guitar and philip selway on drums the gang all met in boarding school and even when they left for university they continued to meet up and rehearse between school semesters and during breaks they went through a handful of names during these first few years but their most frequent name was on a friday which they came up with because they rehearsed on a friday after they signed with emi for a record deal in 1991 they changed their name to radiohead that name came from a similarly on the nose place as all of the band mates were just radio waves in trench coats so they signed to emi for a six album contract what's up first prior to their first album they released the drill ep which featured songs that would eventually go onto said first album then in february 1993 they dropped honey people don't really care for this one do they it's been treated as a punching bag by fans in the years since and i was dreading the worst going into it so to my surprise it's all right it's a fairly tolerable listen and there are some good cuts off of it opener you prove yourself anyone can play guitar closer blowout which shows that the band already has a good understanding of how to use dynamic contrast overall it's not terrible it just sort of is most of this sounds like many of the other rock bands at this time and i think a big reason why people scoff at it is because of the other records from the band that would follow i mean if you came up to me in 1993 and told me these guys [Music] would eventually make in rainbows i'd say nothing because i didn't exist yet the record and most of its singles performed poorly in the uk what kept the album and radiohead from sliding into 90s grunge obscurity was creep which blew up here in the us and became one of the defining songs of 90s all rock i actually find myself enjoying covers of it more than the original the most famous cover in recent memory is probably the coral rendition that appeared in the social network trailer but i want to highlight a cover done by broadway actress carrie minalakis the way she hits that f sharp in the bridge god it shakes me every time another cover i feel compelled to mention [Music] glee following a tour behind pablo honey the band released the my iron lung ep which is a quality listen and worth checking out on its own but i bring it up here for two important reasons one it was the first time they worked with artist stanley donwood he and tom met in university and he would go on to do the band's artwork from then up to present day two it was the first time they worked with nigel godrich who at the time was an assistant engineer he would eventually become their producer for every record they made after their second studio album that second studio album produced by john leckie was the benz now if you came up to me in march 1995 and said these guys would go on to make in rainbows i would have said baby noises or something but i would have enjoyed this the benz is a massive improvement over pablo honey in nearly every conceivable way it's where the band really hones in on its style tom's vocal delivery is more confident the guitar work is more experimental the songwriting is top-notch the production is more unique not only was it a hit with critics it had actual charting hits as well fake plastic trees just street spirit opener planetelex all landed somewhere on the uk charts that said it didn't get much attention outside of the uk at least on the same level as creep even still in the radio eyes of radiohead the critical support was worth it they had officially proven themselves as a band worth paying attention to so after the benz's success and its tour the band decided to self-produce their third album though they did eventually bring on nigel godrich as a producer as well emi basically said cool here's a hundred thousand pounds have as much time as you want the band recorded partly in their own rehearsal space slash apple shed in oxfordshire but primarily in a mansion called saint catherine's court these days the mansion is available for weddings heck yeah i want to give my vows in the ballroom where they recorded the letdown the lack of deadlines allowed the band to go hog wild with recording experimentation and where they pulled inspiration from including miles davis's bitch's brew the beatles enyo moroccone and pet sounds that's one heck of a vision board the result was released in may 1997 as okay computer well call me a pig in a cage on antibiotics this computer is okay for real though this album's reputation precedes any discussion about it and for good reason it's a phenomenal record the band takes the songwriting they solidified on the benz and just blows the roof off it by experimenting with song structure and instrumentation airbag with its creative use of sampling selway's drumming the three-part suite paranoid android which has one of my favorite sections in 7-4 the subtly infectious hooks of karma police let down and no surprises the raucous head-splitting energy of electioneering the stunning build of exit music for a film that last song allows me to bring up a neat quirk in tom's singing style whenever a song reaches its climax he has this habit of staying on the same note and allowing the other band members to shine it happened on creep and it happens here on exit music [Music] once you notice it you'll hear it in plenty more of their songs the record received rapturous praise in the uk upon release and slowly achieved the same notoriety in the rest of the world today it's considered one of the greatest albums of the 90s and possibly one of the greatest of all time definitely not no the band took part in a grueling tour promoting the record which is covered in the film meeting people is easy by the end the band was exhausted depressed and anxious that anxiety partly stemmed from a question that loomed over the band as they began work on a new album how do you follow up one of the most critically acclaimed albums in recent memory how do you follow up what was arguably rock's last real event album how do you follow up ok computer well the answer will shock you and warm your heart because the band decided to give the ultimate gift to the world they made a kid [Music] wait sorry i i switched the two words around they um they didn't make a kid they made kid a but like five-way fatherhood this record took everyone by surprise the break following ok computers tour allowed the band to overcome the burnout that had plagued them once they did get to work on their new album each member was in their own way conflicted about where the band should or even could go with their sound after much time in the studio throughout the late 90s the band released kid a in october of 2000. they had been silent for most of the time they were in the studio for this album with the only lead up being these short blips that played on tv but that silence just made everyone more excited to hear radiohead's return to rock heck yeah real rock and roll is back what do they got [Music] with kid a the band had fully dived into electronic and ambient production crafting a record that bewildered and frustrated many listeners what do you mean tom woke up sucking a lemon he could have choked on that in his sleep many music outlets at the time decried this album as pretentious self-indulgent career suicide now of course in the years since it's seen a massive reevaluation and by the end of the 2000s it was viewed as one of the greatest albums of the decade and on par with if not better than ok computer and i agree kid today is one of my two favorite radiohead albums this time they pulled from influences like aphex twin bjerk christophe pendaretsky and charles mingus the resulting album is something equally beautiful and haunting like a guided tour through the remains of a once thriving society the national anthem featuring an instantly catchy baseline and a quote-unquote traffic jam of a horn section how to disappear completely which is one of the most beautiful songs in the band's catalog and which feels like getting a gentle hug from a nuclear blast idiotech with its idm groove and tom predicting the release of blue skies ice age i would also play a mashup of this and the space jam theme that i found a few years ago but i think it was taken off the internet um when i was looking for it oh that's not an issue i think i saved it in my google play music library a while back i can just find i smell a conspiracy motion picture soundtrack which had been written before creep and was the band's take on disney soundtracks i could totally see elsa singing this in frozen 3. god i love this album if you haven't heard it by now i highly recommend checking it out oh and before we move on i need to shout out the gigamesh remix of everything in its right place you have not lived until you've heard that opening descending line as a dance track drop so good now don't you go thinking kid a was the only thing to come out of these sessions because as it turns out they made twins the band had finished about 20 songs for what was going to be their fourth album while they thought of making it a double album at first they decided to release the songs as two separate albums kid a was the first and the second released in 2001 was amnesiac the band has said that the two albums reflect two different mindsets when they were in the studio and when i listened to amnesiac i honestly have a bit of trouble envisioning many of these tracks on kid a or vice versa i think a big reason why is how they both use space most of the songs on both albums are sparse but whereas kid a space often implies a large spacious soundscape amnesiacs mixes often sound much closer and sometimes claustrophobic by comparison of course there are exceptions on both like amnesiacs pyramid song which is gorgeous and ethereal by the way there's a great video by the channel listening in breaking this song down link is in the description other great tracks include the opener packed like sardines in a crushed tin box poke pull revolving doors which samples old songs from the okay computer sessions their reimagining of kid a's morning bell and the closer life in a glass house which was modeled after a new orleans jazz funeral it was also the only track on here that was not recorded during the kid a sessions overall not as spectacular or novel as kid a was but still a damn fine record in between amnesiac and the next album there was a live record called i might be wrong it consisted of live recordings of kid a and amnesiac tracks plus a track called true love weights that had been in their catalog since 1955. the band had tried recording versions of it for the past three albums but nothing had clicked with them for now for their next album they had a go at combining the electronic work of kid a with the guitar work from their first three records in contrast with the grueling studio sessions of kidae this new record was done in hollywood in two weeks with very few overdubs the focus was on doing it live dirty and quick in addition tom's lyrics on this one were influenced by the rise of nationalism and the political climate after 9 11. he was quick to say that the record itself was not trying to be political but to paraphrase him the feelings were there and sometimes you just had to give up and let them in the result of him letting it back out was hail to the thief i find this one kind of fascinating keeping in line with the rough and tumble studio approach hail to the thief might be the most idea stuffed radiohead record in a while whereas the last two you could feel were fully constructed artistic statements and they're great because of it hail is a great rock band stripping back as much as they could to remind you they were a great rock band there's an intrinsic joy or sense of discovery to most of these songs where you can feel the band enjoying these songs in real time to you listening to them as ed o'brien put it to rolling stone it's the first record where they didn't want to kill each other by the time they'd finished there are some tracks where i feel like the musical ideas aren't fully developed or they'll introduce new ideas partly through a song and then drop them before they get interesting but when this album hits it hits hard opener two plus two equals five sit down stand up go to sleep which starts out like it could have been on the bends before incorporating more electronic textures and there there which may now be one of my favorite radiohead songs ever yeah all in total a damn good album six for radiohead wait so they signed to emi for a six album contract six album contract six album contract that means their record contract is up after thief radiohead was freed from emi and they were quite sad to leave emi was near and dear to their hearts i really hope whatever's on the screen right now isn't taking away from what i just said now free men they decided to go on hiatus for a bit during this downtime they all explored various projects most notably tom put out his first solo record the eraser and johnny got into film composition with 2004's and 2007's there will be blood the latter is also the start of radiohead's working relationship with director paul thomas anderson once they decided to reconvene they did so without nigel godrich who was working with other artists like beck at the time they tried self-producing and eventually brought in spike stent who has one of the most eclectic production histories i've seen in recent memory get yourself someone who can do both buick and black eyed peas am i right however the sessions didn't bear anything fruitful in order to get their mojo back the band toured the festival circuit in 2005 which successfully rejuvenated them after the tour they brought back on godrej to produce and got to proper work on their seventh album now this next records release is notable for three reasons one the record was announced a mere 10 days before its release in october 2007. two they put the album out on their own website as a pay what you want release which was a first for an act of radiohead stature and three it's their best album since today and my second favorite album of theirs in rainbows is the band's most intimate most welcoming most immediate and most human album this was the record where i started following radiohead's trajectory in real time in fact 15 step was the first song i'd ever heard in 5-4 you should have seen a young mike trying to count a five it was great track after track of some of the band's best hooks and best production the sublime sonic warmth of nude the climax in the last minute of all i need the distant atmospherics of house of cards the intermingled guitar parts of weird fishes no second of this record is wasted and of course closer videotape which may be the band's best closing track to date the simplicity of the piano and tom's lyrics hiding a subtle off-kilter beat if you don't already know about it vox has a great video breaking the rhythm of this one down link is in the description before moving on i just want to highlight three things related to this album one this cover of 15 step i found while researching the glee video it's an excellent arrangement i cannot recommend it highly enough second the from the basement sessions for this album hearing these guys bring these songs to life in a setting like this only adds to the emotional richness and intimacy of these songs third the grammy's performance of 15 step with a college marching band an incredible production and one of my all-time favorite grammys performances once again this interim saw the band pull back from the spotlight but that doesn't mean the members weren't busy 2010 saw the release of philip selway's first solo album as well as tom forming a new band to tour for the eraser that band included godric and red hot chili peppers bassist flea and was called atoms for peace in february 2011 they released the king of limbs in much the same way as in rainbows announcement release a few days later able to buy on their website there was one major difference between the two albums though they recorded some of this one at drew barrymore's house people don't really care for this one do they this album may be on the same level as pablo honey in terms of fan reception i mean just look at them playing it live you can tell something has clearly gone wrong and they're just they're not even trying at this point they're not even trying okay for real i think i get the reasoning for this album's reception radiohead does not have a bad album but these two just exist but whereas pablo existing could be pinned to a band trying to figure out its sound king of limbs signature brand of pure existence was sort of the point the band dove back into electronic production and idm with the focus being on loops the complexity of the rhythms on display here can at best pull you into a meditative state and at worst feel like they just drone on and on in fact when they performed these songs live they had to do them with the second drummer clive diemer in my opinion i think the approach is at its best on opener bloom and with the one-two punch of lotus flower and codex the rest of it well let me put it like this between the songs being built from loops the band wanting to use their studio time to explore new sonic avenues and ways of working and stanley donwood saying this record was meant to be transitory this does feel like the record they wanted to make and i applaud that none of this is to say that it's bad it just doesn't have that same radiohead oomph that each of their records has had so far i'd still say that it's worth checking out just don't make it the first one you listen to if you're new the band took another hiatus after touring for king of limbs this down time included tom's second solo album philip's second solo album a full-length album from tom's band atoms for peace johnny scoring two more pta films the master and inherent vice and the band's back catalog being moved over to xl recordings after emi was bought by universal the first new music to come was in 2015 when they uploaded what was intended to be the theme for new bond movie spectre the track was ultimately not chosen to be in the movie i'm not trying to start beef with sam smith or anything but i wish radiohead's theme was in the movie instead anywho after two lead-off singles a moon-shaped pool was soon released in may 2016. this thing is gorgeous other albums have had their moments of pure beauty but msp is the most languid and serene body of songs the band has done so far i think major props need to go to johnny greenwood whose growth as a string arranger has paid off in dividends here that doesn't mean the radio gang has found inner peace this record still deals with the anxieties and worries that have been in the band's work for years now but while other records would often put that anxiety front and center there's a world weariness to msp that makes it unique what may have contributed to that weariness was the death of nigel god rich's father and tom's amicable split with his wife she too passed away a few months after the record was released what's also worth noting is how many tracks on here had been heard before identique and full stop debuted during the king of limbs tour present tense was first heard in 2009 earned the which dates back to the kit a sessions and closer true love weights had to wait 20 years before getting its own studio version hearing these tracks reimagined and refined in the studio is a treat in particular true love which is now built around the piano instead of the live version's guitar and of course new tracks like daydreaming desert island disc and glass eyes are all great additions to the radiohead canon it strikes me as an album that tries to find flickers of beauty in endearing pain and while it may be the band's most understated release so far i think it absolutely holds up with the band's best records [Music] thor you're letting out the air conditioning tom tom are you listening to me thomas the only major radiohead release to come since msp is the 20th anniversary remaster of ok computer which also features official recordings of fan favorite tracks like lyft and man of war outside of the band tom put out a third solo album plus he scored the suspiria remake philip scored a movie johnny scored two more ed o'brien put out a solo record that came out this year as far as a new radiohead album is concerned ed o'brien has said that there will be a new record at some point though philip has said that the band will also be taking a break for 2020 good timing but if you're starved for all things radiohead i recommend the radiohead public library a website the band launched which contains just about everything related to the band's music it's worth losing an afternoon in so radiohead pretty alright i had a lot of fun revisiting some of these records getting to hear songs i hadn't heard before and just following the growth of these blokes over the past three decades so thanks to all of you who voted for them if you want to get into their discography i mean aside from two of them i don't think you can go wrong with any of them as a starting point but i'd say these three at the very least feel free to let me know your favorite radiohead song or album or performance or related thing in the comments now since i have time i think i'm going to try remaking that idiotech space jam mashup that i mentioned earlier hello yeah god you want to fit me in for a smiting at 1 30 um yeah yeah i think i have time

Channel: Mic The Snare

Views: 96,245

Rating: 4.9510174 out of 5

Keywords: micthesnare, mic the snare, music analysis, video essay, radiohead, creep, ok computer, kid a, the bends, in rainbows, pablo honey, hail to the thief, amnesiac, the king of limbs, thom yorke, live, karma police, paranoid android, high and dry, no surprises, exit music, idioteque, full album, review, reaction

Id: sB7f5dg_fOY

Length: 23min 35sec (1415 seconds)

Published: Tue Aug 11 2020