Bandsplain - Radiohead with Cole Cuchna, Part 2

Episode Date: April 7, 2022

We’re back with Cole Cuchna, host of Dissect and Key Notes, for Part 2 of Radiohead, starting from their revolutionary 2000 album Kid A through their continuing evolution both as a band and as individual artists. Steven Hyden, author of This Isn’t Happening: Radiohead’s Kid A and the Beginning of the 21st Century, also joins us for an examination of Kid A’s impact on music criticism and the album’s context within rock music history. Follow Cole Cuchna on Twitter at @dissectpodcast and check out his podcasts Dissect and Key Notes, only on Spotify. Follow Steven Hyden on Twitter @Steven_Hyden, and check out his podcasts Indiecast and 36 From the Vault. Find his book This Isn’t Happening: Radiohead’s Kid A and the Beginning of the 21st Century wherever fine books are sold. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Oh, and welcome. I don't get it. Can you please explain? Wait, like Bansplaine? Oh, and welcome to Bandsplane. This is part two of Radiohead with our guest, Cole Kuchna of Dysact. Let's fucking get back into it. Okay, now we are finally at,

one might argue, the top of the mountain of the radio. head journey. There's another, there's another, like, quite tall mountain ahead of us, I think, but nothing gets as high as the mountain of Kidday. And for us to embark on this journey at the peak of the mountain, we have brought a special guest, Cole, to talk to us. One, Mr. Stephen Hayden, returned Bandsplainer, literally wrote the book on Kidd A. Stephen, what is the name of the book again? It's called This Isn't Happening. That's right. And I think you read it, right?

I read the whole thing. I annotated it. I used those little flags. You know? Many and I dropped some gorgeous gems of knowledge right into my dock. I'm touched. It's a great book. You guys should really, if you're interested in Radiohead or Kid A or honestly just music, it's

very interesting. Well, thank you. Can I just ask quick, am I officially a friend of Bansplaine? Because this is my second time on the show. Yeah, you're a friend of the pod, babe. Oh. Full friend of the pod. Thank you.

Thank you. I just wanted to confirm that. I thought that was the case. We need that. We need like literal published authors who have some semblance of credibility to be friends of the pod because I'm just a moron here riffing the entire head. Simply channeling God's spirit and saying stuff. On my resume, it now says bandsplain guess, comma, published author. So the bandsplain thing is getting the top billing.

Just so you know, I know where the priorities are. Yeah, the industry is shifting. Bandsplan is eclipsing the publishing industry, and there's nothing we can do about that. Exactly. Speaking of industry is shifting, Steve, can you talk a little bit about, I mean, me and Cole will get deep in the woods,

obviously on Kidd A, and he's going to bust out his keyboard a couple more times. But can you just talk about, I think everyone knows, like, Kid A was a massive departure for Radiohead, although I would argue they were clearly leaning up to it, with OK computer. But anyways, no one was expecting the level of electronica incorporated into Kid A, but also no one was expecting how it was rolled out.

So can you talk a little bit about how it was rolled out and what that had to do with Y2K in the year 2000 and just what was going on then? Yeah. I mean, a big reason why I wanted to write about Kid A is not only is that a great album, but it seemed like from the perspective of writing a book, There was a lot else going on in the world and in culture when that album came out. And a big part of that, of course, was the proliferation of the internet. You know, the internet really becoming a part of all of our daily lives.

And specifically with music, how this was around the time that the internet started to become the hub of where music fans would gather to find music, to learn about music, to talk about music with other people. people. So obviously in 1999, you have Napster. That becomes a big deal. People are downloading music for free. But the music industry is still trying to figure out where there are places in this. How can we use this huge technological advance to our advantage? How do we make money off of it? How do we make money off of it? How do we engage with all these people who are clearly gathering online, especially younger people? Right. And Kid A ends up being among the first major albums that really becomes like an internet phenomenon. And it starts before the album comes out, Radiohead does this tour in Europe in the summer of 2000

where they're starting to play a lot of the songs that are on Kid A Live. So you have fans getting on message boards. They're downloading live tracks. You know, they're hearing songs like the National Anthem and optimistic for the first time. Of course, it's dial-up. So it's excruciatingly slow to get any of these songs. See you in four hours, the national anthem. Hope you're good.

Yes, exactly. The national anthem and not like an old, you know, Tode's song or something that's been mistagged. Well, I remember talking to somebody about when Kidd A was bootlegged and they were, they waited, you know, 45 minutes to download Tree Fingers, which is the, you know, interstitial ambient song. And they finally got it. And they were like, I waited this. for this song, you know, so there was some disappointment there.

But the kids will never know what we went through. But, you know, even though it's taking a long time, it's still exciting. I mean, this is not, this is still, there's still a novelty to downloading music. I mean, you're getting it for free. You're also accessing music that might have been difficult to get before. I mean, back in the 90s, if you wanted to get bootlegs, you'd have to do these things called E-trees, like where you would burn a show on a disc and then burn it for like five other people. Like, that's how things used to.

happen back then. It was like the pony express in terms of distributing music. So it starts with that. You have fans on music boards sharing their opinions with each other. And again, this is also a novelty. You know, we now live in an age like where we're inundated with people's opinions. It seems overwhelming. You want to get away from people's opinions. But in 1999, 2000, it was refreshing. You could meet people that were into your favorite band. Maybe you didn't know anyone in your small town that liked Radiohead. And you could find an online community. to talk about it. In terms of promoting the record, Capital Records, which released Kid A here in America, they were just starting to dabble in online promotion, but hadn't done a whole lot of it.

They, you know, record executives weren't really taking the internet all that seriously. And with Kid A, it presented a unique opportunity because of the fan base being online and also because Radiohead wasn't going to do interviews for this record. Yeah. They didn't make any music videos for this record. No singles. No singles. There's this story about how, like, when Radiohead played Kid A for the label executives at Capitol,

and they put all the executives on a bus. Oh, yeah. From, like, L.A. to Malibu, right? Right. I wonder if it was Friday and, like, Friday afternoon. If they really wanted to punish them, you know, they were like, sorry, it leaves up Friday at 4 p.m. Be there, be square bed. Right.

And Tom York is like, this traffic jam symbolizes the stasis of modern technology. I was going to say it was like it ties into the car. motif that starts from Pablo. Exactly. This traffic jam is a metaphor for what this album is trying to express. He's like, you will suffer like I suffer. I mean, you know, can we just say this is all a testament

to how great OK computer is that people are willing to put up with this shit? Right. 100%. They're like, whatever you say? It's like, if this were Travis or Muse or something, they'd be get the fuck out of here. But like, it's radio head.

Yeah, they'd be like, keep it cold play. Yellow is a good song, but we're not getting on the fucking best bit. Just burn a CD for crying out. So what happened with the album is that they developed this technology. It was called an iBlipp. And it was essentially this embeddable player that any blogger could use and put on their website. And there'd be radiohead artwork on there. They'd be radiohead news.

And eventually Kid A itself streamed on this iBlipp. And it's funny to talk about this now because, you know, we don't. really see this anymore, like where albums stream on a website, you know, like week before they come out? Well, maybe people don't know that Iblob technology is actually being used by Kanye West and the STEM player. Oh, no, no kidding. That's absolutely not true. But that was a fun way for me to say, it kind of is happening again in a very different way. That's funny. I won't go on a whole huge tangent on that. But I do have a sense that it's returning back. to people wanting sort of that kind of thing,

which I find very interesting with the STEM player. There used to be this trend, and it was fairly common, like, in the early 2010s, like where NPR would have the exclusive stream of the new Spoon album. Totally. If you wanted to hear it before it came out, you had to go to NPR.

And sometimes Pitchfork did it, but it was a competitive thing. Didn't Kid A, stream in its entirety at midnight on, like, BBC and MTV2 and a couple of places? It streamed in a bunch of different places. I mean, it started streaming online. Or after the internet stuff. I mean, it was like actually officially streaming on like, you could turn on MTV too and

like at midnight and hear the whole. I mean, I think it was online about three weeks before the record came out, which is how it ended up getting bootleg essentially and ended up on Napster. Right. What's interesting about it is that it wasn't an exclusive that you could be MTV or you could just be some person with a blog that 10 people read. Everyone had access to it. And it is a snapshot of a much different internet than we have now where it feels, this is an over-to-use cliche, but it feels like the Wild West, you know, that era of the internet.

It doesn't feel as corporatized as the internet is now. No. It's much more spread out. And I think looking back, it's part of like what makes that rollout seem kind of romantic in a way. Totally. You could just be a radio head fan with no following, but like you had just as much access to this album. as, you know, the music critic at Rolling Stone. And I think that symbolized for a lot of people the promise of the internet, that this was

going to destroy hierarchies and that it was like this sort of force for equality. They didn't know. They didn't know that much like punk music, capitalism will overcome everything. Whatever you love, capitalism will take it over. Yeah, I think that internet, much like Kid A, was at the top of its mountain in like the early 2000s. That was like when we were like, free songs on Napster. I'll walk to the library to check my email.

What's going to be there? I don't know. I go once a day max to see the fun messages that are coming for me on my hot mail. Like it was truly a blessed balance of the internet being fun for friends and then like not overtaking your entire fucking life. Someone said this once and I used this in the book and I think I just, someone just tweeted it once, but I thought it was so brilliant that like the internet is where you used to go to meet people that.

were like-minded. You know, you went there to meet people and now, you know, you basically want to log off to get away from people, you know? Yeah, now I go there to like self-harm with comparing myself to like Instagram models. That's what I use the internet for, almost exclusively. What was fun about writing the book was just putting myself back in that headspace because it does seem so far removed from where we are now, this idea that like it was actually refreshing to hear the opinions of strangers, You know, because you were in a media landscape where it was only the writers at Spin and Rolling Stone and the people at MTV. That's the only conversation you ever heard about music. So to go online and to hear a random 18-year-old from Detroit, Michigan, what that person thought of Kid A, it was really exciting.

Well, that's kind of a perfect segue, actually, I think, into the famous pitchfork review of Kid A. because arguably in 2000, Pitchfork was basically some guy's blog. You know, like, yeah, it was a little more elevated than that, but not that much. You know, like, I didn't even know it existed in 2000, and I was, like, pretty into music, you know? But it's just like, I wasn't online enough to care and know.

So talk to us a little bit about this infamous rent. Is it Brett DeCresenzo? I think that's it. Yes. His beautiful soliloquy about Radiohead. Yeah, I mean, do we want to read excerpts from this at all? I mean... Yeah, sure.

I mean, we can pull it up. I think I have some excerpts. Doesn't it start? It's like the first line is like, I've never seen a shooting star. Yes. That's, it's a famous line. And I think I quote this in the book, one of my favorite parts of the review, he writes, The Butterscotch Lamps Along the Walls of the Tight City Square,

blood upward into the cobalt sky, which seemed as strikingly artificial and perfect as a wizard's cap. That's all one sentence. I think there's about 250 words in there. Like not to be a little bitch, but that would make me never want to hear this album as long as I goddamn lived. I'd be like, it's not for me. Thank you, sir. There's a thing about that review. Like, what I'll say about it, I think what it was appealing about it then and what is appealing about it to me now.

I think at the time, well, first of all, you know, we think of Radiohead as being this critically acclaimed band. And they are for the most part. But, you know, the reaction to Kid A, especially like in England, I mean, I think it was more positive in America. but in England, it was actually like fairly negative. I was going to say, I love that in America, it's like a falling star fell upon my, the dust upon my forehead and I was reborn in England. It was like, these fucking cunts,

I can't believe they're sew up their own asses, like jerking themselves off. Like, there is that, there's that one famous thing that like literally is like, this is them sucking themselves off. Like, I can't, I'll read it later. But they really were just like, fuck this. I mean, I like how in both senses,

journalism was really at its peak of people doing, whatever the fuck they wanted. Just a very different whatever the fuck you wanted. Like the British were like, we're going to be the meanest people on earth and no one's going to say anything. And Americans melodramatic. Yeah.

I mean, but even like, you know, there was that famous review that Nick Hornby wrote for the New Yorker where he... Right. You have to be a teenager. Yeah. And basically this album is too much work to care about.

Sir. And I think for like a lot of radio head fans, like me, I was 23 when this album came out. You know, the pitchfork review as overwrought as it is, if you were in that age range of late teens, early 20s, I mean, you took Radiohead extremely seriously. And you looked at them as like the pinnacle of whatever art was at that time. And you can roll your eyes at that in retrospect and say it's naive. But like that's true. I mean, that's what I felt at that time.

I was a naive kid. And a review like the pitchwork review, it honored that seriousness that kids put it in the band. It's like they said, yeah, you're right to take this seriously. And yeah, we're going to give it a 10 out of 10 because this is as good as the Beatles or Stevie Wonder or whatever is considered the all-time greatest music. So I have some love for it for that reason, just because I was that kid in 2000 that would have probably written something as ridiculous as that if I had had a platform. Honestly, same. I wrote poetry, man. Let's not, let's not dig any of that up.

The thing I like about it now is that music writing and culture writing and writing and general. It's so professional. And it's, it's, oh, it's, I mean, no offense to all the writers, like yourself included, but yeah, it's so neutered most of the time. I'm just like, this is why I couldn't do it after a while. I'm a failed music writer because I was like, this is so boring. Like, I don't want to do this. It's written, you know, every site kind of reads the same. You know, there's a house style for, for writing. And something like that Kida review, it almost reminds me of like a review that would have been written in the 60s, you know, like... Totally.

Like a cream magazine. Exactly. Yeah. Is there something that explains that shift in, like, journalism tone? Yeah. I think it's, again, it's the corporatization of the internet and the media. And, you know, not to overstate, like how I don't want to say that this review is, like, the greatest thing ever.

I mean, there's obviously a lot of problems with that review, starting with the fact that it makes no fucking sense. And it's hard to under, you know, you don't. really just vibes. Yeah, it's, it doesn't really dive into the music. No sense, just vibes. No points, just vibes, which is okay. And I think, you know, you can look at music writing now in a lot of ways, there's many ways in which it's superior to like what existed back then. And a lot of that has to do with just the makeup of who writes about records. You know, it was, it's much more diverse now than it was in 2000. And there's a greater range of music that's being written about.

All that stuff, I think is laudable. But that's sort of like swashbuckling spirit. of the early internet where you had very young people that had maybe read Alan Ginsberg for the first time or, you know, some. 100% howl core, babe, howl core. And we're just burning. Like, they just, they wanted to write a masterpiece. And maybe they didn't have the talent to do it, but they were trying to do something different.

You know, as corny as that stuff maybe ended up turning into it as far as the result goes, the attempt and the spirit of it, I have a lot of love for it. No, me too. Listen, I'm not shading bread to Chris Senzo. I actually think that review is really cool. This coming from a person whose first piece of published music journalism, I played MASH with Gene Gray because my recorder wouldn't work. And this is all the stuff I would pitch. I was like, can I go on a date with Jim Jones? Like everything I wanted to do with something like, you know, like a fun thing, like a take on whatever. Because you could do that back then. And it was kind of cool. And that's, that was like the tail end. I mean, you'll know better because you're five years older than. me, I think. I got no offense. Simply a fact. And you got to live some of that. But I grew up reading like, you know, the music journals in the 90s were like, they literally did whatever they wanted. They were like, oh, you want to go spend four weeks with this artist and like, you know, here's an unlimited expense account. Go ahead and write like three pages about it. And they would do that and it was so cool and out there. And like, that just kind of died. Like all the budgets died.

And then they were just like, well, we just need, we just need the fax ma'am. Or, you know, we're going to put you on the cover, but we're going to write 5,000 words about how much you suck. Like that happened all the time. Click bait. Yeah. Like Rolling Stone would put Huey Lewis on the cover in 1984 and then just slag Huey Lewis, the entire article, which is a crime because Huey Lewis is brilliant. And he was the first rock star I ever loved as a young man. But nevertheless, that would never happen now.

You know, the publicists would have you drawn and quartered if you took that approach. They gave you access and you just slagged their person forever. Yeah, music journalists don't have really power anymore. They're very few, right? I think that would, they really had a lot of power for a while. Yeah, I mean, there's some power. It's just concentrated and it's diluted. You know, I think you can still, if you're writing about like a young up-and-coming band

and people know you and you have a platform, you can give them a leg up. Sure. But the idea of, you know, going back to the pitchfork example, you know, they were famous for a long time of we gave funeral by Arcade Fire a 9.5 and now Arcade Fire is a huge band. Yeah. I remember that influence. Totally. That kingmakers. Yeah. Like no one outlet has that anymore. I think, I mean, the closest to me is like YouTube, YouTubers now. Like that review, I mean, Anthony Fantano is like the biggest example, but I would say he's probably in my mind the most influential critic right now. Or just like the collective power of social media. You know, I would say

that it's kind of a stew. But yeah, Fantano is certainly, he's got a huge audience. Yeah. For sure. So we go from Kid A to Fantano. That's the spectrum.

I'll take the spotlight off Anthony Fantano. But why did you kid A, I guess like my question would be, why do you think this particular album, A, like, caused such varied response? Because that's not very common, right? like usually like most of the reviews stay within like a median feeling and then there's maybe

a few like naysay or outliers or whatever. But this was like so polarizing this album. And why do you think that is? Well, I mean, there's some of the obvious reasons that I'm sure you all have already talked about just the idea that it was this curveball record in a lot of ways. And, you know, looking at the reviews from the British press, for instance, they almost seemed like they thought this was like a ruse on some part by by radiohead that you know why aren't you just being a great guitar band right why are you doing this bullshit

you know where you're not just giving us what we want and I think there was a lot of skepticism about that it was almost like you know you're just deliberately fucking with us by making this record right they didn't think it was like a good faith like sincere right this is just what we want to do yeah whereas in America there was almost like this we'll wait and see type attitude. We're going to give it four stars, but we don't really love it, but we're going to

assume that we're going to love it in about a year or two. I mean, that seemed to be the tone of a lot of the coverage at that time. As far as like the polarizing response, it's a difficult record. It's a consciously difficult record that I think is designed for a polarized response. I think you had some generational things going on at the time where Radiohead's audience, I feel like it leaned younger in 2000, certainly than it does now. I mean, now, I mean, now they're a dad rock band, but... Not a young soul in sight. Producer Dylan running for the hills when Radiohead comes to town.

This is something I write about in the books. I think people forget it that in the 90s, they had to overcome this perception that they were an also-ran band, you know, that they were a one-hit wonder. You know, people were still writing about creep up through like the OK computer album cycle. Like if you look at the album reviews of OK computer from Rolling Stone and Spin, they referenced creep in the first paragraph. Totally.

It's always talked about as this stigma that they have to overcome, that they're not one of those early 90s alternative rock bands that had one hit and disappeared. Do you want to die? Yeah, that's a great song. It's a great song. They actually had two hits, but whatever. No Tody's Erasure on this.

And Creep is a great song. And Creep is still their most famous song. I mean, if they have a standard, it's probably creep. I mean, that's the song that's been covered. so many times from Princeton to corn to everyone in between. It's definitely the most accessible of their hit songs, which and the highest charting and the biggest hit. You said in your book, for Radiohead Creep was the trap and Kid A was the escape plan. Yeah.

So the point that you're making is that while it was good faith and sincere because they really wanted to do this, it was also meant as like a means to unshackle themselves from perhaps a prison of their own making? Yeah, I think that there was mostly subconscious, but maybe even conscious a little bit, this idea that we have to run away from being a radio band. Right. The radio had being a radio band, you know, that we are just this band that, you know, played the angsty song with like loud guitar noise and you know in the middle of it you know right which again is what makes creep great and I'll and I'll defend Pablo Honey on the whole I feel like that um gets dispensed

same I'm a Pablo Honey apologist if you will it's like a fun dumb rock record and it works on that level would you not agree it's a fantastic gin blossoms record absolutely I I think you know the problem with Pablo Honey is that people compare it to what came after and it's obviously not as good. But if you compare it to like other albums of 1993, like I think it's like one of the better albums of that year for sure. I agree. But it seems like the reaction to that song and the fact that, you know, they had to go through the whole rigama role of playing the house of blues in every town and, you know, going to the MTV Beach House and all these cheesy things that rock bands had to do in the mid-90s. I think that that.

motivated them to move in the direction that culminates with Kidd A. Totally. Because KiteA just seems like the anti-creep in every possible way. Yeah. It's interesting to me that people or critics or whoever thought that this album, you had to work at it. Because I didn't find that at all. And I was like literally an idiot 18-year-old.

But I think what a lot of people, and I think this was common of criticism then for sure, because to your point of it being sort of undiverse and like whatever, you know, they weren't really thinking about the fact that like rave culture was huge. And like people like me were like really into that stuff and also really into rock music and did a lot of ecstasy. And then you fucking put on kid A. And I was like, hell fucking yeah. This is from play one.

I was like, this rips. You know, and I think there was a lot of people who felt that way about it because Electronica was becoming really mainstream by the late 90s and definitely by 2000. You know, I saw Radiohead play at Coachella, like, it must have been 2002 or 3. And that was a largely still, I mean, they had rock headliners, but it was largely still an electronica festival. But they fit right in, you know, because they were playing Step Off Kid A and Step Off Okay, Computer. So I don't know. I just find that surprising.

I just, I want to read just one quick line from the Nick Hornby. Shout out Nick Hord, me. I love High Fidelity. Who doesn't love High Fidelity? A genius, but he got it a bit wrong here. He says, Kid A demands the patience of the devoted. both patients and devotion become scarcer commodities

once you start picking up a paycheck, which I think is really funny because that's literally, I think, Radiohead's point as a band. Like, spiritually, like, that would be a point that they would make as a negative, right?

It's like, yes, this is a problem. Like, art should have space in people's lives. We shouldn't say, oh, no, we only need dumb fucking music now because we have jobs. Like, that is not the world we aspire to. But that's kind of what that. sentence is saying, right? It's like once you're part of the capitalism machine, you better

not hope that you can like spend some time with some art. Right. Not available to you anymore. Right. And also speaking to an audience, again, because I feel like Radiohead's audience at that time was a lot younger. It's like we do have time. You know, we haven't. We're not sucked. I mean, I had just gotten my first job. I mean, I feel like now my life was just super open because I wasn't married. I didn't have kids. I mean, as soon as I got done working, I was, It was like go to McDonald's or the bar. I mean, that was basically my life at 23. So I was pretty open and I had plenty of time to focus on Kidae because I felt like it was worth it.

And to your point, yeah, I think that's a brilliant point. I mean, that almost seems like it could be like a Tom York lyric on this album that like having a job doesn't allow you to focus on art or getting a paycheck. I think you're absolutely right, too, about Radiohead's embrace of this new kind of music. that they consciously didn't make OK Computer Part 2, which I think if they had done that, they would have, well, number one, it probably wouldn't have been as good as OK Computer.

People would have compared it directly to that album and it would have suffered. And two, I really think that they would have become a 90s band. Right. That would have been the record where they started to fade and people would just remember the Ben's and OK Computer. Whereas with Kid A, it really allowed them to bridge the,

decades in the centuries, you know, that they could move into a new time and be a different band and find a new audience. And then they were able to do that again within rainbows, which I'll argue it's because the dads were dads now and they were like, we love this. Which I love in rainbows. I think it's a great album. But that one, not so hard to access. No. That one pretty easy, pretty easy to be like, oh yeah, I love this. I definitely agree with what you guys are saying in terms of the generational split with Kidae, where it feel like a lot of the, maybe the older generation was the ones that were challenged by it. I mean, Kiti is what got me into radio, frankly, like, and I was a little bit younger.

Yeah, you were like 17. Yes, around there. And I didn't find the album challenging at all. I pervert it much more over OK computer and the bends. And I feel like in so many ways they hit a reset button, not only like, existentially as a band because we're going to get into like come you know the shock of the success of okay computer and how that leads to this kind of crisis within the band and specifically with tom york and so it almost is like a very perfect metaphoric kind of rebirth uh and renewal

for them personally i think then they they kind of got a restart in terms of audience and attracted whatever audience they lost with kittay i think they would easily have made up and probably way more made up with people like me, you know, that discovered them through Kidday. So I think you guys are definitely spot on with recognizing this as a, as a, some kind of shift. And it's so fitting that it happened in year 2000. I love the symbology of it being released in 2000. Me too. I just can't.

Maybe you can shed some light on this, Steve. I just like I read, I think it's in the Hornby. No, Bruce Hornsby. And then Nick Hornby review. of the album. I'd love to do that. What is Bruce Thor? No, but I'll tell you what AFix Twin thought about the album. He thought it's suck. Oh, I'm sure he did. He's called them cheesy. We'll get into it. But no, I saw the Nick Horn We Review and then also several others make references to Lou Reed's metal machine. Is it metal machine or metal machine? Metal machine music. Literally, what are you talking about? Like, have you never heard an electronica? Like, this is not that. Like, this isn't, like, they were basically being like, how could they do this inaccessible normal? And I'm like, these are pop songs. They just happen to be electronic pop songs.

And some of them are not even electronic. But, like, I was just, like, shocked at, like, I guess we're so now used to that being, like, whatever. Like, I mean, hip hop, as people always say, as a lingua franca or whatever. And, like, so being based in beats and stuff like that is so common now. But back then, I guess it was like, what is this? An MPC? I simply could, this is, like, knives in the garbage disposal. And it's like, no, it has like a really sick bass line and like really, a really easy to like dance to beat.

It's not at all metal machine music by Lou Reed. Like, what are you even? Yeah. One thing we haven't touched on yet is that, you know, by the time Kidae came out, the sound of the bends at OK computer had already become its own genre of like British rock that you had Travis. The first Coldplay record Parachutes, I think, came out in 2000. So if Radiohead had stayed with that sound, they just would have been part of this pack. And maybe they would have been at the head of the pack. But I think the association with all these other groups, it just would have diluted what made Radiohead special.

And I think Tom York, to his credit, he recognized that pretty early on. And that's why he pushed Radiohead away from Guitar Rock. He changed the way he sang. Wasn't as operatic as it is an OK computer. you know, the lyrics became much less direct. I will say that, uh, Kid A, because I agree with you, I don't think it sounds difficult, especially now. I mean, because it's so familiar.

We've all, it's been absorbed into the canon. So all those songs are really familiar. But I will say that like, it is a record that makes you lean in. Because if you want to compare it to a song like Creep, for instance, you don't get any more direct than that. I mean, it's, the songs tell you what they are about. And even OK computer is like a pretty, you know,

literal record about technology and, you know, an Orwellian future and all the themes. Okay, yeah, but Paranoid Android, I find, I think paranoid Android probably takes more work than almost anything on Kinae.

Right. I think that's a good point. But, you know, but just to hear like yesterday, I woke up sucking a lemon for the first time. I love it. Yesterday,

I woke up sucking on lemon. You know, that really gets in your head. That is not, that's not creep. That's not, you have to project meaning onto that. So I agree with you.

I think the record was catchier than it got credit for. But there's also like a lot on that record that, again, it just makes you lean in. It makes you pay attention. It makes you want to pay attention. Like there's riddles on that record. Like you want to decipher it, if only for yourself. You know, it's part of what's great about it because you want to spend a lot of time with it. I just feel like the same people who were like fucking pavement as the goddamn best band on earth.

I saw your girlfriend and she was. eating her fingers. They're just another meal. Yeah, that makes sense. Or like, no, yesterday I woke up sucking the lemon. What the fuck are you saying, sir, I can't access this. And it's like, they're just, the lyrics are just as opaque. It's just you liked the guitar music better. Just say it. Just say you have a guitar music bias, not you, but you know what I mean. You know, which you I'm talking about. It is funny, again, to go read all the things that were written about Kadae before it came out. It reminds me of the press lead up to in utero when that, when that came out, how everyone was talking about.

Such anticipates. Yeah, it's like this record's unlistenable, like the Steve Albini production. It just. People thought in utero was unlistenable? Yeah, I remember Entertainment Weekly ran a story. I think it was like in 92. It was like well before the record came out. And it was about all these rumors about like how, you know, Steve Albini has just made

Nirvana like this noise punk band and like no one's going to want to buy this record. Straight up a pop album. Exactly. If I could go in a time machine and just pull these critics. the size and be like, have you guys heard 100 gecks? Come sit down. You don't even know what's coming. But they did the same thing with Kid A. I mean, there was just months of stories about, you know, how difficult this record is. And like if you like guitar rock, you're not going to be able to get it, even though it has how to disappear completely on it, which is this beautiful, you know, acoustic

song and you have optimistic. And lots of songs that I think are not dramatically different from anything Radiohead's done before. Totally. It's almost like people were programmed, you know, to feel like this was going to be some challenging record that they couldn't wrap their heads around. It's also like, I think about like a modern example,

it reminds me a lot of Yeezis by Kanye West, who was also coming off of Twisted Fantasy, like one of the most acclaimed albums of all time. And rightfully so. And that's kind of his okay computer and then following it up with a Yeezus, which was very polarizing and much of, the same way, I think, as KIDA, obviously different genre, different era, but I think the parallel

is certainly there. No, I think that's a great comparison. And it is interesting to see how KIDA in a way becomes a model for bands or artists that want to do that curveball record after their big record. I mean, this is a much less famous example, but I think of like MGMT making congratulations after their big breakout record where they have all of these, you know, blog pop hits, you know, and then they make this really, you know, bloated in a great way, psychedelic pop record that just alienates everyone that like their older stuff. I was going to say pumped up kicks, but that's...

Electric field kids. Time to pretend. All those songs that were like in millions of commercials. I have a big blackout black. spot for the decade of like 2002 to 2010 because it was the ugliest and most disgusting time of culture, which I've said a million times and I'll say a million times. Oh, man. Okay.

Before we let you go, Steve, I have kind of a large question for you. And it was something that struck me when we were talking about OK computer before and we were talking about kid A in terms of like radio head advancing the form of rock music, if you will, by simply incorporating other styles of music, which now is like old hat, right? Like, that's just what people do. Something that struck me, and again, I'm simply here to channel the voice of God.

So don't hold me accountable for this thought. But is that why rock is dead now? Like, did Radiohead take it as far as it could go? And essentially killed off the genre in terms of, like, being mass, you know, having a mass grasp on pop culture? because you could argue that was kind of the end. You know, like it starts to wane after that. Not just rate.

I mean, Radiohead a little bit starts to weigh in. I mean, in Rainbow's huge comeback. But rock music in general started to wane after 2000. Yeah. Well, it's interesting. And I write about this in my book. Not all the Radiohead fans liked that I wrote about this, but I think it's interesting.

And it speaks to your point there that the same month that Kidd A came out, the first Lincoln Park record comes out. hybrid theory, which ends up being like one of the biggest albums of the decade. Right. And I think you could make the argument that Kid A in a way was the end of the 20th century. Because a lot of what they're referencing on that record, you know, whether it's craftwork. Or it's, you know, Fusion era Miles Davis. Or it's Cannes.

or, you know, it's Berlin era, David Bowie. It's all this music from the 20th century. Right. And Radiohead, even when they're branching out from rock music, they're clearly part of the rock lineage. Sure. And they have their roots in music that's 20 or 30 years old. Meanwhile, you have a band like Lincoln Park who really has little, if anything to do with that same lineage.

You know, they're drawing on. on a lineage. You don't think they were inspired by the Beatles. Well, you know, they might have liked the Beatles. But if you listen to their music, it's really like music that kind of comes like maybe towards the end of the 20th century. You know, you've got like the rap rock thing, but a strong hip hop influence, electronic influence. And I think you could make the case while I like Kidday more that hybrid theory was a more revolutionary record. Because even though that's coming out of like a new metal tradition, like they weren't the first.

span to combine all these elements, they were integrating influences in a rock context in a way that I think spoke more to like where music was going. Yeah. You know, because if you look after 2000, like there's, I don't know if there's like a ton of music that's influenced by kid A. Like musically, I think like thematically it inspired people. I think the idea of like what Radiohead did that they took this risk. I think that inspired people.

But I don't know. I just feel like a record like hybrid theory. you could definitely make the case. And just because Lincoln Park was such a dominant radio band in the 2000s, I mean, they got so far. They tried so hard in the end. I think they had close to like a dozen number one rock hits from 2000 and 2010. In a way, they're the ones that destroyed rock and roll, like in their own way, more so than Radiohead. Radiohead, even though they set out to destroy rock and roll, I think that was like part of the orthodoxy of that record or the rhetoric of Kid A.

they were too much in that lineage to do it. Yeah. You know, they couldn't really do it. I just think not to be a brood, but I don't think you said that like not many bands, you know, imitated kidday. I don't think anybody was capable.

That's exactly what I was going to say. You know, like I think that's one thing about Radiohead. Again, no offense to Lincoln Park. I like Lincoln Park. But like what they did was cool. It kind of like punk, right? Like whatever the sex pistol did it would cool. And anybody else could probably do it,

maybe to differing degrees of, you know, execution. But what radio head came to do? Like, no one else could really do that unless you also have a Tom York and a Johnny Greenwood. You know what I mean? And I think that is probably the reason that it didn't spawn a bunch of imitators because, like, who's going to be able to do that? That was my exact point. It's like, Lincoln Park's much easier to imitate.

They incorporated new sounds, but they're a pop band. They use pop structures. They just had electronic drums and a rapper, you know, like, But not to discredit what they did. And a DJ. And Chester Bennington, a known gorgeous voice. So similar to Tom York having, like, you know, a big ace in the hole with having like an actual incredible singer in your band.

But it's really where the similarity is in. They're still using, like, traditional harmony. It's traditional time signatures. They slapped a DJ on it. They slapped a rapper on it. The stuff radio is doing on Kid A is this yet. I tried. I was in a band at this time.

I tried to imitate Kid A. And it's just like it came out, you know, just not like Kidday. It's a, it's a very almost impossible record to imitate. So I agree, but I think it's also, yeah, it's, I think it speaks to the difficulty of composition, just as much as, you know, Lincoln Park's accessibility does. Look, I obviously agree that Kidae, it means more to me personally than the Lincoln Park record does. I 100% get your point. It's a great point.

Your point still stands. Like, it's just, I was just qualifying your point, basically. All I would say, I think that the continuum that Kiddah is a part of, I don't agree that rock is dead. I don't want to get into the rock is dead argument here. But I will say that the continuum that they're part of that I was just talking about, you know, Cannes, Craftwork, Miles Davis, all that stuff. That's just not as relevant to young people who are into music as it was in the 20th century. And I think that the continuum that Lincoln Park is part of is relevant to younger people. And that's why I think the kind of rock music that Radiohead is a part of, it doesn't. have the same relevance with younger audiences. No, I totally agree. And I think, listen, I like to say rock is dead because I'm a provocateur. But honestly, I don't believe it. Like, where I see big places in rock that capture, you know, people's attention.

I mean, sometimes it's like a big thief, which we also want to argue about. But like, which is pretty beautiful, but straightforward, you know, straightforward music. And then there's like turnstile, right? Which is sort of carrying that torch, you could say. of Lincoln Park in a different way. Like the idea of melding disparate parts of music to make something really interesting and cool, you know? Like, I think young people do really like that.

And it's like if I had to, once again, just riff, I think it's the same thing as like fashion and everything else, which is that like everything sort of stopped in 2000 because of the internet in terms of newness because people had so much access now to oldness. So it's like it's so fun for them to just incorporate old things that they can find and know about on the internet. And that applies to music. That applies to fashion.

And so I can see why young people they have this, they have a vocabulary that's so broad. And they think it's fun to see it pop up all put together into new music. That's my riff. Yeah. I mean, one thing that feels a little old fashioned in a way about kid A is that you feel like Radiohead was trying to imagine the future with that record. And people who don't like the record, they can debate about whether they achieved it. You know, Apex Twin would probably say, well, their future was just ripping me off and they didn't do it as well as I did. But the attempt was that we want to create something new.

You know, we want to create the future, which is not something, certainly in rock music, that doesn't seem to be a motivating force. And it happened really quick after Kid A, because by 2001, that's where you get the return of rock bands. You know, you have the strokes, Interpol. yeah, yeah, yes, which is a deliberate attempt. White stripes, which we talked about very referential to old rock music. Yeah, it's like a deliberate attempt. Like, let's bring back 1970s New York. Like, wasn't that great?

And it's in the shadow of 9-11, you know, so people are feeling. Yeah. Rattled by that. And maybe that makes them nostalgic for an old version of New York. But that is where a lot of the energy went then. Totally. It's so comforting. And the strokes are a great band, you know.

We love the strokes here on this program. But they weren't trying to invent the future. I mean, no one would say that. You know, they were trying to be a great rock band. Not to speak for Thomas York. I don't even know if his name is Thomas. Maybe it's just Tom. But I don't even think Radiohead was trying to advance the form of rock music.

They never seemed concerned with what anyone else was doing. I mean, besides, like, obviously, he would love to, like, listen to the Warp Catalog and then incorporate it. But it seems to me like Radiohead was really interested in advancing Radiohead's music. And that's really all they cared about. and that is very cool to me and also maybe another reason why they didn't advance the form because that wasn't their concern.

Their concern was like, we don't want to keep doing the same thing because it bores us to fucking death. They're obviously brilliant. You know, you go through the recording processes for them and it's like they truly have to invent. It's like having like one of those freak genius childs where you're like,

okay, I don't know how to keep you from like screaming down the hallway because you're so bored with like the little toys I'm putting in front of you. So I don't know. know where I was going with that. They're the screaming children. And they need cool new toys or else they're going to lose their minds. I see this, especially after researching it, it's as much as a survival record than anything. And what comes clear or came clear to me was like most of this was

Tom York's need to reinvent himself. The band wasn't on board. Even Johnny wasn't on board right away saying that he just didn't want to do like weird art music just for weird art music's sake. The other, the other band members really had to find new roles through this record. You know, they claimed that it almost broke them up. So, yeah, I don't know. In me and my perception of it, I'm not sure they went into trying, thinking anything about like revolutionizing music or rock or the future or anything. It just seemed very much like a very, yeah, a very needed reset to be re-inspired

because they were so, or at least Tom was so jaded by everything. saying that he was like mentally sick, you know, and like it just seemed like a very much a means to survive that just kind of ended up being this like very important thing to music. Yeah, I love that he said that he went into stores and he was like seeing 15 books about you makes you feel like you're dead. Right. And I figured if we're already dead, we get to be reborn. Was that in your book or did I read out on one of the six million articles that I read?

Tom York said that? Yeah, he said that in an interview. Oh, wow. That might have been in my book. I can't remember. Let's just say it was. Or everyone, this thing should buy it. It's nowhere else on the worldwide web. It's only on the book. One of the many things I find fascinating about Radiohead is that while they are this critically acclaimed band, they're looked at as being like one of the most important bands of their generation

that when they work on records, it seems like they often go through this like crisis of identity where they have to work through this process of getting away from themselves. And this happened with Kid A, like where, where, they, and I guess amnesiac, where they would just record all this music and they would hate all of it, or I guess Tom York more than anyone, because it sounded too much like radiohead. And it's about getting over that, you know, that fear of sounding like yourself and putting stuff out. And it's interesting when you listen to the bootlegs of the, of the Kid A tour, because a lot of those songs turn into rock songs when they play them live. Like they didn't, they didn't radically

remake themselves as a live band. They, they knew, like, This is what we do well live. So even a song like Kid A, which is like one of the least rock-oriented songs on the record, if you listen to live versions of that, it becomes like this epic song that has like a real sweep to it. It doesn't sound like the spooky song on the record. It just seems like they run away from themselves and then they kind of learn to accept who they are over and over again. That's interesting thing about the legacy of Kid A, too, because they didn't stay in this world very long. It's like we have two records that come out of it, but it was also made in the same session.

So Kid A and Amnesiac are kind of one and the same in my mind. And then they go to Hell of the Thief, which is a hybrid, you know, and they don't ever go back to what Kid A was. It just becomes another kind of tool and their tool belt that they now are incorporating more electronic elements. Johnny, I think out of anyone kind of really finds his voice and obviously all the instruments we're probably going to get into that he found. was able to utilize on Kidae. It was almost like a workshop project where they like yeah, they kind of stripped themselves down,

built themselves from the ground up. But going forward, they never made another Kiti. I guess King of Limbs would be the closest in terms of experimental. But it's like HAL of Thief and Rainbows, even Moonshain Poole are mostly fusion records of, in my mind,

what they used to do on more something like, okay, computer with incorporating elements that they learned and found and discovered through the Kidai. amnesia kind of process. In retrospect, when we're kind of at, I don't know, it's kind of at the tail end of the career we can assume,

to look back as like, yeah, this was a totally, it was a moment, but it was just that. It was just a moment. And it didn't even carry over as long as the actual tour of the record. By that time, they are already fusing those into what they are already doing.

So it's just kind of interesting. Can we agree that the most revolutionary record of 2000 is in fact two against nature by Steve? Steely Dan. Like that was the record that remade rock music. It seems like we run out of time for you to be talking. It's crazy. It feels like that it came so fast. It came so fast.

Right before that we could talk about how that won the Grammy of album of the year over Kiddah. Unfortunately, we just can't get into that. But thank you so much. And the Grammy goes to two. Two against nature, Steely Dan. I was trying to bait you into a discussion about. this. Apparently I failed. But at any rate. Shelly Dan can stay in the CVS where they belong and we're going to go back to the media head

conversation. I'm just going. Steve, thank you so, so, so much for coming on and giving us this gorgeous and beautiful layers of context around Kid A because I think while we're going to get into like the inside world of Kid A, I think the outside world of Kid A is just as important. Yeah. And so we're really happy that we got to talk with you about it. Well, it's always a pleasure. I always have a ball talking with you. So please have me back. You're welcome back anytime, Bibb. Bring me back for one of your like five-hour bangers. Well, cool. Now, let's jump in to this fucking goddamn gorgeous, beautiful album. Where should we even begin? Yeah, hard to know. I think that was a good, great preface. I think, for me, it has to begin

at the tail end of an OKie computer. Because I think there were some very pivotal events that went into the kind of downward spiral of Tom York that then kind of the reacension of him through Kid A. Right. So, you know, obviously OK Computer comes out as we touched on and is this massive critical acclaim. It gets them more fans than ever. And there's a kind of now famous story that, you know,

Tom York had told where, you know, before the band or before OK Computer comes out, they're playing a show in Lisbon to 400 people. Five days after OK Computer comes out, they're playing to 38,000 people in Dublin, and then just a week after that, they're headlining Glastonbury, performing in front of 100,000 people.

Insane. Talk about the fucking Benz. That's the Benz. This is called the Benz. Right. I mean, yeah, it's like, we know Tom's relationship with fame has been fraught since Pablo Honey.

Right. That level of fame was already freaking about. Now, the ascension of the Benz and then Oaken Computer overnight just, now they're kind of heralded as the cream of, you know, the pinnacle of rock music. Exactly. We touched on it, but like they were literally nominated for Grammy, like album of the year for that in the Grammys. Like, that's how big.

They did lose to fucking Bob Dylan and we won't get into it. But like... What album by Dylan? You have it up? That's okay. Okay, computer. Radiohead. The Ducer, nice and good bitch, and radio head.

Time out of mind. Bill Dill. Bob Dylan. And the album of the year is time out of mind. Go ahead. Late era Bob Dylan. Like 1997 Bob Dylan. Does it even matter what fucking, it was time out of mind.

Okay. Good record, but yeah. Good record, but it's no okay fucking computer. Anyway, sorry to interrupt you. I just wanted to really like stress how massive. They were they were crazy. crazy, crazy big for this album. Yeah, and it happened fast, and he's freaking out right away.

And I think that's important because now they have to tour the record. So he kind of has this, you know, existential crisis as, okay, computers coming out. They go on tour for a year. And now he's dealing with it every night, you know, bigger and bigger shows, more and more pressure. That quote about him seeing himself, you know, 15 books about him and thinking he's dead is so perfect. I think it encapsulates everything about this era for him. We were living in orbit, you know, we living on a bus or living in a studio, and we barely had taking any time off at all for quite a long time.

So whenever you did step back into life in any way at all, it was like, sorry, what's this? Can't, does not compute, get it? Yeah. And if you want to get into the headspace, watch the documentary, because that's really what it is. It's like, you see how fucking harrowing it is. I mean, they say like about the documentary that like, yeah, it was realistic, but it wasn't the whole picture. And like it just makes it look like it was miserable all the time,

which it probably wasn't. But you really get the sense that, you know, Tom York is just like, shut up, shut up, shut up, shut up, you know, like to everybody around him. Right. And it's, I mean, obviously most of the information is going to be about Tom, and I'm not really sure if you found anything about what the others were going through. You can see. You can see. in the documentary that they're also pretty, like, annoyed. But not, you know, you can tell from the beginning, A, they say it in the documentary, like, we don't have it as bad as Tom. Like, he's the focal point.

So, you know, he gets it 10 times worse. So I think that's number one. And also, like, I think you could make the argument. He was more fragile to begin with as a person. So, like, those two factors coming in, it's just like, you know, they're annoyed too, but they're not going through it. And I think, so this, so this kind of existential crisis, on a personal level is met with kind of an existential crisis for them musically. You know,

Tom has said during this time that he thought the mythology of rock music had run its course, that the genre had run its course. So we kind of touched on that before. But I think Tom specifically was, you know, he was very into electronic music as we mentioned. He was also going through the spiritual crisis. And I think, again, like this need to reinvent himself was like a survival mechanism. And I think if we want to get into the music, I think how to disappear completely is like a perfect encapsulation of what he was feeling at this time. And it's also at its core, something that could probably be on OK computer. I think the way that they developed and adapted the music sounds very much new and fresh. But the core of it, which is acoustic guitar and Tom, singing the most kind

of traditional song along with maybe optimistic on the record. So I think it's a good kind of bridge. because there's a kind of cool story beyond it too where he calls up Michael Stipe from R.M because he's struggling with these things and he's like, I don't know what to do. You're like one of the only people that understand what I'm going through. So Michael Stipe tells him,

pull the shutters down and keep saying, I'm not here, this is not happening. He helps me through this, the end of that period when things just went crazy when people started to talk to me like I was Jesus or something in the street. I would call him and say,

I can't handle it. I can't handle it. And he taught me so much. And he would say, use some of what I taught you about making yourself invisible. He said, do the stuff I taught you. Put the shutters down. You know, walk away. Let's hear this song.

I think you're doing it an interesting way because this is like the most easy way to bridge OK computer into Kidae and not shock people with how it actually starts the album. But let's go this way. This is How to Disappear Completely. You are listening to a music and talk episode where full songs and talk segments live together in gorgeous harmony only on Spotify. Guess what? You can also create your own music and talk show for free with Anchor, Spotify's podcasting platform. Get started at anchor.fm slash music and talk. That's anchor.fm slash music and talk.

That was how to disappear. completely. My notes literally just say crying beautiful. Yeah, it's a very powerful song. And it's like, again, if we're talking about where Tom's mental state was, it's like, yeah, this kind of prison that he found himself in and really trying to disappear from obviously the limelight. It's just, yeah, it's a perfect bridge into Kid A, the genesis of Kid A. I have to point out, I got to do some just quick music dork stuff here. Please, yeah. I wanted to ask you, too, because I know this song is a very, like you said, a simple acoustic

song, but then it has, is that the Andes Martinaut? Martino. I'm so glad you try to pronounce it first because it's a... Martino? Ondes Martino? Yeah, it's like an own martineau because it's French so you don't... Ondo martineau. It's French so you don't say like half the letters.

Because I said it like you did for the longest time and then I ended up looking it up one day. Listen, bonjour chapos. On Martino, what is it? Yeah, so this is, I think, yeah, showcases, like we talked about Olivier Messian, the French composer, about, we talked about it with Just, and there's these weird scales that Johnny was using. Now Johnny has kind of progressed. He's becoming more interested in 20th century classical music, and Olivier Messian comes up again here because, although he didn't invent it, Olivier Messian was the person that popularized the On Martineau. He famously used it in one of the kind of most. well-known symphonies at the 20th century, the Tarangolila symphony.

Oh, I knew that you would know about this because of that name. My IG handle. So it's one of the very first electronic instruments. And I guess it looks like a keyboard, but its hallmark is that you play it through a ring. So there's a string that goes over the keyboard. It just hovers over the keyboard. And you put a ring on your finger that's attached to the string. And the way you change notes is by moving the ring over the notes on the keyboard.

that's what gives it that very glissondo dreamy like effect. And it almost sell up, it's like a... Like a theremin? Yeah, like a theremin. It's the same kind of principle as a theremin, just kind of played differently, but it's using kind of a similar technology. And so Johnny falls in love with this pretty obscure instrument.

He gets his hands on one. They're very hard to find. And he learns out to play it very quickly. Although it's like kind of rudimentary on Kidae, he learns it very quickly, which is very johnny of him. Yeah. So we hear that.

That's what those those like wooching kind of those soundscapes. Which really do add to the song like immense. Yeah. And it's to me it's like a little bit more backstory about the song is that, you know, before that big gig in Dublin, Tom said, I dreamt that I was floating down the Liffy River and there was nothing I could do. I was flying around Dublin and really that I was really in the dream. The whole song is my experiences of really floating.

So it's like this disassociated mind state where you're kind of floating above yourself again playing into like his emotions freaking out at the time. One other thing I'll just point out that this song's very beautiful but it's also very tense. I don't know if you feel that.

Like it's very... Yeah, totally. And there's a musical reason for why that is and it's again like Johnny here really doing some magic. So the song is in the key of D major. Which is like a happy major core the major keys are like more

uplifting and the song's even in 6-8 which is like a swingy dancey kind of in this case kind of dreamy feel but if you listen closely with the very first thing you hear on the song before the guitar comes in are these very faint strings and what the strings are playing

is I'll play it here so it's this interval which is I'll just simplify it here as it's the minor second it's essentially like the most dissonant interval that you could have and one of the notes is outside the key signature of D major. So when the D major comes in on the guitar,

we have this very tense background beneath the entire song. And so you have, it's just this tension between what the strings are playing and what the guitar is playing. Not to mention the bass player. So the guitar is playing in 6-8 time, which is the swinging 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6,

and then the bass plays in 4-4, which is a different time signature. So again, it's kind of like we're talking, talked about before where they're playing to the same tempo so it technically lines up on beat, but the rhythms that they're playing are, you know. And that's very uncommon, right? Like, that's normal rock bands don't do that. This particular one is like four like syncopated rhythms. It's one of the more common ones. Okay. It just adds to everything else that's going on to, again, to me, in my mind, it's like creating the environment of what Tom was feeling perfectly, which was

this disassociation, because now we have strings that don't really fit. with what Tom is playing. We have a bass, you know, bass guitar, not really following exactly on those things either. Everyone's kind of disassociated

from himself, but they're all together. So it's just such a perfect encapsulation of the emotion. I think we all feel the emotion. And it's like those are some of the musical reasons like why, I think. I mean, that's so interesting.

I would also say the vocals add to that because he doesn't change, right? Like it's like the whole time, it's sort of like a dissociative. vocal almost because it's like so I'm not going to say monotone because that's not really the right word but you know what I mean kind of stays the same throughout the song and I think that adds to sort of the creeping feeling of like I'm glad we started this song and that's really interesting but also the dissociation really came to like a peak and a head and you know the story obviously but after shown

Birmingham Tom had like a full breakdown like this was November 1997 on the okay computer tour and he was like, like basically catatonic, like couldn't talk just like really scary. And the first song he wrote for Kid A was everything in its right place, which is a song about that experience essentially. So when, you know, when people are always like, oh, you know, yesterday I woke up sucking a lemon. It doesn't mean anything. It's actually has like a very clear meaning, which is like in, you know, apparently in British slang like sucking a lemon is slang for like your face being contorted and stuck in a thing and like his face, he felt his face was contorted and stuck in a thing and it's like a bad grimace, you know?

Right. He also said that that's the face he had for three years because he was like, you know, just bombed. And he wrote it on piano, which I thought was interesting because by his own admission was like a really bad piano player. But he had a piano in his baby grand piano, I believe, in his home. And he said he had read this Tom Waits quote that what kept him going as a strong songwriter was his complete ignorance of the instruments he's using. And I think he used that

approach on the piano, but also he says, that's one of the reasons I wanted to get into computers and synths because I didn't understand how the fuck they worked. I had no idea what ADSR meant. Um, babe, I don't know what ADSR means. Do you know what ADSR means? Yeah, it's attack, delay, ADS, sustain, release. So those are just like on a synthesizer, those are your main, pretty much every synthesizer, there's your main knobs. So it just controls like how fast the notes come in or how long they sustain and how long it takes for them to decay. But I think that's super interesting because Tom's learning piano or, you know, getting better at piano, challenging himself not to write on a guitar at all. Right.

You have Johnny now experimenting with, you know, a lot of 20th century Costco music influence also bringing in other instruments. And then you have also the rest of the band like trying to figure out their place in this new world. trying to explore. So you have, you know, Ed, he primarily sticks to guitar still, but he found new ways and new effects through his guitar during this time. You have maybe to a lesser extent, Colin, but I mean, you know, there's very interesting baselines on here. And I think everyone was kind of, to their credit, like obviously this was Tom's decision and everything was seemed to be driven by Tom, this re-advention. But, you know, they all found the role. And I think, again, make another Beatles reference,

there's a famous quote that like Ringo Star learned how to play chess while making Sergeant Pepper because there was a lot of off time for him. That was mostly Lenin and McCartney experimenting and playing around with shit.

In the same way I think about Ringo taking a step back and being okay and allowing for that process, I feel like we should credit the rest of the band members for being okay with not playing on every song, which is like kind of a big deal.

Yeah. I mean, you have to imagine they're like, oh, fucking Tom went and listening to goddamn Apex Twin, and now I can't play a base on the fucking song. The one thing about Radiohead that kept coming up time and time again, it's like, you can see why they actually never broke up because they're so supportive of each other. They're such a cohesive unit. And producer Dylan just dropped a little quote from Ed O'Brien to me in the chat.

And he's talking about how like he spent a lot of time on the OK computer tour basically taking care of Tom because it was important. you know, like, because he needed it. And it's like, I'm sure you don't want. You know what I feel? That wasn't his dream. But like, they clearly like fill the gaps. And you're right. Like, that alone is really important. And I think they all learned, they don't seem to have a lot of ego in this band.

I think that's a huge thing. Like, if you add a little more ego to a band like this, they would have definitely broken up. I did read that they, um, while they split the songwriting credits, they actually for the money, have a system where they sit and figure, out who wrote which parts. Oh, really? Yeah.

So they do it themselves. It's not like, they do it themselves. Yeah. Tom York said it in an interview. And he was like, yeah, we have a system. It's fine. Nobody gets into fights or anything. I was like, very interesting.

Anyways, let's hear everything in its right place because it's a goddamn gorgeous beautiful song. This is everything in its right place. That was everything in its right place. A goddamn gorgeous beautiful song. Cole, tell me the fancy, cool music tricks behind it. That's funny, though, like listening to it and a especially like with a more keen ears on like taking myself back into that space of 2000.

It doesn't sound that extreme at all. But to give people benefit of the doubt back then, because you hear the glitchy Tom's voice is glitching. It's like nowadays that doesn't sound at all off. We hear that kind of stuff all the time, even like pop music. But it's like almost like people hearing distortion on a guitar for the first time and how much everyone like freaked out about that. Now it's like no big deal at all. but you know when you first hear those sounds i've gotten some nerdy stuff one is the time signature so it's in like

it's either you can think about it in 10 four times so like the the piano part is in a repeats in groups of 10 which is kind of odd or it is odd usually it's like four or eight and it alternates between a measure of six four and then four four six four four four four so that alternating time signature is is odd you don't feel it that much because there's no drums it's just a steady pulse so that really helps kind of swallow the weirdness of it right and then they like shift every once in a while with like a bar of five four time so it's like if you're trying to count along like a nerd like me it's kind of interesting because it just changes in these really unexpected ways I'm always like how are they remembering these changes live is always the thing that I was astonished by but yeah I think that the the core progression is really weird it's not in a traditional key it's You can like Google this and find debates, endless debates of like what key is this in, what modes is it using, all this music nerdy stuff.

But just listening back now and thinking about the context. It's just funny. We're now what, 22, are we fucking 22 years removed from this album? That's right, babe. There's people who just can drink last year who were born in the year. Okay, I'm going to have an existential crisis right now. Oh my God. That's insane.

It's just kind of fun to like try to put yourself back in, and especially the critic's shoes back then and try to think about this as a shocking record because it's not at all anymore. Yeah. Because this would be the first thing they were hearing, obviously. Yeah, that's so true. Again, I don't care what they think.

Right. I'm just kidding. I don't know. I just, I found like this song and also Idiotec. I mean, a lot of songs on here, but particularly this song and Idiot Tech, which I think are two of the more standout songs on here. Just so good at capturing this like unnameable desperation feeling.

And like it's a little bit in the lyrics, you know, like. Ice Age coming. Yeah. Oh, God. Ice age coming. I see it's coming. Best quote, Noel Gallagher. Hey, the Ice Age is not coming, you fucking miserable cunt.

Gorgeous. But the Ice Age is not coming. is coming. This is early climate change stuff. But yeah, I say it come, but like, you know, what was it I was trying to say? And then just like, what is it that you tried to say? Tried to say, there's two colors in my head. Just like confusion and like, like, but the lyrics can't even get that much credit. It's, it's the music. The music, it's the vocal delivery and it's that cut up, that cut up vocal. Yeah. Now it's just kind of a sample. Right. Sampling his own voice, of course, but I think they use

like a scrubbing tool or something to create it. But there's technology now that I mean, there's maybe a more complicated process back then, but now that's so easy to do. It's just,

it really like puts you in a headspace and it's so effective at that, you know? And I'm just like, oh, it's so cool. And we should mention like, besides coming into this, like we talked about the headspace

of like Le Miz, but also being over rock music, he also was really sick of his own voice, which probably ties in that idea of like death and rebirth, right? Yeah. Because he said like, you know, I had it in my head that whatever I did with my voice, it had a particular set of associations.

And there was a lot of similar bands coming out at the time and that made it even worse. I couldn't stand the sound of me anymore. And I think that's turning his voice into more of like a texture, you know, or whatever. Yeah. Was his way of counteracting that. And like, it could have been really bad. You know, like, it could have not.

succeeded, it's so good. And I think it's because he didn't take it too far, right? He didn't like make the whole song. Right. Weird computer mixture voice. Like it's both. There's still melody. I mean, that's another thing going back to this and thinking about it in terms of when it came out.

I mean, I think it's aged so well because there's so much melody in it. Even if his voice is a quote-unquote instrument, even if the lyrics aren't, you know, easily discernible, there is a ton of melody in here, especially if you're comparing it to like a, a true electronic project, which has no melody or no vocals or they are, they're very chopped and there's no kind of cadence to anything. So, yeah, as much as we think it's like a big shift, like there's still a lot that I feel like people can grasp on to. And I think, again, it's, I think it was more of a generational divide more than it was a musical divide. And I think, yeah, people like us a little younger were a little bit more open, ready. Yeah, embracing that.

Yeah, we were more accepting of that. And I have to just read this one quote, which is so funny. So Ed O'Brien wanted it like more classic melodic guitar songs. Right. And York said, there was no chance of that album sounding like that. I'd had it completely with melody. I just wanted rhythm. All melodies to me were pure embarrassment.

It's like so great. But even so. The other day I woke up sucking a lemon. That to me, I mean, maybe I don't understand how what melody is, but it has its own melody. It is. Yeah. Yeah. Like it's like it's almost like he can't help it. It's like he thinks in melodies, you know, because he's so talented. Because he has a natural ability for melody. Like that's very clear on even Pablo Honey. Like he can't help himself. That's just, it feels like he was kind of brought up in a certain school and with certain influences. I never really could get away from it too much. Like there's definitely songs on Kid A and Amnesiac that very purposely is way more extreme than like, you know,

everything in its right place. But yeah, I think his gift of melody was like a gift and a curse for him personally, not for us. I was just trying to think of like, again, like to your point of like what it wasn't weird for us. Like, you know, like DJ Shadows introducing came out in 96. You know what I mean? Like there's a lot to like lead up to this even though obviously that's not a rock thing. Like, you know, there's so much stuff was happening in that space before this. And that people, and to your point, young people had access to, and we were listening to that stuff.

And like, yeah, I don't know. It wasn't that fucking weird. We had heard boards of Canada, man. It's not that weird. Right, right. If you're music fan, maybe, but, you know, radiohead had to transcended that. And again, I'll use a Kanye West example because, like, you're right. You're right.

People weren't ready for Yeezus, but, like, if you heard death grips, it's like, Yeas doesn't sound all that crazy. And death grips preceded Yeezus. And there's a ton of other influences that you can point to about Yeas, that if you're listening to more than mainstream music, you're prepped. If you're not, and Radiohead had it got to that space, I think that has a lot to do with it. Yeah, that's a really good point.

Tom said that coming into this, like, as opposed to before, like, where he would come with, like, sort of more fully formed ideas. And, like, then people would add to it a bit. like you said, you and Johnny Woodout. But he really came with like sketches. Like there was just like, you know, no real direction. And he said that, you know, they would have 50 things on a blackboard. And they just kept throwing them out and then adding more.

And he said, we kept driving everyone crazy. Because like, what are you guys fucking even doing? But he said they were really inspired by talking heads remain in light. You may ask yourself. Saying that, you know, when they made that record, they also had no real songs. They just wrote it as they went along. David Byrne turned up with pages and pages and just pick stuff up and threw bits in it all the time.

That's exactly how I approached Kiddah. Can you hear that? I think he's mostly talking about lyrics, which I think makes a lot of sense. It's not that far removed coming from where Tom was at least on OK, computer. I mean, it's definitely a shift and it's much more fragmented. I would say the biggest shift lyrically is that, song structure wise, it's like there's no hooks on these songs. Usually there's like an arc to the lyrics, right?

Like it's some kind of general theme or like some story being told or whatever. I mean, early on Tom was more of that, but like, OK, Computer, he was already kind of drifting from that. And then obviously made it a very intentional shift to like randomize it. But also I would argue, though, it's still coming from Tom. So whether he's like the famous story of him drawing phrases out of a half, and just singing those, it's like he still wrote down those phrases. So it's like he's still Tom and it's still his voice and it's still his knack for melody. So, you know, looking back, it's like they were trying to make this dramatic shift,

but they didn't really have the capacity to do it. Like they were learning on the fly. They were learning these instruments on the fly. They were learning how to make computer music on the fly. And I think what the beauty of this record is that they didn't. Yeah. I mean, it didn't go so far that it was this really cool hybrid of people learning on the job.

Like that Tom Waits quote is really great. And it reminds me of a quote, I'm going to bring up the Beatles again. Yeah, you are playing like a drinking game. That's right. People are wasted. There's a famous quote by, we're hurtling towards alcohol, wasn't it?

There's a famous quote by John Lennon. He says, I'm an artist, give me a tuba, and I'll fucking make something from it. Which is like, I feel like the process of kid A that explains it perfectly where they just threw themselves in this environment,

surrounding themselves with different instruments, different ways of thinking about music. And something beautiful came out of it because they're fucking talented. And it's Johnny Greenwood and Tom York. Like in the same way that the Beatles made Sergeant Pepper like 101 times. That doesn't work.

But it's like these guys are so talented that it transcends all that. I'm glad you said this because something was nagging at me. Often things are nagging at me. I'm mentally ill. But one thing around radio that was nagging at me was like, I was like, oh, they're like, kind of like breaking my thing, which is often that I'm like, oh, I love bands, their earlier

stuff because they don't know what they're doing. And that makes this like beautiful thing. Because I was like, I love Pablo Honey, but it doesn't have that spirit that I'm talking about, right? And now I understand that that spirit is here. It's in Kiddah. You know, like that thing that I love, it's still here in the arc of this band. It just shows up, you know, 10 years in or whatever. But yeah, you're so right. Like this wouldn't have, this. This would not have been as good of an album if they were like super well versed on making electronic music with computers and stuff. And also to their credit, like you said before, they didn't try to get better and make another album with it. They were like, okay, you know, we did this.

Let's talk about some of the other songs. I mean, this is an album where I want to play a million songs, but I know we're not allowed. Optimistic is gorgeous. That's just, this is my notes. Gorgeous, I love it, beautiful. Ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh. the big fish eat the little ones the big fish eat the little ones

not my problem give me some that's capitalism and then the best you can is good enough me scream singing in the mirror right before I record these things

when I get to the end of the Google Doc and there's no more time and the best you can is good enough that's probably one of my least favorite songs on the American

excuse? Yeah I mean I like it I mean we're talking about an incredible record from start to finish so let me like you like tree fingers better Yeah.

What? You like in limbo better? I mean, those are like moods, right? And that's what I, there's a lot of that on here. Yeah. And it's like, I get why they force people to listen to this thing front to back. Because if you single out tree fingers or some of those things, it's like. They're almost like vignette.

Or like not vignettes. Yeah. Like sort of like stitching the album together. Yeah. It's interesting that you know. I love optimistic. Maybe because it's like they said kind of more of a straightforward rock song or whatever. Or a guitar song.

What about the little. little weird, funky little ending. I like the song. I'm just saying relative to the, if I'm forcing a hierarchy, it's near the bottom for me. Okay, okay, fine. National anthem.

That's what I want to say. I feel like we kind of have to play two more songs. Producer Dylan, don't be mad. We have to play national anthem because it's, that song is very weird for radio head, but for not the reasons I think we've already been talking about.

Would you agree? No, yeah, yeah. No, for sure. It's challenging in a different way, but I mean, so fucking good. Like the groove is so good. The horns, babe. I was not expecting radiohead to put in some fucking the ska section of the, just kidding. I think that's like the national anthem. Okay, let's, let's hear the national anthem. That was the fucking national anthem. God damn gorgeous, beautiful song. The baseline, the horns. Ugh, gorgeous. What a weird fucking song.

It's perfect, though. It's perfect. It's one baseline the entire way through. There's no, like, structure. Tom kind of just comes in whenever with what sound may be, like, verses. There's no chorus. It's just instrumental. What if the instrumental intro is 32 minutes? Keep you on your fucking toes. They performed this song on Saturday Night Live.

They were like, Radiohead, can you come on Saturday Night Live and play songs? They were like, sure, we got a song for you, babe. Ladies and gentlemen. Johnny Greenwood literally opens the performance playing the instrument of a old-school radio. It's so good. Dialing through channels, yeah. This is when, I mean, Tom York

always kind of perform like this, but he gets like real peak epilepsy performer where he's just like, like shaking and like, especially on this song, because there's just like a whole bunch of time where he has nothing to do. And so he's just shaking around the stage. Today, that would be weird to watch on Saturday Night Live. So I

can't even imagine what people were like, what the fuck is this, you know? It's beautiful too, because knowing where he came from in terms of headspace and then to see him and join like legitimately join like the catharsis just like letting it out yeah it's beautiful you said off mic that that is a strange baseline why is it strange well one i think maybe people don't know that's tom playing the base it's a demo he just had that baseline like lying around oh so that's the riff oh i saw okay so the riff that's from when he was 16 is that what i said yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah so he's had that

baseline forever, which is really we already held on to it because it's like, what, four notes. It's just mostly the same note over and over, D. It's just like D, D, D. There's like three notes that like, so essentially like where it's implied that D is the key signature and key hits notes outside of that. I'll just leave it as simple as that. And so there's no real, the tonal center of the song is just never clear. But what's cool about that is that you can lay a lot of things over that tonally.

which they do in spades. There's the own Martineau again. There's the jazz, famous jazz clusters. I'm sure you read the story about them. I'm just bringing in this, I think it was a six piece or eight piece brass band. And just wanting him to all solo at the same time

without any, without listening to each other. And they would direct them. Johnny and Tom would be like, you know, off mic, but directing them what to do. And the way that they did that was when they wanted it in the play,

they would jump up and down. and when they wanted to play louder, they would jump up and down faster, which is like, why do they decided to do this? But then Tom broke his foot because he was jumping so much, which is like, I mean,

perfect and amazing. He went too hard in the paint. We're not leaving Kiddah until we fucking play Idiot Tech and talk about it. Idiot Tech was the song that I was like, let me do a bunch of drugs and just spin in fucking circles.

and I mean to this day without the drugs because let's hear it and then I want you to explain some stuff because I was listening and then I was like oh is this does this have the terminal climax

or is that just an outro oh I have to listen let me listen and then we'll figure it out okay this is idiotic that was video tech

just one of the best drum beats in music history I'm just going to say it in history I was thinking that I was just like, I guess it's so simple, right? And most, I think often the best drum beats are kind of simple. But I was like, this is like, what a sick dance beat for people who had not made that kind of music yet.

Like, really impressive. Like, you can't help. The tone of it, too. The tone of it is so great, like perfectly distorted. It's just, oh, it's perfect. I just, there's so much to say about this song. Like, I don't know, like, what this is. But it's like, you know, it does.

follow like a similar thing with like the verses having one feel on the chorus obviously having this sort of like really like plaintive beautiful you know it goes from like desolation and sort of like it's almost a little angry the verses like especially when you get to the second verse like it really heightens the urgency like the ice age coming ice age coming Noel Gallagher the ice age is not coming any fucking miserable cult of the century it's so beautiful the chorus like here I'm alive everything all of the time. I don't even know what it means, but it's gorgeous. You know what?

When you're on drugs, you really know what it means. You really are like, oh my God, everything is all of the time. Actually, it actually is all the thing. It takes some mushrooms and you're like, no, everything is absolutely all of the time. And here I'm alive. I don't know if that's what Tom York meant, but that's what I don't have that experience, but I'll take your word for it. Ugh, the best.

I miss it. It used to be fun. Okay. So this has samples, right? And they're from computer music pieces, like older computer. Pretty obscure. Like you can't even, it's not even on Spotify. It's this guy Paul Lanski.

I think he found the CD on tour or something. Johnny did. Part of the song began with like a 50 minute long improv by Johnny. Yes. And then he gave it to Tom. And then this is how they would work is they were having so much trouble. finishing songs, developing songs, is that I guess they would be like in pairs or in threes and they would someone would write something, one group would write it and then they would give it to the next

group to develop it. So it's kind of cool. They were like in different rooms. Right. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Which is kind of like an interesting way to do it. Right. And so I think that, you know, the origins were there at least for, I don't think about the drumbeat, but I think for all these weird sounds that just kind of glitch in and out, a lot of them are samples. But the main corporate, you know, the origins are, progression is a sample of, yeah, this guy, Paul Lanski, who is just like a Princeton University professor making music on an IBM, like very early, 1973, IBM computer music, whatever program he was using. Because it comes out of nowhere, it's like all these glitches, and then you'll very, you'll, you'll recognize it and then it'll start to go crazy again.

Right. What I thought was cool, though, is like the guy that originally composed those chords, he was basing them on this famous, if you're studied classical music, there's Bogner's, this I don't know if you know Wagner at all, but... He's German. Yeah. Yes. I'm not a total troglodyte, if you will.

I know some stuff. I am a smooth-brained moron, but there's some stuff that I know. He had this famous chord the, I don't know, I guess he's credited as inventing it. He used it most famously, that's for sure. It comes from Tristan Unin-Zold. The chords are based on that chord that we hear in Idiotech, which I think is kind of a cool bridge from like, you know, 19th century classical music to 20th century electronic music

and then now 21st century adaptation of all this which is like perfectly encapsulates what radiohead is doing and what specifically Johnny Greenwood's doing. My main note about this song is just one of the best drum beats in music history. Affirmative stamp. Yeah, it was made on a modular synth which is kind of like it's a very rudimentary, right,

way to make a beat, you know, especially given, especially now. But even back then, I mean, there was far more advanced ways to make drum beats. I have no idea how those synths work. They're so intimidating. And, I mean, they cost a lot of money. So I've never even touched one in my life. Sure.

Radiohead got to use one. I mean, this is like a straight-up banger. Like, it's a straight-up, you play, you can play it at the club. You know what I mean? And, like, it would fit right in. It's also timeless. Like, maybe I'm just old and I'm like, I grew up on this music. But I listen to this record.

and this song specifically. I'm like, how does anyone listen to this in any era and not love it? I agree. Does it sound aged? Producer Dylan, I'm looking at you. I'm allowed to ask how old producer Dylan is? She said yawn. I will kill her.

We're past firing now. Definitely feeling old then. She's 29 on the verge of 30 and don't you ever forget it. Age will come for you fast. You're going to wake up and blink and you're going to be 40 and then you're going to be screaming about whatever band you love to some. person who's going to be like, I don't give a shit about this. So it comes for all of us.

Just like on the most basic human reaction to baseline and beat, which often is like something inescapable about music, baselines always hook me. And that's like a thing that I really connect with. Like I just can't imagine you hear that baseline and you hear that beat and you're not at least like moving your shoulders. You know, doing a little. Okay. All right.

Tom here. All right. I see you, babe. goddamn gorgeous beautiful song. I fucking love it. We should probably get away from kid A. I know. I just want to say like one more thing, two more things.

One is that it's really perfect how Idiotek transitions into Morning Bell. It's just so beautiful. Radiohead was always really good at sequencing, but this is like a masterful sequencing of an album. And they did the thing where there's like no space in between the song. So when you're listening to it, just like goes one into the other. The drumbeat that comes in on Morning Bell, equally iconic in my eyes

to a little less than a degree, but like it's so cool. Yeah, and I love that it's like the mixture of like him talking and then the sort of nebulous singing, like that layering is so good. Motion picture soundtrack is also really beautiful. Oh my God, yeah. While it's like so emotional but so muted at the same time, which is such an interesting mix,

you can see Tom York's progression from creep to hear, even though that motion picture, your soundtrack was written before creep. Yeah, I read that. That's crazy. Isn't that interesting? But it's like with the production and the way the performance makes it feel really modern, right? And like makes it not so melodramatic or whatever. You're right. We should move on. But the last thing I need to talk about is how they asked Apex Twin. They said, hey, your music has been hugely influential. One of the more prominent musicians

who've said that they've been inspired by your records are Radiohead. Did you listen to any of their last two albums, Kid A and Amnesiac. And he said, I don't like them. I heard maybe five or six tracks and I thought they sounded really, really cheesy. And the guy's like cheesy. And he goes, yeah, really obvious and cheesy. I mean, I'm just comparing it to my favorite music and I think it's terrible compared to that. But compared to all the shit boring R&B tracks, it's probably all right. Compared to those teen punk sort of bands or whatever they're supposed to be called who think that they're really anarchic and stuff like that, they're probably amazing. If you're exposed to that kind of stuff and then radio had come along, you'll probably think that this.

geniuses. I bring this up not to inside a war, but just to say that like... It is interesting, yeah. It's interesting because this is not Apex Twin. Like, it's, I'm just bringing up to like reinforce our point. It's like that no matter how much they will, they love boards of Canada and Apex Twin, they made a pop album. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Do you know what I mean?

And to Apex Twin, that's boring, which go off, sis. You're a legend. You know what? You're a legend. He probably was annoyed that they, he was suddenly being, asked about Radiohead all the time. Just because he was an influence doesn't mean they're somehow associated or they're doing the same thing. I'm sure he and his mind was like, you know, when you see someone so transparently influence, that's the same thing Tom had a problem with, right? Right.

With like Travis and. Right. Yeah, yeah. And he wanted to distance himself from it. So it's kind of the same thing. But I don't think it makes the music any less, obviously, any less impactful. I just obsessed with Radiohead. fans reading articles and being like, oh, A-FX Twin, and then going and buying like,

I care because you do and putting it on and being like, oh. You know, like, okay. We kind of talked ad nauseum about the reviews, so we don't need to get into that. Yeah, let's move on to Amnesiac. There's not really a whole lot of moving on to Amnesiac. I mean, maybe you can convince me differently. The songs were written and recorded at the exact same time. It was basically, like, they just kind of split them up into what they felt fit better

into each body of work. And as far as they say, they're very different. I don't have as much of a connection with amnesiac. Do you? No. And it is interesting

because they were conceived at the same time, yet Kidae is, I think clearly the superior record, the record that had the most impact. I think where amnesiac, they put the more experimental stuff on amnesiac,

probably smartly. When Tom York's talking about, you know, using the voice as an instrument, not being melodic, that shows up way, more on amnesiac than it does kid A. So kid A was like the, I don't know, the sugar for the medicine or whatever that analogy is. Spoonful of sugar makes the medicine good.

It's still departure, but it's way more accessible than they came out with the amnesiac. I mean, the reaction would have been 10 times crazier, but they set a precedent with Kidae, and I think amnesiac just kind of develops it and takes it a little further. Or they're the songs that took him further in those sessions. Yeah. Because there's some really experimental songs on here. Totally. Which ones would you point as being the most experimental? In my mind, like spinning plates is fucking crazy.

Yeah. There's a really cool backstory if that's one of the songs we want to play. Sure. I mean, I think if we're trying to underscore like how different amnesiac is. So the backstory quickly behind the song is they're working on a song. They didn't like it. Spoiler alert. It was the song I Will that ends up on Hail to the Thief. But somewhere along the line, they recorded a demo of I Will. someone played it backwards and so what we hear

on like spinning plates is actually the reverse version of a demo of I Will. So if you actually play I Will from Hail to Thief backwards you'll hear like spinning plates or like you'll hear the foundation of it which is kind of cool so that it's like the whole thing is reversed

but then if you listen to Tom's voice very carefully especially in the beginning you'll notice he's singing words but it sounds kind of like warp. So the way he recorded this was he recorded himself forward, the melody he wanted to sing, then they played it backwards. He learned how to sing his part backwards. What? Recorded himself singing it backwards and then they played that backwards to make it sound like it was forwards again. So when you listen to the wording and especially the articulation

of the words, you'll hear that it's like slurred. That's why because it's like, it's actually technically a backwards track being played forward or something, right? I must ask, to what end? Well, this is, I mean, I think it sounds cool. Okay. It's not the most accessible song, but like, if we're trying to make the case that amnesiac's more experimental, like, I think this is a great example. And one last thing I'll point out is they use a carugophone on this.

A what now? So it's called a carugophone, but it's like a children's toy, sometimes called a whirly tube. It's like a long piece of plastic. skinny cylinder and you spin it above your head and it makes a like a whooshing sound. Okay. Is that ringing any bells at all? No. Quick little Google.

Never seen this before. I'm my God-given life. Okay. It makes like a windy, like it's a pitched sound, but it's like kind of like it's wind driven obviously because you just spin it around your head and it makes a sound. Okay. So anyways, if you listen closely, you'll hear those. I think that's where the title comes from, like spinning plates, because you literally

hold it above your head and you spin it. Oh. So kind of just a cool fact. But again, it's like they're just playing with timbers. They're like stripping everything down. And I think this is a great example of, of the experimentation that was going on in the studio at the time. Not tamburs. Okay.

Let's hear like spinning plates. This is finally broken my brain. We finally pushed even me too far where I'm like, no thoughts. Just like. Like spinning plates. That was like spinning plates. You crazy for this one, Tom York, I gotta say. I love that song though.

I love it. It's one of my favorite songs on the album. Doing the most, I must say. It's just sounds so cool. No, it does sound really cool. And it's really pretty. I mean, like, again, like, I think, I think it's very, I don't know. It just like, it gives me a happy feeling to think about, like, kids in a candy store.

Even though I think it was more fraught than that, obviously, because there was a lot of pressure and wait around it. But like maybe once that layer is removed, like, these are just like people who love music so much and are so deeply interested in the things that they can do with it. You know, the whirly, what the fuck did you call it again? A whirli stick? A whirli tube. The whirli tube kind of, you know, underscores that.

It's like, they're like, what if we do we shoo, roo, roo around the head? That sounds cool. Yeah, let's fucking do that. You know, they're probably laughing about it. I know people don't think of Radiohead as ever laughing or smiling, but I assume they were probably laughing and smiling a lot when they were doing this. And like, that's very cool. I think that at some point in the process, it really clicked because I think I read like

it was a really struggle for a long time. And then they had, I think at one point they had six songs. And then like three months later, they had 20 or something like that. The timeline between how long it took to get the six to 20, that tells me like something clicked in the process. So it took him a while to find it. But I do think, and especially seeing them perform these songs live and like genuinely just being excited about it. I think they did come to live to find the process fun and like re-energizing.

Yeah, totally. Like, they needed that. I wanted to read you a little quote from Stanley Donwood, who we haven't talked about yet, but also not his real name. But Stanley Donnell. Oh, really? Yeah. That's a stage name, hilariously. as a friend of Tom York's from art or from college or whatever uni who did all the art for Radiohead.

Yeah. Pretty much, I think. It's okay computer. It's okay computer. Yeah, he didn't do Paula Honey or the Benz. Benz is a truly terrifying album cover, I must say. If they really wanted to sell albums, I wouldn't, I don't know why they slapped that, British man on the cover.

But anyways, he said, kid A is like, you pick up the phone, you call somebody and there's an answering machine on the other end. With Amnesiac, you get through to that person and you're engaged. in the conversation. And he forgot the part that you get through that person and they're an alien from Mars. He doesn't speak English and is screeching at you in backwards language. He didn't say that part. That's interesting. Yeah. I would say the opposite to me. I don't know. Yeah, they seem to think that amnesiac is more meaty and like, you know, fat and dark, which I guess it is fat and dark. That's what Tom said. Tom said one is like very broken machinery, which I think he's talking about kid A and the other is really fat and dark. And I think that's amnesiac. But yeah, I don't know.

I mean, like, I don't connect as much with this album, but there are like some tracks that slap, you know, Knives Out Slaps. Oh, yeah, that's a great song. Pyramid Song, I think, is one of the best songs ever. Yeah, pyramid song Slaps. It was originally called something else, right? I can't remember, but I think I know why they call it Pyramid Song if you want to hear it real quick. I think people would appreciate this because the rhythm of this song is fucking wild. And it was like this internet enigma debate for the longest time of like,

what the hell is going on in the song rhythmically? There's like somewhat consensus now that, and I won't get into half of this shit. But it's essentially like in 168 time, which is fuck like just crazy wild. But the way you would subdivide this longer amount of time into shorter intervals is the pattern would be a count of three, a count of three,

a count of four, a count of three, a count of three. And then that sequence would repeat over and over throughout the song. So you'd count it one, two, three, one, two, three, one, two, three, four, one, two, three. And if you look at the symmetry of three, three, three, it's shaped like a pyramid. Okay. The rhythm itself is like a pyramid. Real nerd hours on this album. Yeah.

They thought it was probably really, they were like, isn't that hilarious? And we call it a pyramid song? Yeah, yeah. the internet part of the conversation we were having was like, they genuinely, I think, enjoyed connecting with their fans in that way. And I think this is really the time where they started doing heavy Easter eggs in their music, but also stuff online. Right.

They got really into that. I think they really enjoyed the true fans that were really looking into the music and they really played with that. And I think Pyramid song is kind of like that. No, that totally makes sense. And it kind of like harkens back to that thing I said many moons ago in this recording about about Tom York being in the back of the taxi and the documentary and talking about how albums imprinted on his heart

and now he knows how these people feel because, you know, it's like that is this, right? Like they're connecting with their fans and now they're more very able to see the thoughts and feelings of their fans because there were so many online fan communities and fan sites. You know, Ed O'Brien had an online diary

for like a year and a half where every day he would come in and like chime in on what was going on in the studio which is like very cool. Tom York did it too later. Like there's a bunch of around like in Rainbow's time. Like he was, you know, posting blog posts about what was going on.

Yeah. And for a band that was, you know, very vocal about having problems with fame to be that transparent on the internet, I think is interesting. And I think they saw a divide between quote unquote fame

and actual people that really genuinely cared about the music. Between fame and connecting people. Yeah. They've served those people. And I think that, We'll tie into like in rainbows, particularly in the release with that. And yeah, I think they saw the, you guys already touched on this, but they saw early internet as a kind of a more positive thing where you can connect with people like you

for kind of more outcast kind of people. Yeah. Fun fact, this album was also nominated for Mercury Prize. Both Kid A and Amnesiac were not, I think also OK Computer maybe. They never won. It's really interesting. Tom York in Radiohead and other projects has been nominated. nominated like six times, I think, and there's never one.

But Amnesiac lost to PJ Harvey, who has won twice, bitch, just so you guys know, no one else in history has won two Mercury Prizes, only PJ Harvey, the fucking greatest of all time. But Stories from the City, Stories from the Sea has a really great song on it called This Mess We're in featuring one Tom York. It's one of my favorite songs. It's actually very cool. It's like PJ Harvey wrote it, but she didn't want to sing it. She wanted him to sing it. And so it's like she's talking the lyrics and he's singing them at the same. Like it's almost like feels like it's in conversation, but it's not.

It's a really fucking cool song. This was around the time he was doing collabs with Bjork too, right? I know they had a few songs together. He collabed with Bjork. Also collab with DJ Shadow. Oh, really? Well, not DJ Shadow, Uncle. which was DJ Shadow and James Lavelle's project.

Another fun fact for the longest time, whenever I plug my phone in to the car when it still had the music library on it. For whatever reason, because God was punishing me, it would always play one uncle song every time the car started. Because it's the first in the alphabetical order. But uncle is a you? I don't know.

I have PTSD from this uncle song. I don't know if that's a fun fact for anybody. For me, it's Frank Ocean, Alabama, is the thing that plays every single time I plug my phone in. That's better, I think, than this sort of a difficult uncle song from, you know, the late 90s or early 2000s. Anything else you want to talk about on amnesiac? Is there any of the song you want to play? No, I mean, I think so much of a, they're conceived at the same time.

So everything we said about kinetomy applies. Right, sort of applies. Yeah. I think to their testament, they did create two separate bodies of work out of the same conception through the track listing. I know they fought a lot about the track listing, but I do think they were successful. They said they almost broke up fighting about the track listing,

which is kind of crazy. They have said that so many times, and it's usually Ed, and I don't know if he's just maybe like melodramatic or something. Because it's like every album is like, we almost broke up. It's like, okay.

You have to fucking take your goddamn hat off to them, though, for not making this a double album. It would have ruined it. People would have hated it. Like, it would have been completely taken in a different context. and I know they thought about it and how wise of them

to be like, no, that's a bad idea. This is actually a really good segue to Hale to the Thief, which is a lengthy album that they, you know, spoil alert, they came to not

enjoy the decision they made to make it so long. Yeah, they say a bunch of times. I mean, Ed O'Brien even said, OK, computer was too long. I don't think this is a band that likes fat or excess.

Right. So Hale to the Thief comes out two years after amnesiac. So, you know, they're working at a pretty fast clip. It's insane. Yeah, there's no stopping radiohead.

Also, in between Johnny Greenwood scores his first film, Body Song. Yeah. Obviously, that'll be important later. Also, in 2002, just a little small fun fact. There is a kid rock video for the song, you never met a motherfucker like me,

in which he is sitting on the toilet and he does reach for a roll of toilet paper, and it has the word radio head on it. I only bring that up, hey, because it's funny, but also to show the grip that radio head had on the world. They were... Polarizing.

Polarizing and like they were so big that people felt the need to like like a kid rock felt the need to comment on it. You know, it's just like you don't think of it that way. You know, like everyone thinks of radio has being really big. But like at that time, they were they were so important. Right. And I think for people that were a little bit maybe less serious like a kid rock per se. Oh yeah.

It was like, oh, shut up. Anyways, okay, yes. Back to Hale to the Thief. Important fact. Recorded in Hollywood, baby. Tinsletown. Yeah. They, you know, wanted to do that.

It was in two weeks. They did a track a day. There's a little quote where they said, we went to a couple of glamorous parties, which really helped. We don't have enough glamour in our lives. Too much news, radio, not enough glamour. And this is the yossification of radio is what happened here.

I mean, I'm just saying you went real quick from yesterday. I woke up sucking a lemon to like, we went to some Hollywood parties. We did up smell those. You know, Brad Pitt was there. It was not a big deal. But I made that up. Brad Pitt was not fair.

Maybe it was. I don't know what kind of parts they were going to. Anyways, I just bring that out because I think those are, obviously, the most important fact of that is that it was recorded in two weeks as opposed to Kidd A and Amnesiac, which took a long time. If there's a template or a formula to radio edits, the next album is going to be a reaction. To the last one. So I think the grueling process of and reinvention of, you know, of Kid A and Amnesiac, this is going to be, no, we're going to do it quick. And what I think is the most interesting about this album is that because they were smart enough to adapt KIDA material live into more of a live setting, it started this course of like hybridizing what they used to do with what they did on KIDA, which I think Hailed a Thief is kind of a product of that hybridization. It's like now they have this electronic influence kind of to a point where they're able to write it comfortably. and now it's going to be infused with more guitar-driven songs. Like there's actually song structure again.

There's, you know, it's very much more traditional compared to kid A. If this came after OK Computer, I think that would have been a natural progression in my mind. Right. Yeah. Instead of them going kind of like, boop, up here and then a little bit back over here. Exactly. Yeah. That's right. Boop. That's the term. Rob Hardellanos. Do you feel that that is present on the song There, There? Well, there's not a crazy amount of electronic influence on there.

That sounds more in the like more of the optimistic vein. It's my favorite song on here. Just letting it. I think it's one of their best songs. Yeah, it's amazing. That's a great idea. We should hear it, Cole. This is There There.

That was There, a goddamn gorgeous, beautiful song. I just want to say real quick that. We haven't visited our genius annotators this episode that I do always love to give a quick shout out to because they're unhinged. And there is on the chorus just because you feel it doesn't mean it's there. There is an annotation that says, just because you feel the presence of God doesn't mean he's there. And there's a picture of God. That's all. Just want like an etching.

Yeah, it's like an etching of the Lord like in the sky with like the sun coming down. And you know what? Why not? Right. Not no. I love that song. I don't really connect with this album, but I love that song off of it. Have you seen it live?

That song live? No, I haven't seen Radiohead live probably since that Coachella, honestly. Okay. I saw him on the pre-in-Ramboes tour. So they're working out in Rainbows, but Hale of the Thief had been their last actual record to be released. And this was like, I still vividly remember this song because. It's on the recording too, but Johnny, Ed and Phil. Yeah, Phil Selway.

That's right. Philip. Sir Philip Selway. But they all play drums on this. So they're like, they line up across the stage and they're all have these tom-toms and they're all just like whacking it in unison. And it's just like. That's so cool.

The drums are, I mean, to me, like that makes the song. There's an early demo of this song that you can find online. Yeah. And it's just a basic drum beat. And it's like. Yeah, the drums are sick. Yeah, great song in just the guitar and the melody, but the drums, oh my God, just make the song so incredible. Because other than the drums, like instrumentally, there's not a ton going on.

It's just kind of guitar and, you know, Tom's beautiful vocals. But even the contrast of the songs, I mean, this has a very typical song structure, like very clear verse and a very catchy hook that classic Tom York, getting this universal line that you can say is about God or you can I mean there's a hundred ways you can interpret it all of them like equally probably relevant and like you just kind of pick one whatever resonates with you I love that line I don't even know what it means or what he meant by it but it's something that just I don't know it's like this universal truth and the melody is beautiful yeah much like um try the best you can the best you can is good enough um this one is you know just because you feel it doesn't mean it's

there is also sort of like a therapy speak I do for myself, which is like, you know, it's not, it's not real just because you feel it. It doesn't mean it's really psycho. I feel like there, there is maybe the most obvious to point to foreshadowing or bridge of in rainbows. Because to me, there's like, it's like almost could have even been on in rainbows. Like, you know, maybe produced slightly differently. There's a warmth to it. There's a warmth, exactly. Or it's like the rest of the album doesn't really have that. And it's, it's cool. Like, you know, I actually really like the last song, a wolf at the door. It's a cool song. Mixomatosis is a cool, these are cool songs. The gloaming, it's a cool song. Do I want to listen to it? Not really. Like, I think this got too far in the

territory of these are like, hey, we're doing cool stuff, but like lost a bit of that, like, thing that makes radio head so beautiful, which is that balance of like emotional connection and cool stuff going on. I mean, I think it's aged better than I remember. I remember, even before doing the podcast, like I was listening to it more than in the past year than I ever had in the past, you know, since it came out really. Because it always felt like one of the lesser records, quote unquote, and it feels like Radiohead kind of feels the same about it. And I think a lot of that is because they didn't take so much time with it. And then I understand as musicians, they probably kind of needed that approach. They couldn't put themselves through the ringer again in terms of another kid A process, another reinvention.

they were very clear about, they said they did not want to reinvent themselves. So I appreciate it for what it is. I do think it's too long. I think there are some really, really great moments on it and some great songs. I think even Tom posted an updated track list online at some point and removed four of the songs. The quantity overshadows the quality where, you know, something like a kid A or even then next rain in rainbows. In rainbows is perfect. Again, another reaction to the bloated, the bloatedness of Hale of the Thief.

They very much strip it down to 10 songs. Yeah, they just lost a little bit of that polish because they didn't spend as much time on each song. But for the point I'll make is this is another classic Radiohead trope. They needed it. It was like every album for them is like yoga, right? They need to do it to continue as artists and as a band and to develop. And they had to make an album in two weeks and have this live feel. and get that shit out of their system so that there would be no in rainbows if there was no Hale to the Thief.

And in that sense, hats off to you, Hale to the Thief. Love you, babe. Before we leave it, could I just, I have to give like a one minute quick dissertation on two plus two equals five. Because I think it has some of the coolest stuff that I find enjoyable. Do you mind if I just a quick spiel? Yes, please. No. Give it the spiel.

People love two plus two equals five. It's a great. I think it's a great song. It's perfect opening song. It was a very first thing they recorded when they started recording. You could literally hear Johnny plugging his guitar. That's not staged. This was supposed to be a studio test.

And they just recorded it in one take, which is phenomenal. And that's the first thing you hear is the first thing they did in the studio. So it's through Compose, which means there's no repeating sections. Four unique sections. It starts the first section at 7-8 time, which will come back in a second here. to remember seven eight time. But during this lyric, the song's titled, obviously, two plus two equals five. And it's about, you know, George Orwell's 1984, dystopian future.

It's about gaslighting, actually. It's about gaslight gatekeep girl boss. People don't really know that. They don't talk about that. That's what it's about. So when he sings two plus two, he sings two notes, a C and an F. And that's significant because they are a fourth apart. So if you look, if you imagine a keyboard in your mind, they're four.

notes away from each other, which is 2 plus 2 actually equals 4. But then when they go to same, but then when they see the next lyric always makes five, he sings a note that is five notes apart, which I think is just like, really cool. They're losing it, babe. I'm just saying they're losing it at this point. I think that's so cool. So you have that. Then it goes in the second section. They switch time signatures to 4-4. Then there's the big explosive section, the third section, when it all explodes. And he says, you have not been paying attention, which was kind of cool because he's kind of speaking to the masses

about this dystopian society. And then he says paying attention, paying attention over and over and over. And then he says it in a way that sounds like penetration. So it kind of like morphs over time. But I think it's, I think it was purposeful because like he's saying you're not paying attention. And then he slyly like changed the lyric as if we weren't paying attention to him. Right.

But then also like maybe like saying I'm going to penetrate your attention, you know? If that's like a could be a cool read on that. Add it to the genius annotation. I'm right on my way to be like, this is about God. Here's a little picture of God. I'm just going to go to every radiohead song with that same etching of God and just annotate every lyric. And be like, this one is also about God. This band is actually a Christian band.

You guys don't know. And then finally the fourth section. This is really cool, I think. Because if you're thinking, oh, this is not intentional. Johnny Greenwood plays a guitar riff on the fourth section, and the guitar riff starts by him playing a riff that is two frets apart, and then he goes into a section that plays two chords that are five frets apart. So again, we're getting the two and the fives,

and the opening time signature was 7-8 and what's 5 plus 2? 7. So it all kind of like, you know, connects in a very nerdy way. You're getting into like full conspiracy theory territory, you know, when people are like, the dollar bill actually is proof that there's Illuminati because if you fold it this way, you can see that there's the face of the devil. And that's fine. I'm here for this discourse.

I think it's there. Call me crazy. It just comes up way too. Just because you feel it, babe, does not mean it's there. It just comes up too much in Radiohead for some of it. Maybe some of its coincidence, but some of it's purpose. No, I'm totally just kidding. They made this for you, for you specifically.

I know, yeah. This is 2 plus 2 equals 5. That was 2 plus 2 equals 5. There's a lot of different reviews of Hail to the Thief, obviously, at this point, like every outlet is going to cover anything Radiohead puts out. But I really wanted to read back parts from Robert Criscow's review in the Village Voice because I thought they were just like interesting comments about how huge of a deal Radiohead had become. come. I'm not going to say how too big to fail because this is not a bad album in that sense or anything,

but just like how the entire sort of like thoughts and feelings about rock music in general were tied up in what they did. So he says, can we agree that the tortured expectations surrounding Hale to the Thief involve more than the artistic worth of a wacky little Prague band from Oxford, UK? At stake isn't just whether Radiohead have returned to the songful days of yesteryear without losing their avant nerve. At stake is nothing less than the future of rock itself. Upon those oxonians now has fallen the dubious, dangerous mantle of only band that matters. Which is really interesting, right? Like people were really hanging so much on them as a reflection of rock music, the state of rock music. there's one thing I want to ask you a question about.

He mentions in his review that the New Yorker's Alex Ross said that there are times when radiohead seems to be practicing a new kind of classical music for the masses. What do you think about that comment? I mean, if he's saying at times, literally at times in songs, like you can point to specific moments and say that is maybe an act of modern classical music, maybe. I'm not sure I would go that far. I think at best, and this is not an undermining statement at all, they are a band that is influenced by 20th century classical music.

And I would say Johnny Greenwood, around this time, started to really find his legs as a composer. And I think he has now since become like a pretty important modern classical composer. I mean, he's done a handful of acclaimed scores by now. He's always kind of looking back to 20th century for influence, it seems like, in terms of, I mean, everything in terms of like tonal stuff, like timbre stuff, you know, his influences, at least definitely early on, we're like on his sleeve, so to speak. But I don't know, back then, I'm not sure I would have said that. And definitely I wouldn't say that now. I would say they were a band that had as a unique influence, which was classical music because not obviously a lot of bands are going to be inspired by, you know, Steve Reich or someone. Right. I wonder if what he's saying is more like the.

kind of music radio head has started to make, you could probably argue as early as OK computer, but like definitely with like kid A. Because it's so composed and layered and like to your many points about how much like music theory is like sort of folded within it, maybe what he's saying is like it's now on the level of what some people think of with classical music. And you know how like people think of classical music as being so like elevated and composed and like serious is not the right word, but taken seriously and it's execution.

I wonder if that's kind of what is like setting it apart, especially in 2002 like setting it apart like the white stripes or cold play who's like pretty elementary in comparison. There's a reason that there's many, you know, academic books, even, you know, entire classes that are dedicated to radio. there's a reason why I uniquely am inspired and very interested in them because of my background. Like that seems somewhat similar to theirs in terms of like their interests in both popular music and classical music. Totally. I think that's probably the context I would think. Because he, Alex Ross is a great critic and he knows what he's talking about. So that seems that makes more sense to me.

Yeah, I guess like he's talking about like how their innovations are more like structured than like Prague rock that's like, we're going to get weird and it's cool and it's like King Crimson or whatever. And it's like awesome and also very musical, I think. But that's not quite as like disciplined or structured. Do you get what I'm saying for someone who's like an idiot and still doesn't know what tamber means? I'm like, oh, Jeffrey Tambor? Just means like the tone of an instrument.

Okay. But yeah, I would say the difference probably is how widespread the influence is. Like on a Prague Rock Bank, it's like you might have a weird time signature or multiple time signatures. And it's like they're going to take one. aspect, rhythm, and like really play with that where right ahead's doing everything. You know, they're going to do the tonal stuff. They're doing rhythm stuff. They're doing timbreal stuff, like structural stuff. So I think that's where they're just more complete in that influence where

I think other bands don't really have the facility. And again, I think most of it goes to Johnny. Right. And now knowing what he's become, it makes a lot of sense. Totally. Because you take Johnny away and I mean, I don't think that statement holds up at all. So I think it's more, more his influence in anything. Yeah, totally. I agree with you. He kind of wraps this up. I mean, there's one line that producer Dylan, I think, really liked that Chris Gow said, you can hear ears thinking all over their records. She said this about sums it up for me. I think she meant that derogatory, parenthesis, derogatory. I kind of wrote, we sometimes do a little banter in the Google Doc. There's a little inside baseball for you guys. And I kind of wrote her back in the dock

to say that, you know, I do think that that's kind of true sometimes, but I think the best radio head is when they strike the balance of ears thinking and just like channeled raw emotion that it like becomes kind of perfect, you know? And I think when that balance is out of whack, that's when people are like, I don't like this. Which is a perfect segue into in rainbows, actually. A hundred percent. And look at a sudden, Hale to the Thief isn't bad of its own merits, but it's, in my estimation, the lowest point. I even think King of Limbs, I revisited King of Limbs,

I even think King of Limbs is kind of better than Hail to the Thief. Yeah, I don't know if I'm there, because I do think it aged way better. Hail to the Thief did? Yeah, because I remember feeling like that only until recently, like I said, I just think it's aged really well,

but I can see that. It's also like if any other band had made Hell to the Thief, you'd be like, goddamn gorgeous, beautiful album. But like, I think because radio had to stretch what we know of like how good they can be. They've almost done themselves a disservice, right? Because they're not always going to be that good. No, yeah.

And that's okay. Some episodes of Vansplan are not as good as other ones. I can only hit the crescendoes so many times, you guys, I'm only human. Yes, gorgeous segue into in rainbows. Right before we get into in Rainbows, just to back up your point. Before they release in Rainbows, Johnny is appointed composer in Residence. the BBC Concert Orchestra. So he is doing some cool stuff.

He wrote something called the Popcorn Super Het Receiver, which I'm sure you've listened to him multiple times. I did not have time to listen to it, but I, you know what? I'm sure it's wonderful. I think in a lot of the early Johnny stuff, it's like he's like going back,

I don't know if it holds up as well as his newer stuff, but he was obviously kind of like learning on the go as well. So it's interesting to return to those older stuff now, knowing where he went, you know, learning on the fly a la Kid A, but just in his own way. Totally. But I mean, Johnny's story, to me, is one of the more beautiful things that come out of Radiohead. Just I love seeing his ascension outside of the band. Do you have like a framed photo of Johnny Greenwood, like in your home somewhere?

I'm just so good. Like, do you carry his picture in your wallet? Like, what level of devotion are we talking? I just really respect it. him. Well, I really respect him too. And if only for this move, we're in 2005, him and Phil Selway and Pulps Jarvis Cocker and Steve Mackie were part of a cool little band called The Weird Sisters. That's right, a Britpop wizard band that was in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. They made one song. It's called Do the Hippogriff. You might remember. It's vaguely remembering, but actually I haven't thought about that in so long. Gorgeous.

It's a great moment in Harry Potter history. Shout out my friend Heather Fortune, who did make me watch all the Harry Potter movies in one weekend or something, and I did really enjoy them. In 2006, Tom York puts out his first solo album, The Eraser. We're not going to play anything off of it, but I'm mentioning all this to say that like Johnny and Tom, and eventually every member does solo stuff, but are like doing their own. thing. You know, like they're sort of supplementing Radiohead creativity with other creativity. I love a racer. I think that's such a great record. But again, it is interesting to see them kind of splinter off because you can really tell what they bring to Radiohead. Obviously, Tom and Johnny are going to be the main heavy hitters. And especially with Tom's influence of electronic music,

you can tell with the racer, although I love it to death, like he's not as if it's a specific. sophisticated musically as Johnny. I remember the eraser being like one of the moments where I realized that because you never really saw them apart until or heard them apart until the eraser and Johnny's, you know, early classical stuff. The rhythms are way more straightforward. There's a lot more melody reliance. I think Tom always kind of looked up to Johnny's musicality and always aspired to be as good

as him, almost like a competitive level, all of McCartney and Lenin. The Beatles, for those of you with alcohol poisoning in the hospital. That's right. Grab that hand sanitizer. One more drink down the hatch. Even to the point where Tom later does a film score and he directly said because he saw Johnny doing all these scores and then as soon as he started to try to actually do the work, he was like panic because he didn't have the facility and really had to figure it out.

I think Tom needs to learn a little bit about a thing called compare and despair, babe. Can't be doing that. Listen, everyone has their own strengths. Johnny didn't write creep. Right. Yeah, right. You know? And arguably probably couldn't.

You know? And they're best together. Exactly. Which is amazing. Exactly. They were so lucky they found each other. Allow me to paint a picture for you of 2007. Because, listen, 2002 arguably palatable, a palatable year.

Like, we still have some of the hangover of the 90s. There's like, it's okay. The white stripes are cool. The strokes are doing stuff. By the time we get to 2007, babe, it is peak hipster runoff. The most celebrated rock band in the world is probably the arcade fire.

We have Bonie Verre, honestly, for Emma forever ago is a goddamn gorgeous beautiful album. Oh, yeah. No notes. But, you know, the claxons. The dirty projectors. Feist.

One, two, three, four. Tell me that you love. justice. Like, just putting you in a place, yay seyer. Yaysayer. Okay, we are hipsters and we are running off. Producer Dylan is triggered.

You're triggered, babe? I was like, really living, really living the 2007 lifestyle. Like, Janet from Three's company haircut, all of it. Okay, and then in 2007 also, just before in Rainbows, I think, Johnny Greenwood does his, like, first, I think, meaningful is not the right word,

but his first, like, big deal score, which is his first collaboration with Paul Thomas Anderson, there will be blood. A film I've never seen. Oh, my God. Oh, my God. Oh, my God. I've just never seen it. Oh, my God.

And I love Paul Thomas Anderson. Just something about that movie when I look at... It's his best movie, too. I think. Really? But I love the one with the mushrooms. And Boogie Nights. Boogie Nights is more of a producer Dylan vibe.

My vibe is more poison. been so he is weak and I love him. And you're more of a there. Holy Blood. Okay. We've found our place in life. So in rainbows, a goddamn gorgeous, beautiful album.

Who knew it? Who thought? It's like they were like, Hail to the Thief was like a psychout. Then they just disappeared for five years. And then they were like, here's this perfect album. A much needed break kind of going through their,

their history. I was just like so satisfied. when I got particularly in between in rainbows and Hail to the Thief. It's like they finally took a break because you just realized they were just going. Just grinding the entire time. And, you know, they all became fathers, which I think was kind of pivotal in this period because there's a there's a softness to in rainbows that I don't think is on the prior works as much at least. There's a reason dad's like in rainbows. It's a dad recognized dad.

Now I'm triggered, though. Well, if the shoe fits, babe. But I also love in rainbows, and I'm not a dad in any way, not even spiritually. This album took a really long time to make. They started it in February of 2005. They worked on it for almost a year by themselves. And then they brought the songs to Spike Stent, a producer who had worked with Madonna and Bjork and Massive Attack. It just didn't work.

Yeah. Ed said that it was a really good though because it kind of like lit a fire basically. You know, like his words were it galvanized the whole process. Like they kind of had to like get it together and like really take it serious, I guess, going forward. So then they took five months off or I don't know, five months are working on it by themselves. I'm not really sure what was happening. And then they went back to Nigel in May of 2006. Yeah. And I think also it's important to point out that they had. fulfilled their contract. Yes, with EMI. Yeah, and so HALA TheF was the last contractual obligation they had. And so there's no deadline. And you pair no deadline, no label pressure with not having a break for however many years. Yeah, I can see things kind of puttering around for a while. The next Bands plan would be 62 hours long and you would get it in November if that was the case here

without some structure. That's important to bring up because of the way this ultimately, finally, when it's finished, it gets released. It is so crazy to go from like making an album in two weeks to making an album in like two plus years. Right. But I guess, you know, that's okay. Once again, Tom York did say they almost broke up,

but to your point, he always says that. Yeah. He was saying, this is trash. I hate it. Colin said there was a crisis of self-confidence in making this record. I made a little note to myself that it's almost as if crisis of confidence is what makes good radio head records. But I don't know if that holds up, but it maybe a little bit holds up. I think so, for the most part, it seems like.

Except for kid A, which was like pure confidence. Well, I don't know, maybe that was also crisis of confidence, right? Because they were like, we can't possibly live up to the okay computer, you know, massive. accolades. So that's kind of its own kind of crisis of confidence. I just check by my statement. Yeah. I liked this thing that Ed O'Brien said. He said, working on In Rainbows, I was aware that we were making something that was really engaging that moved people again. And I don't think Hale to the Thief consistently did that. I think we lost people on a couple of tracks and it broke the spell of the record. That's probably true. Yeah. Should we play a song so people kind of get situated into the in

Rainbow's universe. Yeah, let's do it. Any song off of this I'd be very happy with. I think for me, Weird Fish's might be the best song, although nude is actually my favorite song. It might be my favorite song by Radiohead. All time? Top of the list.

It's up there. It's like, it's very up there. Just from a purely emotional, that song is so fucking gorgeous. That's right. God damn. So gorgeous. Well, it's now or never, babe. Pick between your two children.

Let's go Weird Fishes. Okay. This is Weird Fishes slash Arpeggie, a word I learned this episode. That was Weird Fishes slash Arpeggie. Why do you love this song so much? It's gorgeous. It is a goddamn gorgeous beautiful song. Yeah, I was disappointing.

You didn't say it. Well, it is. I mean, this is what I love about Radiohead, because I can geek out on it. I can explain some technical stuff about the song where it's like, you know, Johnny's playing in groups of three, drummer is playing groups of four. and there's all these weird textures that align and don't align, and it creates this like underwater atmospheric quality. Are there archipelagos?

Arpagy is this plural form of arpagio. Are there a bunch? They're alluding to the number of noodly guitar parts that overlap on top of each other. Make it feel like the ocean. There's literally like multiple arpagios or arpegy in the song. Which, yeah, again, it's like waves in the ocean. So it's like obviously all the geeky stuff that I love is there. but even just listening back right there,

it's just the first thing I feel with so many of these songs, it's like it's not my analytical academic brain that turns on. It's like my emotional. That's right. The emotional side of my- This is body music. Yeah, and it's warm and romantic. I mean, even those opening lines about deepest ocean,

locking in with someone else's eyes, and it's like very romantic. So to answer your question, I just, it's a beautiful song. Also very technically cool, but I think more than anything, like what I take away from in rainbows is just the beauty of it. The simplicity of a lot of it where it's like not batting you overhead with technical stuff. It's super accessible, I think, to pretty much any listener. So that would be my short answer there. Even producer Dylan can appreciate.

Interesting. She gave us a nice song, though. Good job, producer Dylan. I'll tell you, eight of these 10 songs. get the goddamn gorgeous beautiful song stamp of approval. Eight of ten is... That's a lot. That's pretty high.

Technically a B minus, but... Yeah, but they're not in this world because there's really no album to get that many. Yeah. Yes, Prudson says it's graded on a curve. I like 15 step in the way that they're like, hey, remember kid A? We're kind of so like, just kidding.

That's not what it's going to be like. Right. And a little bit body snatchers too. And then all of a sudden, nude comes along and slaps you in your heart. heart and is like, that's right, bitch, you're going to feel stuff. Apparently that song is really old. This is a common radio head thing that everyone knows because there's a literal, I lost the website, but there's like some insane website that tracks when every radiohead song.

I was on that just. Yeah. Was ever played. And then predicts for you like what might, like what song preceded at percentage of times and what song comes after at percentage of times. It's truly on hinge. Yeah. But yeah, nude, he said, 10 years ago, Tom said, when we first had the song, I didn't enjoy singing it because it was too feminine, too high. It made me uncomfortable. Now I enjoy it for exactly that reason because it is a bit uncomfortable, a bit out of my range and it's really difficult to do. And it brings something out in me.

that makes sense yeah i think it was originally like on organ it sounded completely different and then i guess the baseline i think it was even in a different time signature because the one that ends up on the record is in three four i think the early version was in four four but i guess the the baseline that colin wrote really kind of reconfigured the song in a major way where that baseline pretty much carries a majority of the song by itself and that's what kind of inspired this new version but yeah it is really interesting especially in these later later works, how much old material comes back. I think obviously we'll talk about true love weights as being this like 15 year culmination of a song. We'll get into it probably with the later

stuff, but there does seem to be post in rainbows. Radiohead does kind of start to look backwards a little bit, which I think is kind of interesting, but let's not get ahead of ourselves here because in rainbows is. Everybody runs out of ideas eventually. Arguably their best record. I like it a lot. It's top two for me, but I just I love it. I love it so much. I love it. It's a gift from God. But I just personally, because of reasons that I'll discuss with my own therapist, thank you. I like a little bit more when things are a little more like angsty. Just a love, I love just a dollop of angst in my music. So just to like step back, this album, since they were free of their contract, they self-release. this as a pay what you want download up to $99.99. That's right.

$99.99. They put a cap on it. And you know why they had to put a cap on it? Because there are people, there are radiohead fans who would have been like, here's $3,000. What? Sir. Oh, yeah. I would, maybe not back then.

Not $3,000, but like. You can. Shout out bandcamp.com. I'm the type of person now that because you can't really pay for music, I'll buy like $200 worth of merch because I want to support the record. I thought it was a, I mean, we'll get into like probably the industry implications a lot here. But just as an idea, I just love it so much, especially back then. Because it was like a philosophical statement.

Totally. Does music have actual value to people? What is music worth to you? Yeah. Yeah. At a time where we were really questioning that as a kind of culture. Totally. a little vowed to myself to say totally less and guess what it's not working. Sorry, this is just who I am. Yeah, I do think that's exactly right. It was like, it begs the question like, they were betting basically that on their deeply held belief that people value music and people value their music

and they were right. Don't quote me on this, but I think because of it being completely self-released, they ended up making maybe more money than they would have on a better selling label album. In their position, I would, again, it's kind of hard because it was long ago and the dynamics that have shifted so much. I can't even remember kind of percentages and stuff. But I would say in theory, that makes a ton of sense and I wouldn't be surprised if that was the case.

Totally. I'm pretty sure it was the case. Another interesting thing about in Rambos is that we brought up Tom York's solo album. he actually said that he learned something from it that informed in rainbows, which is that he said it made me realize that all this stuff I do on laptops gets me excited because I can hear what I'm going to do vocally. But unless I have a vocal in place,

it's a bit unfair to expect anybody else to understand what the fuck's going on. It says it reminded me just how important the voice is, which I think is a big departure from kid A where he was like, I hate my voice and melodies. I don't want to hear it. Like it almost kind of got him back to like, valuing vocals, you know? Yeah.

And I would say it's probably doubly important for radioid, the vocal, in terms of them being an accessible band, as much as they seem not to care about that, I think it does really, it's what ties a lot of the stuff together. And we'll talk about that more with King of the Lims. Because they talk about that as well. But I've never heard that quote,

but it makes a ton of sense knowing how melodic in Rainbows is, him being comfortable and putting more priority on vocal. I think, yeah, it makes a ton of sense hearing in rainbows. Okay, producer Dylan has found a fact that just says that radio had made more money before in rainbows was physically released and they made in total on hail to the thief. Wow. Which, that makes sense, 2002. I mean, if you're literally pocketing all the money, which I assume they are.

Exactly. Yeah, that it doesn't surprise me in the least. But pay what you want, by the way, I don't think I made this clear, also included zero. Yeah, right, right, right. Yeah. Like, you could just download it. they didn't stop you. Yeah.

Very interesting, right? Like, that's, that's the risk. I mean, this is, and this is the argument that came about was,

yeah, this is cool for Radiohead, but could the everyday indie musician do this to the same amount of success? Because they had this built-in audience that was massive, so they could essentially afford to take this risk. Not just, not just massive,

but older. Right. Like, with discretionary income. Right. You know, I think that's probably a good point. But I don't,

I don't think they were saying, we're making a huge statement about like every band. I think they kind of did say like we're making a statement that our music is valuable to our fans, you know, which is true. It's the classic radio ad trap where you're this respected, you know, acclaimed band. And so anything you're going to do is going to be taken as this, you know, this is what the sound of rock and roll music is now. Or this is the direction of the music industry when they're much more personal than that. I don't think they're really thinking in those terms.

Yeah. I think this is just another thing where they did this thing that I thought was cool. They probably thought it was really cool and inventive and made sense for them at the time. And really, they were in a very unique position to do so. How many, you know, bands, their contract expires, they don't, you know, automatically re-up that contract. And so they were kind of at this crossroads and really just took advantage of it in a way that I don't think really, obviously anyone else did or not to the same degree. So I think it was just a lot of unique circumstances. is colliding to make this, you know, very memorable release,

or it is kind of a pivot point for the industry. I used to think about it like, oh, that was signaled the death of the physical record, but you go back and it said something, I read a statistic where it's like 85% of people still purchased music at this time. Yeah, in 2007, there wasn't streaming. It was that no man's land in between, you know, it's only CDs and you can stream everything on a streaming platform. it was people getting their 99-cent songs from iTunes.

And was Napster still around? Do you recall? I don't think so. But like Torrens were around, obviously. Torrance were around. I mean, I know producer Dylan was up in LimeWire, babe. She was in there. Their experiment, their bet paid off for sure. And it didn't change.

You know, people did still buy physical albums at the time. It was a very interesting time. nude, your other favorite, maybe most favorite song, became their first top 40 song since creep. Oh, wow. I didn't know that. Isn't that nuts? Yeah, that is crazy.

I wouldn't think that would be the song. I, because I'm a sad sack of a human being, I guess, I have two favorites. All I need is probably my main favorite. I know it's not, no, there's fireworks at bells and whistles here, but it's so beautiful. Yeah. Like, it's such a beautiful song.

Actually, let's play, because I want to ask you some questions. about the production. All right. This is all I need. That was all I need. A goddamn gorgeous, beautiful song. Producer Dylan, whose ears are broken, did say that to her this sounds like

the standing outside a broken phone booth song from the 90s. You know, I'm talking about, I've been down on a baby. I've been down on a baby. Ever since. Ever since. I don't know what this. What are you talking about?

I can't believe. you don't remember that. It's very different though. And producer Dylan is unwell and we don't listen to her in the show anymore. Goddamn gorgeous beautiful song. I just, I feel that this is like once again in conversation with creep. Yeah. Do you know what I mean?

Yeah. I have grown. I have matured. I have become, you know, an emotionally advanced person, but I'm still the guy who wrote creep. And I still write lyrics like, I'm the next act waiting in the wings. I'm an animal trapped in your hot car. I'm an animal trapped in your hot car.

Yeah. Those are some very tough. I'm a moth who just wants to share your light. It's beautiful. But it is very unrequited love, very alienated, very alienated, very. Creepish, yeah. Yeah, it's a little bit less, right? Like, you could sense that this is like, this whole album,

I think the reason I love it is this whole album captures the thing of falling in love, you know, like, which is a little bit like creepy, but like not creep, creepy. I mean, Reckoner, babe. Yeah. Goodbye. Adios. One thing we didn't mention was that to kind of finish these songs because they were like not feeling it in the studios that they went on tour.

Right. And they played these songs on tour and it really liberated them to become more free and independent with their individual parts. And so when they came back to record it, the tour really helped. And I remember this was the first time I saw Radiohead was on this tour. So I heard a lot of these songs live for the first time. There's one funny story that they, 15 steps, the famous opening song. The Kid A Psycho.

It's in 5'4 and then there's this complex like clapping rhythm over it. and they tried to get, kind of cruelly, tried to get us Americans to clap along with this very complex rhythm. And there's just like, the whole crowd failed. Even you? No, you were putting them to shame.

I can't remember, but I mean. You were like, watch me, bitch. Get it together. You're embarrassing me in front of radio head. No, that was just a funny moment. But Reckerner was like one of the standout songs live. So every time, anytime I hear that song, it just takes me back to seeing it live.

But, I mean, yeah, Reckoner is, I mean, it's beautiful. But they were very interested with rhythm, starting with, particularly with Kid A. And just in terms of just thinking about rhythm and not so much melody. This is where, again, you could kind of feel each previous album leading up and influencing their current work. Because, you know, as accessible and listenable, I guess, as in Rambos is. Right. It's not simple.

Yeah. It's still not simple, but it's very accessible and its eccentricities, I guess. Yeah. where you have all these kind of syncopated rhythms, particularly bringing this up because Reckoner does this 15 step, does this weird. I mean, I mean,

even all I need has some weird rhythmic stuff going on where the bass guitar kind of doesn't align so naturally with the drums. That's why you feel like an animal in your hot car. Yeah, there you go. Also, also the production. Like,

I feel like all I need, a lot of song on here, but all I need in particular, it's like, it makes you feel like you're walking through oil. Do you know what I mean? It's like a viscous song. I'm really sorry I said that, but it's just there's no other word. It feels, it's like, wow, oh. Once again, Radiohead has done a gorgeous thing, which is make another album that's wonderful to do drugs too.

This one, chef's kiss. Eat a little mushrooms. Lay yourself right on the ground. press play could not recommend more probably I'm not allowed to recommend that so let's scratch me

recommending that yeah yeah okay sorry I interrupted you your point they are not just because it's accessible and you know the songs are like

sort of pop adjacent isn't to say that they started just writing like super simple songs because that's not what's happening

and I think that's why a lot of people think it's their best record especially if someone like me that kind of analyzes a little bit more musically than most because it's so complete because it feels like a not a lot of effort like you know kid days obviously i'm not going to say anything to undermine that record but they're trying like they're trying to do something different on that record and you can kind of feel that in rainbows just doesn't they just

I feel like they just got to the place where all their influences just were so natural to them they just came together in this very organic way that I don't think had happened in this way until in rainbows. And I think that paired with it being such a concise 10-song, you know, 45-minute record. Like, I think that's why a lot of people think it's their best record because it is so complete. So representative of like everything they've done and it's very concise in its execution. Yeah. I mean, maybe you can answer this because you're a dad. like is this sort of like domestic bliss inspired album you know like it does feel a little calmer yeah it's definitely like less testosterone driven

yeah it's like no hail to the thief where they were like we're taking down the government right there's not a lot about mental state with this record which i think is interesting like where before it's so prominent in part of the backstory specifically tom's mental state where at least from what I've read or the lack of what I read in terms of it not being there doesn't seem like there was a big crisis for anyone in the band which kind of changes later

but in this time I think maybe things were relatively good they certainly sound that way yeah Faust Arp shout out of Sorrows of Young Wither Goth Goth Goth

how do you say that? Is it Gota? Gota? I thought it was always Gota I thought it was always Gota or in my head or Gerta now we're sounding really smart fucking Germans

and literally like Gautier no that was Gautier we'll get to a little bit later honestly I don't care what anyone says goddamn gorgeous beautiful song

somebody that I used to know somebody that I used to know Goth Gote Goethe I don't know somebody that I used to know who wrote Rose of Youngwerther and Faust.

All that to say, this song is a little bit, it has a little angst in it, right? I get that. Like, I mean, nowhere near yesterday I woke up sucking a lemon or Ice Age is fucking coming, babe. Like, none of that. But it's got a little, it's got a little intensity to it. Yeah, maybe.

I mean, that's the acoustic song. So it's just acoustic guitar and Johnny's strings. Well, I can't explain it. wakey, wiki, rise and chint all again, off again. I guess it's all in the singing. Yeah, I can see that. You love it when I sing because I'm such a beautiful place. It's natural.

I have perfect pitch. I always love hearing interpretations that are different than mine because I don't know if angsty would be, like though, angsty would say maybe like jigsaw falling into a place. Like that may be body snatchers, but yeah, I don't know if there's a lot of that on here, especially comparatively with the last one is. Sure, sure, yeah. I think overall it's it's more.

subdued than past works. Yeah, I definitely agree with you. There's no denying that. It's too hard to only play two songs of this album because it's like, what? We're not going to play House of Cards. We're not going to play Reckoner. Right. Okay, before we leave it, though, did you read anything about the 10 stuff?

We're not leaving. Okay, great. Did you read about the 10 stuff? 10? Yeah, so there's all this 10 numerology around this record. Jesus Christ So it's Okay, so

it's definitely legitimate So they announced The record on their They announced The record on their blog 10 days before it released It was released on October 10th Which is 1010

There's 10 letters in the title There's 10 songs on the album And a lot of it was People were speculating That it links back to Okay Computer I can't remember if it's 10 years After Ok Computer

I think there's some Numerology link between it It is. 1997 to the- Okay, so there's that connection. And then so if you look at the letters in OK computer and in rainbows, they're the same length. And they in and okay are two letters.

And then rainbows and computer are eight letters. So there are some like very intentional stuff, very intentional radio head, geeky, like internet culture stuff they're doing with the record. To the point where there's a theory that if you play, and I can't remember exactly what it is, but if you play the end of song one on... With the Wizard of Oz.

Yeah, pretty much. Backwards. Pretty much like this. Essentially, there's this theory that OK Computer and in Rimbos is a double album that are meant to be played sequentially every other song. So if you play, I think, Airbag and then play 15-step, and then you play Parenthood Android, and then you play Body Snatchers. Essentially, if you alternate the songs on each album,

that the end of one is supposed to seamlessly transition into the beginning of the next and that they somehow composed it as this being intentional. Is this what your friends in R-Dash Radiohead said? Oh, and well, Radiohead subreddit, usually where this lives. But I don't think that part's true, but I definitely think they were playing with the numerology stuff. I was correct.

Oh, it's not R-Dash Radiohead. Excuse the fuck out of me, sir. I thought you were talking about another radiohead underground, because there's many of those. Yeah, I believe you. I've never been in them. I think they've all kind of now streamlined into Reddit where usually this kind of stuff takes place now.

I mean, I believe it. Here's the thing. Me personally, don't care. But really happy for the community that is able to benefit from such things. I mean, you do this on Dysect, so I totally understand why you would like this. For me, it's just kind of more cool.

Like, it just shows intention and it shows a conversation between the artist and the audience. Totally. It's so cool. It's so cool. If it's just that, I think it doesn't hold up. But when you have that on top of intention in the music, that's where I get super geeky. Yeah, it's very cool, isn't it? I'm here for it. Just as someone who lives life flying straight from the seat of my pants, always, cannot ever fly without the seat of my pants flapping in the wind.

I just don't know how anyone would do such thing with such force. I love that people who your dissect fans are going to come here and be like, oh my God, we love dissect. Where you, like, painstakingly, like, spend months writing scripts and researching and making it perfect. And every week we show up and we're like, well, Jesus take the wheel. Let's just see. I hope it works out for us today. And this is the episode you got.

I don't want to move on. Let's read some parts of this review from The Goat Ann Powers, who was writing for the LA Times. She says, in rainbows, 2007. She says it heals a rift that may not have needed mending between the band's emotive rock pronouncement and its heady art music experiments. There's no reason Radiohead couldn't have continued straddling both paths,

alternative soaring ballads with electronics-heavy sonic abstractions. Instead, the songs on In Rainbow's incorporate both approaches. They're tuneful with satisfying hooks, but the instrumentation is very deep and subtle, with each listen revealing new layers of sound and implied meaning. Gorgeous. Yeah. That's a positive review, right?

I couldn't tell. Yeah, no, totally a positive review. This was a very well-reviewed album. Pitchfewort gave it a 9.3, 4 stars from Spin, four and a half stars from Rolling Stone, really should have been five. But I just think that, like, that's the point I was sort of trying to make earlier about,

you can hear the ears thinking all over the music. Like, when they know the value of a hook, right? Because guess what? Dumb moron like me, who doesn't know what arpeggie is and thought Jeffrey Tambor was tambour, is not really going to get so much satisfaction out of the time signature changing or whatever. But I know that it's probably, like you said, like we talked about earlier, like subconsciously, I'm sure I know it. But without the hook, I literally don't fucking care.

I just can't. My feeble brain needs the little hook to hook on to. And I think that's really where Radiohead knocks it out of the park and why they've become such an important band is because they never abandoned the value of things like hooks. Yeah, and I think there's an interesting Tom York quote that I think ties into this is he said, I believe in the rock album as an artistic form of expression.

In Rainbow's is a conscious return to this form of a 45 minute statement. Our aim list is described in 45 minutes as coherently and conclusively as possible what moves us. So this contrasts directly with what he said post OK Computer, where he thought rock music had run its course. So I think this ties into what you're saying where if he's saying that he believes in the rock album, a big part of rock music is hooks, is kind of catchy melody, is also this kind of a coherent and conclusive, concise sound of 45 minutes. a statement, I think all this, to your point, was a kind of a conscious return to a form that he had kind of written off post-OK Computer. I think it took him to get it out of his system, so to speak, to return to something like in Rainbows. And I think in Rainbows is so important, especially as I was thinking about this episode, it's so important to their legacy.

Absolutely. I was going to say that. It's such a standout album, arguably their best after OK Computers. Nobody does this. Yeah, and it's like, you can see a world in which Hale the Thief comes out, you know, not as good as the past work. You know, they take a break. They don't quite find the rhythm. They're all in different places in their lives. Tom York is less stressed by, you know, fame and all this stuff since he's taken more, you know, a private life turn.

And you can just see a word where they kind of fade off and they have this, obviously, their legacy was solidified by this time. but to come back within rainbows, to come back with arguably your most coherent record, some say your best record. It's so important, I think, to the just, I don't know, I guess the legacy, reputation, all this stuff. I think it's just critical to their legacy.

Yeah, it bought them another decade of credibility. It bought them another generation of fans who love in rainbows. I mean, apparently that's a big thing. they have a huge millennial fan base based on In Rainbows who never really got into OK, computer or anything at the time. They were too young, but In Rainbows is their album. There was an interview way before this.

I want to say it was like, OK, computer error. I don't remember it. I don't remember it. I didn't write it down. But, and forgive me, I can't remember which member of Radiohead. This was, it might have been Ed O'Brien, who was just basically talking about how bands get to a point where they have like the Spanish Castle mortgage. And that, like, basically like the motivation.

isn't really there to make albums. Like they want a tour and make money because now they've like saddled themselves with like all these costs of their huge lifestyle. But it's not inspired. And they were like, oh, we never want to get to that. And it's like, good for you for like kind of not getting to that.

You know, like they made a really good album. They didn't just phone it in to like make something to tour off of so they could pay their Spanish Castle mortgage. It's just kind of stunning. There's very few bands on their level that do this that have been around for this long and have another peak that high, you know, more than almost 15 years after their first album. That's truly. Yeah, it's pretty incredible. Truly incredible.

And often what you'll see is bands kind of trying to chase the times. I was going to say that. It's like in Rambos has very little to do with that list I just read. Arcade Fire, the Shins, Spoon, Bonie Ver, Band of Horses, Yeah, yeah, yeah. as like Claxon's dirty projector is like justice. Yeah, it's nowhere near any of those records. And I mean, it's singular in the time. It's singular to their catalog.

I think, yeah, it's just, it speaks obviously to their talent of being able to pull something like this off and everyone revering it, even though it kind of stands out as an anomaly within, you know, the music space at the time. And it makes it timeless, right? When I listen to in Rambos now, I'm like,

it doesn't peg me back to, I mean a little bit just because the songs always kind of make me think of like when I first heard them. But you know how like some music you're like there I am at SinoSpace with the Cobra Snake. There he is right behind me. Like it doesn't do that. Because whatever style you, it's not just them doing it. That's why, you know what I mean? So if you think of even like the bends, I think the bends has that quality to it where the singularity. Even OK computer, I would say it as timeless.

as I think that record is, it's still kind of entrenched in rock music at the time. Although obviously it transcends it, but there's still distorted guitars as the main kind of aesthetic. And I think since Kid A on, they've kind of established that singularity to varying degrees. But like obviously Kid A, it just exists as its own entity. And I think the same is true of in rainbows. Here's the thing. We're not moving on until we play Reckoner. That will be how we close this out.

Beautiful. And also, yeah, the title of the album comes from Reckner. Oh, the lyric. Yeah. Oh, okay. Only out a cool theory then afterwards. Okay, gorgeous. This is Reckoner.

That was Reckoner. God damn gorgeous, beautiful song. Yeah. Yeah. Who sings like that? It's truly... Yeah. It's so gorgeous.

Stunning. Usually I have a problem when, like, the dynamics of a song don't evolve or anything. and not to say that this doesn't have that, but I just love how a lot of this album they find these grooves that they kind of just settle into for long periods of time and you don't mind because they're so good. The groove is so good that you just are happy

to live in it for as long as possible. And I think the groove on this song is so great. And then you pair that with his vocals and it's just like, yeah, I'll live here forever. In the genius annotation, someone has mentioned that this might, I did look it up. it is for whatever fucked up

ass reason it's Goate. Goate is how you pronounce it? Yeah, goate. Goethe. No Gautier. No somebody I used to know. Maybe Gautier is named after Goethe.

A mispronounce in that. Yeah, maybe so. Fully making shut up. Anyway, saying that this is me, there is welcome to coast to coast. Reckoner, they're saying that

this could be an illusion to Faust in which Tom York is Faust and he's singing to the Reckoner that is Mephistophiles slash the double. Okay, so the only thing I would say that maybe that's not far-fetched, I haven't looked into this theory, but Tom York's

partner of like whatever, 15 years or something crazy, her doctorate, I think it was a doctorate or master's thesis was in the inferno, Dante's inferno, which I feel like she was in... It's just spiritually related to... Yeah, I think she was in that world of literature. And I know

Fausical, yeah. Like there's definitely Faust respirances and a lot of Radiohead songs. You guys would be fucking surprised how many rock bands reference felt. Or even movie? Yeah, it's pretty timeless. I'm more of Rosarves of Young Wither girl, but I'll take it. But I have a crazier theory for this song, which

I think holds up. Lay it on us, babe. Welcome to Coast to Coast Coast. Have you ever heard of the golden mean? Excuse me? The golden mean or the golden ratio? Oh yeah, yeah. Okay, yes. I have heard of that. So it's like this it has to do with the Fibonacci sequence if you're familiar with that. Yes. But essentially it's like this

aesthetic quality that was popular. I think it started with like... It's what makes people beautiful because their face is symmetrical or whatever and you can draw the, you know, triangle on their face or whatever. Yeah, exactly. I'm paraphrasing. There's a lot of like Greek architecture. Da Vinci used it.

Like we know Da Vinci used this proportion. So yeah, it's like a, I'm not a math guy, but it's like an equation or a proportional percentage type thing that's like here you can follow this golden mean and it, you'll, you know, can make beautiful drawings or a stick. aesthetically balanced and pleasing drawings. So you can do this in music, and some people have done it purposefully, where the golden mean of a song or any length of time,

essentially 61.8% of the way through a song is its golden mean or its golden point. So you'll see like some artists have played with it where something will change. And usually it's like the climax of a song will happen here. Okay. You know, even like a story structure, you think about a big build and then a little bit over halfway through a story usually is where the climax comes and then there's like a tapering off towards the conclusion. So anyways, it's a pretty well-known thing.

Artists have definitely played with this purposefully. So there's a theory that when he says in Rambos, in Reckoner, the drums die out. And if you listen carefully in the background, Tom says in Rambos, sings it. Yeah. So if you take, and I don't know of all the numbers in front of me, but if you add up the entire length. I don't have the calculations. I had it at some point.

But if you have, if you add up the entire album length and then you, you calculate the golden point or the golden mean of the album as a whole, it's exactly where he says in rainbows. Whoa. So I don't think they, I swear I read a quote one time where Tom said, everything leads into this moment of the record.

But I don't, I can't remember if it was a credible source or not. So I can't, I don't want to say that. said it was intentional, but it's there. So forever, whatever that's worth, it's there. I mean, no wonder this album took two and a few years or whatever. They were busy, Fibonacci sequencing it, not just regular sequencing it. Again, my brain is too smooth to understand such things, but I appreciate it. I also didn't explain it all that well. I'm not a

mathematician, but the equations line up, yeah. No, I got it. It was the time he says in Rambos is where the golden mean of the album would be. Yeah, right. But the amount of work it must have taken to place it there. Just holy guacamole. God, I'm just beautiful song. Okay, well, sadly, although I'd like to stay here in Rainbow's Land much longer, we're going to have to move on.

Yeah, let's go. 2011, it's here. The Black Keys are here. The War on Drugs is here. The Fleet Foxes. They are also here. Here's a very funny placement of this album in time from The Guardian. The Guardian wrote a piece of,

on them. They said, just when it looks like Arcade Fire, on a high after a victory at the Grammy and Brit Awards, are set to become the biggest band in the world, the Oxford Five piece confirm that their eighth album isn't only done, but yours for a few bucks in mere seconds, no need to get dressed, let alone leave the house. When it looks like teenage hip-hop crew, Odd Future, are going to send Twitter into Meltdown on the back of an alarming video. You ain't got no fucking easy. Five albums, a hundred songs, and you ain't got no fucking yeas. I bet you got some J-Quahn. These old timers position their own promo clip online, sit back and watch social networks collapse under the weight of a million thumbs in a frenzy expressing their adoration.

So that's peak 2011. Yeah. When I think at this time in music, I think it's, for me, it's like always the definitive shift to hip hop as just fucking dominating. The most relevant, the most popular. Totally. I see a big pivot point being like Twisted Fantasy by Kanye. happens in 2010 and I think that again like kind of 2000 with kid A you know kind of signaling the shift I think 2010 to me that's a big pivot point in in terms of like hip hop really obviously it was

popular before but just in terms of taking over the entire kind of relevance of a culture I think as it stands now that's the time I think of so it's just funny that odd future was brought up because that was like a whole new generation coming in that would end up dominating. But then it is interesting because, yeah, Radiohead has the status and the cultural ubiquity and the singularity to be like, yeah, all this other shit's going on,

but let us drop this little promo and watch the world spin because they're that band that transcend all the genre. Totally. They're that bit. Radiohead is that bit. No, you're so right. It is interesting. Your point is like well taken.

And it really is like hip hop is the dominant, you know, cultural music. And even in every space, right? I think the odd future thing is important to be up because it's also even with an indie, right? Even pitchfork is like all odd future, Frank Ocean, like all this stuff is happening. It starts to splinter off as actually kind of a necessity for a dominant music genre is that they have to have subgenres within a more dominant genre. I think like that odd future is a good example of like it's starting to splinter off into where you can. have these cults of popularity amongst this a bigger umbrella, which is hip hop. But again, to bring it back to Radiohead, all that shit doesn't matter when it comes to them

because they earned it. One million percent. They can do it almost at this point. And they do. They do whatever they want. They put out... A really good example of them doing whatever they want. Yeah.

They put out King of Limbs. It is, again, self-released as a download, but then physically released by Excel. Nigel is back, babe. Oh, yeah. He's never left. produced by Nigel Gotrich. They did an interesting thing here, which is this is only eight songs,

and they put all the weird shit in the first. Right, yeah, that is interesting. Instead of, you know, the other way around. Yeah. There's a lot going on here, okay? Bloom, it starts with like pretty piano, and you're like, oh my God, pretty piano. And then it's like, psych, bitch, weird loops now,

just weird loops from here until the end of the song. And you're like, oh, okay. Yeah, it's a very splintered record for sure where they're kind of just chopping up their own music and looping it. And then you get these just tiny fractures of songs just looping amongst each other. Yeah. I think maybe how do I say this? Because like that was happening a bit on kid A too, right? But there's something like a bit more neutered about it here.

Like it doesn't have the same impact. Yeah. I mean, actually what my biggest note, I have at the top of my. note sheet here is the real kid A question mark question mark question mark because like there's a case to be made that what they wanted to do with kid A was maybe more like the king of limbs. They just didn't really have that. And thank God. Right.

Well, they didn't have the technical capacity to do it yet. Right. They were still, you know, for as much as Tom tried to kind of disown melody, there's a lot of melody on that record. I would say probably more than the king of limbs. And I feel like this is this is their most experimental work. to me in terms of what came out of it. I think it's the least accessible of all the records.

Which is funny because I think that has so much shoot the sequencing, though, because once you get to Lotus Flower, the second back half of the album is very accessible. That's true. It's actually very, like, Lotus Flowers is really beautiful. Codex is really beautiful. It's a beautiful piano song. They just sort of front-loaded it with like the weird, like, that little by little song, it feels like a weird menacing movie score.

which I guess makes sense because of Johnny Green one. Yeah, and even Farrell, I think, is, Farrell is such a wild song. That's the one I wrote Nudered Kiday. Yeah. I think the conception of the record was kind of interesting, where they essentially made it at a point not to pick up guitars and write chord progressions,

which is how usually you would start a song as you come up with a chord progression, then go from there. So you really hear that, I think, in a lot of these songs. I mean, even though Tom kind of floats over these songs with long drawn-out melodies. There's not a lot of harmony to kind of harmonize with it.

The setting of the long, beautiful harmonies are a little bit off. So I think Ed said something like, we would have a song that sounded like complete shit, and then all of a sudden Tom would sing over it, and then it would sound like 100 times better and really make the song. I think you can really hear that with this record.

Without the vocal, I mean, it's like their closest, you know, similarity to the Apex Twin in terms of just kind of pure electronic experimental music. And again, yeah, maybe I am talking more about the first half of the record.

But I always think that's kind of odd. The first like three or four songs of a record really kind of like define it in your head as what it is, even if it changes halfway through. Yeah, right? Even Kid A, I think speaks to that word. If Kid A opens with like optimistic, I think we have a different impression

of the record. Even Connie West said something to this effect where with Yeez's, his experimental album, he was saying, like, I could have sequenced it way more. I could have put blood on the leaves, the most accessible song first and people would have a totally different reaction to it. But I put a more challenging song first because that's what I wanted you to feel with this record. So I don't know if there's any continuity in terms of their kind of intent on putting the more challenging songs up front. You could see them being like, oh, everyone loved in Rainbow's so much so easy. Well, guess what? not this time. We're going to make it hard. You have to earn it. Yeah, I mean, it's like a continuation of the radioad formula is just react to your previous album and try to do the opposite. So they tried not to write a lot of core progressions, which is the foundation of harmony and melody. I have your on my notes under lotus flower. Okay, this song slaps. Shall we hear lotus flower? Yeah, let's do it. Okay, this is lotus flower. That was lotus flower. Beautiful. I love that song. Yeah, it's a great, it's a great song. It's really vibe. I really enjoy it. I don't often go put it on, but I do really enjoy it. Yeah, it's interesting because it feels more accessible, certainly compared to the previous songs on the record. But really, if you listen, the thing that's holding it together is that you have a semi-standard drum loop, like one that you can feel the pulse to pretty easily. And then Tom's lyrics and melody are much more structured than anything else on anything other. Yeah, I just need something to hang my god

have had on, babe, okay? I'm only human. Yeah, but if you listen to the instrumentation, it's just like really, really weird. And the baseline's kind of weird too. Actually, if you listen, if you heard the hand claps in that song, I did. I actually have a whole episode of my other podcast called Keynotes dedicated to this song called How the Fuck You Clap Along to Radiohead. Because as you just tried when we were off air listening, it's really hard. You'd have to do like math in your head as you try to count along.

for anyone that's curious, it's two eighth note claps every five eighth notes. That's insane. In a song that's 4-4, so everything should be repeating in even numbers, and they make it extra difficult because they start the claps on the second beat, not the first. So it's like it just starts in a weird place and then it just never loops in the same way that you had expected to, especially for hand claps, which are kind of inviting you to clap along is usually the function of them. Not here, babe.

And this is like the opposite. These are a fuck you handclaps. They pretty much are. But I think it does speak to like, again, where they were, even in a song that sounds kind of like a pop song or, I guess, Radiohead's version of a pop song. There's all these weird rhythmic loops still in a song like this. So I think while the most accessible on the record, it's still challenging if you go to really try to pick it apart. You know who does not how to clap along to this song? Who.

One Tomington, York. Oh, yes. in the music video, we need to talk about Kevin. We need to talk about the music video. Because, wow, if you haven't seen it, I need you to imagine.

It's black and white. Tom is wearing a bowler hat and he is dancing like a frenetic mine. It is like Elaine Benis was his dance instructor and it's so bizarre. So good. It's honestly really cool.

Like I'm actually really into it. I love that he was like, here's what we're going to do. Camera stays on me, black and white. I'm going to do my fucking thing, babe, and you're going to watch. This is unfortunately sort of pre-Twitter being so big, I think. So we didn't get as many gifts and memes as we probably should have. But don't worry, there's plenty of memes. There is an entire video of this set to single ladies by Beyonce. Oh yeah, babe. Lots of people took it and put different songs, but my favorite is the single ladies. by Beyonce, just gorgeous. Wonderful. They did no singles, just one video, that video. Essentially what Drake tried to do with Hotline Bling, where he was purposely becoming a meme and doing all those weird dances and then they became memes, which is this whole meta thing.

Do you think that's what Radiohead was doing, though? No, not back. No, I was saying Drake intentionally did it where I don't, yeah, I don't think Radiohead was doing that. I do think you could point to that video and say, he invented TikTok dancing. Or it turns of like the memeification and people trying to play into that. I don't obviously, again, I don't think Bradyhead was doing that. But I see a world in which people saw the reaction, saw how memes can actually be this weird form of marketing. And that's definitely an early example of something like that. I agree.

Okay. So I just want to read apart from one of the reviews, which is from The Guardian, just because A, I think it kind of nails it. And B, it has like one of the best cunty end lines of all time. Not about Radiohead, actually, but okay, so it says if the overall impression is of a band so lost in sound they forgot to write songs, you have to admit the sound is pretty fascinating. The way the vocals shift unexpectedly in volume and clarity, the restless guitars that underpin mourning Mr. Magpie and add a sense of agitation to a song that appears to be about the banking crisis. The bass overloaded and scattered vocal samples of feral. When the album finally finds a more conventional focus, its structure makes sense as something more than a reaction against it. in Rainbow's user-friendliness. Listening to it, you're reminded that Radiohead are the only band of their size and status that seem driven by an impulse to twist their music into different shapes. As the King of Limbs proves, when it works, it's glorious, but that impulse doesn't always yield

perfect results. Still, listening to Radiohead try is never less than intriguing. After all, their peers aren't trying at all. SIG burn, bitch. I love it. And also, like, not that wrong. No, I don't know. No, I'm definitely not.

That's the thing with experimentation, right? As much as this, I would say, might be, and it sucks to even put like a worse album label on Radiohead because all their albums are good. Let's say if it's a lesser of their works, it's like this speaks to just experimentation in general. And like, if you're truly experimenting, yeah, you're not going to like hit home runs every time. Totally. You know, and it's like, do they sit on this? you know, it's not up to the standards of whatever record you want to compare it to in their

catalog. You know, I love the fact that they weren't trying to make another in rainbows. I know she said they weren't simply trying to react to it, but I do think it was a reaction to in part in rainbows. They needed, Tom said again, like, quote unquote, they needed a new set of reasons to stay together. So again, it's like, bands breaking up. What have we got to do? Let's just experiment. Let's strip everything down. Let's learn how to be a band. again. And again, you're not going to get the greatest results or like, you know, at least not to the caliber that we know Radiohead can get to. But I love that they're still taking risks this late into their career where they could easily just be riding their legacy. They could be

trying to remake certain albums. Like, I just love it. Even if it's a quote-unquote failed experiment or not the most successful experiment, I just love the fact that they're still, after all these years, still trying. I agree. And I actually, again, I like King. of limbs a lot more than I think other people do. Yeah. But I was going to say like, oh, there's not a lot of bands that did this, but like, U2's eighth album was Zuropa, right? Which is like, not anyone's favorite U2 album, but it is the U2 album where they were like, we're going to be weird. Like, the edge is rapping. It has that weird song, Lemon on it, which is a great song. It was a lot of production by Flood.

it's definitely like they tried things, you know, which I think is very cool. And they kind of continue to do that a little bit and then kind of pulled back to delivering the classic U2 goods, Zuno, Justris, Cotorce, etc. But, you know, I think it is worth pointing out that they're, you know, I like that they have a band that they've been compared to at least in terms of gravitas and like career arc and impact. Keeping in line. It's the Fibonacci sequence of album. It was planted there. They've actually this whole time been trying to follow you two's path.

Okay. So after the King of Limbs, 2016, did they wait a while? Yeah, it's interesting. This might be the longest time, right? It is, yeah. Post, Hail to the Thief, each interval between albums gets, I think, a year longer.

Because the Spanish castle has paid off now, babe. Right. The mortgage is paid. And they own all their, at least for in Rainbow Zon, they own their master. They own the copyright. They own everything, I would assume.

And then even like Excel is like a licensing deal, so they don't own any of that. So, you know, they're probably making more money off, I don't know, I don't want to say any facts, but they're making a good amount of money on their music. We don't have insight into Tom York's bank account. But let's just say he's not hurting from any. Right. They did headline Coachella in 2012. So, you know, they played the festival of records. for the second time.

I did see them the first time, way back one. I can't remember it was 2012 or 2013. God, it must have been 2012 if he was there, but maybe it's 2013. I did witness Tom York doing a DJ set at Coachella at a pool party. And this is around the time

he did move to Los Angeles. Okay, that was it. I was like a literal, distracted by his, like, leather wristbands and his ponytail because it was just not what I was expecting. I'm just surprised. I'm surprised you moved to L.A.

At whatever point he did. Okay, let's talk about British Dylan says, Hollywood comes for us all. That's so true. You can only resist the siren song of Tintel Town for so long. A moon-shaped pool.

Gorgeous. May of 2016. Love this record. Do love it. I do. I really like this record. I like it too. It's very vibey.

It doesn't have as much that I can hold on to. Compared to something like in rainbows. Definitely compare something like in rainbows. and get a okay computer all the way back. It's to me like part and parcel with the king of limbs in terms of like I enjoy it and like I think it has some really cool stuff going on

but it's never been something that like I'm like oh yeah I love this one song. I mean true love waits is obviously the standout track of this album. I would say I'd add daydreaming to that list too. Second song. That's like one of my first. favorite all-time radioed songs. It's a gorgeous song. Well, why don't we hear daydreaming?

All right. This is daydreaming. That was daydreaming. Gorgeous. That is a goddamn gorgeous, beautiful song. That's right. He is talking about Plato's Allegory of the Cave. Don't you dare forget it? Actually, I don't know if that's true, but... Did you just really just randomly say that? Yeah, because it's dreamers. They never learn.

Okay, so at the end of the music video, Tom York crawls into a cave. Oh, I haven't seen the music video. Oh, so it really is about the Alchary of the Cave. Actually, the theory or part of the theory of the music video, which is, if you haven't seen it, directed by P.T. Anderson, so it's, of course, gorgeous. But essentially he's just walking through these series of doors. And he'll walk into a living room and then he'll go to the front door. And then when he opens the front door, he's like all of a sudden in like Antarctica. And then the next door, he's all of a sudden in his elementary school. And then the next door. He's all of a sudden in his elementary school. and then the next door. So it's very like retrospective. I don't know exactly what it means, but it does end with him climbing up this snowy mountain

and then going into a cave. And that's when we hear all those weird, the demon voices, which is Tom York's voice slowed down and reversed. And then if you play it forwards, the theory is it sounds like he's saying half of my life, which is kind of relevant to stuff

that was going on in his life at the time. The big kind of life thing happening was that he broke up with his girlfriend. I think they were actually secretly married. Oh, really? Okay. So, yeah, they were together for what? I think it was like 23 years. Okay.

And so half my life. Yeah, Rachel Owen was her name. Referring to like half his life with her. And she died in 2016. And then she died after they broke up. Yeah, a year after they broke up in 2016 of cancer. And they had two children. And they saw two children, but.

Incredibly sad. So I know he was dealing with on the record. There's a lot of solemn, I mean, this is a great, probably the most solemn song on the record, but, you know, that happened. Nigel Godrich's dad died while they were making the album. And also their technician died. I want to say a few years prior, their technician died while doing a radiohead show. Oh, my God. It seemed like there was a lot of tragedy.

Tom even said there was a lot of difficult stuff going on at the time. And it was a tough time for us as people. It was a miracle that this record got made at all. Wow. So I think that explains a lot of the kind of melancholy tone that maybe explains why a song like True Love Waits makes sense on an album even though it was written 20 or something year before. But that song is so gorgeous. Johnny Greenwood wrote the piano part, so that's obviously why I love it. But man, that song is just it's just one of those songs like a nude where I hear it.

It's just automatically straight to the heart, tears in my eyes type kind of feeling. It's really beautiful. I mean, even without knowing the context, I think you. would be struck by its sadness and its beauty. Right. I also really like Identicate. Maybe just because it has a good beat. And I really like the numbers,

which to me has like a bit of echoes of talk show host. Like there's a similar... I can see that. I mean, again, don't rely on my feeble music brain, but definitely there's like a similar situation. I mean, this is a really beautiful album. I know a lot of people love it. There's some sense that there's some sense

that there's some like political stuff with like burn the witch and the video. Right. One of the songs is about Trump directly or at least some of the lines are about the numbers. Isn't it the numbers where he says essentially he's like counting the days until Trump's going to be pushed out of office? One day at a time. We call upon the people. The people have this power. The numbers.

Yeah, that sounds right. You know, radio head always just a scotch political. And we love that for them. I mean, it's Tom York. So, I mean, it's going to be, it doesn't sound to me like an overtly political. record like a hail to the thief but obviously that's going to be I mean global warming we haven't talked about but that's that becomes a pretty big focus in Tom's life generally and that definitely gets infused in some of these songs and also I think starting with in rainbows I was you know

kind of working its way in the music obviously I don't think this is at the level of it in rainbows but the feeling that I get sonically is kind of similar to in rainbows the aesthetic of like this really nice, more cohesive mix of electronic and acoustic elements. I think one really telling fact about this record was that it was recorded on tape, on analog actual tape, not on a computer.

That's called when you have a lot of money. Right. But I think creatively, it's a limit, right? Where on like pro tools, you can have like 150 tracks. There's only so many tracks you can work with and actually drums are going to take up half of those usually. And so they are limited in what they could do. I think they, again, if we're talking about Radiohead as a formula, they're reacting against the previous, which was all tape, all loops and all

samples now they're going back to limiting themselves with what they could do rather than doing anything with electronic music. So I think you can hear that very much in these songs, the limitation of sounds. There's just not, there are not going to be so many layers, especially compared to the last record. That's pretty telling. Yeah. It's almost, they're almost pure. the song, not pure or something. Yeah. But yeah, kind of like... I know, yeah, yeah. So the way I think about this album, at least in terms of how I enjoy it,

I think there's some really, really beautiful moments, arguably some of the best moments, or you can at least put them in the same tier as some of the best moments in their entire catalog. But the whole album doesn't sound like that. So that's where I think, again, maybe like a Hail of the Thief, I could have used maybe a couple less songs on this record, maybe strip it down a little closer to something like in rainbows would have probably made the overall listening experience better.

But again, I think there's some just really beautiful moments on this record. Would you say that it's like a conclusive record in terms of incorporating all of the things that they've tried and done and gone this way and that way with? Or do you feel like there's still maybe another album coming? I mean, I hope there's another album coming. What really sticks out to me about this in terms of how you're laying it out is clearly Johnny Greenwood has become a very, very, very legit composer. You can hear that from the very first song. Like that is an orchestral song. There's tons of, you know, they recorded an entire string section for it.

And they're, you know, they're using guitar picks instead of bows. So there's this really cool, percussive. element, which is just so Johnny Greenwood in terms of just experimenting with textures and stuff. And there's a few songs where the orchestration, I think, is the best in Radiohead's catalog. And that I think has to do with him getting so many reps with film scores by this point and really bringing that to the record in a way that, like, King of Lames just didn't allow for because the scope of that record in terms of it being chopped up loops and stuff. So that's, that's where I want their sound to go even more. My dream, actually,

is like a 100% orchestrated score by Johnny Greenwood with Tommy York's vocals over it. That would be like my dream. Where they go, I don't know. Like, I don't know where they would go from here. I mean, now we're what six, is it six years? Yeah, six years removed from this record. So I hope there's more because I don't feel like this is like a conclusion. And, you know, that's kind of asking a lot for this storybook ending for a band that already

gave us so much. but I would like to hear them keep going because maybe it's not their strongest record, but it deserves to exist. It's up there with some of their strongest material. So it's not like they're showing any signs of not being able to put out quality records. So in my mind, I'm like, keep going.

I don't know. Well, don't worry, babe, in between us recording these, while I was still in the Google Doc, Tom York decided to put out more music because I am Sisyphus and I am pushing the rock up the hill. And Tom York's like, you're never going to finish baby because I'm just going to keep dropping music that you have to cover. I'm just kidding.

We're not really going to talk about it. But I did put out a new song as of this recording called 5.17 for the show Pecky Blinder. So, you know, they're not dead yet. They're doing shit. They're working on stuff. Johnny Greenwood just gave a speech at the BAFTAs with Alana Heim, accepting Paul Thomas Anderson's award for licorish pizza. Oh, cool. They're all busy, it seems like.

they've all at this point, I think maybe except Colin has done like side projects. So I think they're staying busy. But, you know, again, they're kind of at a different stage of the life where I don't think they feel pressure to be, you know, in a band. Spanish Castle is paid off. Right. And they did, they did the Lana Del Rey lawsuit is settled. Just kidding. I don't think that actually happened. Oh, for the creep. Yeah. Creep and get free. You know what? In 2019. They were inducted into the rock and roll hall of fan by David Byrne. Did they go? Two of them went.

Ed and Colin. Of course. And said, thanks so much. Kid Amnesia came out in 2021, which we won't get into, but it's basically Kid A and Amnesiac put together with some extra songs, right? Yeah. And they also did the OK computer re-release, which is remastered. And then they released a bunch of like scraps from the studio sessions that got leaked. And then they released those right away or something.

thing. But yeah, it is interesting. The only thing I would say about that is that they are seem to be now starting to look backwards. I think it's cool because maybe it gets some new audience. For me, I like it because there's always new merch and new like cool artwork and stuff. Cole's like, I only have 22 T-shirts and needed to add to the collection. Yeah, you can't see it, but I have a radiohead jigsaw puzzle behind me. I bet you. So for that, I like it. But, you know, it is interesting. I'm kind of keeping my eyes. that like, yeah, they've kind of now released two re-releases of their biggest projects.

Are they down this path now for good, or are they going to supplement that with some new stuff? We'll see. You and the other R.Dot Radiohead fans are going to have to wait to see. But speaking of Radiohead fans, we have reached the portion of our show where we're going to hear from your fellow Tom heads, York heads, Tom stands. Johnny Greenwood stands. Radiohead's fans. My people. Your people.

Creeps. I really, they should have called their fan community creeps, though, let's roll that beautiful bean footage. One of the things I love about Radiohead is how much of a spectrum you can feel while listening to their music. This is kind of sense super pretentious, but Vasquiat said that music is how we decorate time.

And that idea resonates with me more and more the older I get. and as I returned to Radiohead's music again and again. Made me curious about how the sounds were made, which is something at that time I hadn't really experienced as, like, a fan of music. It transcends language. I know people who have taught themselves English to understand Radiohead songs because there's just something about it that resonates with a,

I don't know, a timeless sort of wisdom and it sounds so pretentious to say, but it's true. There's definitely a misconception that Radiohead's music is depressing and morose, but to me it's totally the opposite. And to me, it feels so life-affirming. It makes me feel understood. I think the chief virtue of Radiohead is that they are so open, enthusiastic, and curious about music outside of their band. I think my broad-tasted music can be partially traced to their influence on me as a teenager, kind of just starting to figure out what I liked. They're inspired by that sort of communication with different types of music, and they make it kind of rewarding as a music fan to sort of follow.

all of them there. I've been part of many different communities throughout my life, and none of them have been as impactful as being a part of the band community for Radiohead. And I think that that is a testament to what they create as a band. Radiohead's career is just five huge music nerds who refuse to accept a kind of mundane existence and creative output as inevitable. They're constantly kind of challenging themselves to do more. I've also met some of my closest friends through the Radiohead community online and at their live shows.

I can honestly say that my life wouldn't be the same without those people. I can honestly say that much of the trajectory of my life has been defined by Radiohead. I spent six months living in Ecuador last year because of somebody I met through Radiohead. My career, my life, so much of my work over the last decade has been dedicated to climate change and environmental issues. And a lot of that came from being a fan of Radiohead and learning about Naomi Klein. and George Mambiat and reading their works, and it completely blew apart my imagination for how I wanted to live my life and what I wanted to do.

My buddy took me down from New York on the subway to this hockey stadium where Radiohead was playing. You could just go straight from the show into a subway car. And at the time, I always had a kazoo with me, and just by kind of softly playing on the kazoo, a train full of people that had just seen the same show that I had started a full subway car sing-along of Karma Police.

Okay, I'm so sorry, and I appreciate your Lafrey-A-Head, but you should have been arrested for that. I would have called the police if you pulled out your kazoo and did a sing-along of karma police. But did you feel seen by your Radiohead community? I did. I really liked that, actually, because especially the one that was talking about the climate chain stuff because what I think is so important about bands like Radiohead because I have such passionate fan base you know we're going to look into like what they're into and I remember even especially when you're young like you're so influenced by your musical idols that you learn every little thing about them and what they're into really starts to appeal to you and to have a band

that's so talented but also into like more important shit really like you know political and I think it's just inspiring and really important that like that aspect is there because we do care and it does influence us. And I think that montage like captured it really well that it transcends the music at a certain point, especially with the band like Radiohead. And it's just beautiful. I mean, it's beautiful the way Radiohead but also just music in general can really shape our lives in this way. It's always so fascinating to me. So beautiful. This allows me to read one last quote before we close out the episode, which.

I wanted to read earlier, but it didn't fit. Alone among their commercial peers, Radiohead are held to not just release albums, but make grand artistic statements worth dissecting and pouring over in the same way as the output of Kendrick Lamar or Beyonce. This person has listened to dissectical. But the last line is the most gorgeous.

Certainly, no one's falling over themselves to decode the politics of Coldplay's releases. Sick burn. Anyways, on that note, we have reached the end of our... Epic. Moon-shaped episode. I have the bends, to be honest.

I have so much respect for whoever is still listening right now. There's people, babe. R-dash Radiohead. They're going to be sending me messages to say where I was wrong, why my voice is annoying, all kinds of stuff. And I can't wait to hear it. Cole, thank you so, so much for spending all this time with me on Radiohead. do you want to choose a last song to leave the listeners with at the end of the episode?

Yeah, let's just, let's make it symbolic. Let's choose the last song on their most recent record, True Love Waits, which brings us full circle back to the beginning of their career because it's a very old song. I used to perform it acoustic 20 years ago. So I think it's a very fitting, symbolic choice to wrap up our quite epic Radiohead anthology. And it is a goddamn gorgeous beautiful song. Thank you, Cole.

Everyone go listen to Dissect only on Spotify. Listen to keynotes. Also only on Spotify. Come back every Thursday for a new episode of Bansplane. And this is True Love Wates. If you liked what you heard today, subscribe for more episodes of Bansplane, only on Spotify. Our guests today were Cole Kuchner and Stephen Hayden. Follow Stephen on Twitter at Stephen underscore Hayden and check out his podcasts, Indiecast and 36 from the vault.

Also find his gorgeous book, This Isn't Happening, Radiohead's Kid A in the beginning of the 21st century, wherever five books are sold. Huge, huge thanks to the Radiohead megafans you heard on this episode, Benjamin Sailor, Jordan Camp, Juan Velasquez, Nathan Owen, and Anne Ferguson. Bansplain is a Spotify original show. This episode was produced by My Idiotech, producer Dylan, aka Dylan Tupper Rupert, and edited by Cheryl Crosby, with help from Casey Simonson, Shannon Cornet, Tari Miller, and Kelly Kyle. Executive producers for Bansplaine are me, Yossi-Solic, and Gina Delback. Our gorgeous and catchy theme song was composed and performed by Bethany Cozantino and Jennifer Clavin and graciously recorded by Carlos de la Garza in Los Angeles, California.

Special thanks to Robert Adler, Leah Edwards, David McDonough, Dana Meyerson, Jessica Hopper, and my special mood soda. Come back every Thursday for a new episode. episode of bands playing only on Spotify. Are you vacuuming? Mom, I'm recording. This podcast is officially off the rails. What was that, Will Ferrell? When we was like, Mom, the meatloaf.