ANIMA – Thom Yorke

BY NEAL MARTIN | JULY 03, 2019

What is there left to say about Radiohead? The Oxford quintet is the most influential band of my lifetime. No act has followed such a long evolutionary arc without ever selling out or kowtowing to fashion, whilst conquering the UK and remarkably, the United States. Their inauspicious debut (Pablo Honey) was merely the fumbled launching pad for a string of seminal groundbreaking albums (The Bends/OK Computer), an audacious musical volte-face (Kid A), a prescient music industry one-finger salute (In Rainbows) and spectral late career comedown (A Moon Shaped Pool). To understand their greatness, listen to the monumental OK Computer outtake “Man of War” and reflect upon the fact that they chose not to release it for two decades because it was too similar to their previous album.

Clichéd as it is, I have been there from the beginning. They played not once but three times in my final year at University of Warwick in 1991/1992 to a couple of hundred beer-sozzled students. During one gig, rather than joining the audience, I shot some pool with a girlfriend, suggesting we lean over the balcony upon hearing the opening chords of their only decent song. “You might like this one,” I said as I potted into the far corner. “It’s called Creep.” I bought their first records from the debut Drill EP onwards, each one now worth a small fortune. I remember driving back to London late one night, pulling over into a layby upon hearing the debut airing of “Paranoid Android”. So this is what it was like to have heard “Strawberry Fields” or “Bohemian Rhapsody” for the first time. (That same year, I had a bizarre encounter with the entire band in a branch of Muji in Covent Garden. Maybe Thom Yorke searching for a cheap sweater or bamboo pencil case? I was too nervous to approach them.) I witnessed their marquee gig in Victoria Park following Kid A and I might have been the only person who opened their wallet to pay for the In Rainbows vinyl box set, despite not owning a turntable. “There, There” was the maiden Album of the Month on Wine-Journal back in June 2003.