According to Yorke, the album's title wasn't a reference to Kid A in Alphabet Land , a trading card set written by Carl Steadman dealing with the work of psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan. He suggested that the title could refer to the first human clone, but denied he had a concept or story in mind. On another occasion, he said it was the nickname of a sequencer. Yorke said:. I like the non-meaning. Band members read Naomi Klein's anti-globalization book No Logo while recording the album, recommended it to fans on their website, and considered calling the album No Logo for a time.
He and other band members were involved in the movement to cancel third world debt during this period, and they also spoke out on other issues. As a result, some feel that Kid A conveys an anti-consumerist viewpoint, expressing the band's perception of global capitalism.
In , Chuck Klosterman wrote that the album was in fact "an unintentional but spooky foreshadowing of the events of the 11 September attacks" and the world's situation beyond that. Yorke said the album was partly about:. However, he has refused to explain his songwriting in political terms. Some songs were personal, inspired by dreams. Other lyrics were inspired by advice Yorke received from friends. The lyric "I'm not here, this isn't happening" in "How To Disappear Completely", were taken from Michael Stipe's advice to Yorke about coping with the pressures of touring.
The chorus of Optimistic was inspired by Yorke partner Rachel Owen. The album's cover artwork, by Stanley Donwood and Tchock an alias for Yorke , depicts a digitally manipulated image of a mountain range under a red sky, with a forest visible in the distance and distorted black lines appearing at the bottom of the image.
It was a reflection of the war in Kosovo in winter Donwood was affected by a photograph in The Guardian , saying the war felt like it was "happening in his own street". He also produced colourful oil paintings, creating a sharp texture with knives and putty. Donwood said:. The overarching idea of the mountains was that they were these landscapes of power, the idea of tower blocks and pyramids.
It was about some sort of cataclysmic power existing in landscape. I was really chuffed with it. The back cover is a digitally modified depiction of another snowscape with fires raging through fields. Initial CD versions of Kid A came with a booklet of bonus artwork, printed on both glossy and thick tracing paper. Near the back is a large triptych-style fold-out drawing. The booklet contained political references, including a demonic portrait of Prime Minister Tony Blair surrounded by warnings of demagoguery.
The red swimming pool on the spine of the CD case and on the disc represents what Donwood termed "a symbol of looming danger and shattered expectations". It came from the graphic novel Brought to Light by Alan Moore and Bill Sienkiewicz, in which the CIA measures its killings through state-sponsored terrorism by the equivalent number of gallon swimming pools filled with human blood.
This image haunted Donwood throughout the Kid A project. A special edition of Kid A was also released in a thick cardboard package in the style of a children's book, with a new cover and different oil paintings of apocalyptic landscapes and bear images. Although in the same style as the album art, these paintings were without digital distortion.
The book included a page with statistics on world glacier melt rates, paralleling the art's themes of environmental degradation. In , Donwood and Tchock exhibited Radiohead album artwork in Barcelona, with a focus on Kid A ; a book documenting the work and Donwood's inspirations titled Dead Children Playing was also issued.
After completing the record, Radiohead drew up a marketing plan with their record company EMI. One executive praised the music, but described "the business challenge of making everyone believe" in it.
However, there was considerable media interest, as Spin described Kid A as "the most highly anticipated rock record since Nirvana's In Utero ".
According to O'Brien, the marketing campaign aimed to dispel hype about the new album. No advance copies were circulated, but the album was played under carefully controlled conditions for critics and at listening parties for fans, and was previewed in its entirety on MTV2.
In a departure from music industry practice, Radiohead decided not to release any official singles from Kid A , although "Optimistic" and promotional copies of several other tracks received some radio play. Radiohead's labels Parlophone and Capitol Records marketed the album unconventionally, promoting it partly through the internet.
Each blip was made by one of two collectives: The Vapour Brothers or Shynola. Most were animated, often inspired by Stanley Donwood's album artwork, and have been seen as stories of nature reclaiming civilisation from uncontrollable biotechnology and consumerism. Characters in the blips included "sperm monsters" and blinking, genetically modified killer teddy bears, the latter of which became a self-conscious logo for the album's advertising campaign.
Capitol also created the "iBlip", a Java applet that could be embedded in fan sites, allowing users to pre-order the album and listen to streaming audio before its release. A more traditional video was released in late , with the band performing an alternate version of "Idioteque" in the studio.
Several months later, a video was released for Motion Picture Soundtrack , which entirely consisted of material from the blips. Yorke described it as "the most beautiful piece of film that was ever made for our music". Yorke wrote that the decision behind the unconventional marketing strategy was not made for reasons of "artistic credibility", but because "the stress of getting into that area at the time was too much, and perhaps too misrepresentive".
After the attention for OK Computer had brought him to breakdown, Yorke was hesitant to launch Kid A with too much publicity. He wrote on Radiohead's website:. It meant bringing back ghosts that made me shut down in the first place. In early summer , Radiohead made a brief tour of the Mediterranean performing the Kid A and Amnesiac songs for the first time. By the time the title Kid A was announced in mid, concert bootlegs were being shared on the peer-to-peer service Napster.
What really blew my head off was the fact that people got all the things, all the textures and the sounds and the atmospheres we were trying to create. OK Computer was the band's first number one UK chart debut, propelling Radiohead to commercial success around the world. Despite peaking at number 21 in the US charts , the album eventually met with mainstream recognition there, receiving the first Grammy Awards recognition of the band's career, a win for Best Alternative Album and a nomination for Album of the Year.
Grant Gee , the director of the "No Surprises" video, accompanied and filmed the band, releasing the footage in the documentary Meeting People Is Easy. The film is also notable for documenting earlier versions of songs that were never released or were not released until years later, such as "How to Disappear Completely", "Life in a Glasshouse", "I Will" and "Nude". Radiohead were largely inactive following their — tour; after its end, their only public performance in was at an Amnesty International concert in Paris.
Yorke later admitted that during that period the band came close to splitting up, and that he had developed severe depression. 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. Rather than being a stylistic sequel to 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 musician 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. MENU The opening track from Radiohead's fourth album, this song emphasises the band's increasing use of electronic music and distortions of Thom Yorke's vocals.
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.
Amnesiac , released in June , comprised additional tracks from the Kid A recording sessions. Radiohead's musical style on these songs was similar to that of Kid A in their fusion of electronic music and jazz influences, though more reliant on the use of guitars. After Amnesiac' s release, the band embarked on a world tour, visiting North America, Europe and Japan. Meanwhile, " Pyramid Song " and " Knives Out ", Radiohead's first issued singles since , were modestly successful, and " I Might Be Wrong ", initially planned as a third single, expanded into Radiohead's thus far only live record.
During July and August , Radiohead toured Portugal and Spain, playing a number of newly written songs. They then recorded the new material in two weeks in a Los Angeles studio with Nigel Godrich , adding several tracks later in Oxford, where the band continued their work into the next year.
Radiohead members described the recording process as relaxed, in contrast to the tense sessions for Kid A and Amnesiac. The band's sixth album, Hail to the Thief , was released in June Mixing sounds from throughout their career, the album combined guitar-based rock with electronic influences and topical lyrics by Yorke. Hail to the Thief enjoyed commercial success, debuting at number one in the UK and number three on the Billboard chart and eventually being certified platinum in the UK and gold in the US.
Yorke denied that Hail to the Thief' s title was a comment on the controversial US presidential election , explaining that he first heard the words in a BBC Radio 4 discussion of 19th century American politics.
Yorke said his lyrics had been affected by news reports of war in to and "the feeling that we are entering an age of intolerance and fear where the power to express ourselves in a democracy and have our voices heard is being denied us" but said, "[Radiohead] didn't write a protest record, we didn't write a political record.
The tour finished in May with a performance at the Coachella Festival. Following their tour, the band began writing and rehearsing in their Oxford studio but soon went on hiatus. Free of their label contract, Radiohead spent the remainder of resting with their families and working on solo projects. Radiohead began work on their seventh album in February The album was sold online, with "I Want None of This" being the most downloaded track, although it was not released as a single.
Radiohead had already begun recording their next album on their own and then with producer Mark Stent. However, in late , after touring Europe and North America and debuting 13 new songs there, the band resumed work with Nigel Godrich in London, Oxford and several rural locations in Somerset , England.
Work was finished in June and the recordings were mastered the following month. Radiohead's seventh album, In Rainbows , was released through the band's own website in October as a digital download for which customers could make whatever payment that they deemed appropriate pay what you want , including paying nothing at all; the site only advised, "it's up to you".
Following the band's sudden announcement 10 days beforehand, Radiohead's unusual strategy received much notice within the music industry and beyond. In a appearance on The Colbert Report , Ed O'Brien said of the self-release strategy: "We sell less records, but we make more money. A "discbox", 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 The record's retail success in the US—after having been legally available for months as a free download—marked Radiohead's highest chart success in that country since Kid A , while it was their fifth UK number one album.
In Rainbows sold more than three million copies within one year of release. In Rainbows also received extremely positive reviews, among the best of Radiohead's career; critics praised the album for having a more accessible sound and personal style of lyrics than their past work.
Along with three other nominations for the band, Godrich's production work and the " House of Cards " music video also received nominations. We'll cover every release from every member of the band and, while some aren't available on streaming services, any that are have made their way to our dedicated Spotify and Tidal Radiohead playlists. So whether this is your first time listening to something other than Creep , or you're just here to pick up a little trivia on your favourite album, make yourself comfortable.
We've a lot to get through. Listen to Radiohead in chronological order on Spotify or Tidal. Don't fancy tackling Radiohead's entire catalogue in one go? These ten tracks will introduce you to the band's nine albums. My Iron Lung A first taste of The Bends, a decidedly more accomplished, mature and complete second album. Not stylistically dissimilar from what came before, but a more spacious and careful set of arrangements.
No Surprises The first track recorded for OK Computer , and the version used is the very first take. The group's trademark dissonance is evident in the pitch-black lyrics set against a cradling lullaby. Kid A The album Kid A was hugely experimental and heavily reliant on electronics, and was not promoted by any singles.
Its title track here is about as far from the mainstream as the group could imaginably veer. There, There The lead single from the album Hail To The Thief , in many ways signaling Radiohead's return to a more familiar, guitar-led sound — or at least weaving it in more generously to the sound developed on their previous two records. Reckoner Some spacious arrangements and light-fingered production benefited a collection of songs that had debuted on a tour leading up to the release of Radiohead's seventh album, In Rainbows.
None more typified the approach than Reckoner , easily a standout track with its gliding melody and communal percussion. True Love Waits First performed way back in , True Love Waits was an unreleased live favourite for more than two decades before a studio recording finally appeared on A Moon Shaped Pool — at the fourth time of asking.
The story of Radiohead really goes back as far as , when the group first began rehearsing at Abingdon School in Oxfordshire. Thom Yorke and bassist Colin Greenwood were friends in the same school year, guitarist Ed O'Brien and dummer Philip Selway were in the year above and Jonny Greenwood — Colin's brother — was two years below.
Initially named On A Friday, after the afternoon on which they'd rehearse, their performances and demo albums were enough to attract the ear of Parlophone Records in , and on 5 May the following year the band released their first EP under their new, Talking Heads-inspired moniker. The lead track from the Drill EP , Prove Yourself , did receive some national radio play, but its strong CD release meant most people wouldn't hear its contents until three of the four songs were included on Radiohead's debut album.
Far more enduringly popular was the band's second release, Creep , though Radiohead's biggest-selling single only made its way to No78 in the UK charts after an initial release in September — not entirely aided by minimal radio play due to its depressing nature.
In fact, Radiohead would have to release the single Anyone Can Play Guitar , debut album Pablo Honey and non-album single Pop Is Dead — all in — before a rerelease of Creep in September finally became the group's first top 10 entry when it reached No7.
That in turn helped with sales of Pablo Honey , which peaked at No22 — and but for the release in some territories of Stop Whispering as a single in October, and the Japan-only Itch EP in June , it was rapidly onto the next chapter as far as the band was concerned.
There was definitely something other about My Iron Lung when it was issued as a first taste of Radiohead's second album in September Fans would have to wait another five months before more music was released, though. Becoming the band's highest-charting release when it peaked at No4, The Bends is also significant for being the first Radiohead album to feature cover art created by Stanley Donwood.
As with Nigel Godrich — who's first production credit with the band would come two years later — Donwood's work has been present on every one of the band's releases since. Not only did that last score the band their first top five single — only four more have followed since — but it included Talk Show Host as one of its B-sides.
Sparse and darkly minimal, in hindsight it was perhaps the most explicit indication of what was about to come. Produced by Nigel Godrich, it shifted the band's positioning from slightly obscure, relatively complex five-piece guitar music to a more daring and inventive sound rife with creativity while still melodious enough to conquer a world stage. Indeed, Radiohead were no longer mainly a UK-based success.
A few days later came the release of Paranoid Android as the record's lead single — which achieved the band's highest chart position to date when it reached No3 — and then in August Karma Police , which as one of its B-sides contained Meeting In The Aisle , Radiohead's first-ever instrumental offering.
0コメント