Dissect - S11E1 - Radiohead: In Rainbows

Episode Date: September 26, 2023

Our season long dissection of Radiohead's In Rainbows begins with a sweeping biography of the band, from their origins in Oxford, England to their historic run of landmark albums like The Bends, OK Computer, and Kid A. Support Dissect by leaving a review or sharing this episode on social media. It really helps. Follow @dissectpodcast on Instagram, TikTok, and Twitter. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

On October 1st, 2007, Radiohead quietly put the world on notice. It had been four years since the most influential band of their generation had released an album. Radiohead's last effort, 2003's Hail to the Thief, had fulfilled their record contract with major label EMI, meaning the band was under no legal obligation to release new music. In the intervening years, all five band members had become fathers. Singer Tom York released his first solo album, and guitarist Johnny Greenwood had ventured into film scoring.

Having already cemented a place in music history with landmark albums like Ok Computer and Kid A, it wasn't clear what the future of Radiohead looked like, or if they had one at all. But then on October 1, 2007, Johnny took to the diary section of the band's website. Hello everyone. Well, the new album is finished, and it's coming out in 10 days. We've called it in rainbows. Love from us all. Back in 2007, surprise albums were simply not a thing. Radiohead had just invented them. That was already enough to get people talking.

But the real bombshell was discovered when clicking the discrete link embedded in the title in Rainbows, which took you to a web store where you could pre-order the digital album for download on release day. Curiously, there was no price for the album, but rather an empty box with text that read, it's up to you. Click on the red question mark below that and a pop-up prompt read, no, really, it's up to you. They were letting you enter your own price. And if you'd like, that price could be zero.

Radiohead, one of the biggest bands in the world, was giving away their album for free. While it may not sound extraordinary today, in 2007, Radiohead's Pay What You Want Experiment caused nothing short of Bedlam. At the time, the music industry was facing an existential crisis. Record sales had been plummeting for 10 straight years, and pirating music online had become the new normal for an entire generation. With streaming still years away, in Rainbow's release inspired hundreds of think pieces, speculating what it meant for the future of the music business. One major label A&R told

Time magazine, quote, If you can pay whatever you want for music by the best band in the world, why would you pay for music by somebody less talented? Once you start giving away music legally, I'm not sure there's any going back. Musicians also weighed in. Jay-Z and U-2's Bono thought the move was brilliant, while others like Lily Allen claimed it was arrogant and set a bad precedent for smaller artists who couldn't afford to give their music away. Radiohead themselves claimed the experiment was simply a response to their specific circumstances. Because their past three albums had leaked weeks ahead of their official release dates, the band decided to essentially leak in rainbows themselves.

And now without a record label, they not only had the freedom to try this, but digital download was really the only way to distribute the album entirely on their own. This naturally forced the question of how much to charge. And rather than follow dated industry standards set by corporations, they thought, why not let the people decide for themselves? We wanted to treat people as responsible human being. What do you want to pay for it? It's not about being greedy, you know, and that's the thing.

And it's getting that whole thing about what's exciting about music. It's the spirit. The reality of music is it will always be valued because we all need it. Companies buy and selling themselves and seeing the artist's work as simply just part of their stock is devaluing music. And if anybody is responsible for devaluing music, it's them. After 10 days of public debate, N-Rambeau's was officially available to download on October 10th, 2007. Experimental release aside, it was immediately clear that Radiohead had made another masterwork. The album's opener 15th Step offers a seamless blend of the band's eclectic influences,

expertly homogenizing the human and the electronic and a controlled chaos of intricate rhythms. Meanwhile, the delicate, undulating beauty of a song like Weird Fishes Arpeggy is exemplary of the album's many moments of transatlantic. transcendent intimacy. The album's penultimate song Jigsaw falling into place is a self-propelling romp uniquely driven by an acoustic guitar, proving that the band could still rock when they wanted to. While In Rainbows is not the obvious innovation of OK Computer, nor is it the radical reinvention of Kid A. What we'll discover over this 12-episode season is that the understated brilliance of In Rainbows is in its pristine synthesis of the band's vast array of sounds

accumulated over their 20-plus year career. It's arguably radiohead's most consistent. precise, complete statement as a band. Ironically, for all the discussion in Rainbows inspired about the value of music in 2007, the music itself was often overshadowed by its release mechanism. But after the novelty wore off, it's been the music of In Rainbows that's sustained. Because the true value of music cannot be measured, it can only be felt. Felt in music's unique ability to soundtrack our most formative experiences console us in our times of sorrow

and articulate our deepest emotions when language falls short. And that's something you can't put a price on. So with that, and without further ado, let's dissect. What you just heard is the first known recording of the band we know today as Radiohead. The group formed in 1985 while attending an All Boys High School in Oxfordshire, England. It was here that singer-songwriter Tom York and bassist Colin Greenwood recruited guitarist Ed O'Brien and drummer Phil Selway, and later Colin's little brother, Johnny Greenwood. They called themselves On a Friday, named after the day they rehearsed in the school's music room.

Influenced by bands like the Smiths, Talking Heads, Elvis Costello, and REM. On a Friday recorded a few demo tapes while still in high school, where many songs included a female saxophone section. After high school, the boys put On a Friday on hold to attend college, occasionally reuniting over holiday breaks. They officially regrouped in Oxford during the summer of 91, after all but Johnny graduated. The band played a handful of shows in Austin. Oxford and quickly gained the following. A studio owner in town took interest in the band and became their manager. Together they recorded a five-song demo tape called Manic Hedgehog, which captured the band's raw, frenetic, but locally melodic sound. The Hedgehog demo caught the attention of record labels

hungry to capitalize on the growing grunge rock movement of the early 90s. In November of 91, over 30 executives attended on a Friday's eighth show ever at a modest Oxford pub. A month later, and just six months after the band reunited, on a Friday signed a six-album contract with EMI, one of the biggest record labels in the world. The only reason we were signed was because of Nirvana. Which is hilarious. Which is thinking about it.

Well, it smells like Teen Sprit broke in the summer in 91, and they were influenced heavily, you could tell, by the Pixies. We were at that time, we, that's sort of the kind of, we did these quiet verses and loud choruses. And that was literally the reason we were signed. There was a catch, though. EMI disliked the name on a Friday and gave them a week to change it. Never fans of it themselves, the band obliged, at first kicking around names such as Jude and

music before landing on Radiohead, named after the title of a 1986 song by Talking Heads. According to Tom, the name Radiohead quote, sums up all these things about receiving stuff. It's about the way you take information in, the way you respond to the environment you're put in, unquote. The first official release under Radiohead was a four-song E-Eapes. called Drill. The project, well, it flopped. When the band went to their local record store to buy a copy, the store owner, unaware he was talking to the band, insisted they take it for free because he had too many copies. Quite the irony for the band that would famously give away their album years later. Radiohead returned to the studio to record two songs EMI selected as potential singles for their

debut LP. Their producer Paul Colderi described the band as, quote, desperately inexperienced and the singles failed to materialize. However, while warming up during rehearsals, Radiohead played through an old song Tom wrote while in college, a song they considered a throwaway. After struggling with the potential singles, Colderi suggested the band record it. They did so live on the spot in a single take.

This spontaneous recording would not only become their first single, but a defining song of the 90s across all genres, a recording that would make the band commercially and nearly break them emotionally. Radiohead's creep was released as the band's, debut single on September 21st, 1992. The irony of this generation-defining song is that Creep actually flopped on its initial release in the UK, thanks in large part to the country's biggest radio station, the BBC, deeming it, quote, too depressing and excluding it from rotation. Assuming failure, EMI even stopped printing copies of the single. During this time, Radiohead was

supporting the UK band Kingmaker on a brief tour that included a juggling act, and Radiohead played before the juggler. In December of 92, NME, one of the UK's biggest music magazines, wrote a devastating review of the band's live show, which ended by saying, quote, Radiohead are a pitiful, liver-lilied excuse for a rock and roll group, unquote. Two months later, Radiohead released their debut album Pablo Honey to lackluster reviews. Their second single, Anyone Can Play Guitar, also made no significant impact. Radiohead seemed to be going nowhere, and they feared they'd be dropped from EMI.

When asked about how the band's successive failures made him feel, Tom said, quote, Absolutely horribly gutted, unquote. But very soon, the band would find a sliver of hope in an unlikely country outside the UK. After many years, he'll be here to have here, Guns and Roses, Metallica, Leonard Cohen, East 17, that are today with us in Tossess Studios,

Radiohead. Early in 1993, an Israeli Army radio DJ began playing creep relentlessly. The song would soon spread to stations all over the country, becoming a national sensation. In April of 93, when EMI sent radiohead to Israel to play a handful of shows, they were treated like rock stars, recognized on the street and mobbed at the concert venue. They also made their very first television appearance. What do you think that you're sitting there in Oxford, you're writing text and music,

and you think of being famous or known, and maybe the States or Europe, and suddenly you find out that you're very famous and very popular in the Middle East in Israel? Yeah, that was weird. Maybe we've tapped a nerve or something, I don't know, but we'll just go anywhere. We want anywhere that people want us, really. Radiohead's experience in Israel would be just a taste of things to come, because around this same time, a similar phenomenon was brewing in the United States. A college radio station in San Francisco added creep to the rotation,

and the song quickly spread across underground radio in California. Soon, national stations picked it up. Then MTV added it to the regular rotation. In mere months, Creebreech number two on the alternative rock charts, and by June of 93, it had climbed into Billboard's Hot 100, where it would stay for nearly five months. Suddenly, the unrehearsed single-take recording by a recently reunited high school band was a legitimate, Change Your Life Forever hit.

It'd better start. Rocking or I'll really give them something to cry about. Shut up, buddy, it gets cool. Check it out. Check it out. Here it come. Radiohead landed in America for the first time in the summer of 93, where they played a handful of shows and performed CREP live on MTV's Beach House and the Arsenio Hall show. Later, they toured the States as supporting act for Belly and PJ Harvey and immediately returned home to join a European tour with James and Tears for Fears. By the end of 1993, Radiohead had played over 200 shows in the span of just 16 months.

This on top of countless press appearances and interviews. As Tom recounts, while the band was initially excited by their sudden success, they also felt incredibly out of their depth. Arrived in America for the first time and stretched limos, bless them, they've all gone now, thank God. And I remember being in the record company and they'd laid out 100 records and we had to sign them. And I was looking at this pen thinking,

and I was like, I've never done this. I've never signed a record before. It was mad. So they put us in first class on an airplane. I'm like, what? And then it was really kind of out of control. And we were being asked to go on live television. We'd never been on live television.

We'd been in a van driving around doing support gigs. So how did it feel? It felt funny and a bit of a panic. By the end of 1993, Radiohead had grown a love-hate relationship with Crete, or as they nicknamed it back then, crap. They never much cared for the song and recorded it on a whim, yet now it's what succinctly to find them. Tom at the time said, quote, it's like it's not our song anymore. When we play it, it feels like we're doing a cover, unquote. Being on tour also meant there were few opportunities

to record new music. The band was stuck playing tracks off their debut Pablo Honey, the first batch of songs they wrote after college and recorded in just three weeks. Creep had become a massive outlier hit on a mediocre debut album, the classic formula for a one-hap. wonder, and Radiohead was smart enough to know it. Creep was like the blessing the bane of this band. It was a blessing that we got to tour throughout the world, and that was fantastic. But it was also the bane that, you know, you have a song like that on your first album, and the history of bands having a big hit like that on the first album is that they don't

go anywhere, you know, and if it'd been on third or fourth it would have been fine. But the frustrating thing was that we always thought we knew we had the material. The material ed's referring to here were the new songs they'd been writing on tour, songs they would finally be able to finish and begin recording in 1994. But despite their best efforts to finally escape creep, the songs still shattered over their studio sessions. There was pressure from the label to make another hit as big as creep, self-applied pressure to show the world they were more than creep,

and crippling insecurity about whether they could pull any of it off. It was a toxic dynamic that would come to haunt the band nearly their entire career. It imbued the sense that we absolutely didn't deserve this, thus 10 years of overcompensating for that by never, ever, ever doing anything that wasn't the best that we could possibly do to the point of total obsessiveness. You know, we expected to be able to build up our ability to do what we needed to do, get better at it, and then one day the doors would open, but unfortunately the doors opened way before we were ready. The stress caused by the band's initial attempts to record nearly broke them up. Bassist Colin Greenwood described the experience as, quote, eight weeks of hell and torture,

while Tom called it, quote, a total fucking meltdown for two fucking months. Their manager, Chris Hufford, almost quit due to constant arguments with Tom, who had become increasingly confrontational. I got angry. I got more control freakery. I became more unbearable,

more like, it's going to be like this, or it's not going to happen. I sort of put my hands on the steering wheel, and I white-knuckled, and I didn't care who got hurt, and I didn't care why. said until the end of OK computer. Just before things reached a breaking point, the band decided to abandon the studio and ironically

returned to the road, a two-month tour of Japan and Australia. According to Hufford, the trip was pivotal, saying, quote, it made them re-evaluate what they were good at and enjoyed doing. Playing live again put the perspective back on what they'd lost in the studio. Suddenly, there was a direction. When Radiohead returned to the studio, they finished recording in a remarkable two weeks. But unlike Pablo Honey, it was an album they were proud of, an album that would mark the beginning of one of the most impressive runs in music history. Radiohead's sophomore album The Bens was released on March 13, 1995.

Its title is a term used by scuba divers to describe decompression sickness caused by rising to the surface too quickly, a metaphor for the band's quick rise to fame. Compared to the inexperienced effort of Pablo Honey, the Bens displays remarkable artistic growth. The songwriting is more refined, the arrangements more nuanced, the band members' roles more defined. And perhaps most importantly, Radiohead found true, multi-level dynamic and emotional range, an evolution from the mostly two-dimensional soft or loud dynamics of Pablo Honey. Perhaps a song most indicative of this dynamic transformation is fake plastic trees. Ed compared the original versions of the songs to Guns and Rose's

November rain, quote, it was so pompous and bombastic, just the worst, unquote. However, during the band's recording sessions, the band went to see singer Jeff Buckley perform, whose vulnerability and sparsely accompanied high falsetto voice made a deep impression on Tom and the group. We actually gone to see Jeff Buckley the night before or something. And that was the final nail for me. I'm like, okay, now I get it. Because he was just on his own. So I sort of gradually put all the layers away and said, okay, well, sometimes it's just going to be vulnerable and that's going to be okay. Even when a singer is singing technically, brilliantly. The powerful stuff is the stuff where there's the vulnerability, the sense that

things could just fall apart at any minute. Ben's haunting final track, Street Spirit, is another beautiful example of the band's newfound approach, a song that unanimously considered a creative breakthrough. Tom told Mojo, quote, I'll never forget the moment we captured Street Spirit. We spent a day going around in circles until I was thinking, this is never going to happen. Then suddenly something happened and I was transported to a place that I'd been willing myself to be in for months on end. I'd finally made the transition. The whole reason to be doing this is to arrive at those moments. It's the sole reason you spend your entire life in your bedroom playing to yourself.

If I ever forgot why I started this as a career, street spirit is why I started. While today we recognize the Ben's as a classic album, the reception upon its release in 1995 was extremely mixed. The Chicago Tribune gave it one star, while NME, the same publication that called Radiohead a pitiful excuse for a rock band, gave it a spectacular 9 out of 10. But like creep, the Ben's had a long shelf life and grew stronger over time. The album appeared on multiple Best Album of the Year lists and had sold over 2 million copies by the end of 1996. Proving Radiohead was more than a one-hit wonder.

But perhaps the most important revelation from the Ben's was the band's own realization that chasing hits of any sort would ultimately destroy them, that the very survival of Radiohead depended on an uncompromising creative will to make exactly what they wanted. Tom said, quote, the excitement of the Ben's being our choice and the fact that no one else was making songs like us was liberating. Once you've tasted that, it's like, ah, okay, I get it now, unquote. Fortunately, the Ben's was successful enough for EMI to allow Radiohead complete creative freedom. They gave no deadline for their next album, and there is no pressure to make a hit. This mix of creative freedom, external validation, and internal confidence became the recipe for excellence, as in just two years'

time, Radiohead would make what is largely considered one of the best albums in the history of recorded music. That's right after the break. Radiohead began working on their next album after touring the Ben's throughout 1995. Looking to distance themselves from 90s's' Brit pop bands like Oasis and Blur, the group was determined not to make the Ben's Part 2. Rather, they wanted to use their newfound creative freedom to try something new. While on tour, they'd been listening to innovative landmark albums like Miles Davis's Bidges Brew, The Beach Boys Pet Sounds, and Marvin Gays what's going on. And Radiohead wanted to make their version of these ambitious records.

Johnny told Rolling Stone, quote, In some ways, we were really conceited, and we would listen to a record like Bichesbrew and be so heavily influenced that we wanted to do it. Rather than bring in a big-name producer, Radiohead decided to produce their new album themselves, a pretty bold move considering their history of studio struggles. With the help of the Ben's engineer Nigel Godrich, they built their own studio using a 100,000 pound advance from EMI and began recording in the summer of 96. Without a deadline or a producer, the band struggled to actually finish anything, instead meticulously reworking the same four songs. They decided to take a

month break to open for Atlantis Moriss set in the U.S., where they could road test their new songs, a trick that worked for them during the Ben's sessions. When they came home in the fall of they returned not to the studio, but rather retreated to a historic mansion in Bath, England, called St. Catherine's Court, one of the UK's most architecturally stunning properties. The mansion was said to be haunted, and during their six-week stay, the band claimed to hear voices constantly. Tom told the Rolling Stone, quote, Ghosts would talk to me while I was asleep. There was one point I got up in the morning after a night of hearing voices and decided I had to cut my hair. I cut myself a few times.

It got messy, unquote. odd fantastimal experience of St. Catherine's Court was the perfect remedy for a band historically stifled by the formal studio environment. They recorded the bulk of the album live in the mansion's enormous ballroom, famous for its spectacular ethereal acoustics, including a four-second-long natural reverberation. Engineer Nigel Godrich also outgrew his initial role as consultant and evolved into co-producer, beginning a pivotal career-long partnership between the band and Godrich, who's now considered Radiohead's unofficial sixth member. reflecting on the entire experience, Ed recalled, quote,

It was a time of magic. I really believed the stars were in alignment. It all sort of came into focus. Radiohead's OK computer was released on June 16, 1997. The band decided the first single would be Paranoid Android, a six-and-a-half-minute long, three-part suite without a chorus. It's a decision that both now and then feels like a declarative statement, an artistic flag in the ground.

The song's opening A section ambiguously sits between, two key areas, and Tom's otherworldly melody ascends to great heights as he cheekily observes the absurdities of a society consumed by the trappings of capitalism. In the song's B section, the group pivots to a riff-based part in a new key, fluidly alternating between the standard 4-4-time and the much more obscure 7-8 times. Paranoid Android's third section implodes into an implausibly long 14-cord sequence that modulates between two key areas, with haunting choir-inspired backing vocals, Tom sings, rain down on me from a great height, a perfect bit of text painting sung over

the chord progression, which descends down lower and lower. From its structure, meter, instrumentation, melodies, and tonality, paranoid Android takes no standard musical convention for granted. Indeed, throughout Okie Computer, the band seems to draw from an endless well of creative ideas. On the song Letdown, guitarist Johnny and Ed play in Five-four Time, while the rest of the band plays in standard 4-4-time, creating a dissociative effect that complements Tom's lyrics about feeling disconnected from an increasingly electronic, hyper-paced world. Recorded at 3 a.m.

in the Haunted Mansion's ballroom, Letdown's themes of detachment by way of over-stimulation are emblematic of Tom's lyricism throughout Oka Computer, where he made a concerted effort to talk less about himself and more about his observations of the world as viewed through the window of a tour bus. Johnny said, quote, Letdown is the transit zone feeling. You're in a space, you're collecting all these impressions, but all seems so vacant. You feel very distant from all these thousands of people that are also walking there. Tom added, quote, we're bombarded with sentiment, people emoting, that's the letdown, feeling every emotion is fake, or rather every emotion is on the same plane, whether it's a car advertisement or a pop song, unquote. Okay

computer's subtle emphasis on the dehumanizing effects of technological advancement eerily prophesized a near future, not simply the rapid integration of technology into our everyday lives, but also the emotional aftermath of this phenomenon, the counterintuitive experience of being connected, yet alone, stimulated but numb. No chance of escape, now self-employed, concerned, but powerless, unempowered and informed member of society, pragmatism, not idealism, will not cry in public, less chance of illness. However, to this day, Tom insists that any of of OK computers prognosticating was coincidental. He told Rolling Stone, quote, Back then, I was getting into the sense of information overload, which is ironic really,

since it's so much worse now. The paranoia I felt at the time was much more related to how people related to each other, but I was using the terminology of technology to express it. Everything I was writing was actually a way of trying to reconnect with other human beings when you're always in transit. That's what I had to write about because that's what was going on, which in itself instilled a kind of loneliness and disconnection. When Radiohead turned Ok Computer into EMI, the label deemed it, quote, commercial suicide. Without an obvious radio hit, they drastically lowered their album sales forecast from 2 million to 500,000. However, unlike Pablo Honey or The Bens, Okay Computer was unanimously acclaimed from the start.

It was their first album to debut at number one in the UK, selling 136,000 copies in its first week alone. The album received perfect scores in Enemy, Q, Select, and Spin, and dominated album of the year lists. Many critics immediately characterize OK Computer as a turning point in the history of rock. Coinciding with the late 90s decline of Britpop and the fading influence of established rock acts like U2, Pearl Jam, Aerosmith, and REM, Radiohead's inventive pivot was viewed as a new North Star for the genre. Music scholar Tim Footman claimed that, quote, Not since 1967, with the release of the Beatles' Sergeant Peppers, had so many major critics agreed immediately, not only on the album's merits, but on its long-term significance, and its ability

to encapsulate a particular point in history, unquote. Suddenly, Radiohead was being hailed as the capital S saviors of rock and roll, a responsibility they immediately wanted nothing to do with. As an album very much about the alienating effects of touring, the irony of OK computer's success was that it sent the band on their most grueling tour yet, a relentless 15-month schedule that would ultimately demolish the collective psyche of the band. Tom struggled the most. Seven months into the tour and with many months to go, he suffered a mental collapse after a show in Birmingham. He told Rolling Stone, quote, I was a complete fucking mess. I mean really, really ill, just going a certain way for a long time and not being able to stop or look back or consider

where I was at all, for like 10 years, and not being able to connect with anything. basically becoming completely unhinged. By the time touring ended in the fall of 98, the band was completely fried, and the future of the so-called saviors of rock was in serious question. And you were considered one of the greatest rock bands in 1997? Well, God help us if we fucking were, because, you know, as far as we were concerned, even being called a rock band was a bit of a nightmare, really.

Why? Because it sucks fucking rock music. sucks man i hate it i'm just so fucking bored of it i hate it fucking waste of time it's like it's not really the music it's not it's not sitting on a stage playing guitar um drums and singing that's not what i'm talking about what i'm talking about is all the mythology that goes with it i have a real fucking problem with that i have a real problem with the idea that you have to tour yourself stupid and you know do certain things and talk to certain people and This is the way you, you know, I just totally snapped, had enough of it.

This illusion by guitar-based music, Tom suffered writer's block for nearly two years. He said, quote, I felt like I was going fucking crazy. Every time I picked up a guitar, I just got the horrors, unquote. In order for the band to survive, Tom stipulated that Radiohead's next album needed to be a radical departure from anything they've done in the past. He was most inspired by electronic artists like Apex Twin, Atecker, and Square Pusher, instrumental music that focused on rhythm and sound design more than it did melody. Not everyone in Radiohead was excited by Tom's proposed shift toward electronica.

Johnny, the most musically adept member of the band, was excited by the challenge, but the others struggled to find their place. Unsurprisingly, the band's initial attempts at writing in early 99 were unsuccessful. After four months, they had over 50 pieces of songs, but hadn't completed a single one in full. After a few tense meetings, they agreed to break up if they couldn't agree on an album worth releasing. Ed said, quote, it was a very scary thing at first. Everyone feels insecure. I'm a guitarist, and suddenly it's like, well, there are no guitars on this track or no drums. I honestly didn't feel I had a role to play. We all wondered if it wasn't better to just walk away, unquote.

In September of 99, the band moved to their newly built recording studio, where producer Nigel Godrich created exercises meant to cultivate new approaches to songwriting. He broke the band up in two groups. One group was responsible for creating a sound or loop without using an acoustic instrument, and the other was given the task to develop it. These kinds of experiments eventually led to what Tom considered a key breakthrough, the acceptance that not everyone in the band would appear on every song. As Ed put it, they had to learn, quote, how to be a participant in a song without playing a note. Phil also added, quote, what we've done is split the band up and reform it with the same five members. I think one of the most important ethics of Radiohead is that we're not

nostalgic. We never talk about what we've done in the past. We never look back. On October 2nd, 2000, Radiohead released their fourth studio album Kid A. Its opening track, everything in its right place, immediately makes clear the band had no intention of living up to its reputation as rock music saviors. The song doesn't have a single guitar in it. Instead, we hear a hypnotic chord progression and a unique 10-4 time signature played on an atmospheric profit synthesizer. Meanwhile, behind the main vocal, sampled fragments of Tom's voice are warped in reverse like some disfigured choir. It's hard to overstate the shock of hearing this opening track in the year 2000. Kidae was being hyped as the most anticipated rock record since Nirvana's in utero, and Radiohead had gone completely

off script. The album's second song, its title track, only reinforced the departure. Languant synthesizer accompanied by electronic drumbeat. Tom's distorted melody here is not sung. Rather, he monotonously recited lyrics pulled randomly from a hat while Johnny manipulated the pitch of his voice with a vocorder. It's one of the more transparent examples of Tom's desire to de-emphasize melody and lyrics and use his voice like an instrument. By track 3, the national anthem, Kid A cements itself as a completely singular album. With still no guitar in sight, the track revolves around a relentless bass line Tom wrote when he was just 16 years old. Meanwhile, an acoustic drumbeat is played as if mimicking a sample drumbeat. Over these foundational elements we hear any number of sonic oddities, from samples of radio station voices,

to Johnny's obscure analog synth from 1928, the Ains-Martineau, to a free jazz horn section that Tom and Johnny conducted by jumping up and down when they wanted them to play louder. Tom jumped so wildly he broke his foot. Alms' first guitar-centered song is track four, how to disappear completely, though it's far from a respite. The song's refrain quotes the advice R-E-M-'s Michael Stipe gave Tom when he was struggling on tour, suggesting that Tom close his eyes and repeat to himself, I'm not here, this isn't happening. The song also features a haunting string section composed by Johnny,

an example of his emerging 20th century classical music influence. In all, how to disappear completely is one of the most harrowing expressions of human disconnection and isolation you'll ever hear. Predictably, Kid A's renouncement of guitar-centered music divided critics at the time of its release. Reviews range from the highest praise and perfect scores to vicious critiques and insultingly low marks. The melody maker's one and a half star review was especially nasty, calling it at one point, quote, tubby, ostentatious, self-congratulatory, look ma I can

suck my own cock, whiny old rubbish, unquote. Despite its polarized reception and the fact the band released no singles for radio play, no videos for MTV, and did virtually no press, Kid A was the first radiohead album to debut at number one, both in the UK and the U.S. Today, Kid A has been widely recognized as one of the most significant departure albums in the history of popular music. With its release near the end of 2000, Kid A sits at the axis between centuries and has come to reflect a more universal shift from guitar-centered music of the 20th century to computer-centered music of the 21st century. All things considered, it's probably my personal favorite album of all time. If for some reason you're not already intimately familiar with both Kid A and Ok

computer, seek this music out immediately. That some of the most significant pieces of art that we have the privilege to be in historical proximity to. Radiohead's next album 2001's Amnesiac would release just seven months after Kid A. The album was produced during the same sessions as Kid A, and the band even considered releasing a double album, but ultimately feared it would be too dense. Amnesiac contains some masterful works like Pyraman Song and Like Spinning Plates, and most of what we said about Kid A is true of Amnesiac. But for our purposes today, we're going to move on to the Kid A Amnesiac World Tour. when the band was forced to figure out how to perform many of these electronic bass songs live.

Oftentimes, the album versions were transformed dramatically, as was the case with everything in its right place, which evolved from the original single synth and vocal arrangement to a full band, complete with live drums and bass. This hybrid of electronic instruments within a live band setting ultimately came to shape the direction of Radiohead's next album. Tom said, quote, It was the tension between what's human and what's coming from the machines. that was stuff we were getting into, unquote. The band made a conscious effort to avoid repeating the extended torture of the Kid A

studio sessions. They worked for two months writing and arranging their new songs, and then went on a two-month tour to cement them live, a tactic that worked on both the Ben's and OK computer. Producer Nigel Godrich then booked two weeks at a Los Angeles studio and had the band commit to recording a song a day. They also decided that everything would be recorded live, even the electronic elements. These self-imposed limitations were meant to throw. their tendency to scrutinize to the point of creative paralysis.

You know, it didn't feel like there was a lot of pressure on this record at all. It didn't feel because the whole thing about this record, kind of what's underpinned it, is letting go. You know, what we've tended to do is we've tended to over-scrutonize things. You know, you say, take an example like, okay, computer, take a track like, no surprises. No surprises were on the first things we recorded. We then went on this journey of spending six months doing different versions,

and then coming back to the original song, you know, from that first day. So I think there was, you know, we recognised that, you know, as much as anything, when you make a record, the difference is the approach that you make it. And Nigel sort of instigated that by saying, we're going to Ocean Way, we've got two weeks there, and let's do a track a day. And that was kind of the challenge. And in doing so, it means that you let go of things because you don't, you know, you don't become obsessed with them new types.

Radiohead's sixth studio album Hail to the Thief was released June 9th, 2003. Its opening track 2 plus 2 equals 5, which was recorded in just two hours, is a clear example of the band's stated intention of homogenizing the electronic in the acoustic. As we just heard, it begins with a pulsating electronic drum machine over which Johnny plucks out two chords and an odd asymmetrical 7-8 time signature. A little over halfway through the song, it explodes into a more rock-influenced section, where the electronic drums are replaced by a human drummer Phil Selway. Many songs on Hale to the Thief contain no electronic elements. The melodic lead single There There features a booming percussion section in which Phil, Johnny, and Ed all played Tom drums, while Tom and Colin handle the guitar

and bass parts respectively. Thematically, Hale's The Thief is Radiohead's most overtly political album to date. A lot had happened in the world since 2000's Kid A. the election of U.S. President George W. Bush, the 9-11 attacks, and the U.S. and U.K. led invasion of Iraq. Tom said, quote, I desperately tried not to write anything political, anything expressing the deep, profound terror I'm living with day to day. But it's just fucking there, and eventually you have to give it up and let it happen. Hail to the Thief was received positively, garnering four to five stars in most major publications. The band, however, would soon view the album as flawed.

In 2006, Tom told Spin, quote, We wanted to do things quickly, and I think the song suffered, unquote. At 14 tracks in 56 minutes, the band also agreed the album is too long. However, Radiohead also felt hell to the thief and its accelerated, no overthinking a loud process was necessary for their survival. Johnny said, quote, it was good for our heads. It was good for us to be doing a record that came out of playing live. After completing a world tour in 2004, Radiohead went on hiatus.

Hale to the Thief had fulfilled the band's original six-album contract with EMI signed back in 1992. Under no legal obligation to make new music, the band said it was a natural point to pause and reflect. And who can blame them? The little high school band from Oxford had experienced an intense near non-stop 14-year whirlwind. They went from being called a pitiful excuse for a rock band to being called rock music saviors. They went from one-hit wonders to one of the most important bands in history. They survive excruciating world tours and multiple creative reinventions that each time pushed them to a breaking point.

Was the rush recording of Hail to the Thief the beginning of an inevitable decline? A sign of a band that had lost their ambition, that had run its chorus? After becoming fathers, after solo albums and independent creative ventures, did they have the collective energy to carry on, to make another album that lived up to their past work and historic reputation? These were the existential questions Radiohead faced when they reunited, in 2005 to begin the process of their next album. A process that would be every bit as grueling as the Ben's OK Computer and Kid A. A process that would again bring them to a breaking point.

A process that will unpack when we finally begin our song by song, note by note, line-by-line analysis of radioheads and rainbows. Next time on Dissect. Dysect is written and produced by me, Cole Kushna. If you enjoyed today's episode, please tell a friend about the new season or share on social media. It really helps. Original score and audio production by by Kevin Pooler. Additional analysis by Brad Osborne. Theme music by Birocredit. All right, thanks everyone for listening. We'll talk to you next week.