You'll Hear It: Full Album Deep Dives with Jazz Musicians - Kid A – Radiohead

Episode Date: April 27, 2026

Check out Adam’s course for more on Kid A and the harmony of Radiohead: https://osjazz.link/radioheadYou've never heard Kid A like THIS. Jazz musicians Adam Maness and Peter Martin break down Radiohead's 2000 art rock MASTERPIECE track-by-track to uncover what's really happening in the music that makes this album so incredible. Why do we love Radiohead's Kid A so much? Watch to find out.PLUS - Jazz musicians play Radiohead's "Everything In Its Right Place". One shot, one take, no AI. FULL video: https://youtu.be/c5w9BHKe0rc-------------------------------About You'll Hear It:In this popular music series, Adam and Peter break down the greatest albums of all time. Stevie Wonder, Michael Jackson, Joni Mitchell, D'Angelo: Jazz is the foundation of the most GENIUS music in recent history. These seasoned jazz pianists bring their deep musical knowledge to every joyful episode to help you hear the hidden qualities that make music AMAZING. You'll never hear music the same way again.-------------------------------Hidden artifacts from the albums we love:https://youllhearit.com/newsletter-------------------------------Chapters Legend: 🎧 Listening to a track     🎹 Music theory breakdown     🎵 Live studio jam00:00 Radiohead - Kid A00:58 This is Adam's Super Bowl03:40 How Do They Get Away with This?!05:39 🎧 Where Radiohead Started08:29 🎧 OK Computer: Something's Happening Here15:17 Yorke's Creative Crisis18:09 🎧 "Everything In Its Right Place"22:44 Isolated Stems on "Everything In Its Right Place"24:53 Why Jazz Musicians Love Radiohead27:35 The Genius Rhythm in "Everything"30:00 Did Kid A Predict the Future?31:04 🎧 "Kid A"33:28 How Radiohead Cracked the Code34:07 Bluegrass Cover of "Kid A"35:27 🎧 "The National Anthem"40:55 What Peter ACTUALLY Thinks of Kid A46:19 🎧 "How To Disappear Completely"52:09 🎧 "Treefingers"55:10 What Genre Is This?58:30 🎧 "Optimistic"1:00:58 🎹 A Lesson in Modal Interchange1:05:00 🎧 "In Limbo"1:08:04 🎹 Adam Breaks Out the Keyboard1:10:44 🎧 "Idioteque"1:13:22 Isolated Stems on "Idioteque"1:14:43 🎧 "Morning Bell" 1:16:35 🎹 The Chromatic Mediant in Kid A1:19:50 🎧 "Motion Picture Soundtrack"1:22:28 🎧 The Most BRILLIANT Album Ending1:24:19 Best Moments on Kid A1:32:21 What to Listen to Next1:32:42 Better Than Voodoo?1:33:49 🎵 "Everything In Its Right Place"

At the peak of his success, Tom York went silent. In 1997, his band was on top of the musical mountain with an art-rock masterpiece. But all he can think is that guitar music was dead. And now the world was waiting for their next album, and he had nothing. Every recording session was a failure. They went back again and again. The band was split. Some wanted to make guitar-based music that made them famous.

Others thought Radiohead might be done. Then Tom York disappears into a country house with a piano, and he walks out with a kernel of an idea, the start of an album that would define the decade and predict the future. This is kidding. I'm Adam Manus. And I'm Peter Martin. And you're listening to the you'll hear it podcast.

Music Explored. Explored brought today by Open Studio. Go to Open StudioJadiojazz.com for, oh, your jazz lesson needs Peterb. Yes. Big day? Well, I was going to ask you, I thought you might say biggest day. Am I shaking? right now. I'm shaking a little bit. You've been like, you know, electric all day,

scurrying around here like an exenial. My skin has been buzzing. Your skin is blowing. All week. Everything feels more vibrant. The colors of the trees are unbelievable right now. Well, it's spring. Actually, that sort of just happened. Don't yuck on my yum, buddy.

I feel like my feet hasn't touched the floor since Monday morning. Peter, I am so stoked that we are listening to Radiohead's 2000 masterpiece kid a. buddy this record for me so important it's huge huge album in my life yeah i'm so excited to experience this with you um we've been talking about this but it's such a joy to have and i know this is not your only record no not at all man it was like i was just not so knocked over by this i was 20 i didn't have like i hadn't listened to as much music as i'd listened to now yeah and it was the fact that a band could change this much. Like this band changed from what they started with.

What, you know, thinking about creep and all this stuff from when I was driving around High Ridge. And now I'm walking down 22nd Street. Yeah, that was another. That's a good creep. I'm walking down 22nd Street and I've got, you know, Morning Bell going in my ears and I'm like, what is happening?

Yeah. What is happening? This is amazing. Would you say, did it maybe subconsciously open up the possible? I mean, we're 20 years old. We always feel that like one minute, we're like, the world is everything. The next minute we're like, I'm done.

Everything's too late. But did it open up sort of musical or artistic possibilities? Like, did you feel like, oh my God, the mountain is, like the clouds clear. The mountain is way bigger than I thought it was. For sure. I mean, first of all, just the feeling tone of this. Like the melancholic tone of this had been ringing my ears from already, from people like Elliot Smith, from people like Brad Meldow, who was already a massive fan of,

who we'll talk about as well has a radio head thing too. Stereo Lab, people like that, that have this sort of like bitter sweetness about their music, this is like the ultimate melancholy album. This is like the ultimate rainy day driving around at night album. This is the, you know, if you are down, you put it on and you either feel more down or you're like, okay, well, at least other people have been down. You feel like the connection to humanity through it. And then also, man, the connection. Absolutely. 100%. Even though it's a, it's an album with a lot of machines. Right. You know what I mean? But it's a very human. story that is being told musically here.

And then also some nerdy music things, you know I'm a harmony geek, right? In the same way that Stevie Wonder informed my sort of taste of modal interchange. This has a whole other thing of modal interchange, which I'll go into nerdy stuff later about it, about what that is, but they use it a lot different. They use it more like Schumann or Brahms or someone like that.

And it works in this way, or like John Williams, like that feeling, right? Yeah. And, man, I was just, I was like, how can a rock band do this? And be so popular. It was really, I mean, it's kind of like how when we talk about Steely Dan, like, how do they keep getting away with putting these jazzy chords in these huge pop songs?

Right. And with this, I feel like, how do they keep getting away with this? Like, they're putting actual interesting stuff in the harmony. And as a harmony nerd, I was just like, like, elated about this album. Oh, that's so great. So I was 30 or nearly 30, maybe 29. No, that's not right. Wait, 2000.

Yeah, that's right. Yeah. Yeah. And when this record came out, I didn't even notice it for some reason. You know, just like, for whatever reason. And so I did hear it some and I was aware of it, but mainly because of Brad Meldow. You're already a jazz superstar at that point. Well, I was not a jazz. I mean, I was sort of at the tail end of my like hardcore. I don't know. I was a few years past that.

I was playing a lot of music. I was recording. And it wasn't that I wasn't still exploring stuff. But it was like a big deal. I wasn't exploring everything that came out. But what I'm so excited today, and I have been listening to this record the last few days, but I kind of backed off a little bit. I've heard the whole thing a couple times. But I sort of backed off because I wanted to experience it sort of as you as my guide.

And I think that that can be for a lot of people because we think, look, we know there's going to be a lot of people on here that, like, this is my jam. Or like, it's not as good as okay computer or whatever. Like, there's a lot of exposure to this. Oh, there's going to be a ton of argument in the comments about what the best radio head is. Yeah. Okay. Let's go back in time a little bit. Let's start with the start of it.

So I was around for all of these. The very first Radiohead album, you know, that was really on our radars, at least, was the album called Pablo Honey, came out in 1993, and it produced this... That's when Pablo Escobar came on the scene, too, I believe. Pablo Honey produced, like, what some might call the white people anthem.

Right. Patrice O'Neill might call the white people anthem. Oh, sweet Caroline, got you. It's creep. You probably heard it. It's their first big hit. It was a huge hit. When you will

It's an unbelievable song It's a great album actually But it sounds a lot like All the other stuff that's going on around there Right It sounds a lot like all of the alternative Not all of it But in a vein of the alternative music

Especially coming out of Great Britain at that time Would it be considered alternative rock What was that later they called? Yeah, it's definitely alt rock For sure Some people have defined radio head as art rock I think that becomes more obvious As they continue

And maybe with Kiti a little bit of precursor to math rock We're going to talk about that, maybe. No? May a little bit. Here's the part of everybody he wants to hear. Oh, yeah. There we are you.

If you haven't seen, there's a great clip on YouTube of comedian RIP, Patrice O'Neill, riffing on creep. It's just look it up. It's unbelievable. Okay, I'm driving around.

I wasn't even driving yet. I was just like a eighth grader coming into freshman year, going to marching van camps, and being in the back of old, Honda Civics while people were shooting darts out of the front seat and I'm like, am I grown up?

I don't know what's going on. 95 though, I'm well in high school and this comes out. This is from the Ben's. Ben's is an unbelievable album. Great songs. This is high and dry. Another big song for them. They're already a very popular band. Yeah. These were like number one hits, right?

I don't think these were number one hits, but they were big hits. I'm not sure about that, actually. It's 95. 95. Okay. Beautiful melodies. Tom York, who's the lead singer, has a very distinctive voice.

It's kind of brittle. It's not quite falsetto, but it's upper range, right? Is that considered falsetto? Fossetto? It's not really falsetto. It's kind of like a mixed voice, but he's just got a real delicate, brittle quality to it that has a lot of that pathos,

you know? Okay. Ethos as well. So... That was 95. That was 95. 97 comes out and all of a sudden everybody who is into Radiohead and into music in general is like, here's Radiohead's album, OK Computer, and it's like, oh, something's happening.

Something is changing. This is different. And you can kind of tell on this track, Paranoid Android. First, the name alone. Paranoid Android starts with that electronic sound. But then goes right to the guitar. There's like computer voices on this album Right

It's kind of the first taste of a real Dystopian or like Yes Skeptical look at the future Yeah This melody That harmony Yeah

Very hip Program drums really well That's program right So good Man the mix Oh Yeah I mean Put some headphones on for this family.

Shout out to Nigel Gottreitz. God tier. God tier. No. No, I mean, we're getting into that sort of Stevie Wonder harmonic territory of like the voice leading inside of all these things is like you're like, oh, there's some real sophistication happening. This isn't just like, no offense to like someone like the offspring or something like that other alternative rock where it's like, okay, we're putting some power chords together or maybe there's some like droning stuff. This is like, holy smokes, there's some real like. dare I say, English harmonic sophistication,

Benjamin Britain and people like that happening. Same album, this happens, and I just want to play exit music for a while. This would end up at the end of a couple films, as would a cover I'm about to play. This is still from OK Computer, still from 1997. This is called Exit Music for a Film, right? Is that all in the title?

That's the title. That's the music for a film. Might as well be Chopin, honestly. Is that York on guitar or the other? I doubt it. Maybe. to drive your tea Today

We escape We escape Suss Mm-hmm Tickerdine Major, all right Do one more verse Just to get to this part

Where you can see the harmonic sophistication Blooming even more It just You can hear them growing Yeah, every album is getting a little bit more rich The textures are getting a little bit harmonically, not just like production-wise, which is also happening. Yeah.

But in the music itself. And the depth of the songwriting. Yeah, the texture of his voice. Exquisite. Even he's not like, you know, the world's greatest singer. No. But it's so... Gorgeous.

It's some kind of like... Some kind of synth vocal thing. Oh, is that the... Sing club beer? No, maybe. What's the white one with the tapes? A little tape machine Beautiful

Man there's elements And we're gonna hit this on Kidd A too I was thinking about With Tom York's voice That's, he's always in the lead vocals Yeah Yeah You know Fado

I believe I'm saying this correctly The Portuguese style of music Yeah I think Fad or maybe is Fajol Apologies in advance No worries Obrugato But it's a beautiful

style of music That goes back hundreds of years And I know it influenced some, you know, up in what became the UK, and I don't know exactly how that happened. But Fado is, I think it basically means sad. Yeah. And this music is so beautiful, but it's all got this very

I don't even, I don't want to say morose, because I think Morose means something a little different. Melancholy. There's a feeling of just like, yeah, you know. But even if you don't hear, and when I'm hearing Fado, you I don't understand the lyrics, because they're in Portuguese, but I don't understand

a lot of, while in this I hear, when we're getting the Kid A. KIDA is hard to understand. But you feel it in his voice. And then the harmony, which you've been pointing out, but it's got this tinge of, like, melancholy has, of optimism. Which was like these unexpected majors and stuff when you think it's going to go to minor. 100%.

There's a lot of hope in the melancholy, which is interesting. I brought out exit music there from Oka Computer because, you know, that came out in 1997. I was, you know, a senior in high school. Yeah. And my hero at that time, besides yours truly, my co-host here, was Brad Melvow. I was a young jazz pianist.

I was playing on the scene here in Willie Aiken's band in St. Louis. I was obsessed with Brad Meldow. He's making... That was his Warner Brothers days. Well, he's in the height of like the Art of the Trio. On Art of the Trio, Volume 3, 1998, he covers exit music.

And this is when my ears perked up a little bit of like, too, of like, oh, wait, if this incredible, sophisticated jazz pianist that I know knows his shit thinks that this rock band's music is good enough to put on one of these albums, It kind of elevates it for me. Like, it's kind of like an endorsement from a really keen expert on the music. Yeah, validates it.

Not only that, but this is absolutely gorgeous, this cover of it. It's 100% beautiful, as is all of the art of the volume trios. We should do, we got to do art of the volume trios. This is from the Vanguard? No, this is the studio one of the volume trio. I think, I think this is one of the studio ones. I remember hearing him play this at the Vanguard, the Live. It was in a set.

He also, by the way, he covers. Larry. He covers paranoid android quite a bit, Brad Meldow. He's got a great arrangement of this. As to a lot of people,

which we're going to find out. Okay. So here's... He's got... He did the paranoid Android on the... Was it live in Tokyo? That long version of it is great.

Hey, if you love sitting with an album, really hearing it, open studio is where we go deeper. We've got lessons, courses, and a community of musicians who love this stuff as much as you.

Come find us at Open Studio Jazz.com. That's openstudiojazz.com. That's openstudiojazz.com for your jazz lesson needs. Back to the show. So OK Computer was this major success. It was a, it was a critics darling. It was a commercial success. Some critics called it the album that saves rock, which is going to be ironic here in a minute. And there were really, really high expectations for Radiohead's next album. And it was it their biggest hit until, I mean, except for creep. Oh, yeah, yeah. No, it was a huge hit.

It was a huge hit. And this along with like a grueling touring schedule was too much for Tom York at the time. In November 1997, after performing a show in Birmingham, England, he had a breakdown. His bandmates asked him if he was okay. Thank you. But he couldn't respond. He said, I always assumed that it was success was going to answer something, fill a gap. I was so driven for so long, like a fucking animal.

And then I woke up one day and someone had given me a little gold plate for OK computer. and I couldn't deal with it for ages. I mean, we've heard this story before of, like, you think it's going to fill the hole. Right. And it doesn't fill the hole. Oh, only one gold plate? Yeah.

It's not platinum. And everybody who hasn't had, you know, monster hit albums is like, well, let me find out for myself. That's right, right, right. By the time they said... Hey, buddy, being rich is hard. Really? Let me see. Yeah.

By the time they sat down to write their next album, York's breakdown to become a creative block. He actually had Writers' Block for two years. Here's Tom talking about it a little bit. At the end of Ok computer, we finished touring and I was sort of trapped in a series of sort of in my own particular labyrinth. And it's followed by this weird sort of monologue, criticism, everything I did, which became from being sort of propelled into this weird state where people were throwing, projecting things on to me in a particular way, which I didn't have the right sort of support mechanism to deal with it. And so I internalized a lot of it and it sort of kind of shut me down.

And so whenever I tried to write something, whenever I sat in front of any instrument, I sort of froze, I had this sort of thing in the way, this little voice going, I mean, I remember sitting endlessly, endlessly playing the riff for everything in its right place, like a sort of trying to meditate my way out of it and not being able to, not being able to. Until eventually,

I'd sort of stopped for a while. We were in Cornwall a lot, and I was walking around... Cornwall. I'm still being in the landscape, being in the sea a lot, and I just started drawing and absorbing the landscape. What an English thing? And it's right, and it's right, and it's right, and it's right,

yeah, it's right, I woke up soaking. Yesterday, it's working. You know what doesn't happen? Yeah, it's right there. It's a little kick But that's been there Since the very beginning It's the second measure

Pull back Filters open It's a 10-beat cycle here I always hear it as five Two Three Three Four

Five But yeah It's a masterpiece man This was made by Just Tom And Nigel Godrich I should say before we go too far Radiohead is Tom York on vocals, keys, bass, synth,

Johnny Greenwood on lead guitar, Colin Greenwood on bass, Ed O'Brien on guitar and backing vocals, and Phil Selway on the drums and drum machine. And really, the huge part of the band is Nigel Goddrich. Another huge part of the band is artist, Stanley Donwood, who has done all of their cover art, plus, like, it's not just, we'll get into the art later,

the Kuchramats. It's unreal how much art is involved with each one of these, especially later albums, but especially this period, Kid A and Amnesiac. Which one of the Greenwood boys did, the Greenwood brothers, did the PTA? So Johnny Greenwood is frequently a collaborator

with Paul Thomas Anderson. Most recently did one battle after another, but has also done the scores for Phantom Thread, for There Will Be Blood. He's an amazing musician. Amazing musician. Him and Tom are an incredible duo. And then, but honestly, the whole rest of the band,

I mean, Ed O'Brien is amazing. Phil Sulway's amazing. Like, Colin, they're all great artists in their own right. And has the personnel stayed? I know they all went to like prep school together, right? It's all stayed the same. It's all stayed the same, which is great. Okay, I have some things queued up here that I want to play.

Mostly. Did you say Tom did the whole, he was the only one involved with that first track? Tom and Nigel. And Nigel. Yeah. So I want to get into here. all this stuff Menacing

Back it up just a little bit These are all the background vocals With effects and things Yeah Some vocal order on there I don't know what they're using Honestly I know they had a whole bunch of

It gives you It gives the whole album All of these things Especially this track It gives those sort of like background synth samples. They're using a lot of samples.

They have that pad, that synth pad where Johnny Greenwood Live will be affecting Tom York's voice as they're going. But it just makes for such a rich palette. Let's hear that kick drum. Heartbeat.

That's it. This is all that does. But think about that speed, like it being a heartbeat. It's not like boom-boo, but it's also not a relax, like it's going. it's telling you about something that's going to happen, you know. Like you're a little bit on alert. It feels like, and especially in 2000, I mean, this is definitely one of those albums that we take...

We just made it past Y2K, barely. Yeah, but it's one of those albums that it's been so influential on a whole generation of musicians that we just take it for granted, these kinds of sounds, but it was, at least in the popular culture. Yeah. Not certainly in, like, electronic music circles. A lot of these things were already a bit dated that they were doing. Yeah. But, like, in popular music...

Radiohead as a band really brought this over the finish line with Kid A into the mainstream consciousness, especially the way that they used it. This song, everything in this right place, has been covered, again, by Brad Meldow. This Killen. That's Larry, right? Yeah, jazz musicians love Radiohead, by the way. That's Larry Grenadier on bass. Jeff Ballard on drums.

Ballard. Oh, he's got the C extension going on the East Street. This is from Anything Goes, the album. Anything Goes Brad Meldon Trio. Larry's such a monster, man. What a musician. We'll cross over with brown sugar.

He played on that as well. He did? Yeah. The sea is strong. Ha. It's a little bit slower. A little bit slower. So that's Brad Meldow.

Also, another great Gen X jazz pianist has covered this in a very interesting way. In a mash-up with Herbie Hancock's main voyage, this is Robert Glasper. Pitch perfect. Shut up. This is from his blue note album In My Element, which is a very, very good album.

Hmm. Let's take it up to D, eh? I never noticed. So he took this from five and put it in six. Five, six, one, two, three, four, five, six. Pretty creative. You know, one thing, like, you were showing,

I was just wondering if we could hear the original just for a second because rhythmic, like, when you broke it down with all the stuff happening, in there and then harmonically how it's set in the tone for what is to come and just such a vibe. There's something I just noticed as we listen to it rhythmically with that big five.

If you feel it like that, that I think is just genius because there's a lot of anticipation. And so with that, of course, the bass drum is very Yeah, but if you play it again I think two. It's a profit five synthesizer by the way. I'll profit. Five.

One, two. But you get boom, boom, boom, boom. Like there's that constant syncopation. And of course, like there's kind of a... Like there's the stability, but then there's the movement. You know, like the pushing forward of it is fantastic. And then because there's no drums on this. And you keep thinking it's going to be...

And it's not. Yeah. It doesn't need that. But the way it builds, you know, the harmony and the rhythmic. And then... The very simple melodic turns and movements. See if we can catch some of those background vocals. It's almost like on a turn.

I always thought that was kiddie, kiddie. But I don't think that's what you say. It sounds like kidday. Maybe it's kidding. Yeah. Showbrow sloppers It's barely hanging on by Yeah

The cracks Yeah They're going to come back in And it's right Yeah Man This is So this profit too

You know They're just going to open up the filter Okay Okay Okay And that sound is kind of backwards looking, right? Yeah.

That's like mid-70s, late 70s. But to me, this record, like, as I was listening to it the last few days, not only did it sort of take me back to the early 2000s, but I think this was a record that was really looking forward. I mean, there sounds, certainly electronic sounds that they're sourcing

from the past, but I think this is like, this has a lot of angst and, like, you know, kind of surveillance, society, political upheaval. the future a little bit. Environmentalism. For sure.

And then we think, oh, that's been around forever. No, not really. You know, but a foreboding kind of environmentalism.

Digital corporatism is in this. It's all part of it. It started with OK, computer for sure, but this really solidified, like, that sort of like, oh, what are we doing?

What are we walking ourselves into? Which, you know, in 2026 feels like, we're all like, no, let's walk right into it now. Well, we survived it kind of, and it's getting worse. You know,

like the heads of tech company's like, yeah, it's probably going to kill us all. Well, we're going to do it anyway. Like, don't worry, we've got a place in New Zealand, a doomsday shelter. Next up is the title track. The second track is the title track. And it is, I mean, the whole album, there's no skips.

This is kidday. It's like a lullaby for a little alien robot. A kid that's been implanted with a... I love the drums here. I think maybe modular since, I don't know. I know there's... In the comments, let us know how often and egregious we're wrong the technology on this.

The drum machine? Yeah. I know Johnny Greenwood was using, at this point, I was using modular sense for stuff. Yeah. Dystopian. That's vocal odor. It's a combination now of the electronic drums.

Yeah. Phil Selway. That's depth. That's vocal order. It's got to be, right? I don't know. It's some kind of vocal effect. I think it's like,

I read somewhere that they had some kind of like ancient version of a vocoder, like a really old, like the first version. The first version is ancient. They sourced in Egypt from a... You know, one thing I want to point out, though, is there's so much on this whole album. There's all these incredible production things happening, obviously. But the core musicality of it,

the orchestration principles, even as we're in, we're swimming in waters that a lot of us might not have swam in, especially if you're 20 years old at this time. Like, there's some familiarity with how they're crafting these songs. And I think that's what really cracked the code. Like I said, some electronic musicians were nonplussed, this album because they were like, yeah, we've been making these sounds for like over a decade,

you know. But I think it took a band that had already had some like, honestly, popular music success to take some of this stuff, put it together in a way that a mainstream kid from Missouri at the time could like be like, what is happening? What is this? And, you know, then I go out and I buy a boards of Canada album, right? Then I go get into Affects, 20. Like, it takes that, that big band sometimes to, we've seen it again and again, man, to push you over the, edge on some of these sounds and be sort of like the pioneer. That song Kid A, one of my favorite covers of it is by Chris Teeley and the Punch Brothers. Yeah.

Check this out. Bluegrass quintet. Mandolin, guitar, banjo, fiddle, bass. To give the bass that sort of like robotic tone, I think it's just brilliant. Okay. Next up is the National Anthem. It's really the first time we hear Colin Greenwood, the bass player, whole album.

Also, Peter, think about how much space resides on this album. Yeah. And it's not just like, here's the verse, here's the chorus. It's just like a lot of we're going to sit here. Even how they pulled out the drums for those second seconds. Oh. And this track, I mean, the whole album, with headphones, we're going to talk about that later.

Incredible. Incredible headphone album. Yeah. I mean, the baseline is the melody, right? That's the melodic content. We're 90 seconds in. Wow. publishing company, I see why they were sweating. Yeah, the record coming? I'm going to skip ahead just a little bit.

Get some horns in here. Oh, yeah. I skipped ahead too far. I skipped ahead too far. Here we go. There's a lot of Charles Mingus in this one. Very Charles Ming. And I mean, that baseline, actually, like this is now when the trombone, do we know who this is on trombone?

No, we don't know. He's a killing trombone. But like that, I remember when I was first listening this, I was like, were dead. Like, there's kind of this bluesy part. I don't know.

But when the trombone player came in, he definitely was like, B'HDA, he was like, he completed that, you know. No, Tom, Tom York has said that Charles Mingus is the Complete Town Hall concert is one of his biggest influences

in the album, along with Miles Davis' Bitchesbury, which you can hear all over this. And he loves Alice Coltrane as well. Just hear all that. T.E.F. Man, is there some flea, wait. Yeah, flea influence? Or is it the other way around?

Tom Yorker and Fleer in a band together. Okay. I don't love it. Yeah, so cross-pollination. That's not flea. No, but I mean, that's a very flea, like, I can totally see Flea playing then. Oh, but it's got that like cold train late period.

I was thinking, that could be flea too now. I just, we got to hear it over the end. The chords at the end are unbelievable. It's seriously hard not to play every second of this. I'm sorry, man. I'll try to be more efficient. I'm here for it. Eric Dolfi in there?

It's a national anthem. That's a bit of a Beatles thing, isn't it? Yeah. It's a little bit of a Sergeant Pepper's March out. White album vibe. So, Peter, what are your thoughts so far, man? I know this is kind of a bit of a discovery for you.

Yeah, I mean, I love, I love this record. I mean, this is like... We got him. We got him. We got him. I was a little bit... I wasn't unexpected because you and a couple other people that I really respect love this album and hold it in very high steam.

So I knew it was going to be great. I just didn't know if I was like, I'm telling you, it's such an exciting thing for me to, and I'm just at the beginning of exploring this, but like you truly can't have this discovery of, not everything, but that's the thing. If everything is discoverable at any time,

then nothing's discoverable. But, like, that's the endless well of music. And I've never gotten caught up in like, oh, you haven't heard these yet? I'm like, I got a lifetime to, you know what I mean? Like, you can't. I'm looking forward to saving stuff. Exactly.

Yeah. Yeah. I'm saving stride piano from my. 80s. I love I'm just not an expert on it and I'm gonna get there someday. Like heroin, I'm saving

my 90s for that because I figure that's a good time. It's a great time to do it. But I mean, it's like, and you know what, if I don't get to some things, that's cool too. Because, you know, what's that?

I don't know. Don't get to age, buddy. Yeah, no, no. But I'm saying like, if there's, you know, like Brahms, I've never, I mean, I've actually heard if I even played some,

but I don't, that's one composer that I know I like, I know I love, that just, I just haven't really delved into. But I'm going to. It's fun to explore. It is.

And it's fun to be able to look forward to something. It's great to have friends, too, to recommend stuff to you. For sure, like, when you say you like something, it puts more weight on it for me. I'm like, oh, I've never really checked that out. But I'm going to check it out. If Peter likes it, it's probably worth checking out. Yeah. Now, I mean, and the biggest thing, like I said, I mean, this is great here and here.

We have some great speakers, but they're up, like, they're separated. If you get a chance, check out this. Especially if you're doing it for the first time, I was lucky that I just happened. I was like, wait, when I first started listening this the other day, I was like, let me get some good headphones. And then I went and got my better one. And then I was like, oh, my, it was like a revelation. Yeah.

And I know that sounds like a nerdy thing. It's like, no, dude, you love the music even if it's coming out of an AM radio. It's like, yeah, but this record really, there's great stuff on it. But when you get this happening, it's a great headphone list. It's a big part of the artistic, uh, honestly, I think it's one of the reasons why it's age so well. And one of the reasons why it's so beloved is because this did come out not too far away from the release of iPods. You know what I mean? Right.

And headphones going in. I mean, I know we had Discman. I was certainly listening to this on a Discman, but this would have been one of the first albums I uploaded to my first iPod. You know what I mean? And walked around listening to it digitally, which also was weird back back.

It made you feel like, what's going to happen if music is free? And I can just download it for free. Well, and this is 2000. And this is talking about it. Right, and this is during that time when, like, that was already, there was so much angst about that.

And like, I don't know if they actually said, but I could feel it on this record. I remember that time, what's like, is music going to be free? so musicians aren't like everything can be downloaded and low quality everything's going backwards kids don't understand how much that sort of devalued master yeah it devalued music and musicians because you used to have to literally own a piece of it a physical piece of it and it could only fit so much into your life literally fit it space and all of a sudden we went overnight to i can fit every song i've ever heard on this little thing right but

even before this was actually before that though this was during that time when like just before you could download on that like where it was like you had to have some technology so there was almost like an access thing too because it was like well yeah of course you could still buy it but pretty soon you're not going to be able to them because there was no coordination with the labels iTunes or Apple yeah none of that so I mean like there was very much a thing of like music is going to die

and it's not going to matter because the environment is going to fall in apart because we don't take care of it and if Y2K we barely made it past that but then the two whatever the election where the Supreme Court does I mean there was so much crazy stuff going on there I got some horn separated out here

I mean, straight dominant seventh. Let's demonstrate a dominant seventh chord for three minutes. Yeah, the trom open up. I'm just coming as this fat, fat Kansas City blues. That's a good solo. Yeah. Man, it's like a cacophony, you know. It is.

I mean, it's meant to be. It's meant to be like that. Check this out, too, Peter. This is just for you, buddy. This is Michel Indegliocello and Chris Dave. Oh, I was going to say it. I was like, wait, I didn't hear this on that. Is that Michelle playing?

I never heard of it. It's actually amazing that radiohead stuff has been covered as much as because on first blush, it's so personal. I mean, it's very like otherworldly in a way, at least this record. So specific to the production. and synthesizer.

Yeah, it's not the kind of thing. Do better, boy. Come on, let's do it. But do it like that. All right, next up is Tom York's favorite song. Check this out. If you could pick one song that you'd like to be remembered by. How does disappear?

Oh. Half your day. Why? You just do that. It's the most beautiful thing we ever did. Is 1,000% gorgeous. Oh, inspired by REO. It's so pretty.

Strings are so pretty. I didn't Coldplay and I could suit for stealing this sound. Damn. Man, listen to the other albums that were released in 2000. Eminem the Marshall Mathers LP. Outcast, Stangonia. When's the Stangonia podcast? Happens.

Pete, D'Angelo Vudo. Voodoo. Of course. 2000. Coldplay, Parachute, J.C., the Dynasty. Nice. Joshua Redmond beyond. Joshua Redmond beyond.

This climax is to such a beautiful place. That haunting guitar-ish, I think it's a guitar. Crunchy chords everywhere. I don't want to stop, man. Trenching to like the big form, right? The architecture of the big form. It just keeps blossoming.

Yeah. I mean, listen to where we are now. Choice for the strings there. When he goes up with it. I can't stop it. Isn't that great? Wow. Unbelievable.

Just so gorgeous. I get why he's so proud of that. That is harder than it looks. To do something that is that. beautiful and that simple and a great song. I mean, that's a bit of a little Buddhist anthem there that apparently the rumor has it, and I'm not sure if this is totally true, but legend has it that the lyric is inspired by a mantra that REM's Michael Stipe gave York to calm his anxiety on the OK computer tour.

I'm not here. This isn't happening. There's myself. That's a good mantra. We mentioned ambient music and we certainly get it in the next track, three fingers. Where we just chill for three minutes and 42 seconds. series of sounds. I mean, this could be a Brian Eno track.

When this came on at home, Kelly Martin, who's a yoga instructor, was like, oh, I love this. Her ears perfect. She was like, this is good for my class. These are my favorite moments on this album, actually. These moments in between and the moments of rest that they have

make the hyperactive horns, the climactic moments of the song. It's the form, right? It's the balance and the form of the whole album. Every great album we've known. It's like, so this is Brian, you know, influence, you said? How could it not? Yeah.

I mean, all ambient music, I think post-1980 would be. Harold Budd, another one. You know, I think lots of great ambience. This kind of stuff, a lot of people. Boards of Canada. They think, oh, this would be so easy to make this kind of stuff if you had the right equipment. But like the timing of, like, how long are you sitting? It's like, that stuff has to be, when that's not done well,

sounds like bad AI coffee house jazzers. I actually don't know anything. Coffee house ambient. I don't know anything that's really great, which this is really great at what it is. Yeah. That's easy to do. Right. It's even things that seem.

I mean, when I saw it. It's supposed to see me. That's when you hit the next level. Dude, the first time I saw, I literally saw it, watched Chick Korea play the piano. Piano looked easy. Right. Right. It did.

It was like, oh, that looks super easy. He's smiling. It just is super relaxed as he's doing it. L.A. Kipchogi, as he finished the marathon in under two hours was like, running looks easy. I was like, oh, oh, oh, my God. Look at that little guy. Go try it. Give a shot.

All right. Have you seen Radiohead live? I got a couple questions for you. Should I ask you an hour later? Yeah. Yeah. Live in New Jersey in 2000. Okay.

Yeah. Did you enjoy it? Yeah. It was transcendent. So I have a couple questions from myself, but I have a couple from a friend, a mutual friend of ours. Okay.

So I'm asking for a friend. Is this record pretentious? No. Okay. But does it get a little bit of a rap for that? Probably. Yeah. Yeah.

Okay. In some circles. In some circles. it's commercial, you know? Do you think, well, I already know how you're going to answer this, but this is again, asking for a lot of people that would say, is this a betrayal from the work they had, or is it the culmination or is it a departure? Is this like Dylan goes electric?

No, a little bit maybe, but no, I think it's more like, listen, you ever been an artistic spot where you're like, what do I do now? Yeah. We've all been there. I mean, you're hanging around long enough, the thing that brought you there is like not really working anymore. Right. You know, you're like, what do I got to do?

And that's where like the rubber meets the road of like, well, how inventive are you? Right. And I think this is just Tom and the boys being like, we're going to zag. Yeah. You guys zig, we're going to zag and do this. And it worked for them. Yeah. You know.

Oh, you're going to love this question. Go for it. This is right in your wheelhouse. Is it such a love affair? You're so happy. Are you ready to just have your blood boil? Go for it. What genre is this?

You know, we could say art rock. That's a good term. Art rock. There's so much art in this album. Tom and his artistic partner, Stanley Donwood, have done all of the art for all of the Radiohead albums, I think, from the beginning, from Pablo Honey. And this is a masterpiece of cover art.

It's not just cover art. Oh, you're saying that would make, that's called art rock if you have, if there's artistic vision on the cover? This is art school rock. This is like school for artist's kids, right? Fancy rock. Yeah, this is not like angry mosh pit rock. This is rock for.

for, you know, people who have been to a museum or a hundred. You know what I mean? So it's not pop. Even though this was a big hit. It's a popular record album, but no, it's not pop music at all. But anyway, man, when they were recording this in one of the many venues they did, apparently they had this big house and there was a mezzanine that the, that Stanley Donwood, the man who does all the art, had his own space, was making art for this album as it was

happening being recorded below him. Yeah. And Tom is part of this. They met in art school. Well, Tom is part of the process of making the art, although I think Stanley does a big chunk of it. But all of this from Pablo Honey, but this period of Kid A, amnesiac,

Hailed of the Thief is like unprecedented. I think it's such good album art. I mean, you'll see later in my... We're going to talk about it, Creezebel. I got one more question for you. Is this radio heads... I'm thinking about different records that we've done somewhat recently. Is this radio head sign of the Times?

Or maybe a Black Messiah. Yes. We haven't done that yet. We haven't done by, yes. Or Goucho even. I would say this is more. That's a great question. Do you know what I'm saying?

Like where a lot of like really diehard fans would say like this is, finally they've gotten to who they actually are. They did great cool stuff. Yes, this is. This is the turning point. I mean, I think some people would argue, OK computer was before this because there's like the kernels of this. But this is when it just like fell off the cliff of just like we're here and we're

going up 100 miles an hour. down the hill. You know what I mean? Like, we're doing this, really, really doing this. Yes, this changed them. I think it kind of changed a lot of mainstream listeners and turned them on to new things. I know I'm one of those mainstream listeners. And it, and it, like, affected a lot of people. We've heard jazz musicians, bluegrass musicians, R&B musicians, hip-hop musicians cover this already. It's iconic at this point. It's legendary, for sure. Yep. Peter, we're getting into my favorite run.

Optimistic in Limbo, Idiotek Morning Bell, four songs in a row that could not be better. I mean, we've had already with everything that's right. Play is KDAA, the National Anthem, how to disappear completely, and that little amuse-bush, that pallet cleanser tree fingers, such a great first part of the album.

But the back half of every good album that we've ever reviewed is like, I mean, remember bad? Michael Jackson's bad. Remember how that ends, like, in this incredible way? This album has one of the best ending runs of any album we've ever did, in my opinion. Well, I don't know. I only know 1% of what you do about this record, but I actually have my Apex moment and my desert island tracks coming up right in this thing.

So I guess I know a little something. This is optimistic. Yep. This counter melody here. Brilliant. Yeah. Can't go past four minutes until later. I'll pause it here.

I feel like you have stuff to come up the end. So this is where, you know, I was talking about Stevie Wonder and modal interchange and how this was, for me, a lesson in modal interchange as a young musician, and this track in particular, and the one after it in limbo, first of all, to me,

optimistic and in limbo are like superwoman and where were you when I needed to do? Like there, which is one track. Right. These two tracks are connected in my mind. I can't listen to one without listening. But they play right into each other.

They play right into each other. They're in the same key, or they at least have the transition in the same key. But this has, you know, the bulk of this, right has the so for our listeners who aren't musicians like we're going here between D minor

and D major yeah and that theme has been introduced several times on this album already so even if you like it's already ringing in your ears right that's not uncommon in classical music and in jazz but is uncommon in modern popular rock music that it would

like and that's not even that's the basic version of this they're about to get even more like all of this stuff. And this is again where sort of the Schumann comes out, the Schumont situation. All the inversions,

all the root movements, the, you know, that kind of like Paul McCartney-ish thing. But it's more sophisticated than any of that. And then that,

which happens over these chords, Peter, this. Woo! Yeah. So it should have been F sharp there. There it is. Yeah.

It's just gorgeous, man. The whole thing, the orchestration, the harmony is so, so pretty. Okay, I'm going to throw something out there real quick. Okay, sure, sure, sure, sure. And then I want you to get back to this. I think that, I'm about to make a sweeping generalization. But I think that, like, European rock, pop, R&B, any kind of musicians,

they're doing something in the sort of popular sphere, do a better job of connecting with the sort of indigenous culture there. Like we're hearing things in like old English classical music, but even before that that they've connected with... In their DNA. Right. Now, there's definitely black American music influences. 100%.

You hear that. There's Miles Davis. There's Charles Mugust. There's Alice Coltrane. But in America, like we've... Not all the time. I mean, you can find brilliant examples of this in bluegrass and fiddle music and stuff. But in general, like, we've gotten totally we, we're the beneficiaries of black American music

and this culture. that's affected pretty much everything great, in my opinion, has come out of it. But, like, otherwise, like, we got disconnected from all that stuff. All these people that are like, you know, we're going to play white music, but they're not, like, they're not going back to the great stuff from Europe or whatever.

They think that they are. And so it got disconnected from that. And this is kind of like, it's so, it's stunning to kind of hear that connection with the popular thing on top of it. I kind of wonder if they would even hear that. I know, how English it feels to us. Because I think what I think about this.

Because they're not disconnected from it. I think about English folk music. But I also think about the choral tradition in English. Like we mentioned Benjamin Britton earlier, but there's literally scores of amazing English choral conductors, choral composers, choral arrangers. And then you throw in, you know, Walt Whitman and like the poetry and the prose and how that's,

you can hear it, you know. Man, anyway. So I wasn't off base with that? No, you're totally on base with that. I totally agree. And I want to caveat that. There's a lot of exceptions to that. Of course.

This is what we're looking at. But this is why like, you know, this sort of blending of, like you said, black American music with this sort of like island in the middle of like off the west coast of Europe. Yeah. This is where like Led Zeppelin kind of has their own thing because there's this like weird like Lord of the Rings vibe

to the blues all of a sudden. You know, you're like, what is going on? But it kind of works. It's kind of awesome. Okay, after that. Photo King. I have my apex moment is also in here, but I think it's later than yours.

But the next track is... Oh, you're talking about that? Okay, well, go. Some ball of them. Fregan unbelievable, my man. In limbo. Nice. Oh.

Turn it up. And this is such a great placement on that. Like we're riding the middle of the album, right? Like just the second half. It is. It like splits the album. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, seven.

I mean, seven out of the left. The triplets against the 16th? Yeah. Debt, that's it. Which doesn't really reveal itself. That's first. Those changes there, right? Right.

Woo. That's haunting. I want to live here for a year. Oh, yeah. The sound of the guitar, too, is amazing. The guitar and drums on this is like the most... I don't want to say organic, but like okay computer kind of sound. For sure, you know.

Look at you. Talking like an expert already. Like an okay computer sound. Look at the sky. REM and Radiohead. Now I'm split. You want to go to Coachella? Yes.

It was last week. I do want to go. Great melody. Get off playing this in Coachella, just to warn you. Maybe. So a couple of good ideas fully developed and committed to for the whole... That rhythmic thing is... And this mix on the headphones, like, the drums are so present.

but they're kind of in the back. Yeah. They're not as present as the vocals and the guitar. Oh, man, it's so great. Have I become that guy, you've got to listen on the cans, man. It's a great headphone listen. I love this part here, the vocal thing that happens.

So much Tom. It's like they just keep restarting Tom's. Like it keeps rebooting. Tom with an H. Reboot Tom. I just, I got to talk about it. I just got to talk about a couple things here. So what's happening here?

So first of all, we've got this like six-beat phrase of this sort of, right, that starts this track. And again, this is all kind of like in this minor Dorian thing, right? By the way, we're coming off of optimistic, which is in the key of D with that D minor D major. So our ears are already tuned. Like, that's the thing. The band keeps prepping you. They keep like prepping you for about what's to happen. And there's even prepping from earlier tracks on these musical concepts.

And then they go from D minor to C minor. Now, if you don't know anything about music theory, you're like, that seems like maybe D and C are close together. Right. But for two minor keys, it's very jarring. And then they head back to that sort of... They're not closely related. E minor. They're not closely related.

And the way they pull it off. So this here... is like this C minor, G minor over B flat, E flat major, and this sort of, like, E minor with the minor six in there, with that C natural in there. And then the melody over that, the... It's just so haunting. Like you said haunting, and I think that really captures it.

And then every time... It's foreboding, too. Forboding. And then they go back to that... to the every time they go back to that first section you're just like, yeah, just like gonna groove out on it.

Man, it is a stroke of genius this track. Absolutely, absolutely. This is, I mean, I think, I mean, I actually don't have it as my desert on track, but I think it's, and I don't have it as my apex moment, well, part of it is, I'm giving it that away, but I think it's somewhat of the,

what do you call it, like the, it's like the apex of the album. It's the meat. It's like the, you know, not that there's any falloff after this, but like it kind of goes to, it kind of starts to, to decay in a beautiful way

from here to the end of the album. And like by decay, I mean, it's the same thing. We're talking about melancholy, foreboding, angsty. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

You know, upheaval, like all these kinds of feelings. There's beauty in that when you hit it. Like, that's what I get from this, right? I'm not just like, oh, this is a dark album. Like, that's the most sort of trivial way of looking at it. But it's like,

it's one thing to play something to make a record that's just beautiful. beautiful from beginning to end. But there's another thing to say, like, we're going to enter... Like, to me, this album is, like, such a mood. It's such a vibe. Like, you're entering into something that's not as easy to make incredible and beautiful, and they nailed it.

And then they go from that to this. Idiotect. I thought it was Idiot Tech. Idiot Eek. The textures. Yeah. Each chord is like this different... texture it's that combination of like very analog synth sounds and just very specific electronic

the drums on this are insane this is a modular synth i think the a modular synth you know like the sin's coming out oh wow peter where you yeah the johnny greenwood is working man this totally different than anything we've heard. It's like very direct, very clear, very unaffected. So gorgeous, dude. Like, when I hear all of this, I hear like, they did the work. Yeah. They went the hard route.

This is not, there's so much detail. Kind of stuff rattle around? Yeah. I mean, you and I are not experts in how to make electronic music like this at all. But think about how much meat. Don't count us out, sir. Just because we haven't done it, doesn't mean we're not. We could.

We could, we could, we easily could. No, but think about how much me there is for nerds like us, like theory nerds or people who know about chords and stuff, and melodies, right? There's so much in there. There's also stuff for people who are in it for the lyrics or for the art or for the production or for the songwriter. I mean, it's all there.

Yeah. The whole track is unbelievable. I got a couple of things I want to check out with this isolated because there's just so much going on on Idiotek. Here's the drums. Obviously the drums are the sort of like the meat of this, but I want to fast forward a little bit to this second verse. That bass drum is so...

It's aggressive. Like, this is the most aggressive bass drum we've gotten so far. It's high, too. Listen all those little details going on, though. It's like a G. But that's pretty high for a baseball, right? Very cool And then

He loves the flat five He loves the flat five I mean the flat six Sorry Oh I love they leave that on I love they leave that on Simply beautiful

Simply beautiful I mean We're really cooking now And like you said Now we're in this This home stretch of everything Right after this Another masterpiece

Morning Bell 54 here minor. I wonder if Mark Giuliani ever heard this drum groove. I think he might have. Minor to major here, A minor to A major. Again, that's more of that modal mixture that for people who don't know a lot of harmony is very, very rare. It's why it sounds so unique. It's only things that, like, Stevie Wonder likes to do.

And other, like, very high-level, you know, Earthwind and Fire, Kel King. But they have a very unique approach to it. They do. It's very, like, front and center. you know, for the harmonic flow. And it's always connected with the melodic content. This is a remarkably cohesive album, considering how, like, the production is very different

on a lot of these tracks. Yeah, this is dry. Yeah, like his, I mean, he's so wet at a different place. I mean, the vocals are presented differently. But very honestly, I think, on everything. The drum's very different. The bass, we haven't heard the bass like this since, like, the third track or early on.

Skip ahead just a little bit because this is great, this part. So that part is... Got the kids where? We don't know what he's saying. That part is another music nerds paradise. This is the sort of John Williams chromatic media, right? So you've heard this in Indiana Jones. You've heard this in Empire Strikes Back. I think I heard it when I was in Indianapolis as well.

Just in the city. Just in the city of Indianapolis. You know, there's... They've got the kid... E minor to G-sharp minor. So they're a third away. They're both minor chords. Again, just very, very rare that any kind of thing

that's close to popular music would even, like, get that deep into it. Yeah, because it'd be scared. And then there's no, like, connector chord or transition or anything. Yeah, it's, like, exactly right. But that's how John Williams uses it, too, you know. Like, he'll use that in that way of just like, you know, dun, dun, dun, don't, don't, ball, you do, but where that... Like, you're just going somewhere and then you're coming back.

Exactly. They, by the way, so the next album after this was an album called Amnesiac. It came out the very next year. All the songs on Amnesiac were from these same sessions. They basically could have done a double album. Amnesiac is also a banger. It is also a masterpiece. If you like this, you will love that.

Which you like better. It depends on the day. But what's so cool about it is that on Amnesiac, they do another version of Morning Bell. Hap. Chromatic median. Is that a half step higher? No, it's a little detuned.

Oh, okay. But they lean into us. I'm going to nerd out and set. This is really the nerd nook here. That's incredible. Because they did like a bunch of tracks. Yeah. They put this on both of all.

So did you hear the melody or the root moving on that was done, da, da. And the original, it's all just on this A pedal, right? It's all just, the morning bell. A minor to A major 7. Morning bell. In this, you know, the A major 7 shape without the A. the C-sharp minor.

And that's what they did on the amnesiac version. The morning bell, the morning bell. Oh, like a second inversion. Which is like a, no, it's like, it's a chromatic median. Oh. No, that C-sharp is in. No, I'm saying, but up at the top. Oh, yeah, yeah, I'm doing this.

Yeah, but check it out, Peter. This is the same as that interlude. Yeah. Got the kids in a... Yeah. So it's really the same. Like, they kind of changed the chord progression for the amnesiac version. It's such a brilliant move.

It's so cool. geek out so hard and like, who thought of that? Why do they do that? I don't know. Do I love it? Yes. Do I fully understand why? No.

Sue me. I'm excited. I don't know if you can tell, buddy. No, but it's also like for folks that are like, what seizure or mine or what you? I'm tuning. No, don't tune out. This is like, this is about like, what is the feeling?

And your guys, like when it gets to that part, it's like, what is that human feeling that we have, that harmony? Like, it's never, I mean, like, we're isolating it, yes. But that's one of the elements. And everybody's just like, I'll never understand. music. Hey, melody, harmony, and rhythm. And we've talked about all this today. This was kind of a lot of in terms of the elements of it. Like harmony is just, it's striking if you understand this. But I hope people are accepting as striking as it is just to hear it because that's the most

important level. But when you go in and find it, you're like, oh my God, this genius, you know, but that human feeling that it gives you is stunning. So speaking of humanity, you know, we're going from all this electronic stuff and they end the album with motion picture, motion picture soundtrack. That's a way to get on a movie. With a very organic sound. Yeah. Sounds like that sort of like foot pedal, pump organ. Yeah.

You can hear something creaking, you know? But they didn't play this on MTV. Probably not. Probably not. It's so beautiful, man. It's such a great ending. It's such a simple but epic, you know, feel to it. How many times did Stevie do this to us?

Right. And the album, too. Where you're like, you'd hear, but you're actually, emotionally, you're very lifted. You're elevated. Yeah. It's simple. Let's bring some Dorothy Ashby. Harmonium.

That's what that is. A little Dorothy Ashby. A little Alice Coltrane. Apparently, that was Johnny Greenwood on the harp. Yeah, no, it's not actually Dorothy Ashby. No, I know, but he could play harp, too? Who? Johnny Greenwood.

Oh, wow. Playing the harmonium, I think that's the name of the keyboard is... Damn. Maybe. I mean, yeah, if you get a tune at the right place, you can just keep doing that, I guess. Not to oversimplify. Shout out to all my harpist friends.

And I'm going to play right into the next track because on the original CD, which most of us got this on CD, it was a hidden track. Right. You remember those? Yeah, yeah. Like, they wouldn't.

put it on the album. It wouldn't be on there. But it was still a whole separate track. Right. So you could fast forward to it. I mean, you could advance to it. It was our first half to finish. I can't tell you how many planes I've been sitting on and this moment of the last track. I think this might be the most brilliant way

to end an album of the last 40 years. Going from motion picture soundtrack into this untitled track. You're on a plane. You can't really hear much of what's going on here, especially with 2000 technology, non-voice cancelling headphones. And I feel like there might have been a little more space in the actual running up.

It didn't go right to it. I think, I feel, I could be wrong about that. But someone put in the comments, was there more space between motion picture soundtrack and the untitled hidden track? I love it because you used to be able to define. I remember in mastering, you'd be like how many, like two and a half or one, you know,

or because it would kind of come out of nowhere where you're almost like half asleep by the motion picture soundtrack and you're just like, oh. What a gutsy move to pull that out. First of all, to pull the harp on the last or the penultimate track to pull a new instrument and the harp at that?

Peter, what do you got? Let's do some categories. I mean, everything in this right place, I think is an obvious choice, but like that's, it's, can we just play the beginning? And before we played, I'm sorry I messed up your initial thing because I didn't know we were going to it. But I want to honor this as I think, like,

we should do like an Academy Awards. We're going to put on tuxes. We're going to do that this year. Award show. We're going to do a little award show. We should do a best of the pond. Because I have a Brooks Brothers tuxedo. It's been a while since I've worn a tuxedo.

I do. Yeah. Wow. Custom. But the thing is, I think this, like, you know, we've done some other albums. I think that this is one of the greatest starts to an album. Can we back up just a second about the Brooks Brothers Tuxedo? You know I was going to stop you on this, right?

That is a classic move, Peter. That's a great move. Can I just say to the audience? If you're looking to buy a tuxedo, because think about how many times are you going to wear a tuxedo. Someone bought it for you. someone smart bought that for you. You know why? Brooks Brother, it's not trendy.

It's not trendy. The cut is always going to be pretty conservative. Straight down the mountain. And that's what you're going to be an old man one day. I mean, unless you're going to the Grammys and you want to really flash it up. That's right. For most events that you're wearing a taxi. Peter Hesler, whoever told you that is a baller.

Thank you. That's what I'm saying. So, no, but I think that this is going to be up there if we go over like greatest starts to an album. I think, and I think this could win. This is such that, and I mean, pretend like you have, go listen to this with headphones. Do yourself. Like, it is such a...

I try it on four different kinds of headphones. I'm not even an audio file, my friend. You know many films have used this? I mean, even we just saw... What's the one with Ryan Gosling that's out now? La La Land? Oh, that's the other guy. No, no, the Project Hail Mary uses this.

Vanilla Sky uses this. Like, there's a ton of films and television that have... Sorry, I'm going to do it again, because you're right. Now I'm ruining it. I'm rooting it. Hold on. So, man, the two different times, and then the menacing but beautiful bass drum, but also like the foreboding and the foreshadowing,

I just, I think it's a brilliant start. I read in an interview when this album came out. I forget what magazine that could have been Rolling Stone. It was probably on an airplane as I was flying back and forth. Would you just be a pilot or something? No, man, you know, we used to fly more. No, but Tom York was interviewed about this and he's like, he's like, we were driving around after the final mixing of it,

listening to it in the car. Like you do. You know, like if you don't know, when you're mixing and mastering stuff, you tend to go out to the car, you go for a ride with it, you get some fresh ears.

Hear out sounds on the car speakers, which is important. And he's like, I was just sitting in the back seat and it came on. I just started sobbing. And he's like, and he's like,

that doesn't happen every day. You know, because it doesn't happen, especially when you're deep in it working on the work. But I think even he was probably like, holy smoke. What did we do with this?

Like, it's pretty special. Yeah, I agree. On a couple of minutes, you're going to hear us doing it, so there you go. My Desert Island tracks is actually the two optimistic and in the low-bo. So two-the-pairing of those. Well, no, there are one track in my mind is what I was saying. So two tracks.

Okay. Got it. Desert Island tracks. Well, we do say Desert Island tracks. Apex moments. Can you go to right before four minutes or right about four minutes or a little before on optimistic, please? So four minutes or right before.

Yeah. Look at him. He's using, he's cradling. So I know it's true. But this is a good call. Yeah.