• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Login/ Register
  • Editorial Team
  • Get Involved

Exeposé Online

Making the headlines since 1987

Exeposé Online
  • Home
  • News
      • Local
      • COVID-19
      • University News
  • Comment
  • Features
      • National
      • Worldwide
      • Politics
      • Interviews
  • Science
      • News
      • Lite Science
      • Common Misconceptions
      • Environment
      • Health
      • Technology
  • Sport
  • Lifestyle
      • Fashion and Beauty
      • Features
      • Food
      • Wellbeing
      • Sustainability
  • Music
      • Interviews
      • Features
      • Live Reviews
      • Album Reviews
      • Single Reviews
  • Screen
      • Reviews
      • Features
      • Interviews
      • Festivals and Awards
  • Arts + Lit
      • Interviews
      • Features
      • Reviews
      • Creative Writing
  • Amplify
  • International
  • Multilingual
  • News
  • Comment
  • Features
  • Science
  • Tech
  • Sport
  • Lifestyle
  • Music
  • Screen
  • Arts + Lit
  • Amplify
  • International
  • Multilingual
Home / Music

Paranoid Fan-Droid: Why I Stan Radiohead

Radiohead, Radiohead, Radiohead. Where to begin? Formed in 1985 in Oxfordshire, the band have been a cultural mainstay since their 1992 grunge anthem, ‘Creep’. With a career spanning nine Grammy-winning albums, three headlining Glastonbury performances, and no less than six ground-breaking commercial, cinematic and technological innovations in the music industry, they’re easily one of the most notorious acts of the last two decades.

It is the seemingly boundless evolution of their musical aesthetic, however, which is why I love them so much. From blitzkrieg style alt-rock to tetchy electronica, diaphanous jazz, folk and grandiose orchestral pieces – their style has influenced everyone from Beyoncé, the xx and Frank Ocean to Muse, Coldplay and Everything Everything, easily making them the most transcendent band of a generation through sheer diversity alone.

Thom Yorke – you know exactly who he is.

Consider, for example, their bruising sophomore album, The Bends (1995). The krautrock-inspired album is packed with both fist-pumping rock anthems like ‘Just’ and the titular ‘The Bends’, as well as some of their more meditative, lullaby-style ballads. Anyone who’s seen Clueless, for example, can probably testify that Yorke’s infamous Elton John-inspired ‘Fake Plastic Trees’ lyrics, with the lethargic references to ‘cracked polystyrene men’ and his lost love forcing him to ‘float through the ceiling’, still strike a powerful note. Meanwhile, the album’s closer, the arpeggiated ‘Street Spirit (Fade Out)’, remains one of the most haunting and desperately sad songs of a generation, encapsulating a theme of perpetual nightmare and sorrow which has permeated their work since.

The band’s third album, OK Computer, saw their reputation as one of the all-time greats fully cemented. Tackling themes like alienation, consumerism and paranoia, OK Computer’s gleefully Kafkaesque and distinctly avant-garde feel helped distinguish it from the Britpop spirit of the day; with tracks like ‘Paranoid Android’, ‘Karma Police’ and ‘No Surprises’ overflowing with dense, beautiful instrumentation and an unnerving prescience towards some of the more isolating pressures of post-millennial life.

juggling esoteric, intimate melodies with anti-establishment anthems is what makes their discography so great

If Ok Computer represented a peak in the alt-rock genre, the band’s formative 2000 album Kid A (as well as its sister album Amnesiac) did not seek to build upon these foundations. Rather, the record strips back, disassembles and resurrects them entirely in a fusion of Ondes Martenot, rollicking electronica and grandiose brass and string sections. Influenced heavily by the Warp artists Yorke was listening to whilst studying at the University of Exeter (oi oi), this sound would later come to be a recurring mainstay in the band’s discography. The untrammelled frenzy of ‘Idioteque’, for instance, can be seen in Hail to the Thief’s carnivalesque ‘A Wolf at the Door’ and In Rainbow’s ‘Bodysnatchers’, whilst the Disney-inspired malaise of ‘Motion Picture Soundtrack’ most recently made a stylistic return in the band’s 2016 record A Moon Shaped Pool with tracks like ‘Daydreaming’, ‘The Numbers’ and ‘Glass Eyes’. Even still, the alluring syncrisis of ‘Pyramid Song’, a single from Amnesiac that touches upon themes of cyclical time and resurrection to an intoxicating, waltzy 7/8 beat, remains, in my opinion, their best work.

A Moon Shaped Pool – Radiohead’s last full-length LP.

Radiohead’s knack for juggling both esoteric, intimate melodies with antisocial and anti-establishment anthems is exactly what makes their discography so great. When Thom Yorke first embarked upon the project in the 1990s, envisaging a future dominated by technology and total societal alienation, he could never have predicted that Radiohead would be recording songs about the catharsis of an omnibenevolent, comforting force (‘Reckoner’) or falling in love with an intimate friend (‘House of Cards’). And yet, despite such radical shifts in tone and composition, the crux of the band remains unchanged. A consistent and temperamental drive to innovate, emulate and meditate on contemporary society has been a mainstay throughout. We can only hope with that, in the age of Brexit and Trump, they can still keep it all going.

Share this:

  • Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window)

Related

Nov 27, 2017 By Alex Rowntree Filed Under: Music, Music Features Tagged With: music, Thom Yorke, Radiohead, A Moon Shaped Pool, The Bends, Kid A, OK Computer

Primary Sidebar

exeposemusic

Keeping you up to date with Exeter's music.
Print Editors: @bry.kg & Richard Ainslie
Online Editors: @megfrost_ & @stephenenwei
music@exepose.com

“Skin is a complete sonic charcuterie board” “Skin is a complete sonic charcuterie board”

Go check out Cleo Gravett’s review of @joycrookes debut album Skin.
A review of James Blake’s new album Friends That A review of James Blake’s new album Friends That Break Your Heart is up on exepose.com by Online Music Editor Tom Bosher. What are your thoughts on the album?
Last week, on a crisp September morning in Idaho F Last week, on a crisp September morning in Idaho Falls, Idaho, TikTok user 420doggface208 put Fleetwood Mac back on the charts with nothing more than a phone, a longboard and a bottle of Ocean Spray Cran-Raspberry juice. That’s a baffling sentence let alone idea. But once you watch a viral video of a man cruising down a slip road, sipping on juice and lip syncing to Stevie Nicks, it makes perfect sense.

Check out the rest of Max Ingleby’s article on TikTok music online now!
Check out the review of hip-hop duo Run the Jewels Check out the review of hip-hop duo Run the Jewels’ latest record, by @_will.thornton_
@aaronloose reviews indie icon Phoebe Bridgers’ @aaronloose reviews indie icon Phoebe Bridgers’ sophomore album online now! Check it out!
Online Lifestyle Editor Elinor Jones reviews one o Online Lifestyle Editor Elinor Jones reviews one of Frank Turner’s Facebook live gigs and discusses the importance of musicians supporting small venues during the pandemic in a new article online now! 🎸
Print Music Editor @bridiehazelaa reviews Lady Gag Print Music Editor @bridiehazelaa reviews Lady Gaga’s latest album - check it out online now!
Have a read of the review of the BBC’s attempt a Have a read of the review of the BBC’s attempt at a zoom-radio festival by @xharry_ online now!
Check out the interview with @frankiejonesmusic no Check out the interview with @frankiejonesmusic now up online, by print music editor @bridiehazelaa 🤩🖤
Follow on Instagram
This error message is only visible to WordPress admins

Error: API requests are being delayed for this account. New posts will not be retrieved.

There may be an issue with the Instagram access token that you are using. Your server might also be unable to connect to Instagram at this time.

Tweets by Exeposé Music

Contact Us: editors@exepose.com

Since 1987, Exeposé has given a voice to Exeter students. Over the years, the determination and political fervour exhibited by students through Exeposé have helped shape the University we study at today. We have received national recognition for our award-winning campaigns, investigations and surveys, and always strive to provide students with high-quality news, comment and features.

Disclaimer: The opinions expressed in articles and comments do not reflect the views of Exeposé Online or the University of Exeter Student's Guild.

        


© 2022
Website design: Harry Caton and Ellie Cook
Webdesign & development: Harry Caton