Seemingly granted ‘classic album' status within days of its release in 1997, OK Computer transformed Radiohead from a highly promising rock act into The Most Important Band in the World - a label the band has been burdened by (and has fooled around with) ever since. Through close musical analysis of each song, Dai Griffiths explores the themes and ideas that have made this album resonate so deeply with its audience, and argues that OK Computer is one of the most successfully realized CD albums so far created. EXCERPT But then ‘Karma Police' changes. After the second chorus the track lifts, in various ways. Harmonically, there's a key change of sorts (the sheet music charmingly follows the convention of preparing the reader for the new key signature), from E minor to B minor, although in truth both sections use similar chords. Then vocally or melodically, the key change takes Thom Yorke to his angelic register. Texturally, there's a big shift, with all the instruments doing lighter things. Best to my mind though, there's the one word, phew. Phew's great: it's a cartoon word, like ‘gulp' or ‘zzzz' or ‘bah'. Its precision matters, the fact that it's really there, properly pronounced, not just sort-of-breathed...

Everything in its Right Place identifies the secret to Radiohead's immense commercial and critical success in the band's ability to navigate a sweet spot between expectation and surprise. The author uses tools from musical perception, semiotics, and music theory to demonstrate this reconciliation of extremes, and analyzes musical meaning with lyrics, biographical details, and intertextual relationships.

Stanley Donwood and the enigmatic Dr Tchock are the elusive duo responsible for Radiohead’s artwork. Containing paintings they have produced in the last decade, this book alsocontains a cornucopia of never-before-seen artwork. Featuring the apocalyptic scenes of the OK Computer album, the startling, sinister shadow of memory cast onto the present in the Kid A paintings, and theoverwhelming information overload of Hail to the Thief’s landscapes of conflict, Dead Children Playing presents some of the most iconic artwork of our time.

THE MAKING AND MEANING OF RADIOHEAD'S GROUNDBREAKING, CONTROVERSIAL, EPOCHDEFINING ALBUM, KID A. In 1999, as the end of an old century loomed, five musicians entered a recording studio in Paris without a deadline. Their band was widely recognized as the best and most forward-thinking in rock, a rarefied status granting them the time, money, and space to make a masterpiece. But Radiohead didn't want to make another rock record. Instead, they set out to create the future. For more than a year, they battled writer's block, intra-band disagreements, and crippling self-doubt. In the end, however, they produced an album that was not only a complete departure from their prior guitar-based rock sound, it was the sound of a new era-and it embodied widespread changes catalyzed by emerging technologies just beginning to take hold of the culture. What they created was Kid A. Upon its release in 2000, Radiohead's fourth album divided critics. Some called it an instant classic; others, such as the UK music magazine Melody Maker, deemed it "tubby, ostentatious, self-congratulatory... whiny old rubbish." But two decades later, Kid A sounds like nothing less than an overture for the chaos and confusion of the twenty-first century. Acclaimed rock critic Steven Hyden digs deep into the songs, history, legacy, and mystique of Kid A, outlining the album's pervasive influence and impact on culture in time for its twentieth anniversary in 2020. Deploying a mix of criticism, journalism, and personal memoir, Hyden skillfully revisits this enigmatic, alluring LP and investigates the many ways in which Kid A shaped and foreshadowed our world.

Births, deaths and marriages, No1 singles, drug busts and arrests, famous gigs and awards... all these and much more appear in this fascinating 50 year almanac.Using a page for every day of the calendar year, the author records a variety of rock and pop events that took place on a given day of the month across the years.This Day in Music is fully illustrated with hundreds of pictures, cuttings and album covers, making this the must-have book for any pop music fan.

A book of stories by Stanley Donwood, Radiohead's long-time artist and collaborator.

Radiohead Complete is the definitive collection of Radiohead songs, including every song ever released by the British rock band (at time of publication). This artist-approved 368-page book contains 154 songs, including B-sides and rarities, all with lyrics and guitar chords. In addition it features 48 pages of artwork by the band's album artist Stanley Donwood, who also designed the exclusive cover artwork. This is the full eBook version of the original printed edition, in fixed-layout format. Contents: (Nice Dream); 15 Step; 2+2=5; 4 Minute Warning; A Punch Up At A Wedding; A Reminder; A Wolf At The Door; Airbag; All I Need; The Amazing Sounds Of Orgy; Anyone Can Play Guitar; Backdrifts; Banana Co.; Bangers + Mash; The Bends; Bishop's Robes; Black Star; Bloom; Blow Out; Bodysnatchers; Bones; Bullet Proof... I Wish I Was; Burn The Witch; The Butcher; Climbing Up The Walls; Codex; Coke Babies; Creep; Cuttooth; The Daily Mail; Daydreaming; Decks Dark; Desert Island Disk; Dollars And Cents; Down Is The New Up; Electioneering; Everything In Its Right Place; Exit Music (For A Film); Faithless, The Wonder Boy; Fake Plastic Trees; Faust Arp; Feral; Fitter Happier; Fog; Ful Stop; Gagging Order; Give Up The Ghost; Glass Eyes; The Gloaming; Go Slowly; Go To Sleep; Harry Patch (In Memory Of); High & Dry; House Of Cards; How Can You Be Sure; How Do You Do?; How I Made My Millions; How To Disappear Completely; I Am A Wicked Child; I Can't; I Might Be Wrong; I Promise; I Want None Of This; I Will; Identikit; Idioteque; Ill Wind; In Limbo; India Rubber; Inside My Head; Jigsaw Falling Into Place; Just; Karma Police; Kid A; Killer Cars; Kinetic; Knives Out; Last Flowers; Let Down; Lewis (Mistreated); Life In A Glasshouse; Lift; Like Spinning Plates; Little By Little; Lotus Flower; Lozenge Of Love; Lucky; Lull; Lurgee; Man Of War; Maquiladora; Melatonin; Million Dollar Question; Molasses; Morning Bell; Morning Bell / Amnesiac; Morning Mr Magpie; Motion Picture Soundtrack; My Iron Lung; Myxomatosis; The National Anthem; No Surprises; Nude; The Numbers; Optimistic; Packt Like Sardines In A Crushd Tin Box; Palo Alto; Paperbag Writer; Paranoid Android; Pearly; Permanent Daylight; Planet Telex; Polyethylene (Parts 1 & 2); Pop Is Dead; Present Tense; Prove Yourself; Pulk/Pull Revolving Doors; Punchdrunk Lovesick Singalong; Pyramid Song; Reckoner; Ripcord; Sail To The Moon; Scatterbrain; Separator; Sit Down. Stand Up; Skttrbrain; Spectre; Staircase; Stop Whispering; Street Spirit (Fade Out); Stupid Car; Subterranean Homesick Alien; Sulk; Supercollider; Talk Show Host; There There; These Are My Twisted Words; Thinking About You; Tinker Tailor Soldier Sailor Rich Man Poor Man Beggar Man Thief; The Tourist; Trans-Atlantic Drawl; Trickster; True Love Waits; Up On The Ladder; Vegetable; Videotape; We Suck Young Blood; Weird Fishes/Arpeggi; Where I End And You Begin; Worrywort; Yes I Am; You; You And Whose Army?; You Never Wash Up After Yourself.

A starkly beautiful, wordless graphic novel about the end of the world by the cult artist and longtime Radiohead collaborator. A wild seascape, a distant island, a full moon. Gradually the island grows nearer until we land on a primeval wilderness, rich in vegetation and huge, strange beasts. Time passes and man appears, with clubs, with spears, with crueler weapons still—and things do not go well for the wilderness. Civilization rises as towers of stone and metal and smoke choke the undergrowth and the creatures that once moved through it. This is not a happy story, and it will not have a happy ending. Working in his distinctive, monochromatic linocut style, Stanley Donwood achieves with his art what words cannot convey, carving out a mesmerizing, stark parable of environmental disaster and the end of civilization.

In which the writings of the authors Thom Yorke and Stanley Donwood are gathered together. This commonplace book includes faxes, notes, fledgling lyrics, sketches, lists of all kinds and scribblings towards nirvana, as were sent between the two authors during the period 1999 to 2000 during the creation of the Radiohead albums Kid A and Amnesiac. This is a document of the creative process and a mirror to the fears, portents and fantasies invoked by the world as its citizens faced a brave new millennium.

With their award-winning third album, OK Computer, the British rock group Radiohead emerged as one of the most popular and influential bands of the millennial age. In this revised and updated edition of Radiohead: Hysterical and Useless, author Martin Clarke provides an account of all Radiohead s recent activities.