Radiohead
A Band Profile
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The group came together in the late-'80s while in school in Oxford, England. Vocalist Thom Yorke and bassist Colin Greenwood were playing in a band called TNT when they decided to break off and form their own group, dubbed On A Friday after the day on which they used to practice. Joined by guitarist Ed O'Brien, drummer Phil Selway and Colin's brother Johnny Greenwood, On A Friday played on and off for the next few years as the members finished getting their degrees.
On July 22, 1991, the band performed its first after-graduation gig at the Hollybush in Oxford. They instantly garnered major label attention and in December, they signed with EMI/Capitol. In the spring of 1992, the band changed its name to Radiohead, inspired by the Talking Heads song "Radio Head," and released the Drill EP. "Creep" -- a typical '90s anthem of self-loathing -- was released as a single that fall but didn't get a tremendous amount of attention initially. Though follow-up singles "Anyone Can Play Guitar" and "Pop Is Dead" met with even less radio airplay, Radiohead started building a loyal following around Britain.
In the spring of 1993, they released their debut full-length, Pablo Honey, which eventually reached No. 25 in the U.K. charts. Even today, the album as a whole doesn't sound much different than what its singles would indicate. A few songs ("Stop Whispering," "Lurgee") stand out as clear working templates that were later vastly improved upon, but Radiohead's early stylistic allegiance to U2 shone through a little too brightly.
Still, Pablo Honey put Radiohead on the map. In September 1993, "Creep" hit No. 34 on the Billboard singles chart and was subsequently re-released as a single in the U.K. Radiohead's newfound popularity helped score them opening spots on U.S. tours by Belly and Tears for Fears (who later covered "Creep"). After a world tour of their own in summer 1994, the group started recording new material. In September they released the My Iron Lung EP and gave the world its first glimpse of what was to come. Soon after its release, the band finished recording The Bends, which was released the following spring.
The sonic leap from the mundane feel of Pablo Honey and "Creep" to The Bends and songs such as "My Iron Lung" is still astonishing today. The group had clearly pushed hard to sophisticate its approach to melody and song structure while keeping its penchant for radio-friendly songwriting intact. Songs put new and exciting spins on dream pop ("Nice Dreams," "Bulletproof"), acoustic-driven confessionals ("High And Dry," "Fake Plastic Trees"), and what at the time would have passed for grunge (the hard-rocking title track, "Just"). And within the belly of songs such as "My Iron Lung," listeners found what this site's co-founder classified as some of "the most invigorating moments of '90s music."
Naturally, we weren't the only ones that noticed. R.E.M. were four listeners among the band's burgeoning following and in the fall of 1995, they invited Radiohead to open for them on their Monster tour. The following year, the group fronted Alanis Morissette on a 13-date U.S. tour. "Fake Plastic Trees" showed up on the soundtrack for Amy Heckerling's "Clueless," just as its video got increased airtime on MTV.
Riding the momentum, the group headed into the studio to begin creating its next album in the fall of 1996. Following in the path of The Cure, Radiohead decided to record in a 14th-century manor outside of Bath owned by actress Jane Seymour. Like Robert Johnson stepping into the woods to learn guitar from the devil or the Beatles stepping into Abbey Road to learn songwriting from each other, the members of Radiohead holed themselves in a haunted estate to collaborate with supernatural forces and inevitably work magic.
The working title of Ones And Zeroes hinted at the electronic undercurrent of the music the band was drafting. Released in the summer of 1997, OK Computer is a dizzying masterpiece, a glowing, multi-colored collection of songs frozen inside a technological fresco. Led by tunes such as the mini-suite "Paranoid Android," the album can easily be considered among rock history's most perplexing and compelling artistic statements. Its distinct Pink Floyd-inspired aura instantly impressed critics around the world, who universally hailed it as the album of the year. As the band toured through the end of 1997, its artistic reputation soared higher and higher in the popular conscience.
But few popular artists in recent memory have ever worn their popularity so uncomfortably. As evidenced by the 1998 tour documentary "Meeting People Is Easy," Yorke seemed to emotionally shrivel up in the limelight. With little to no patience for the media, the band members soon took on the personas of tortured artists - quick to mock the industry, of which they were nearly at the epicenter. In the liner notes for the Airbag/How's My Driving EP, big block letters read, "YOU ARE A TARGET AUDIENCE."
In April 1999, the band began work on its fourth album. Again, Radiohead focused themselves intensely on change and forward motion. But with the blinding critical glow of OK Computer completely surrounding them, how could they exceed expectations again? And with their popularity suffocating them, how could they make everyone happy (including themselves)? After OK Computer, where would Radiohead go?
The answer began to pop up on Napster early in the fall of 2000. Even less than a year later, Kid A doesn't seem as big of a departure as it did the time of its release. But at first, as fans listened to muddled versions of new songs downloaded off the Internet, they heard the world's most hyped rock act essentially dispense with the "rock." Stripping out the guitars and ramping up the electronic wizardry, the group continued to reconfigure song structures and listener expectations with equal ferocity.
And defying conventional wisdom about the effects of Napster and limited marketing, Kid A debuted at No. 1 in both England and North America. For promotion, the group continued to bend the laws of the modern music industry. Instead of releasing a video or even a commercial single, they created 30-second "blips" of each of the album's songs for MTV. Instead of a massive world tour to milk their popularity, Radiohead kept its touring to a minimum, playing only three shows in North America.
The members confess today in interviews that they nearly broke up while debating the track list for Kid A. During the album's sessions, they recorded enough for a double album, and for a spell, considered releasing Kid A as such. In the end, they held off and decided to release a second album the following summer. Oddly enough, the pre-release buzz around Amnesiac suggested the album would mark Radiohead's return to its "rock roots." But not surprisingly, the younger sibling of Kid A is stylistically similar, if not a more difficult listen. While the jury is still out about how much or little it differs from Kid A, it's safe to say this new record does not "rock" in any traditional sense.
It's not yet possible to put either release in a historical perspective with a high level of accuracy -- hell, Amnesiac still hasn't hit record store shelves -- but it's somewhat easy to see how they "fit" in the progression of Radiohead's previous releases. As the band has done with each album before these two, they've expended a great deal of energy to grow artistically and break new ground. But they've also pushed harder for their listeners to grow as well, a Radiohead personality trait that seems to have been born in the OK Computer era.
With these two most recent albums, the members of Radiohead have gone beyond simply challenging themselves to reconsider rock conventions. They are now asking their fans to ponder the same quandaries the band has wrestled with since the expectation shattering of The Bends: What is popular music? How much can you change the rules before it's a new game? Will this new music sound good? Only time will tell.
BEN FRENCH | Ben founded NATN in the winter of 1998-1999 with fellow IU alums Troy Carpenter and Jonathan Cohen. During the day time, he's working for Nielsen Business Media, publisher of Billboard. Ben's favorite acts include Bruce Springsteen, The Clash, Sonic Youth, Elvis Costello, Talking Heads, Rolling Stones, and the Beach Boys.