60 Songs That Explain the '90s - Radiohead—“Creep”

Episode Date: November 17, 2021

Rob explores the obsessive and eerily constructed hit “Creep,” which arrived on Radiohead’s debut album, ‘Pablo Honey.’ He discusses the origins of the track, the exhaustion caused by the song’s commercial success, and the power of ’90s rock. This episode was originally produced as a Music and Talk show available exclusively on Spotify. Find the full song on Spotify or wherever you get your music. Host: Rob Harvilla Guest: Annie Zaleski Producer: Justin Sayles Associate Producer: Lani Renaldo Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

You're just going to have to trust me that Roundabouts 1993, this was the very pinnacle of comedy. Hello? Yeah. Pablo, honey? Yeah? Please, honey, come down to Florida. Huh?

Come to Florida, honey. We miss you. The very pinnacle of comedy, roundabouts, 1993, were two uncouth gentlemen from Queens, New York. Johnny and Kamal, known collectively as the jerky boys. The jerky boys made prank phone calls. That's it. Made and recorded prank phone calls. Put them out on bootleg cassettes. Got a legit record deal? Put them out on CDs. The first two Jerky Boys CDs both went platinum. One million copies sold a piece. In 95, they put out a movie in theaters that co-starred Alan Arkin as a mob boss. The Jerky Boys, Colin the movie. Open that toolbox wide. I'm going to put some baloney in it. The very pinnacle. of comedy. You're just going to have to trust me. Not that call, though. Not the Pablo Honey call. That one's boring. I only played you that one because inexplicably, Radiohead, named their

debut album after it. Huge missed opportunity. You know it's a better title for a Radiohead album? Sir, could you please use the proper terminology? This is tearing the ass out of me. Sir, can you please use the proper terminology? But I'm dying over here. I love the high five there. Nothing broier than an audible high five. That one was my favorite. The guy's calling a doctor's office to get laser treatment for his hemorrhoids.

It's hilarious. That call is reenacted in the jerky boys' call in the movie. A nurse answers the phone. She says, sir, could you please use the proper terminology twice? Jokes oversold wasn't nearly as funny. As a junior high dipshit rap scalion, I spent exactly one lazy, euphoric summer afternoon. and raptured by the jerky boys. I was in love with the jerky boys for one day.

It was like that movie before sunrise, but instead of Ethan Hawk and Julie Delpy, it was me and the jerky boys. My buddy Jason had one of them bootleg tapes. We listened to the jerky boys for a couple hours. And then, inevitably, we called up local businesses and regaled them with our terrible jerky boys' impressions. You're welcome.

Up on the roof, slapping each other with the hot mops, and so forth. Also, I called dots, the women's clothing store, dots. This one I came up with all by myself. We had a dots next to the Super Kmart. I called up dots and went, yeah, you guys got any polka dots? Stupidest phone call I have ever made in my life. Wow, that is stupid. It's postmodern. It's so stupid. Unbelievable. The low point of my adolescence, I find it hard to imagine. that the five dudes who comprise the most revered and morose and intellectually stimulating rock band of my lifetime would find the jerky boys even 5% as amusing as I did.

But so it was. He cursed me and hit me while I'm sleeping. He hits you. And then he put me under a sedation. I wake up my pants on button. That's from the dental malpractice call, also a classic. A little quote for you, some of it's really sick.

Some of it I can't cope with. But the notion of phoning up people cold is so 90s. It's just the ultimate sacrilege. Turn up in someone's life and they can't do anything about it. That's Tom York, frontman, radiohead. Talking to the UK magazine Select in 1993, Tom adds that the album title Pablo Honey was appropriate for us, being all mothers boys. Has Tom York, frontman, radiohead ever prank called someone? Actually,

don't answer that. Folks, unlike me and junior high, we ain't got time to fuck around. My name's Rob Harvilla. This is 60 songs that explain the 90s. And this week, we are discussing the international dipshit rapscallion anthem roundabouts 1993. It's creep by radiohead. It's the international anthem of turning up in someone's life and they can't do anything about it. Little quote for you, this is the rad English journalist John Harris interviewing Tom York for the NME in October 1992. This is John writing about listening to Tom Explain Creep. When I wrote it, Tom remembers staring at the floor like a child admitting to shoplifting. I was in the middle of a really, really serious obsession that got completely out of hand.

It lasted about eight months, and it was unsuccessful, which made it even worse. She knows who she is. Four months later, talking to the NME again in February 1993, Tom York said, I got into a lot of trouble over that. I shouldn't have admitted to her being a real person. But then he added, I'm sure she didn't. give a shit, really. She never gave a shit. She wasn't even that nice anyway. Tom York invented emo. That's my conclusion. Part of the reason we ain't got time to fuck around is that I need all the

time I can get just to try to convince you that radiohead were ever just young, unproven, uncouth, unsophisticated, jerky boys loving knuckleheads, writing knuckleheaded songs about the girls who rejected them and giving knuckle-headed self-aggrandizing interviews to English music magazines, just like 10,000 other knuckle-headed English rock bands who'd never be heard from again. But mostly we got to talk about that sound. I will try and fail to convey to you the full apocal significance, the cataclysmic impact of that sound. Its impact on me, its impact on rock and roll, its impact on society. This is the very moment when air guitar is a lifestyle peaks and then dies. Same deal, but for the

electric guitar as a lifestyle. This song's about to get super loud. The verses are very quiet. The chorus is very loud. That's not the cataclysmic part, of course. Radiohead loved the pixies. Every self-respecting early 90s rock band Love the Pixies Smells like teen spirit was Kirk Cobain Ripping off the Pixies You get it, we get it Everyone had gotten it by 1993

No The cataclysmic part Is just that sound I just made that sound With my mouth again The cataclysmic part is the explicit contempt For the song Inherent in that sound

Johnny Greenwood guitarist Radiohead makes that sound we got Ed O'Brien also on guitar we got Johnny's brother Colin Greenwood on bass we got Philip Selway

on drums plus Tom formed in Oxfordshire in the mid-80s used to be called on a Friday but everybody hated that name renamed themselves Radiohead after a talking head song that's radio head

Ed explaining the genesis of creep to the NME this is 92 this is the she knows who she is interview Ed says that sound is the sound is the sound of Johnny trying to fuck the song up. He really didn't like it, so we tried spoiling it, and it made the song.

Creep is a Gordian knot of self-loathing. It is a self-aggrandizing monument to self-loathing as constructed by a band that also maybe loathe the song itself, or would eventually loathe. That's the myth. Anyway, yes, Crete made Radiohead, and Radiohead would go on to despise Creep. They pretty much stopped playing it live. for years. They went on to make lavishly adored and prophetically

dystopian albums that pointedly sounded nothing like creep whatsoever. Turns out they hated creep so much they threatened to give up guitars altogether, right? Right? Creep is an albatross. Creep is a knuckleheaded embarrassment. Creep is radiohead

prank calling MTV. And it backfired. Creep was a disastrous clarion call to millions of unsophisticated teenage dipship rap scallions like me, who fell in love with the song and turned up in Tom York's life and he couldn't do anything about it. There's me at 14, untroubled by wit or wisdom or perspective of any sort, fused to my couch with Cheeto dust on my fingers, wrapped as Johnny Greenwood bends

in half over his guitar. He's got the rather emo curtain of jet black hair. His posture is awful. He looks like he's boneless and he looks like the awesomest dude on planet Earth at the precise moment when he makes that sound. Within a couple of years, Johnny would start wearing an arm brace on stage,

which always struck me as the radest possible thing. He rocks so hard he might hurt himself. See, this isn't working. I am unsatisfied with my attempt to convey to you this status quo annihilating magnificence of this moment. New plan. I'm tapping in Beavis and But,

head. There we go. Alex Ross, the famous rock critic, classical music critic, Alex Ross, profiled Radiohead for the New Yorker in 2001. This is Kid A. Amnesiac era, of course. Radiohead are now the most rapturously revered rock band

on the planet. Alex wrote that radio had to stop playing creep, more or less, but it still hits home when it comes on the radio. But he also says, what set creep apart from the grunge of the early 90s was the grandeur of its chords. In particular, it's regal turn from G major to B major. So, but I'm a creep B major. I'm a weird

B major. He says, no matter how many times you hear this song, the second chord still sails beautifully out of the blue. The lyrics may be saying, I'm a creep, but the music is saying, I am majestic. End quote. I'm not about to start a musicological feud with a New Yorker's classical music critic, but I will say that I personally have always preferred the regal turn from the third to the fourth chord, from C major to C minor. The C minor to my ears also sails beautifully out of the blue, plus the brutal emotional epiphany of that move from major to minor, the realization, the resignation. I really am a creep. What the hell am I doing here? Bsci. C major. I don't belong. C minor. Here, you listen to it. You and Beavis and Bivis and Bivis and B.

butthead listen to it. Yeah, yeah. This is pretty cool. My intrepid editor, Justin Sales, who co-produces this show, he sent me a link to an Instagram account called Sucky Tattoos. Specifically, this one picture of an older gentleman crouched down in what appears to be the shampoo aisle of a grocery store, and the older gentleman is pulling up his shirt sleeve to expose on his bicep a great cornholio tattoo.

Beavis has the great cornholio. Beavis's shirt is bright blue and pulled over his head, of course. And the caption to this photo is, Sucky Tattoos, great grandpas with a hard emoji. Justin dropped his link in his slack and said, Rob referencing Beavis and Butthead. That is rude. I found that to be quite rude.

So, you are 14 years old. You are now fused to the ceiling above your couch. You have been electrified and radicalized by boneless radiohead guitar. Johnny Greenwood's failed attempt to sabotage radio heads breakout hit. While you are fused to the ceiling, MTV plays the video for creep 50 more times. You are thus further radicalized, so you peel yourself off the ceiling. Maybe you wash the Cheeto dust off your fingers, maybe you don't. And you get in your car and you drive, sorry, you get your mom to drive you to the mall,

to Camelot Records in the mall because you desperately need to buy the radio head album Pablo Honey for 1699. Oh boy. Yeah, Beavis Tattoo Grandpa has returned to once again try and fail to convey to you young people the existential crisis that was CD shopping in 1993. I am almost definitely not saying this to you for the last time. In 1993, if you wanted to listen to an album, one album by anybody, your mother had to drive you to a second location.

You had to buy the album for basically $20. $20 got you one album and like a pretzel. Yes, I said existential crisis. Album covers from this era still unsettled me now in 2021. So the Pablo Honey cover, right? the baby in the flower. Dirt by Alice and Chains, the Ghost Lady in the Dirt.

Dirty by Sonic Youth, the sock puppet dude. Sugarcane is a rad song. Wish fulfillment is a ratter song. Bad religion, glowering from the cover of the bad religion album with the song infected on it.

A couple different soul asylum albums, which I bought. All of these were gleaming vectors of anxiety to me. At 14, I would walk into a record store with $20. maybe and I'd slowly spin around daunted by these looming walls loaded up with first and second and third tier alt rock albums and I would agonize and I do think that's the right word I would agonize over which

one to buy which of these album covers that I long ago internalized that I've already stared at for hours represents the album that will have the most good songs in addition to the one song I've already heard on the radio 50 times. Which album will reward my investment? Which of these albums is spiritually worth 1699? You buy Dirty by Sonic Youth because you love sugarcane and you hope you are rewarded with wish fulfillment. This was all terribly stressful. Catherine Wheel, for example, the glowering English rock band Catherine Wheel. A little shoegaze action, if I recall correctly, and of course I do. So via either late night,

alt rock radio or 120 minutes on MTV, I develop this fixation on the Catherine Wheel song Black Metallic. Yes. Is this song about bopping a robot? Who's to say?

Love this song. I love this song so much that I buy, ferment the 1992 debut album from the glowering English rock band Catherine Wheel for 1699 or so. The cover is orange

and otherwise non-devent. script. Subsequent Catherine Wheel album covers would be worse. The best Catherine Wheel album is Adam and Eve from 1997, not on streaming. Let's look into that. Do I regret purchasing ferment? No. Is there another song on ferment? Half as good as black metallic? Also no, but I learned to dig the whole thing as a vibe. There's an immersive experience. It's got the shoegaze thing where even the three-minute songs feel like they're 20 minutes long. It's an impressive disruption of the spacetime continuum. I achieved this Zen state with ferment by Catherine Wheel

by listening to the whole record like 200 times because I bought it. And I intend to get my money's worth. God damn it. And what I do remember, what I do retain is that white knuckle, teeth gritting, achy stomach feeling of playing ferment by Catherine Wheel 200 times

and willing it to be great. Concentrating. sitting there in my bedroom trying to manifest another song half as great as black metallic. It's like trying to make a play and grow by yelling at it. I played this record again yesterday, not on CD, and still I felt this queasiness. And I do wonder if I permanently fundamentally altered my experience of ferment. Did I honor this record by focusing on it so intensely? Or did I dishonor this record by projecting my anxiety about buying it onto it? Who's to say, nonetheless, there I am once again, yesterday.

Reveling in my youthful frivolity, feeling like a fifth-rate boxing cornerman, sweating bullets, holding a bucket of teeth, and goading on a Catherine Wheel song called Flower to Hide. Come on, throw the jab, throw the jab, as Flower to Hide gets its ass kicked. Flower to Hide is 10% as good as black metallic. No offense. But for all my overwrought angst about this, I honestly can't think of an album that I regret buying. I bought it because I loved one song,

but the other 12 songs sucked and I was crushed. I don't think that's ever happened to me. I'd like to think I'd remember if that happened. I'd like to think I'd tell you. The real tragedy here, and I do think that's the word, the real tragedy of this state of affairs is all the extremely great albums I didn't buy. In 1993, out of an overabundance of caution.

I love it now. I would have loved it back then. I almost bought it back then, but I didn't. And as a consequence, I deprived, my already plenty deprived teenage self of an album I love. Bandwagonesque by Teenage Fan Club. By the non-glowering Scottish rock band Teenage Fan Club. Little Power Pop Action.

Now this is my shit. Bandwagoness came out. 1991, Spin Magazine infamously declared it the best album of 1991. Better than Nevermind. And I agree. The bandwagon-esque album cover, pink background, giant yellow bag with a dollar sign on it, this cover still unsettles me now when I stumble across it on the internet. If you combine all my teenage record store visits, I estimate, I spent three hours total of my youth standing in

record store holding a physical copy of bandwagon-esque and almost buying it but not buying it. I'd heard the teenage fan club song, The Concept on Late Night All Rock Radio, or 120 minutes, or Saturday Night Live. Teenage Fan Club played Saturday Night Live. Guess who this is. Ladies and gentlemen, Teenage Fan Club. Jason Priestley. I've loved the teenage fan club song, The Concept, since I was 13.

Listen to the way he sings the words, oh, yes. Yeah. Not Jason Priestley, Norman Blake from Teenage Fan Club. Stiff competition, I realize, but I do think this is the single most sublime and heartbreaking delivery of the words, oh yeah, in pop music history. Me at 13 years old standing in a record store with this CD in my hand in this objectively perfect song stuck in my head. Buy the fucking album, Robbie. Soul Asylum Can Wait. Didn't buy it.

Didn't hear bandwagon-esque in full for years. It's tragic. This is the first-worldest of my various first-world problems. I am cringe, but I am free. It's tragic. This is, to me, a genuine tragedy that I deprived my teenage self of the teenage fan club song, Alcohol a day. I mention all this.

The gravity, the severity, the finality of buying one CD for 1699 in order to put you in the mindset of the hundreds of, of thousands of skittish teenage goofballs who bought Radiohead's Pablo Honey in 1993 because they loved the song Creep and for no other reason. Like the first two Jerky Boy CDs, Pablo Honey did go platinum in America, sold 1.5 million copies or so. The rest is history, but this is the challenge before us today. Forget the history.

Forget everything you know, think, feel, or have read about Radiohead. arguably the single most thought about felt about written about rock band of my lifetime the next time you throw on pablo honey throw on at this point is a hilarious euphemism like the next time you stick pablo honey in your combo radio tape deck five cd changer the next time you listen to pablo honey pretend you've never heard the whole album before pretend you will only know creep pretend you have no idea of radio head will even make another album let alone sustain an outlandishly acclaimed decades long career pretend that you have you suspect they might break up tomorrow. Pretend that you are actively concerned. They're a one-hit wonder, a bust, a bad investment. I want you to listen to all 12 songs and 42 minutes of Pablo Honey and then answer one question. Is all this and all this alone worth 1699? Ooh, promising.

Anyone can play guitars promising. The bonkers wobbling thrashing guitars. promising. Does Johnny Greenwood have a skeleton? Does anyone checked? The contemptuous yelping and growling Kill Your Idol's sarcasm of Tom York? Promising, this guy can wail, dude. To whom is he wailing? To what end is he wailing? Does she know who she is? Unclear, but compellingly unclear. Yes? Does this guy with a bleached blonde hair think he's Bono? Or does he think he's negative land? Or does he think he's the Joker. That's 90 seconds or so into the first song on Pablo Honey, which is called You. Not to be confused with the third song, which is called How Do You, which gets even rowdier.

Is this guy just goofing around, or is he so tormented by the modern condition that he is incapable of just goofing around? Unclear. How Do You is not to be confused with the fifth song, which is called Thinking About You, a sad bastard acoustic ballad. And okay, this one gets a little clunky. I think the other men are far, far better. I think the I'm playing with myself doesn't bother me as much as the whimpering tone of the other men are far, far better. Have some self-respect. I can see that this is my idea, but I don't care for the image of Tom York as a mortal pedestrian, post-adolescent cheeseball with an acoustic guitar, writing the same,

Oh, I'm in love, but she's too good for me. cheeseball ballad every knucklehead with an acoustic guitar eventually writes go to any open mic night anywhere in the world at any point in history and you can watch a gawky dude with an acoustic guitar whimper through a song about how he's not good enough for the person he's in love with and that whimpering guy is correct by the way did i personally ever write and perform in public and oh i'm in love but she's too good for me song that's not the point this isn't about me. This is kind of about me.

I took guitar lessons for like a year in high school. Every week I'd spend an hour in the company of this taciturn, 30-something dude named Pat, who would make me do the circle of fifths. If you don't know what the circle of fifths is, don't get involved. That shit is super boring. My reward for stumbling yet again

through the fucking circle of fifths is that I could bring in a CD of a song I liked and Pat would listen to it and teach me to play it. First guitar lesson ever, I brought in Monster by REM and asked Pat to teach me the song Strange Currencies. Great first pick by me. Challenging, but attainable. But I struggled often to find a song appropriate to these circumstances. The poet Robert Browning once wrote,

A man's reach should exceed his grasp. And then he heard me playing guitar and he was like, not you. you can grasp these. This one time I played Pat the guitar instructor, the song Dim by the band Dada. Do you know this band? Dada, pop rock dudes.

They're from L.A. You can tell they're from L.A. They had that song, Disneyland. I just tossed a fifth of gin. Now I'm going to Disneyland. Underrated band. Great band. I love Dada.

Rad guitar solos in this band. So I cue up the song DIM. And I'm like, can you teach me to play this? And you just have to, you have to picture. me, 17-year-old witless me, sitting in a windowless room in the back of a guitar center in a dingy suburb of Akron, Ohio. And this guitar solo is just blaring out of a dingy little boombox.

And I'm looking at Pat and he's looking at me, looking at him. We're both holding guitars. And the solo's going on and on and on. And Pat's just like, I can't, what do you think? No, quite embarrassing. But not as embarrassing as the other extreme. So another time I bring in Pablo Honey by Radiohead. And I ask Pat, if he can teach me the song, Stop Whispering. And Pat listens for like 30 seconds. And then he's like, it's D and G.

The whole song is just D and G. What you do is you play a D and then a G and then the D again. You are the laziest. Get out of here. And that was the end of that. Humiliating. But fantastic news for Radiohead. Yes, Pablo Honey album cuts have breached the fortress walls of the outskirts of Akron, Ohio.

America loves the song where Tom York sings, I'm better off dead. America loves a song where Tom York sings, I'm not a vegetable. I will not control myself. America loves the Radiohead song literally called I Can't. I still dig that song. Fantastic news, all of this. Yes, by all means, make another album, Radiohead. Cleanse us once more in the righteous inferno of your bashful grandiosity. Call yourself a creep again. Write creep again. Write creep 12 more times. Here we are now. Entertain us. And Tom York, of course, was just delighted by this development. This, this is our new song, just like the last one. I just wanted to make sure. you got that amid the frightfully angry and badass windmill power chords. I've listened to

my iron lug two thousand times and I didn't know those were the words. I was too busy giving myself a concussion playing boneless air guitar. A total waste of time, my iron lung. Here then is the true birth of the radio head we know and love. The birth of the radio head who do not appear to particularly enjoy being known and loved. Radiohead's second album, The Bends, came out in 1995. I know this record so thoroughly, so intimately, that it long ago atomized until like 10,000 that sound moments for me. Play me a random 10 second clip from any song on this record, and I will write you a symphony. Me too, Tom. Me too, Tom. Sure. Me too, buddy. These are too easy though. These are obvious highlights. Can I play you one of the loveliest and most emotionally

affecting moments in the entire Radiohead catalog? I am 100% sincere about this. I don't blame you for assuming I'm joking. I mean this. This is from the song Nice Dream. On the track list, on the back cover of the bends, the song title, Nice Dream is in parentheses. Ask me how many hours of my youth I spent contemplating the mystical significance of those parentheses. Listen to this, please. You heard that, right? That little squeak of the acoustic guitar strings changing chords there. Knocked me flat on my ass when I was 17.

Still does. Tone sincere. I love it. I mean it. I mean this. An ocean of feeling distilled into that squeak. The bends is a glorious incendiary assault of guitar god anti-heroism for an age of blah, blah, blah, blah. blah blah. Here's the thing. Here's the thing about me. Has this come up yet? I don't think it's come up yet,

but you can smell it on me. I just know it. Okay Computer, the third Radiohead album came out in 1997. Okay Computer was my favorite album in the whole wide world for three to five years, five to seven, seven to ten. Okay Computer long ago atomized into 10 billion precious that sound moments for me. It fused into my DNA. There's a strong argument that it's still my favorite album in the whole wide world, but I have just absolutely no interest in making that argument now here to you. It's not that I'm embarrassed. Okay, computer, top five, top three, top two, and it's not number two album of all time for me.

Probably the Ben's arguably in the top ten. These are basic ass white male rock critic of a certain age opinions, and I don't care. This is my truth. but what do you want me to say? What is left to say? I have to at least try, right? Yes, okay. My buddy Mike told me he was driving once with his then-girlfriend,

and he was trying to convince her of the Eternal Majesty of Okay Computer. And so he played her the song, Let Down. And when the song got to the huge bonkers ecstatic climax, right before the last chorus, you know the one, this one. Mike says right at this moment, he cranked up his car stereo as loud as it would go. This is in like a 40-year-old Oldsmobile. So the sound distorted horribly and the speakers basically melted and the tires fell off the car.

And his girlfriend probably clapped her hands over her ears. And still, I just cannot fathom how much ass this moment must have still kicked. And that's the exact moment in the exact song I would have played in my car to my girlfriend in that situation if I were trying to convince her of the Eternal Majesty of Okay. Computer. I will say that. I've been thinking about this record all week, or really all week I've been thinking about the years I've spent thinking about this record. And the specific image I'm stuck on, the half-formed memory I have. It's summer 1997. OK Computer came out in May. I'm already obsessed. And I'm at a house party. Or just like, I'm at a dude's house with a handful of other people in the evening. We're in his backyard. Suburban house. He's got a trampoline in his backyard. I know a few

people at this party, but not many. I'm standing in his backyard by myself. I am distracted. I am glum. I am sulking. I'd gotten dumped recently, if I recall correctly, and of course I do. I'm going to be fine. Totally mundane circumstances, but I am sulking. And the memory I have now, I'm sulking in the backyard at some distance from everyone else, at some distance from the trampoline. And the only thing in my head is OK computer. That's the memory, paranoid Android or whatever. Just in my head. And my impulse now, right, is to fill in this memory with tons of florid, tragic comic detail.

I want to paint a chemical sunset behind the house. I want 50 hot girls sitting on the trampoline and ignoring me. I want to be humming no surprises to myself. Pathetically. I got a cowlick. I'm wearing cargo shorts. Whatever. Hysterical and useless.

Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. None of that is real, of course. None of that is true. But what feels true is the fundamental idea of me struggling in a social situation, less awkward than I imagine, I hope, but still a little awkward. And I'm just thinking real hard about OK computer as one does. That feels right to me. And what I do wonder now, if this moment is real, is whether this moment represents my world expanding or my world contracting. Let's take this Rob not on a trampoline moment seriously.

And mark it down as a crucial step on my journey to becoming a music guy and obsessed with music guy. A guy who writes about, talks about, thinks about, feels about music for a living. And not just for a living. A guy who lives for that. The kind of guy, if I'm about to drive somewhere, what I think about as I grab my keys is what music am I going to play in the car? If I stood up right now and bolted for my car, that's what I would be thinking about. what music am I going to play in the car. I'm not embarrassed by this either.

It's just a fact. OK Computer, more than any other album ever made, made me this way. Radiohead, more than any other band, made me this way. I have thought and said and written and felt so much about this band that I don't know what else to say.

All I can do is ask if they expanded my horizons or contracted them. Do they show me a wondrous universe outside myself? Or did they help me build a wondrous universe crammed inside my own head where I spend a vast majority of my time to the near total exclusion of the outside world? Fascinating, right? Yeah, maybe. Let's just say that given all this, I can't rightly blame Radiohead themselves for being exhausted by themselves. Exhausted by the very idea of Radiohead.

Exhausted by any one album, any one song they've ever done. And Crete most of all. Remember when Prince covered creep at Coachella in 2008? Yeah, I pronounce it Coachella. You want to know why I pronounce it the way Bugs Bunny pronounces it. He's my lodestar in all things. Will the ghost of Prince descend from heaven and drop kick me through a window? If I play you a small fragment of Prince's cover of creep, let's find out.

He changed. Because I think you're special. He changed the lyrics. That's nice. He thinks we're special. That's nice. If you never hear from me again, if the ghost of prince does descend from heaven

and drop kick me through a window, I want you to know that in my way, I died doing what I loved. You want to talk about regal turns. You want to talk about the grandeur of cords sailing beautifully out of the blue, here you go. Or maybe you don't want to talk at all. Maybe the beauty is that there's absolutely nothing left to say.

Prince in this moment is a man unburdened by the weight of creep's history. The light years radiohead have trudged musically and spiritually between that song and the rest of their songs. The apprehension Tom York might feel or might have once felt or might one day feel about the terminally self-deprecating and bombastically ridiculous song. he wrote about a girl 30 plus years ago. It is enough here at Coachella to look with awe upon one of Western civilization's most revered musicians as he pays homage to one of Western civilization's most revered rock bands.

Because creep is nothing more or less than the story of what happens when your reach does not exceed your grasp. It was worth $699 back then, and it's priceless to me now. Our guest this week is Cleveland legend Annie Zaleski, a writer and editor for the AV Club, NPR Salon, the alternative press, etc. Recently, she published a book on Duran Duran's Rio

for the 33 and a third series. Annie, welcome. Thanks for having me. Absolutely. I'm thrilled you're here. Annie, you wrote about the 25th anniversary of Pablo Honey, I believe for Salon a couple years back. And I am ashamed to say that I had forgotten

about Radiohead performing creep at the MTV Beach House in 1993. It's one of the funniest things ever shown on television. So first of all, thank you for reminding me. It is one of the greatest moments of the 90s, I have to say. I think Beach Goth was invented right there. Beach goth is the perfect way to describe it. It looks like they're vampires dying in the sun. They're wearing entirely long sleeves, long pants.

There's just no acknowledgement by them. they're even outside. You know, it's, they look so uncomfortable. It's funny. Because there's all of these like kids wearing, you know, swim gear and they're like, you know, hanging out short. And then yeah, radio head looks like, you know, Tom York's wearing, I think, sunnylasses and a ponytail.

And they just looked like they had just rolled out of bed and being like, what am I doing here? Like, they were like dropped into the pool. What the hell am I doing here? Indeed. Did you watch that on MTV in 1993? think to yourself, like, these dudes are going to be in the rock and roll hall of fame one day? I'm sure I watched it. Like, what is going on here?

1993 was such a weird year for music in general, and MTV was kind of an intransional phase. So I probably didn't bat an eye on it, but in hindsight, I can look at it and be like, who booked that? Radiohead obviously were like so hell bent on being a success at that point. They're like, sure, we'll do this. But they just look at the beach house. Miserable. They just look like, we're like, we're like, we're filming.

England. We don't do pool parties. That's right. We've never seen the sun. Yeah, England pool parties. Not a thing. You and I grew up around Cleveland around the same time. You know, we're listening to WMMS. We're watching MTV. I imagine we're reading a lot of the same magazines. Like, as a midwesterner, who knows a ton about English rock bands, like, did Radiohead excite you or stick out to you immediately? Immediately, no. I mean, I liked creep enough that I bought Pablo Honey from either the BMG or Columbia House Record Club. Perfect. Which is, of course, like the most Midwest 90s thing you could do. So I like that enough. But they didn't really stand out to me as being different or they were going to be such a success. I love suede and blur. And like this was like right before Brit Pop. Those bands, I was like, yeah, there's something to that. I don't even think radio had second. single, if there was one on Pablo Honey, made any dent at all. I have no recollection of that. Was it, I don't remember it either. I'm not sure of what it would have been. Would it have been

anyone can play guitar, I guess? But no, I don't remember a second single in any classic sense. Do you consider them Brit Pop? Like, I read a giant book about Brit Pop that hardly mentioned Radiohead at all, where they sort of outside of that just by dint of being like almost too American from the start? Yeah, I think so. I never consider them Britpop, weirdly enough. They weren't really like kind of the extroverted flag-waving British fans. You know, I mean, you had someone, obviously, if you have someone like Oasis, they're in a class of their own because, you know, they kind of embody Brit Pop.

But no, radio had it was always kind of the weirdos. They were, you know, kind of grungy, kind of shoegaze, but kind of glammy then. They were just doing their own thing. They wanted to be REM. That was their kind of template, I think, more than anything. So you get Pablo Honey for Creep, obviously, like, what are your first impressions? Does it feel like a possible one hit wonder situation? Are there other songs on the record that really stick out to you?

Are you happy that you got this record? Like, what are your findings? You know, back then, I think I was confused back then. I think because, you know, creep was like, creep is definitely the outlier on that record. You listen to that. And, you know, that sounds like the record labels like, this is a single. We're going to put it on here because it sounds nothing else. on the record sounds like that. But there was like the delicacy about it, like stop whispering

and how do you, it's very vivacious music and it's very vibrant. It's not gergy like creep. Right, right. I don't, I think you're the first person to ever describe radiohead as vivacious, but I think you're right. I think that's true. I don't know if that ever happened again. I don't know if there's any other radio head record. You could plausibly describe as vivacious, but it works for this one. It really does, like, because they're so young. I get hung up. I forget how young they are at this point. Like, they're what? They're in their late teens, maybe early 20s on this record. It's just hard to imagine now, squaring it with like the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, like beloved, you know, canonized radiohead. It just doesn't compute for me

even now. I agree. And it's even the more distance I get from it, kind of the weirder of a record it is. You know, it doesn't really sound like anything that was going on at the time. They, of course, never did anything that sounded at all like that again. But it's a really interesting kind of little curio. I mean, I guess, you know, all of that music like Dinosaur Jr. was so huge in England. You know, bands like Buffalo Tom were so huge in England. So you have to think that they were probably fans of that too. And that was creeping in, no pun intended, into this record a little bit more, along with the fact that they were from Oxford, ride was from Oxford. So they had the shoe gaze. So this one sounds like less, I think, original and less kind of.

of they were still trying to figure out what they wanted to sound like, honestly. Of course. Like any band on their first record. Totally. Like you should be suspicious if it doesn't sound. Like they're a little confused. Exactly. So you sent me this wonderful message board thread where some dude just made a list of

every song they played on Cleveland's Alternative Rock Station, 107.9 the end on one day in spring 1993. Maybe this is only of interest to you and me, but it's of great interest to us. I'm just going to read you the name of every song like the evening. DJ played. If you were listening to Alt Rock Radio in Cleveland in spring 1993, you heard the following. Duran Duran, shotgun, and come undone. Swade, Metal Mickey. There's your Brit Pop. Arrested Development, Tennessee. I have no memory of hearing rap of any sort on Alt Rock Radio in the Midwest, at least. But I'll

take their word for it. Living color, nothingness. Big audio dynamite. E. equals MC squared dinosaur junior start chopping spin doctors two princes that's the best spin doctor's song i think terence trent derby delicate new order regret and the romones i want to be sedated this feels chaotic to me this list of songs and a really lovely would you miss the chaos of this era i do miss the chaos and i think people forget how chaotic it was that you would totally have like i remember hearing shaggy on all rock radio like that he's very very early stuff, an ace of bass. Like, they were just, like, throwing stuff at the wall to see what sticks.

And they were having older stuff and newer stuff and rock bands and, yeah, and a rest of development. Like, totally, like, a great mishmosh of things. So in hindsight, it kind of makes sense why, like, you know, radio had kind of fit into that because they were sort of misfits kind of shoehorning their way into it. But I love it. Like that total chaos. If you grow up with radio chaos like that, that really shapes you're listening, I think, in a really interesting way.

Absolutely it does. So when you hear creep, when you heard creep between like living color and Terrence Trent Darby, you know, and then the spin doctor somewhere in there like, how does creep, does that accentuate creep like the weirdness of creep to be among all these other songs that don't really fit together? I think so because, I mean, creep is just, it's, there's so much self-loathing in there. And I mean, obviously that's, you know, grunge. There was also ton of self-loathing in there. But there's just something about creep in terms of because it's turned inward. It's definitely not blaming outside forces. It's like you are like self-loathing, self-hatred.

And there's no self-deprecation about it. It's very serious. And when you're a teenager, man, that's like that hits right. That's you right. That's you. Yes. These people get how terrible I am. Exactly.

You get it. You get me. You get how horrible I am. You wrote that Pablo Honey has aged. a little better musically than lyrically. I think that's true. Knowing what you know now about Radiohead in their catalog, does Pablo Honey sound to you like a totally different band or just a very young and slightly

corny version of classic Radiohead, canonized Radiohead? How does his record sound to you now in the context of everything that came after? Oh, I think they sound like a totally, that's like totally different band. There's some little moments where like I think I noticed like blow out. you can hear a little bit what they're doing rhythmically there. They kind of did, you know, as they got more kind of experimental and electronic. The jazier thing, you said. Like, I can hear that a little bit.

But that was almost them also just kind of like, you know, we're just going to experiment. We're going to screw around in the studio. Like, I don't think it was very deliberate. Like, 20 years later, we're going to make this amazing record that is totally incorporating that. It really is like, you kind of said they're teenagers. This is like their teenage band.

Like, if you're starting a teenage garage band, this is a type of. record you make. And then normally it doesn't come out on a major label. Normally, you kind of figure out, here's how we play. You know, here's how we figure out what our sound really is and what we want to be. It doesn't become this global phenomenon. But it is. It's funny because I think they've warmed to it a little bit over the years. But you could definitely tell they would always distance themselves from this a little bit. They were a little embarrassed by it. You could kind of tell. When do you think that turn happened? Because I think that's true. Like everyone made a big deal about they stopped playing creep for a while.

They don't really play anything off Pablo, honey. Is that true? I'm trying to think. Like even set lists in like the late 90s, right? Okay, computer, kid A. Like, I feel like this record mostly got abandoned. I would have to go through set lists. I'm sure this is exhaustively documented.

But it did feel like they abandoned this record and now they're a little bit kinder to it. Do you have a sense of like, is that just you get old enough and you're like, okay, fine. I was a kid. Like, I'm cool with it now. Is that all it is? the change there? I think so, because you're right. I think they played creep and like an encore at some point. And it was, well, because I think they also knew if they brought creep back, they knew it would be a

big deal. They knew that if they very much understood that what that meant for fans, if they start playing creep again, they would be, you know, it did make headlines. But I, you know, I think it is a little bit getting older and kind of your teenage self and realizing, all right, you know, that was a different time. But they've never really, they're one of those bands that doesn't like looking back and they don't like, they've never repeated themselves and they never really, they're not necessarily nostalgic live and stuff like that. They're just, they're much more interested in what's next. I think they gradually, yeah, they did like the Kid A, Amnesiac sort of thing with a thing of bonus tracks, you know, but I, that feels like more of a label or more of like a

grudging industry thing. I don't think like they're sitting around playing this record and vibing to it. They're just like, we, we could, we should do this stuff. We'll do it. We'll throw out whatever we have. But yeah, they are not backward looking the way a band of their age is ordinarily. And it's weird. It could be a little bit of them reclaiming it as well, you know, because this song has been covered so much. I mean, tears for fears. I saw tears for fears cover that in recent years. Yeah. Wow. What is that like? It's actually very faithful to kind of Radiohead's version. It Roland sings it. And it really, it fits with their, with their kind of their vibe,

weirdly enough. I want to hear that. Yeah. That sounds awesome. It was very cool. So they've had different people sort of, you know, nod to it. So I think there's also a little bit of like, you know, we did this first. So we're going to, you know, let's, in 20, you know, two thousand, you know, post-2000 radiohead. Let's see what we can do with this. I did want to ask you about Duran Duran in the 90s. Like 93, same year as Pablo Honey was Duran Duran's big self-titled comeback album with

Ordinary World and Come on Done. Do you think Duran, Duran and Radiohead were on the same playing field or playing the same sport at that point or were Duran Duran just in a totally different head space from, you know, even everything, you know, grunge, Brit pop, most of what was happening in the 90s. Did you see Duran Duran on their own island? Did Radiohead see themselves as competing with 93 Duran Duran? It's interesting because I think Duran Duran, the wedding album, which is 1993, is so interesting because it put them squarely on alternative radio.

Like you read the radio thing. So, like, if you didn't know the band in the 80s, they were just kind of yet another alternative band. They were new. Exactly. This is their debut album. That's wild. And it's like they weren't grunge.

They weren't drip pop. They really weren't kind of just doing their own thing. They were on their own island. And because even like ordinary world, you listen to that now. And, you know, in 1993, everything is getting really heavy, the music wise. And thematically, it's very heavy. But musically, it's like this power ballad, basically. It's beautiful.

It is a power ballot and it's a great one. Absolutely. But it's definitely sort of a weird. It's something that's like it's a, you know, when people were zinging, they were gagging, which they always kind of did. But it was, I think, a lot more pronounced than. It's very amusing to me just to contrast Duran Duran on MTV, like enjoying themselves on a yacht.

For example, versus Radiohead dying at a pool party. Like what happens in terms of rock stardom between those two events? Why were 90s rock stars required to hate being rock stars? You know, I think it's a little bit bashful, you know? It's like because the 80s were so extroverted and the 80s were so everything was over the top. Everything was flamboyant, you know, from the music to the music videos. And I think everyone was also trying to one up each other.

So like by the end of the 80s, I mean, you had those music videos that were like million dollar, you know, glossy Aerosmiths videos basically. And in the early 90s, you know, right before Radiohead was Guns and Roses doing their epic trilogies. So I think there was kind of a backlash against that. Maybe a little bit of that also kind of, I don't want to say that Grunge killed Hair Metal because I don't think that's true. But there was a little bit of a response to that because Hair Metal was just so over the top. And it was like, you know what, let's just be a little bit more self-effacing. Like this is kind of gross.

Like these people are like, what's the exact opposite of that? kind of being self-hating, not being confident, kind of talking to the fans who weren't necessarily very successful. You know, all, I mean, basically what they say is, I'm a weirdo. If you're a misfits, like, you know, you can't necessarily relate to the hair metal guys. So it's definitely different. Yes. The exact opposite of the hair metal approach, I think, is the Radiohead documentary meeting people

is easy. It was 98. I remember watching that in college. Radiohead were my favorite band at that point. I was traumatized. I don't think I've ever seen. see more miserable people on screen in my whole life up to that point. Like, what did you make of that?

I mean, I think it was also, they got famous in a way they didn't expect to get famous. When you release a record like, OK, computer, you're not necessarily thinking, this is going to make us blow up. We're going to become global superstars. That's such an inward-looking, weird kind of genre blending record that's just totally different than anything else going on. And somehow it connected. and everyone decided they're going to blow up.

I mean, I saw them in 1997 in a high school auditorium, but I think within a year they were playing like arenas. So I think they were like, what the hell happened? Yeah. For guys who are, you know, more interested in playing music, more interested in craft, like being in the studio, not liking to play the game,

not liking to do the whole handshake, less hob-dob with people, suddenly being forced in that position of being the biggest band of the world, that's really disconcerting. And if you don't have the ability to say no, or if you don't feel like you can say no to things and just kind of retreat.

I mean, I think that makes total sense. It makes a lot of sense in hindsight why they came out with Kid A after OK Computer. They just went totally inward and said, we're just going to go even more to the extreme. Like, we're really going to challenge you. And it's very funny that that record was even more lavishly praised, right? Like, they went through a phase where they just couldn't get rid of us, I guess.

Like, we were going to make the weirdest, most experimental. Like, we're going to not use guitars. and you're still going to chase us around. Like, that must have been such a bizarre, like you can't fail. Like, you fail at trying to fail as like a commercial prospect. It's like they tried to alienate people and people are like, this is amazing. Bring it on. Give us more.

They couldn't, you know, as weird and experimental. And there's something really charming about the fact that they did kind of sneak into the mainstream with these super bizarre records. I love that. I mean, I think that was kind of, you know, the dream. That's what Ari M did. That's what, you know, all these other bands did. But it is, in hindsight, it's just, you know, God, like, I can't, it's so, it's just weird. It could never happen again.

It could never happen today because it's just such a strange thing. You told me that the Benz is your favorite Radiohead record. And I've always imagined that there's a very specific faction of Radiohead fans who wish they kept making that record over and over, like super guitar heavy. They're not bearing this burden, OK, computer had of like, this is the most important band the world. Like, what is it about the bends for you? Such a big question. First off, I do like the guitars. I do admit, it was kind of glammy. Even the guitar tone on that record is really different. It's very kind of like, I don't, I don't even know how to really describe it. It's just very, I know what you mean. I know what

you're trying to say. It's just, it was very forceful and in your face. And so I really, really appreciated that. I also think I remember seeing the video for Just and which is the very, Like, which still doesn't make any sense. Like, you know, it's the guy laying down and there's, you know, the apocryphal, there's something he says that he won't say. So I saw that and that I was like, you know, who is this band? Like, because obviously that's not creep. And that's nowhere near creep.

I'm like, this is actually really kind of interesting. This is, there's some depth here. And so, and I just really, I just like that song. The arrangement was interesting. Like, it was just very much, I don't even know what it reminded me of. Like, it was so different than anything I'd heard up until that point. I was a teenager then, so it was kind of blew my mind. But I think Tom York, he was still being kind of extroverted.

It was almost like he was on Pablo Honi, there's some moments where he's just so anguished and he's so angstridden. And he really kind of amped that up on vocally and kind of lyrically on the bends, too. There was a little bit more specificity in terms of there's something going on, either it's heartbreak or melancholy. And he doesn't quite know how to convey it. So he's kind of wailing and he's kind of, you know, like, I mean, I don't know what fake plastic trees are.

I mean, I have no idea, but like, it's a beautiful song. It is. Absolutely, it is. And I always picture him being pushed around in a shopping cart. Exactly. That was the record where they really kind of embraced their visual side, too. And I think that that also is a big part of it. But in a way, that's, you know, a little bit more clever.

I think because Pablo Honey was enough of a success, they were able to get maybe a little bit more budget for videos. And they were sort of embracing that. And this was, you know, when Brit Pop was also starting to creep in, no, again, no pun, intended, but like, you would have to think the record label was also kind of like they're British. We're going to give them money. Because British bands right now are hot. There we go. They're the next oasis.

Yes. But I just love that record. And I think it's their most consistent record, just a very, there's a lot of different styles going on. But sequencing-wise and just sonically, it's just very, also a very cohesive record. Did they seem comfortable to you in the high school auditorium versus, you know, the arenas that they were in a year later, as you say? Like, did they seem like they were more where they think? thought they should be or where they were just more comfortable? I think so.

The show I saw was really unique because there was actually a power outage during it. There was a thunderstorm. It was August. And they kept playing. They did acoustic songs. Oh, I love that when that happens. Right. That's beautiful.

They just kind of ran with it. Oh, man, I'd have to look it up. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm sure somebody will tell us that on the internet. Exactly. Right away, someone will bring it up. I know it's out there because I used to go out all the fan sites. But it was right for them at that.

moment. They were still kind of, I don't remember exactly the exact date if it was okay, computer was out or just on the verge of coming out. But they were really sort of kind of, I think, getting there trying to figure out how the song sounded live and what they could kind of do with them live. And it was actually, I think, the right venue for them at that right moment. The last question, just as a big REM fan, you mentioned like they wanted to be REM. And so I figured out to ask, like, do you think that they got that version of success? Do you feel like they were successful in their attempt to be like REM in terms of of both the commercial and the artistic side?

I think so. I mean, you know, the whole thing about REM becoming as successful is they did whatever they wanted. They made the music they wanted to make. And pop culture and the mainstream kind of bent toward them. And that was definitely what Radiohead did. I mean, I mean, they basically, they made the music they wanted to make. They decided, hey, we're going to do the kind of tour and we want to do if we tour. Cool.

If not, sure. Right. And they, you know, and they just kept going and doing whatever they wanted. but they also kept themselves interested. They really wanted to challenge themselves and weren't afraid of ripping up the playbook, I guess. What's interesting now, too, is since REM broke up, every band member has done something different.

And Radiohead is kind of doing that already. Like, the band is still together, but everybody has their own solo thing. And so they've also kind of made that little space for each musician to kind of be fulfilled that way, too. Radiohead's success, I think, let them do that. And so I think that's also very... I'm like.

We've got to get Johnny Greenwood and Oscar. Man, seriously. He and Trent should hook up, Trent Resner, and they should join forces. Absolutely. There's an idea. Annie, thank you so much.

This has been awesome. Awesome. Thanks for having me. Thanks so much to our guests this week, Annie Zaleski. Thank you to our producers, Justin Sales and Lonnie Ronaldo. And thanks, as always, to you for listening. And now, without further ado,

hear our radio head. with creep. We'll see you next week.