It's one in the afternoon on a cool,
late-summer day in New York, and
Radiohead frontman Thom Yorke and
guitarist/keyboardist Jonny Greenwood are drinking
coffee in the bar of the posh SoHo Grand, sleepy and
subdued after another late night. Two nights ago, the
band ended its month-long U.S. tour with a sold-out
show that attracted the kind of celebrity-studded
turnout -- Leonardo DiCaprio, Claire Danes, the
Marilyn Manson boys -- reserved for only the most
fashionable rock darlings.
After spending most of 1996 recording new material --
with several month-long interruptions for American
and European tours -- Radiohead are drawing big
names because of their recently released third album,
"OK Computer." Beautiful and intricate, the record
has met with almost universal critical acclaim, but it's
still a tentative time for this band of five school chums
from Oxford, England. Inspired by Joy Division to
think of pop music as art and by U2 and R.E.M. to
believe that ambitious art can move the masses,
Radiohead now find themselves in the position of
trying to crack America -- a feat few of their British
contemporaries have managed.
Radiohead established a beachhead in the U.S. with
their 1993 debut, "Pablo Honey" and its
self-deprecating hit single, "Creep." Their 1995
follow-up, "The Bends," sold some 400,000 copies --
about half as many as its predecessor -- despite
favorable reviews and a more ornate sound. By all
accounts, "OK Computer" is the album that will either
make Radiohead bona fide rock stars or forever
relegate them to coulda-been-a-contender status.
What's up, then, with the prog-rock? Given the
album's anthemic song structures, over-the-top guitar
solos, old-school synth sounds and ethereal, layered
vocals, "OK Computer" doesn't sound like anything
that has topped the charts since Pink Floyd's prime.
Greenwood, his face an extreme exaggeration of
Aerosmith guitarist Joe Perry's already caricatured
good looks, gamely admits to an interest in the genre
that dare not speak its name. "I just got suspicious of
everybody saying that everything recorded before
1976 and after 1971 was all awful and terrible," he
says softly, obviously more comfortable when Yorke
fields the questions. "I was brought up to believe that
punk came along and killed off this terrible beast that
had to die, but I figured there must be something to it,
because those bands were so popular." Determined to
form his own conclusions, Greenwood listened to the
likes of Genesis, King Crimson and Pink Floyd,
"though I didn't even bother with Yes, seeing as how
they were met with so much derision."
And?
"It *is* all awful and terrible," Greenwood says, his
brown eyes widening. "I found the one good Pink
Floyd album, 'Meddle,' which is amazing, though
that's supposedly the one that made Johnny Lydon say
he hated them. I came out after listening to all these
terrible Genesis records with the realizations that the
Mellotron is a great instrument, and that you should
never have a song with 'unicorn' in the title. So a few
lessons were learned."
"That and that the Pixies played in lots of different
time signatures and did it much better than the prog
rockers," Yorke adds.
Influenced by both the Pixies *and* prog-rock, "OK
Computer" features unconventional time signatures, a
fair amount of Mellotron and a couple of apparent
Floyd references (check the "Meddle"-like dreamy
ambience of "Subterranean Homesick Alien," for one).
Greenwood and Yorke also say an ideal recording
situation -- producing their own album in a secluded
14th-century English mansion owned by actress Jane
Seymour -- helped shape the record.
"We kind of wanted to get back to a state of where we
were before we got signed, which was 4-tracking,"
Yorke says. "We had a more creative approach to
recording then. There was none of that 'This is a
science lab, and you've got to produce a product at the
end of it -- and this is how much it's costing per
minute.' So we were able to spend a lot of time and
effort getting to a point where we felt creative."
The result is a challenging album that reveals itself
with repeated listenings. Though most of the songs are
dense with thick layers of sound, the album's
spaciousness allows listeners to pick out meticulously
arranged details, such as the sleigh bell track on
"Airbag" and the squeezed, distant vocal effect on
"Climbing Up the Walls." Despite Radiohead's
professed distaste for Yes, the record's complexity
owes at least something to that band's "Tales from
Topographic Oceans."
Lyrically, the band also nods to prog-rock values.
Loosely a concept album, "OK Computer" examines
paranoia, despair, faith and salvation in songs about
miracles and alien abductions. "The emptiest of
feelings/ Sentimental drivel," Yorke sings on "Let
Down." And on "No Surprises," "A heart that's full up
like a landfill/ A job that slowly kills you/ Bruises that
won't heal." While the album offers some hope -- "I'm
on a roll this time/ I feel my luck could change,"
Yorke sings on "Lucky" -- it paints a generally dreary
scene.
"I don't think it's pessimistic," Yorke says, politely
defensive. "I put the stuff in the songs because I can't
say it elsewhere. If you write it down on a sheet of
paper it may sound like that, but it's actually the lyrics
to a song so it's redemptive in its own way. Anyway,
it's compassionate, not condemning."
Indeed, Yorke is cheerier than his lyrics might suggest,
even joking about how the title of "Subterranean
Homesick Alien" caused an uproar on a Bob Dylan
Internet newsgroup ("How terrible!" he mock-sputters.
"How dare they touch our Bobby!"). He only displays
the ardor and seriousness he brings to "OK Computer"
when, in the course of conversation, the word "art"
comes up.
"I went to art college, but when someone says 'art' to
me now I just think of all this shit down here on
Spring Street in all the galleries, and to me that's not
art," he says. "Pop music actually still does
communicate to people directly, whereas art
communicates to a select few." Visibly worked up, he
continues. "Except that's not true, because most
talented artists don't succeed as artists because they're
not ruthless enough or they don't know the right
people. So most creative people end up working in
some commercial field, and therefore, by definition, a
lot of what the art world dismisses as commercial
work is in fact far more valid as artwork than any of
the bullshit they spew on the public in most galleries."
For their part, Radiohead toe the line between art and
rock with their post-punk aesthetic firmly in place.
"We're very business-minded, but we're not
commercially minded," Yorke explains. "All the bands
we were brought up with -- the Smiths, R.E.M, U2 --
worked against the commercial thing. It's never even
been an issue within the band, because ultimately,
business happens after you've done the work. It's not
relative to the work in any way whatsoever."
That said, there's a lot riding on Radiohead's ability to
entrance America with an album that has few
obviously radio-friendly hits. With "OK Computer"
lagging on the album sales chart -- it debuted at No. 21
in early July but has since slid to No. 91 -- the band
has scrapped its visionary but exorbitantly expensive
plan to make a video for every song on the album.
"We'd be quite happy to not be in the videos, thank
you very much," Yorke says. "I dunno. I just can't see
the point really in having your face in everything.
Besides, it's a lot of time and money, and we decided
we should spend it on the next album instead."
Owing more to Joy Division than R.E.M., it's this kind
of down-to-earth, D.I.Y.-influenced sentiment that's
tempering Radiohead's ambitions for their next opus.
"We'll use the same equipment as this time but we'll
work in different locations," Yorke says.
"And we'll get some vibraphones," Greenwood adds.
"I want to get some vibes."
"Do you know how much they cost?" Yorke asks.
"Thousands, probably," says Greenwood, hair hanging
over his eyes. "Proper vibes are the price of a small
house."
"Fuck it," says Yorke, suddenly all practicality.
"You're renting 'em. We're not buying 'em, all right?"
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