radiohead
30 Signature Guitars for Modern Artists
For decades, having a signature guitar was reserved for classic rock legends — the Claptons, the Hendrixes, the Pages, the SRVs and EVHs. But that’s no longer the case. From pop-punk to heavy metal, alt-country to neo-soul, modern artists of all genres and backgrounds are getting signature guitars from companies big and small. Among the titans of the industry, that intentional shift came with a new generation being put into decision-making positions. “When I started, it was largely classic rock and very much a pantheonic Hall of Fame,” Fender’s Executive VP for Products Justin Norvell says of the early 2000s. “It was an end-of-an-iconic-career kind of thing. But it was my feeling that it should be something that people can use to reflect back upon themselves. A Telecaster can mean James Bu...
Watch Cillian Murphy in Video for The Smile’s ‘Pana-vision’
The Smile has extended its creative partnership with the hit Netflix British drama Peaky Blinders via a new video for its song “Pana-vision” starring the show’s Cillian Murphy. “Pana-vision” previously debuted in an April episode of the show’s sixth and final season and can be found on the Thom Yorke and Jonny Greenwood-led group’s debut album, A Light for Attracting Attention. In the video, directed by Peaky Blinders director/producer Anthony Byrne, Murphy reprises his role as World War I veteran/gangster Tommy Shelby. Yorke’s haunting vocals and ethereal piano playing offer the perfect complement as Shelby awakens in a field after a night of drinking and contemplates a drastic measure involving a loaded pistol. [embedded content][embedded content] The Smile just wrapped the first leg of ...
Radiohead’s Ed O’Brien Reflects on 25 Years of OK Computer
OK Computer might not have come out until July 1, 1997 in the United States; however, May 21st marks the 25th anniversary of the release in Japan, and Radiohead‘s Ed O’Brien took the opportunity to reflect on the album in a pair of Instagram posts. Inspired by a BB6 Music’s celebration of OK Computer, the guitarist reminisced about working with producer Nigel Godrich for the first time, recording in Jane Seymour’s mansion, opening for Alanis Morissette (where they “first met the light that was Taylor Hawkins“), and the band’s general thoughts and work ethic 25 years ago. We recently unearthed an archive of SPIN’s 90 Best Albums of the 1990s list. See where OK Computer landed here, and read O’Brien’s full message below. Going underground So.. today is apparently the 25th anniversa...
The Smile Builds an Alternate Universe Radiohead on A Light for Attracting Attention
Fifty-nine seconds into “The Same,” the first track from The Smile’s debut release A Light for Attracting Attention, the unmistakable voice of Thom Yorke begins singing about how “we are all the same” atop a sci-fi pulse of piano, acoustic guitar, and analog synthesizers. There’s no easy release from the tension of the song’s slowly creeping dread, and it soon begs an important question: how is an album with Radiohead’s singer, lead guitarist, and producer actually not, well, a Radiohead album? The answer lies somewhere in between Jonny Greenwood’s simple desire to work on something — anything — with Yorke during the lockdown era of the COVID-19 pandemic and a larger philosophical debate about the evolution of Radiohead’s music in the past 15 years. Both are reflected throughout the superl...
The Smile Revels in Creepy Stop-Motion on ‘Thin Thing’ Video
The Radiohead side-project The Smile has unveiled yet another new song, “Thin Thing,” ahead of the Friday (May 13) release of their anticipated debut album, A Light for Attracting Attention. The track is accompanied by a creepy, black and white stop-motion animation video directed by Cristobal Leon and Joaquín Cocina, which features vintage technology being destroyed by an unseen force, severed arms crawling across the ground and the disembodied heads of Thom Yorke, Jonny Greenwood and Tom Skinner doubling as the tops of barren trees. [embedded content][embedded content] Leon and Cocina spent six months assembling the video, of which they said, “Hearing the song for the first time, we imagined a frenetic fluid that carries machines, pieces of human bodies and carnivorous plants. When prese...
Watch Thom Yorke Perform Radiohead Hits Solo For the First Time
Thom Yorke performed a handful of Radiohead songs solo for the first time during an acoustic set at Zeltbühne in Zermatt, Switzerland last night. His 23-song setlist included the solo live debuts of “Bodysnatchers” (from In Rainbows), “Exit Music (For A Film)” (from OK Computer), “Decks Dark” and “Daydreaming (both from A Moon Shaped Pool). Yorke also played “Rabbit In Your Headlights,” his 1998 collab with UNKLE, and the Smile’s latest single “Pana-vision” live for the first time. Radiohead’s “These Are My Twisted Words” and the title track off his solo album The Eraser were also performed solo for the first time since 2010. See fan-footage from the show and Yorke’s career-spanning setlist below. [embedded content][embedded content] [embedded content][embedded content] [embedded cont...
The Smile, Radiohead Side Project, Release New Song ‘Skrting on the Surface’
The Smile — the group consisting of Radiohead’s Thom Yorke and Jonny Greenwood, and Sons Of Kemet’s Tom Skinner — released their third single, “Skrting On The Surface” along with an accompanying video via XL recordings. [embedded content][embedded content] The video was filmed in 16mm black and white, directed by Mark Jenkin, the BAFTA-winning writer, and director.The video shows the disused Rosevale Tin Mine in Cornwall, and hand developed in water from the mine. The song and video both evoke a sense of grittiness with the black and white color palette with visual distortions complimenting the song’s mellow, melodic tone. “Skrting On The Surface” follows their debut single “You Will Never Work In Television Again” and “The Smoke” — which was also remixed by Dennis Bovell. The ...
Red Hot Chili Peppers, Eagles, Radiohead and More Donate Items for Charity Auction
Red Hot Chili Peppers, the Eagles, Radiohead and more have donated items to a charity auction through eBay. Eagles fans can bid on an acoustic guitar from 1999’s The Millennium Concert at Los Angeles’ Staples Center, signed by the whole band; Radiohead fans can get their hands on an In Rainbows vinyl/CD box set, signed by all the members; and Red Hot Chili Peppers fans can not only score a signed electric blue Stratocaster, but also the most interesting item in the bunch: Flea’s signature bass, which has been covered in hand drawn doodles including the phrases “I Am Flea And I Love You” and “stay off the pipe.” All net proceeds will benefit Watts Community Core — a non-profit that exists to support the youth and families of the Nickerson Gardens Housing Project and surrounding neighbo...
Radiohead Side Project The Smile Unveil Second Single ‘The Smoke’
The Radiohead side-project, The Smile, previously announced their three consecutive shows at the end of the month at Magazine London. Ahead of those concerts, the band released another new song in the form of “The Smoke.” Consisting of Thom Yorke, Jonny Greenwood, and Tom Skinner, The Smile previously shared “You Will Never Work In Television,” at the beginning of the month. The accompanying lyric video for “The Smoke” was created by the BAFTA-winning writer and director Mark Jenkin. [embedded content][embedded content] In-person tickets have been long sold out, but tickets are still available for the three livestreams of The Smile’s set on January 29 and 30. The shows will take place across sixteen hours and three timezones, and fans can join in from anywhere around the world via the live...
The 90 Greatest Albums of the ’90s
This article originally appeared in the September 1999 issue of SPIN. “You must be high.” We heard that a lot during the time we spent preparing this issue. Which is understandable. Pronouncing the 90 greatest albums of the ’90s is a somewhat presumptuous thing to do. When you’re measuring the music this decade is offering to history—the sounds we partied with, copulated to, fought about, and wept over—everyone has an opinion. That ours should be more valid than yours is debatable. But hey—it’s our magazine. What, then, you ask, constitutes “greatest”? Don’t even start. Suffice it to say that, after much heated discussion and countless veiled insults, it came down to the factors of both remarkable artistry and cultural shock value. Sometimes a record’s knock-you-off-your-Skechers impa...
Radiohead Took Notes From Aphex Twin and Massive Attack for New Album, “Kid A Mnesia”: Listen
With the release of their Kid A Mnesia album, Radiohead indulge in an alternate version of music history. When the band released the forward-thinking Kid A in 2000 and then Amnesiac, just eight months later, the public immediately began to draw a connection between the two. As Paste points out, the prevailing school of thought was to consider Amnesiac an extension of Kid A—a place for the tracks that were originally left on the cutting room floor. Radiohead fought this interpretation, as they specifically wanted to rebuke the trend of releasing a double album. Now, decades later, the iconic band are giving fans the box set they wanted, and then some. The combined Kid A Mnesia album, which includes a dozen previously elusive ext...
Radiohead Releases Rare Fan Favorite ‘Follow Me Around’
On the officially released “Follow Me Around,” Thom Yorke quavers over faint guitar strums and vocal harmonies. One of Radiohead’s subtler songs, this stripped-down fan-favorite continues the group’s melancholy undertones: “Nowadays I get panicked / I cease to exist / I have ceased to exist / I feel absolutely nothin.’” [embedded content][embedded content] The song was originally often performed at soundchecks on the 1997 O.K. Computer tour. Its only official recording appears in the 1998 Meeting People Is Easy documentary, where Radiohead performed it in Fukuoka, Japan. Fans campaigned for “Follow Me Around” to be played live on the Radiohead fan site, and frontman Thom Yorke debuted it acoustically in October 2000 at a Toronto concert. The “Follow Me Around” that was released ...
