< Radiohead

Radiohead/YMMV

/wiki/Radioheadcreator
  • Acceptable Targets - Businessmen, yuppies, and corporate figures are all sharply targeted in OK Computer.
  • And the Fandom Rejoiced: "The Amazing Sounds of Orgy," beloved by the fandom but mostly ignored by the band, makes its live debut. At 0:38 you can hear the crowd just go insane.
  • Anvilicious: Yorke's politics tend to veer into this.
  • Broken Base - Kid A was this initially, due to its genre shift to electronica. It was Vindicated by History fairly quickly, as was In Rainbows, which initially received flak for being much more accessible and upbeat than previous albums. At the moment, Hail to the Thief and The King of Limbs are the only albums that fans can't agree on, and even then it's not so much the songs that are being contested but rather the length: Hail to the Thief is the longest Radiohead album to date, while The King of Limbs is the shortest. This led to arguing over whether having more songs on an album is good because it means more Radiohead, or worse because it makes the album too long and may result in Album Filler and Obvious Beta tracks.
  • Crazy Awesome - Thom Yorke's dancing. Hypnotizing, too.
    • Jonny Greenwood's 'abusive guitar' also gets a mention, be it on this performance of Bangers and Mash or... any other rocky guitar-based song. Jonny's done it so much that he had to get an arm brace from repetitive strain injury.
  • Crowning Moment of Awesome - Needed its own page.
  • Crowning Music of Awesome - Needed its own page.
  • Crowning Moment of Funny - The video for "Lotus Flower". Doubly so when the music is replaced by "Single Ladies"...
  • Crowning Moment of Heartwarming - Needed its own page.
  • Ear Worm - Despite being known for their gloominess and inaccessibility, Radiohead are absolutely brilliant at making songs that you just can't keep out of your head. Prime examples include "Creep," "Paranoid Android," "Idioteque," and especially "Lotus Flower."
  • Ensemble Darkhorse - Interestingly enough, the b-sides themselves have gained a massive fanbase, with tracks such as "Talk Show Host," "Cuttooth," "Bangers + Mash," and "Kinetic" being the most successful examples.
    • There's one of these just about every album: "Blow Out" from Pablo Honey, "Talk Show Host" (a Bends-era b-side), "Subterranean Homesick Alien" from OK Computer, "Idioteque" from Kid A, all of the b-sides from Amnesiac, "A Wolf at the Door" from Hail to the Thief, "15 Step" from In Rainbows, and now "Bloom" (arguably "Codex" and "Separator" as well) from The King of Limbs.
  • Epic Riff - Many.
    • "Creep," "The National Anthem," "I Might Be Wrong," "Talk Show Host," and "Where I End and You Begin" have epic bass riffs.
    • "Street Spirit (Fade Out)," "Optimistic," "My Iron Lung," "The Amazing Sounds of Orgy,"and "There There" have epic guitar riffs.
    • "Idioteque" and "Cuttooth" have epic keyboard riffs.
    • "Climbing Up the Walls" and "The Amazing Sounds of Orgy" are rare examples of epic drum riffs.
  • Epileptic Trees - For a band as cryptic as Radiohead, it's natural that there would be quite a few convoluted fan theories about their music, and in some cases Yorke has encouraged them. 01 and 10, a theory that OK Computer and In Rainbows are intended to interlock, is one of the best.
  • Everyone Is Satan in Hell - There are some fans who will insist that "No Surprises" and "Videotape" are about suicide, despite this having been contradicted by Thom himself.
  • Face of the Band - Subverted. The band has admitted that Thom has the most say in everything material-wise (although that seems to have changed recently). However, the other members, most notably Jonny Greenwood, have a sizable amount of the fanbase's and media's attention.
  • Fandom Rivalry - With Muse and Coldplay. An unusual example in that the feud is entirely one-way; Radiohead fans often dislike the aforementioned bands for what they perceive as a blatant Follow the Leader in terms of sound and lyrics, while Muse and Coldplay fans don't really mind Radiohead. This tension has died down as of late due to Muse undergoing a genre shift and Coldplay becoming more experimental.
  • Fanon Discontinuity - In most fans' eyes, Pablo Honey, with the exception of/particularly "Creep". Although "Anyone Can Play Guitar" and "Blow Out" are considered the best songs off the album--if you dislike "Creep". It's divisive like that.
  • Follow the Leader - A whole crop of fresh-faced post-Britpop British alternative bands became popular after Radiohead released OK Computer and were at least somewhat indebted to the band sonically. Many of these bands later made a name for themselves, separated themselves from the "Radiohead clone" tag and proceeded to become some of the most popular and acclaimed British rock acts of the 2000's, including such bands as Muse, Coldplay, Travis, Snow Patrol and Stereophonics.
  • Friendly Fandoms - Burial fans and Radiohead fans get along quite well.
  • Fridge Brilliance - "Myxomatosis" is about record companies destroying musicians' messages or altering them beyond recognition- that much is clear from the lyrics. The line "I don't know why I feel so tongue tied/Don't know why I feel so skinned alive" also appears on the Amnesiac b-side "Cuttooth," which was held off of the album at the last minute for reasons unknown- it seems Myxomatosis is about the record company forcing the band to remove Cuttooth from Amnesiac.
  • Ho Yay - Oh boy. Aside from Colin's quote under Bi the Way, we also have this gem:

Thom: The last time I was reeling drunk I made a fool of myself at a public party in Oxford two months ago. Colin and I started making out and it was fun. Colin is a rather good kisser. Did I just say that?

    • Thom/Jonny (a.k.a. Thonny) has a loyal following within the Radiohead slash community for a very good reason.
    • Blurry pictures aren't as good as Thom dedicating a straight up love song to Jonny.
  • Magnum Opus - OK Computer by general consensus (Kid A is also a candidate, along with In Rainbows[2] ).
  • Mainstream Obscurity - For all the critical acclaim their albums get, few people outside of the fandom are able to name any individual track from any of them--and "Creep" doesn't count. The flipside of this is that the fandom is so dedicated that they can name any track (well, any post-Pablo Honey track, anyway) and are just as likely to love a rare b-side like "Cuttooth" or "Kinetic" as they are to love a hit single like "Paranoid Android" or "My Iron Lung."
  • Memetic Badass - Bizarrely enough, a song example. "Burn the Witch," of which only a few seconds have been heard, is legendary among Radiohead fans and Thom has fed the flames by jokingly(?) telling the audience at a concert, after playing a few chords of it, that "this will all sound much better when it's played by the orchestra."
  • Memetic Mutation - After the release of the music video for "Lotus Flower", fans started having fun setting Thom's dance to different music. Heck the meme should be renamed Thom's dance goes with everything.
  • Misaimed Fandom - "Nude" is interpreted by many as a love ballad when it's actually about masturbation, or at the very least adultery.
    • "Creep" is often quoted on pro-anorexia websites, for its lines "I don't care if it hurts/I wanna have control/I want a perfect body/I want a perfect soul".
  • Mondegreen - "Power rangers, power rangers, power rangers, power rangers..." ("Sit Down, Stand Up," see above)
    • Another interpretation offered on last.fm for the same would be "cunnilingus, cunnilingus, cunnilingus, cunnilingus..."
      • Another possible misinterpretation could be "Rearrange us, rearrange us, rearrange us, rearrange us..."
    • "Who the hell are the 'comma police?'"
    • From "Go to Sleep": "This is hiiiiighly insulting…"
    • "You can try domestic ham, you can try domestic ham, domestic ham is good enough."
    • "PENETRATION PENETRATION PENETRATION PE-NE-TRA-TION *moans*"
    • "The phallic (?!), the vomit, the panic, the vomit..."
    • A fairly popular one among the fandom for "Packt Like Sardines in a Crushd Tin Box:"

Aboriginal man, get off my cakes!

Thom: It's also sort of the angriest thing I've ever written as well, you know. That sort of anger, that you can't even begin to express, you know. This thing about 'you can do anything you want to me, but if you come after my family I will kill you'

  • Older Than They Think - After making its live debut in and being performed regularly throughout the King of Limbs tour, at least one news publication mistook "The Amazing Sounds of Orgy" for a new song, when in fact it was released in 2001 as a b-side and appeared in the 2006 film version of A Scanner Darkly; its popularity among fans and newfound relevance during the recession eventually led to the band deciding to play it at concerts.
  • Old Guard Versus New Blood - Arguably, the most recent Radiohead albums have been trying to strike this sort of balance, with In Rainbows doing so successfully, Hail to the Thief perhaps less so.
  • Old Shame - The Pablo Honey era in general; songs from then are virtually never performed anymore, with the exception of "Creep" every dozen or so shows. It also had excellent performances such as this one, in which Thom starts screaming, and then dives into a pool.
  • One of Us - Jonny Greenwood has expressed his enjoyment for video games such as Ico, Cave Story, Half Life, and Golden Eye 1997, among others.
    • Unsurprising, considering that Half-Life 2 is basically Radiohead: The Game.
  • Paranoia Fuel "Climbing up the Walls":

Either way you turn

I'll be there

Open up your skull

I'll be there

    • The song's about Thom's time spent working in a mental hospital.
    • Another one that definitely fits is "A Wolf at the Door" which was inspired by an incident where Thom was physically assaulted and the police did nothing because apparently he was "asking for it" by being famous. The chorus pairs this up with Adult Fear:

I keep the wolf from the door but he calls me up
Calls me on the phone, tells me all the ways that he's gonna mess me up
Steal all my children if I don't pay the ransom
And I'll never see them again if I squeal to the cops...

Jonny: But then I remember, we started Kid A in Copenhagen in the middle of December, because we had this rightly inflated idea of ourselves that we were a... were a kind of cold northern European band. We need darkness and snow and, you know... which is just, it's just nonsense, really.

  • True Art Is Incomprehensible - Kid A and Amnesiac are definite candidates. Thom denied that they were "trying to be difficult", however.
  • Ugly Cute - The Kid A Bear and the Weeping Minotaur.
    • Thom Yorke.
      • Actually, all the band members could probably qualify in some way or another.
  • Uncanny Valley - The video for "Go To Sleep". Cue creepy CGI Thom.
    • The cover art for The Bends. What the fuck is that?
    • Another creepy CGI Thom shows up in a couple of Kid A blips--except it's only his head on a stick calmly gazing into space as digital snow falls on his face, making it twice as unsettling. Brrrrrrrr.
  • Vindicated by History - Kid A got mixed reviews when it first came out, but now it's considered the best album of the '00s by many.
    • The band itself falls under this. When "Creep" was released they were quickly dismissed as One Hit Wonders, but steadily built up a fanbase with My Iron Lung EP and The Bends, then proceeded to basically invent modern-day alternative rock with OK Computer.
  • What Do You Mean It's Not Political? - Despite the overtones of a title like Hail To The Thief, the band denies it refers to the 2000 presidential election. However, they did admit to the album being about the rise of the far right, among other things. Thom Yorke claims the title is a reference to a slogan that became popular after the 1888 US presidential election, which ended with an outcome similar to the 2000 election.
  • The Woobie - Thom Yorke definitely qualifies as a real life example. He was born with a paralyzed left eyelid, had botched surgery that lead to his droopy eyelid, was teased as a kid for having to wear an eyepatch (of the non-powerful variety), had frequent bouts of self-destruction early in his career, and has had bouts of depression more recently. Combined with his signature "polite" falsetto and scathing lyrics, it's hard not to feel sorry for him--if you don't think he's a Jerkass for his distant attitude toward numerous other celebrities.
  1. ↑ Many are unsure as to which is sillier: the rant itself, or the fact that Miley's evidently a Radiohead fan.
  2. ↑ Which was revealed as a sort of sequel/companion to OK Computer, making sort of like Magnum Opus Part II.
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