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March 98
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RADIO
PROGRAMMERS
AND
THE PRODUCERS OF CNN JUST GENUINELY
BELIEVE
THAT THE
GENERAL
PUBLIC IS
100
PERCENT F*xKING RETARDS, AND TREAT US AS SUCH
Thom
Yorke
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Radiohead
have written The Present into an album of rock music.
OK Computer feels so right because it is the tool you previously lacked
that would tell you what you are right now. Or what right now sounds like,
anyway. And even -if we still lived in a world where album covers became
icons- what it looks like.
And since
what it looks like is a terribly complex schizoid lonely suicidal mess,
where media- inflected future-anxiety is the frisson du four and our sense
of place and identity have lost meaning, Radiohead made OK Computer hauntingly
beautiful. Just to remind us that we, like the present, like the music
that defines a moment, have no choice but to transcend.
...
...
"We were
worried," says Radiohead guitarist Ed O'Brien, looking unslept and road-worn
in New York's Soho Grand Hotel, in town to do MTV's "10 Spot" program.
"We'd been told by the record company that this album had big potential
to go over people's heads and for people to miss it completely.
" Radiohead
singer and character center Thom Yorke looks up from the beginnings of
a last- minute Christmas list. "Yeah, we were kind of resigned to the fact
that it would," he says.
By now,
Radiohead are resigned instead to the absurd things their album has done
to people's heads. It's sorts beautiful that the February'98 Q readers'
poll called OK Computer the #1 album of all time. Wrongheaded, but beautiful.
Like watching films of girls screaming at the Beatles is beautiful just
for the purity of their desire. Radiohead were also Spin's Band Of The
Year. Rolling Stone's critics poll said they were the best band, and the
readers poll had them at #3 (behind, uh, Sublime? More proof that democracy
produces inferior product). They got a Grammy nomination for Album Of The
Year. They were #2 for 1997 (behind Spiritualized and the Verve) in the
UK weeklies Melody Maker and NME. #1 in Mojo and Fox. Ir every writer's
1997 top ten list everywhere. Etcetera, ad nauseum.
Thom Yorke:
It was really confusing, because there was no intention of being obtuse
when we were doing it and the next thing you know, people are saying, "Oh
it's a really difficult recordings I didn't really get that, I thought
it was a pop recording. But once you've finally finished it, you just don't
fucking know anymore anyway, and you just have to release it and see what
happens. Then you can move on to the next thing. We spent a long time doing
it we were extremely confused by the time we finished. I was.
Ray Gun:
Will it change your opinion of the listening public to know that something
that everyone predicted was going to be difficult actually hit?
Ed O'Brien:
Of course it does, particularly in America-and it's getting more so in
in the UK and Europe-the taste makers and programmers, they underestimate
the general public completely. The trouble with a lot of the music in this
country is the radio stations. Modern rock is such a stale format. As far
as I can work out, and we can work out as a band, the music that they put
on the stations is not for the people, it's to satisfy the advertisers.
It's completely reactive as opposed to proactive.
Thom:
There's a line in "Karma Police," about the
buzzes like a fridge," and when you're driving around and around, and you
have the alternative stations on in the background, or in your hotel room,
it's just like a fridge buzzing. That's all I'm hearing. I'm just hearing
buzz. It's really odd. You just have to laugh,'cause-
RG: Well,
the one song that you had that was really embraced-
Thom:
Yeah, that had the fridge buzzing in it.
RG:-by
the modern rock format-
Thom:
Yeah. RG:-was "Creep." Thom: That was a good fridge buzz
(...)
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