Radiohead

Certain Songs #1779: Radiohead – “There There”

March 23, 2020 by Jim Connelly

Album: Hail to the Thief
Year: 2003

It’s one of my favorite moments in any Radiohead song. For nearly two minutes, “There There” has been kinda floating around the room, driven by Phil Selway’s lighter-than-air toms and Thom Yorke and Ed O’Brien’s etherial vocals. And then, all of a sudden, completely out of nowhere, Selway does a couple of quick snare rolls:

Whack-it-a-duh!
Whack-it-a-duh!

So simple. So startling.

Certain Songs #1778: Radiohead – “Morning Bell/Amnesiac”

March 20, 2020 by Jim Connelly

Album: Amnesiac
Year: 2001

. . .

98% of the time when an artist releases two entirely different versions of the same song, and one of those versions is uptempo and groovy and the other is sludgy and doom-filled, I’m going to pick the uptempo one.

This, right here, is the exception.

Certain Songs #1777: Radiohead – “Knives Out”

March 19, 2020 by Jim Connelly

Album: Amnesiac
Year: 2001

The shortest turnaround between any two Radiohead albums occurred between the October 2000 release of Kid A and the June 2001 release of Amnesiac. Of course that — with the exception of Amnesiac’s “Life in a Glasshouse” — was because both albums were recorded at the same set of sessions in 1999 and 2000.

Certain Songs #1776: Radiohead – “Idioteque”

March 18, 2020 by Jim Connelly

Album: Kid A
Year: 2000

. . .

So I’m currently sitting in a jury assembly room, which is a stressful situation during the best of times — I think it’s important to do my duty as a citizen, but I hate the uncertainty and the potential disruption to my daily routine — but of course, these are the polar opposite of the best of times.

Certain Songs #1775: Radiohead – “Optimistic”

March 17, 2020 by Jim Connelly

Album: Kid A
Year: 2000

. . .

Of course, Kid A wasn’t all bleeps, bloops and blorps; bedeeddles and woobles. Mostly, yeah. But just as “Electioneering” served as the big-ass riff-rocker on OK Computer — complete with cowbell — so does “Optimistic” serve as Kid A’s token “normal” rock song.

And so “Optimistic” roars out of the gate with the guitars of Ed O’Brien and Jonny Greenwood clangoring and clamoring against each other over a rolling and tumbling tom-filled Phil Selway beat while Thom Yorke “ooooooooooohs” over the whole thing before sliding into an opening verse that kind of belies the title.

Certain Songs #1774: Radiohead – “Everything In Its Right Place”

March 16, 2020 by Jim Connelly

Album: Kid A
Year: 2000

. . .

We are now as far away from Kid A as Kid A was from Remain in Light, perhaps the most trenchant example of a restless band changing itself this radically on their fourth album in 1980 that I can think of while writing this post. (I guess Sandinista!, too, though one might argue that it was more of an extension of the genre-bending of London Calling that a full-on reinvention.)

And while we’ll get to Remain in Light in a couple of years — assuming we don’t all die of Covid-19, in case you’re wondering about my mood right now — it does seem weird that Kid A is now 20 years old, because it sure doesn’t seem that old, does it?

Certain Songs #1773: Radiohead – “Karma Police”

March 12, 2020 by Jim Connelly

Album: OK Computer
Year: 1997

. . .

For a minute there, I lost myself. I lost myself.

I’ve only ever seen Radiohead in concert one time. But it was a pretty great time: at the Bill Graham Civic Auditorium in San Francisco on April 2, 1998. Oh, and the opening band was Spiritualized, which was as on point as you could possibly want, ranking up there for me with The Clash opening for The Who in 1982 or The Hold Steady opening for the Replacements in 2014. I guess these types of bills only happen every 16 years. Looking forward to what happens in 2030. If there is a 2030.

Certain Songs #1772: Radiohead – “Subterranean Homesick Alien”

March 11, 2020 by Jim Connelly

Album: OK Computer
Year: 1997

. . .

While I kind of suspect that “Subterranean Homesick Alien” was written because someone came up with Dylan-referencing title and they all thought was too good not to write a song around it, it’s also one of the coolest, spookiest songs on this cool, spooky album.

Set around a strutting, disjointed Phil Selway beat, echoing electric piano and guitars that sound like spaceships that are hovering just out of your peripheral vision “Subterranean Homesick Alien” plays with multiple meanings of “alien,” as he sounds so alienated from his life that he welcomes abduction from aliens he figures see us as entertainment.

Certain Songs #1771: Radiohead – “Paranoid Android”

March 10, 2020 by Jim Connelly

Album: OK Computer
Year: 1997

. . .

Radiohead have always had a sense of humour that never quite made it into their public image. But it’s there, lurking in the background of their intensity. After all, their first album was named after a Jerky Boys routine — which just dates it even more — and one of their best songs is named after a character in Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy, whom I’m going to call Marvin, and whose sour attitude on life was matched only by the shit Douglas Adams continually dumped on the character.

Also kinda funny was that they made the 6:24 “Paranoid Android” into a single, kind of the 1990s version of “Roundabout,” though not nearly as big as “Roundabout” was in the U.S. Though one thing they two songs had in common was a long organ solo. At least at first: one of the original takes had a very long keyboard solo that they subsequently edited out because apparently it was too much like Deep Purple. As if that’s a bad thing!!!

Certain Songs #1770: Radiohead – “Airbag”

March 9, 2020 by Jim Connelly

Album: OK Computer
Year: 1997

. . .

OK. Here we go.

Two-plus decades down the line, OK Computer is universally considered one of the all-time greatest albums ever recorded, and I am certainly not here to rain on its parade. That said, like Marquee Moon, it’s kinda front-loaded: most of the greatest songs appear in the first half of the record. And by “greatest,” I of course mean “my favorite.”

Like the opening track, “Airbag,” which sets the tone for the record. Driven by Phil Selway’s jumping, cut-up beat — influenced by DJ Shadow, and then cut up and looped by Selway & Thom Yorke — “Airbag” immediately drops you into a universe you’ve never heard before. A universe full of shimmering arpeggiated guitars, mellotrons, tape effects and a Colin Greenwood bassline that plays hide-and-seek with the rest of the song.