writing | Creep
A deep dive on the ever changing sound of Radiohead. It was great to revisit their albums and listen to how they've progressed musically over the years.
In a future where humans are at war with AI, a man is asked to assist on a mission tracking down and destroying a new weapon developed by the AI. It's personal for him, his wife, whom he thought was dead, appears to be alive and working with the AI. He’d been undercover and fell in love, but it ended with his cover blown and her death in an assault on the camp they were staying in.
It's night, the sky an inky black and the stars twinkling pin holes behind this dark canvas. Clouds are thick and grey as a military jet glides above them, leaving a trail in its wake. There’s a squawk over the comms and a bright heads-up display illuminates the cockpit as it's deftly piloted.
In the back, the team are assembled and ready, including our anti-hero. They discuss the mission, and the target and go over the plan on a digital map. After a while, a shuttle detaches from the jet and music starts. The vocal is haunting, not quite human and the words “kid a” can be made out.
The shuttle flies low under the cover of a bright blue beam coming from a larger craft flying at high altitude overhead. Then Thom Yorke comes in “everything, everything, everything, in its right place, in its right place”
The shuttle lands and the team dismounts as the song continues and then cuts as the shuttle takes off. The team are alone, in dead silence apart from the distant sound of the jungle. They start to move out.
This is a scene from the film The Creator and on the big screen of a cinema with surround sound, the audio and visuals of this scene are fixed together perfectly.
The song is Everything In Its Right Place off Radiohead's fourth studio album Kid A. It has a simple electronic beat as the song builds into layers and reaches a crescendo before falling away and playing out.
It’s a song about depression and change, the stripped-back lyrics resulted from Thom Yorke's writer's block at the time. The album, Kid-A, marked a change in direction from Radiohead's earlier sounds and this scene was enough to kick start a deep dive and write about Radiohead.
Creep was released in 1992 and didn't do much until a DJ in Israel picked up on it and played it, a lot. It grew traction and was re-released in the UK and the US, where it became a massive hit.
The crunching guitar that makes the song so memorable was a happy accident. Jonny Greenwood didn't like how quiet the song was so he hit the guitar really loud, creating the chukka-chukka sound, making the song what it is. While Creep featured on their debut album, Pablo Honey, that album came and went and Radiohead retreated.
A few years later they returned with The Bends. The title perhaps comes from the decompression sickness of divers and seems deliberate. Rather than write another Creep they rebuilt their sound, slowly rising to avoid the sickness of the bends.
On its release, they were lumped into the Britpop scene given the guitar rock nature of the album, but the songwriting is confident and musically it's more accomplished than anything else released at the time.
It starts with a burst of what could be distorted wind, are we off-world as the first song, Planet Telex, suggests? A soaring guitar-led statement of intent. The second track The Bends starts with big riffs and then goes quiet, asking “where do we go from here” before the loud comes crashing in again. High and Dry, an acoustic delivered song that threatens to go loud but never quite pushes forward, holds the nerves.
Songs like Fake Plastic Trees, Bones and Nice Dreams offer more of the measured approach that again builds and crashes. Just is perhaps the standout song, loud, dirty and brash from the start, layered with noise and lyrics like “can't get the stink off, its been hanging around for days”, before My Iron Lung ups the ante, especially near the end as it thrashes and fights for life.
Bullet Proof and Black Star are acoustic-driven with ghostly falsetto vocals from Thom and a hint of what is to come from later albums. Sulk a sonic assault and the album finishes with Street Spirit (Fade Out) and the lyrics “this machine will not communicate” which is bleak and subdued and a fine way to end an album full of existential dread.
The album shows a lot of depth in the songs, musically the band are experimenting and while it is polished and ethereal, it is also dense with thick riffs. Not wanting to be lumped into the alt-rock scene after their first two albums, and not quite fitting in with the Britpop sound, they started plotting a new course.
Ok Computer, released in 1997, challenged the fans of the band. It alienated and spoke of a dystopian society looming, and the sound only got more confident as they experimented more with their sound, pushing innovation and boundaries, breaking from traditional rock. Thom's falsetto becomes more haunting and his lyrics more challenging in their themes, raw and whispered with articulate precision
Airbag starts as the band means to go on, with layers of texture and lyrics like “I am born again”. Paranoid Android, leading with an acoustic guitar and a robotic voice, suddenly unleashes a crunch of guitar and then a holy shit, where did that come from? riff.
Subterranean Homesick Alien, Exit Music and Let Down are alien, scratchy, and cinematic, with no big riffs, more organ and samples. Karma Police and No Surprises are polished, obvious singles and a hark back to The Bends. Fitter is a chance to maybe put the vocals through a filter before Electioneering comes crashing in to fuck up the party, the pace does not let up. Climbing Up The Walls does not sound like any Radiohead track, it's a disturbed dissonant sparse song, and the album finishes with The Tourist, a weird bluesy refrained spent sound.
The main theme of the album was that technology was becoming more persuasive in our society, starting to take hold, creeping in as it dictated a way of life. The blend of rock and electronica points the way. Some songs sound like something Ennio Morricone might produce on top of layers of ambient and electronica.
In the new millennium Kid A was released. The first four songs as a set sound like they are arriving gradually from a distant star. Everything has that distorted vocal effect under Thom’s vocals, simple keys and an artificial beat. Kid A sounds like a wind-up musical box in places, the vocals a little less distorted and a programmed drum pattern. National Anthem has more of a percussive sound, nice skipping beats, and samples and Thom’s vocals are more recognisable as the sound starts to approach our ears. Then with a lick of the guitar, we get How to Disappear and Thom’s vocals are super present, a slow and steady song, measured and perhaps my favourite on the album.
Treefingers is a musical exploration of a place, a forest, plants, flora and fauna as the sun rises. Optimistic is a more raw rock sound for the album, rising out of the dark place it was born.
In Limb is an odd one, as is Motion Picture (the last track), seemingly a lot of chaos that again foreshadows later sounds while Idiotechque and Morning Best have more drum patterns, a faint sniff of a guitar riff and more of Thom's haunting vocals before it fades away.
Amnesia is a hard album to listen to. Released in 2001, chaotic with suggestions a lot of songs are b sides from Kid A. There are some lush-sounding strings and piano work, distorted sounds, and even a bit of jazz in the song Glass House. The sound grows and grows on Pyramid, You And Whose Army leads with “come on if you think, come on if you think, you can take us on, you can take us on”. A crisp riff with Thom angling for a fight, the drum kicks in and the song comes crashing over you.
Hail To The Thief ups the electronica as they experiment more, almost going techno on Sit Down Stand Up. Sail To The Moon has hints of Adrian Utley on early Portishead while Go To Sleep draws comparisons to early acoustic Pearl Jam or Temple Of The Dog, more bluesy Americana.
We Suck has a gothic feel as it comes from the shadows, building and building. As the album goes on, some tracks demand more from you, unconventional, offering guitar-led alt-rock and electronica, a culmination of their efforts exploring the sounds.
At this point in their career, they took a break, endless touring and recording taking its toll on the band. They completed various solo and soundtrack work and their record contract ended.
Then six years later they released In Rainbows in 2007, a pay-what-you-want experiment drawing criticism from some and praise from others. It was also more acoustic and softer sounding than previous albums.
From the first track, 15 Step, the guitars and loops are confident, and rockier, despite the artificial drum loops. All I Need is a stand out for me, it sounds optimistic but also oddly menacing, like a cat toying with a mouse.
Faust Arp sounds like The Beatles and Reckonar is a stripped-back art, the drum loop providing the backdrop when the piano kicks in and the guitar comes to life. It's a soundtrack to driving down a long highway.
King of Limbs was released in 2011 and saw the band going somewhat abstract, playing with conventional arrangments. The first song Bloom is almost a big fuck you to the record industry while Morning Magpie is back to business. Little by Little has a 60s Roy Budd Get Carter feel to it while Feral is fucking….well it’s feral is what it is.
Lotus Flower is beautiful before Codex offers more Beatles. Give Up The Ghost and Separator finish off the album, with no letup, jazz form influenced, experimentation and sampling, complex.
Their last Album Moon Shaped Pool from 2016 sees them meld folk, rock, ambient and synths. Burn The Witch is vital, pulsating, electronic beats with dark lyrics. Daydreaming is simple with piano and samples, an orchestra building the sound out, which is followed by Decks Dark which has a choir attached.
Desert Island Disk is late Beatles, folksy while Ful Stop has a distant beat, some sort of evil force out of sight, in the corner of your view, slowly creeping in. The rest of the album continues with The Numbers offering a nice 70s style while Present Tense is an almost bossanova beat.
As a band, Radiohead has not offered anything new since, instead working on more solo albums and soundtracks, but rumours swirl of a new album in 2024. My revisiting of these albums, decades of genre-spanning music, gave me fresh eyes and a new perspective on them.
I could see how they moved away from rock to electronica, embracing technology and using it to create new sounds and crafting songs different to everything else at the time. The high production values were stripped back, and they weren't afraid to experiment or do those things that were not commercially great, but musically satisfying for them.
No one could argue with their history and the legacy they leave on the musical landscape. The countless nominations, awards and albums on every Best Of list are a testament to that. The cinematic grandeur of their sound, pushing boundaries and never sitting still or selling out when they could have back in the early 90s. What a different path they might have taken should they have produced another Creep.
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