230-572: Radiohead are an English rock band formed in Abingdon , Oxfordshire , in 1985. They comprise Thom Yorke (vocals, guitar, piano, keyboards); brothers Jonny Greenwood (guitar, keyboards, other instruments) and Colin Greenwood (bass); Ed O'Brien (guitar, backing vocals); and Philip Selway (drums, percussion). They have worked with the producer Nigel Godrich and the cover artist Stanley Donwood since 1994. Radiohead's experimental approach
460-549: A box set of Radiohead material recorded before In Rainbows , released in the same week as the In Rainbows special edition. Commentators including the Guardian saw the move as retaliation for the band choosing not to re-sign with EMI. In June 2008, EMI released a greatest hits album, Radiohead: The Best Of . It was made without Radiohead's involvement and contains only songs recorded under their contract with EMI. Yorke
690-510: A demo tape . He was also involved in a serious car accident that influenced the lyrics of later songs, including the Bends B-side "Killer Cars" (1995) and "Airbag" from OK Computer (1997). In the late 1980s, Yorke made a solo album, Dearest , which O'Brien described as similar to the Jesus and Mary Chain , with delay and reverb effects. On the strength of their first demo, On
920-598: A minimalist and textured style with more diverse instrumentation, including the ondes Martenot , programmed electronic beats, strings , and jazz horns. It debuted at number one in many countries, including the US, where it became the first Radiohead album to debut atop the Billboard chart and the first US number-one album by any UK act since the Spice Girls in 1996. This success was attributed variously to marketing, to
1150-399: A "commercial suicide note" and "intentionally difficult", and longed for a return to Radiohead's earlier style. Fans were similarly divided; along with those who were appalled or mystified, many saw it as the band's best work. Yorke denied that Radiohead had set out to eschew expectations, saying: "We're not trying to be difficult ... We're actually trying to communicate but somewhere along
1380-466: A 2000 tour of Europe in a custom-built tent free of advertising; they also promoted Kid A with three sold-out North American theatre concerts. Kid A received a Grammy Award for Best Alternative Album and a nomination for Album of the Year in early 2001. It won both praise and criticism in independent music circles for appropriating underground styles of music; some British critics saw Kid A as
1610-554: A Friday performed at the Jericho Tavern to an audience that included several A&R representatives. It was only their eighth gig, but they had attracted interest from several record companies. On 21 December, On a Friday signed a six-album recording contract with EMI. At EMI's request, they changed their name; "Radiohead" was taken from the song "Radio Head" on the Talking Heads album True Stories (1986). Yorke said
1840-570: A Friday were offered a record deal by Island Records , but the members decided they were not ready and wanted to go to university first. Yorke had wanted to apply to St John's to read English at the University of Oxford , but, he said, "I was told I couldn't even apply – I was too thick. Oxford University would have eaten me up and spat me out. It's too rigorous." He also considered studying music, but could not read sheet music . In late 1988, Yorke left Oxford to study English and fine arts at
2070-636: A Glasshouse", featuring the Humphrey Lyttelton Band . Radiohead stressed that they saw Amnesiac not as a collection of B-sides or outtakes from Kid A but an album in its own right. It topped the UK Albums Chart and reached number two in the US, and was nominated for a Grammy Award and the Mercury Music Prize . Radiohead released " Pyramid Song " and " Knives Out " as singles, their first since 1998. Radiohead began
2300-616: A North American tour, their first there in three years, in June 2001. With a string of sold-out dates, The Observer described it as "the most sweeping conquest of America by a British group" since Beatlemania , succeeding where bands such as Oasis had failed. Recordings from the Kid A and Amnesiac tours were released on I Might Be Wrong: Live Recordings in November 2001. In July and August 2002, Radiohead toured Portugal and Spain, playing
2530-401: A band, On a Friday, named after the only day they were allowed to practice. According to Selway, while each member contributed songs in the band's early period, Yorke emerged as the main songwriter. After leaving Abingdon, Yorke took a gap year and tried to become a professional musician. He held several jobs, including a period selling suits and working in an architect's office, and made
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#17327721999632760-426: A band." In later years, The Bends appeared in many publications' lists of the best albums of all time, including Rolling Stone 's 2012 edition of the "500 Greatest Albums of All Time" at No. 111. In 1995, Radiohead again toured North America and Europe, this time in support of R.E.M. , one of their formative influences and at the time one of the biggest rock bands in the world. Attention from famous fans such as
2990-514: A certain degree doesn't care if it's popular. — Bill Wyman in Vulture (2016) The sound of rock is traditionally centered on the amplified electric guitar, which emerged in its modern form in the 1950s with the popularity of rock and roll. It was also greatly influenced by the sounds of electric blues guitarists. The sound of an electric guitar in rock music is typically supported by an electric bass guitar, which pioneered jazz music in
3220-696: A collaboration between Greenwood, Godrich, the Israeli composer Shye Ben Tzur and Indian musicians, was released in November 2015, accompanied by a documentary directed by Anderson . In April 2016, Radiohead's back catalogue was acquired by XL Recordings , which had released the retail editions of In Rainbows and The King of Limbs and most of Yorke's solo work. XL reissued Radiohead's back catalogue on vinyl in May 2016. Radiohead began work on their ninth studio album in September 2014. In 2015, they resumed work in
3450-589: A converted apple shed in the countryside near Didcot , Oxfordshire. In August 1996, Radiohead toured as the opening act for Alanis Morissette . They resumed recording not at a studio but at St. Catherine's Court , a 15th-century mansion near Bath . The sessions were relaxed, with the band playing at all hours of the day, recording in different rooms, and listening to the Beatles , DJ Shadow , Ennio Morricone and Miles Davis for inspiration. Radiohead released their third album, OK Computer , in May 1997. It found
3680-665: A dance piece by the Merce Cunningham Dance Company , which debuted in October 2003 at the Brooklyn Academy of Music . Radiohead's sixth album, Hail to the Thief , was released in June 2003. Its lyrics were influenced by what Yorke called "the general sense of ignorance and intolerance and panic and stupidity" following the 2000 election of US President George W. Bush . The album was promoted with
3910-411: A deadlock, Radiohead toured Asia, Australasia and Mexico and found greater confidence performing their new music live. However, troubled by his new fame, Yorke became disillusioned with being "at the sharp end of the sexy, sassy, MTV eye-candy lifestyle" he felt he was helping to sell to the world. The My Iron Lung EP and single, released in 1994, was Radiohead's reaction, marking a transition towards
4140-418: A dramatic change in style, incorporating influences from electronic music , jazz , classical music and krautrock . Though Kid A divided listeners, it was later named the best album of the decade by multiple outlets. It was followed by Amnesiac (2001), recorded in the same sessions. Hail to the Thief (2003), with lyrics addressing the war on terror , blended the band's rock and electronic sides, and
4370-548: A fan-made video of the performance, Radiohead for Haiti , was released via YouTube and torrent with Radiohead's support and a "pay-what-you-want" link to donate to Oxfam. Radiohead also released the soundboard recording of their 2009 Prague performance for use in a fan-made concert video, Live in Praha . The videos were described as examples of Radiohead's openness to fans and positivity toward non-commercial internet distribution. In June 2010, Yorke and Jonny Greenwood performed
4600-519: A fondness for a good beat, a meaningful lyric with some wit, and the theme of youth, which holds an "eternal attraction" so objective "that all youth music partakes of sociology and the field report ." Writing in Christgau's Record Guide: The '80s (1990), he said this sensibility is evident in the music of folk singer-songwriter Michelle Shocked , rapper LL Cool J , and synth-pop duo Pet Shop Boys —"all kids working out their identities"—as much as it
4830-481: A foundation of simple syncopated rhythms in a 4 meter , with a repetitive snare drum back beat on beats two and four. Melodies often originate from older musical modes such as the Dorian and Mixolydian , as well as major and minor modes. Harmonies range from the common triad to parallel perfect fourths and fifths and dissonant harmonic progressions. Since the late 1950s, and particularly from
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#17327721999635060-628: A frequent addition to the established rock format of guitars, bass, and drums in subsequent progressive rock. Instrumentals were common, while songs with lyrics were sometimes conceptual, abstract, or based in fantasy and science fiction. The Pretty Things ' SF Sorrow (1968), the Kinks' Arthur (Or the Decline and Fall of the British Empire) (1969), and the Who 's Tommy (1969) introduced
5290-584: A hit, and told Rolling Stone in 1993: "It's like it's not our song any more ... It feels like we're doing a cover." According to Yorke, around this time he "hit the self-destruct button pretty quickly". He tried to project himself as a rock star and drank heavily, often becoming too drunk to perform. Yorke said: "When I got back to Oxford I was unbearable ... As soon as you get any success you disappear up your own arse." Years later, Yorke said he had found it difficult to cope with Radiohead's success: "I got angry ... I got more control-freakery. I put my hands on
5520-575: A key feature of psychedelia. Psychedelic rock reached its apogee in the last years of the decade. 1967 saw the Beatles release their definitive psychedelic statement in Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band , including the controversial track " Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds ", the Rolling Stones responded later that year with Their Satanic Majesties Request , and Pink Floyd debuted with The Piper at
5750-556: A landmark record of the 1990s and the Generation X era, and one of the greatest albums in recording history. In 1998, Radiohead performed at a Paris Amnesty International concert and the Tibetan Freedom Concert . In March, they and Godrich entered Abbey Road Studios to record a song for the 1998 film The Avengers , " Man of War ", but were unsatisfied with the results and it went unreleased. Yorke described
5980-409: A large advance, but had instead wanted control over their back catalogue. Radiohead self-released their seventh album, In Rainbows , on their website on 10 October 2007 as a download , for any amount users wanted, including £0. The landmark pay-what-you-want release, the first for a major act, made headlines worldwide and created debate about the implications for the music industry. Media reaction
6210-573: A loud amplified sound, often centered on the electric guitar, based on the Chicago blues , particularly after the tour of Britain by Muddy Waters in 1958, which prompted Cyril Davies and guitarist Alexis Korner to form the band Blues Incorporated . The band involved and inspired many of the figures of the subsequent British blues boom, including members of the Rolling Stones and Cream , combining blues standards and forms with rock instrumentation and emphasis. The other key focus for British blues
6440-587: A mainstream audience with hits including " Blowin' in the Wind " (1963) and " Masters of War " (1963), which brought " protest songs " to a wider public, but, although beginning to influence each other, rock and folk music had remained largely separate genres, often with mutually exclusive audiences. Early attempts to combine elements of folk and rock included the Animals' " House of the Rising Sun " (1964), which
6670-495: A major element of progressive rock. From about 1967 bands like Cream and the Jimi Hendrix Experience had moved away from purely blues-based music into psychedelia . By the 1970s, blues rock had become heavier and more riff-based, exemplified by the work of Led Zeppelin and Deep Purple , and the lines between blues rock and hard rock "were barely visible", as bands began recording rock-style albums. The genre
6900-632: A major influence on Radiohead, picked them as their support act for their European tour. Yorke befriended the R.E.M. singer Michael Stipe , who gave him advice about how to deal with fame. Yorke joined R.E.M. to perform their song " E-Bow the Letter " on several occasions from 1998 to 2004. During the production of Radiohead's third album, OK Computer (1997), the members had differing opinions and equal production roles, with Yorke having "the loudest voice", according to O'Brien. OK Computer achieved acclaim and strong sales, establishing Radiohead as one of
7130-429: A major influence on subsequent electronic rock . With the advent of punk rock and technological changes in the late 1970s, progressive rock was increasingly dismissed as pretentious and overblown. Many bands broke up, but some, including Genesis, ELP, Yes, and Pink Floyd, regularly scored top ten albums with successful accompanying worldwide tours. Some bands which emerged in the aftermath of punk, such as Siouxsie and
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7360-426: A modest hit, but Radiohead's growing fanbase was insufficient to repeat the worldwide success of "Creep". The Bends reached number 88 on the US album charts, and remains Radiohead's lowest showing there. Jonny Greenwood later said The Bends was turning point for Radiohead: "It started appearing in people's [best-of] polls for the end of the year. That's when it started to feel like we made the right choice about being
7590-410: A more basic form of rock and roll that incorporated its original influences, particularly blues, country and folk music, leading to the creation of country rock and Southern rock. In 1966 Bob Dylan went to Nashville to record the album Blonde on Blonde . This, and subsequent more clearly country-influenced albums, such as Nashville Skyline , have been seen as creating the genre of country folk ,
7820-486: A multibillion-dollar industry and doubling its market while, as Christgau noted, suffering a significant "loss of cultural prestige". "Maybe the Bee Gees became more popular than the Beatles, but they were never more popular than Jesus ", he said. "Insofar as the music retained any mythic power, the myth was self-referential – there were lots of songs about the rock and roll life but very few about how rock could change
8050-589: A national phenomenon. It is often argued that the surf music craze and the careers of almost all surf acts was effectively ended by the arrival of the British Invasion from 1964, because most surf music hits were recorded and released between 1960 and 1965. By the end of 1962, what would become the British rock scene had started with beat groups like the Beatles , Gerry & the Pacemakers and
8280-658: A new band, Atoms for Peace , to perform his solo material, with musicians including Godrich and the Red Hot Chili Peppers bassist Flea . They played eight North American shows in 2010. In January 2010, Radiohead played their only full concert of the year in the Los Angeles Henry Fonda Theater as a benefit for Oxfam . Tickets were auctioned, raising over half a million US dollars for the NGO's 2010 Haiti earthquake relief. That December,
8510-632: A new band, the Smile . By 2011, Radiohead had sold more than 30 million albums worldwide. Their awards include six Grammy Awards and four Ivor Novello Awards , and they hold five Mercury Prize nominations, the most of any act. Seven Radiohead singles have reached the top 10 on the UK singles chart : "Creep" (1992), " Street Spirit (Fade Out) " (1996), " Paranoid Android " (1997), " Karma Police " (1997), " No Surprises " (1998), " Pyramid Song " (2001), and " There There " (2003). "Creep" and " Nude " (2008) reached
8740-483: A non-album single, also sold poorly. O'Brien later called it "a hideous mistake". Some critics compared Radiohead to the wave of grunge music popular in the early 1990s, dubbing them " Nirvana -lite", and Pablo Honey initially failed to make a critical or a commercial impact. The members of Radiohead expressed dissatisfaction with the album in later years. In early 1993, Radiohead began to attract listeners elsewhere. "Creep" had been played frequently on Israeli radio by
8970-488: A number of new songs. For their next album, they sought to explore the tension between human and machine-generated music and capture a more immediate, live sound. They and Godrich recorded most of the material in two weeks at Ocean Way Recording in Los Angeles. The band described the recording process as relaxed, in contrast to the tense sessions for Kid A and Amnesiac . Radiohead also composed music for "Split Sides",
9200-434: A period of a year and a half, suddenly, bang ." Recording Radiohead's second album, The Bends (1995), was stressful, as they felt pressured to release a follow-up to "Creep". Yorke in particular struggled. According to the band's co-manager, Chris Hufford, "Thom became totally confused about what he wanted to do, what he was doing in a band and in his life, and that turned into a mistrust of everybody else." The Bends
9430-411: A preacher, prosecutions of Jerry Lee Lewis and Chuck Berry and the breaking of the payola scandal (which implicated major figures, including Alan Freed, in bribery and corruption in promoting individual acts or songs), gave a sense that the rock and roll era established at that point had come to an end. Rock quickly spread out from its origins in the US, associated with the rapid Americanization that
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9660-444: A prog rock influence and while ranking among the most commercially successful acts of the 1970s, heralding the era of pomp or arena rock , which would last until the costs of complex shows (often with theatrical staging and special effects), would be replaced by more economical rock festivals as major live venues in the 1990s. The instrumental strand of the genre resulted in albums like Mike Oldfield 's Tubular Bells (1973),
9890-446: A rigidly delineated musical definition." In the opinion of music journalist Robert Christgau , "the best rock jolts folk-art virtues—directness, utility, natural audience—into the present with shots of modern technology and modernist dissociation ". Rock and roll was conceived as an outlet for adolescent yearnings ... To make rock and roll is also an ideal way to explore intersections of sex, love, violence, and fun, to broadcast
10120-519: A rock star after seeing the Queen guitarist Brian May on television for the first time at the age of eight. He initially wanted to be a guitarist rather than a singer, but began singing as he had no one else to sing the songs he was writing. He received his first guitar as a child. At 10, he made his own guitar, inspired by May's homemade Red Special . By 11, he had joined his first band and written his first song. Seeing Siouxsie Sioux in concert at
10350-625: A rock-informed album era in the music industry for the next several decades. By the late 1960s " classic rock " period, a few distinct rock music subgenres had emerged, including hybrids like blues rock , folk rock , country rock , Southern rock , raga rock , and jazz rock , which contributed to the development of psychedelic rock , influenced by the countercultural psychedelic and hippie scene . New genres that emerged included progressive rock , which extended artistic elements, heavy metal , which emphasized an aggressive thick sound, and glam rock , which highlighted showmanship and visual style. In
10580-569: A room when it's with Radiohead ... I'm trying to manage a relationship between [Yorke] and the band and it's me butting heads with him and trying to work on behalf of the band." The Eraser was released in 2006 on the independent label XL Recordings , backed by the singles " Harrowdown Hill ", which reached number 23 in the UK Singles Chart , and " Analyse ". It reached the top ten in the UK, Ireland, United States, Canada and Australia, and
10810-721: A route pursued by a number of largely acoustic folk musicians. Other acts that followed the back-to-basics trend were the Canadian group the Band and the California-based Creedence Clearwater Revival , both of which mixed basic rock and roll with folk, country and blues, to be among the most successful and influential bands of the late 1960s. The same movement saw the beginning of the recording careers of Californian solo artists like Ry Cooder , Bonnie Raitt and Lowell George , and influenced
11040-598: A series of "minimalist soundscapes", was released free in February 2015 through the online music platform SoundCloud . Yorke released his second solo album, Tomorrow's Modern Boxes , via BitTorrent on 26 September 2014. It became the most torrented album of 2014 (excluding piracy ), with more than a million downloads in its first six days. Yorke and Godrich hoped to use the BitTorrent release to hand "some control of internet commerce back to people who are creating
11270-481: A slogan one only began to hear in 1972 or so, mobilized all those eager to believe that idealism had become passe, and once they were mobilized, it had. In popular music, embracing the '70s meant both an elitist withdrawal from the messy concert and counterculture scene and a profiteering pursuit of the lowest common denominator in FM radio and album rock . Rock saw greater commodification during this decade, turning into
11500-467: A soundtrack, Subterranea , to The Panic Office , an installation of Radiohead artwork in Sydney, Australia. Yorke and Selway released their solo albums Tomorrow's Modern Boxes and Weatherhouse in late 2014. Jonny Greenwood scored his third Anderson film, Inherent Vice ; it features a version of an unreleased Radiohead song, "Spooks", performed by Greenwood and members of Supergrass . Junun ,
11730-503: A statement, Yorke responded: "We don’t endorse Netanyahu any more than Trump , but we still play in America. Playing in a country isn't the same as endorsing the government. Music, art and academia is about crossing borders not building them, about open minds not closed ones, about shared humanity, dialogue and freedom of expression." Rock music Rock is a broad genre of popular music that originated as " rock and roll " in
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#173277219996311960-509: A string arrangement composed by Jonny Greenwood. Later that month, another new song, " These Are My Twisted Words ", featuring krautrock -like drumming and guitars, was leaked via torrent , possibly by Radiohead. It was released as a free download on the Radiohead website the following week. Commentators saw the releases as part of Radiohead's new unpredictable release strategy, without the need for traditional marketing. In 2009, Yorke formed
12190-604: A surprise set at Glastonbury Festival with Jonny Greenwood, performing Eraser and Radiohead songs. Yorke provided vocals for "...And the World Laughs with You" from the Flying Lotus album Cosmogramma , and for "Shipwreck" and "This" on the Modeselektor album Monkeytown , both released in 2010. Along with Damien Rice and Philip Glass , he contributed to the soundtrack for the 2010 documentary When
12420-458: A surprise set at Glastonbury Festival , performing Eraser and Radiohead songs. Selway released his debut solo album, Familial , in August. Pitchfork described it as a collection of "hushed" folk songs in the tradition of Nick Drake , with Selway on guitar and vocals. Radiohead released their eighth album, The King of Limbs , on 18 February 2011 as a download from their website. Following
12650-464: A variety of directions, including Dylan and the Byrds, who began to develop country rock . However, the hybridization of folk and rock has been seen as having a major influence on the development of rock music, bringing in elements of psychedelia, and helping to develop the ideas of the singer-songwriter, the protest song, and concepts of "authenticity". Psychedelic music's LSD -inspired vibe began in
12880-529: A variety of sources such as the Tin Pan Alley pop tradition, folk music , and rhythm and blues . Christgau characterizes rock lyrics as a "cool medium" with simple diction and repeated refrains, and asserts that rock's primary "function" "pertains to music, or, more generally, noise ." The predominance of white, male, and often middle class musicians in rock music has often been noted, and rock has been seen as an appropriation of Black musical forms for
13110-466: A vocal recital of a Schubert piece, which helped him find the confidence to become a singer. Terence Gilmore-James, the Abingdon director of music, recalled Yorke as "forlorn and a little isolated" thanks to his unusual appearance, but talkative and opinionated. He said Yorke was "not a great musician", unlike his future bandmate Jonny Greenwood , but a "thinker and experimenter". Yorke later credited
13340-535: A website, radiohead.tv, where short films, music videos, and studio webcasts were streamed. Hail to the Thief debuted at number one in the UK and number three on the Billboard chart, and was eventually certified platinum in the UK and gold in the US. The singles " There There ", " Go to Sleep " and " 2 + 2 = 5 " achieved heavy circulation on modern rock radio. At the 2004 Grammy Awards , Radiohead were again nominated for Best Alternative Album , and Godrich and
13570-501: A young, white and largely male audience. As a result, it has also been seen to articulate the concerns of this group in both style and lyrics. Christgau, writing in 1972, said in spite of some exceptions, "rock and roll usually implies an identification of male sexuality and aggression". Since the term "rock" started being used in preference to "rock and roll" from the late-1960s, it has usually been contrasted with pop music, with which it has shared many characteristics, but from which it
13800-684: Is his band". Yorke also sang backing vocals on Björk's 2008 charity single " Náttúra ". In 2009, Yorke released a cover of the Miracle Legion song "All for the Best" with his brother, Andy , for the compilation Ciao My Shining Star: The Songs of Mark Mulcahy . In July, Yorke performed solo at the Latitude Festival in Suffolk and released a double-A-side single, " FeelingPulledApartByHorses/TheHollowEarth ". He also contributed
14030-410: Is an activist on behalf of human rights , animal rights , environmental and anti-war causes, and his lyrics incorporate political themes. He has been critical of the music industry, particularly of major labels and streaming services such as Spotify . With Radiohead and his solo work, he has employed alternative release platforms such as pay-what-you-want and BitTorrent . He was inducted into
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#173277219996314260-423: Is centered on the electric guitar , usually as part of a rock group with electric bass guitar , drums , and one or more singers. Usually, rock is song-based music with a 4 time signature using a verse–chorus form , but the genre has become extremely diverse. Like pop music , lyrics often stress romantic love but also address a wide variety of other themes that are frequently social or political. Rock
14490-507: Is credited with advancing the sound of alternative rock . Radiohead signed to EMI in 1991 and released their debut album, Pablo Honey , in 1993. Their debut single, " Creep ", was a worldwide hit, and their popularity and critical standing rose with The Bends in 1995. Their third album, OK Computer (1997), is acclaimed as a landmark record and one of the best albums in popular music, with complex production and themes of modern alienation . Their fourth album, Kid A (2000), marked
14720-540: Is credited with first using the phrase "rock and roll" to describe the music. Four years later, Bill Haley 's " Rock Around the Clock " (1954) became the first rock and roll song to top Billboard magazine's main sales and airplay charts, and opened the door worldwide for this new wave of popular culture. Other artists with early rock and roll hits included Chuck Berry , Bo Diddley , Fats Domino , Little Richard , Jerry Lee Lewis , and Gene Vincent . Soon rock and roll
14950-472: Is generally agreed that garage rock peaked both commercially and artistically around 1966. By 1968 the style largely disappeared from the national charts and at the local level as amateur musicians faced college, work or the draft . New styles had evolved to replace garage rock. Although the first impact of the British Invasion on American popular music was through beat and R&B based acts,
15180-618: Is in the music of Chuck Berry , the Ramones , and the Replacements . The foundations of rock music are in rock and roll, which originated in the United States during the late 1940s and early 1950s, and quickly spread to much of the rest of the world. Its immediate origins lay in a melding of various black musical genres of the time, including rhythm and blues and gospel music , with country and western . Debate surrounds
15410-411: Is often distanced by an emphasis on musicianship, live performance, and a focus on serious and progressive themes as part of an ideology of authenticity that is frequently combined with an awareness of the genre's history and development. According to Simon Frith , rock was "something more than pop, something more than rock and roll" and "[r]ock musicians combined an emphasis on skill and technique with
15640-399: Is termed as a rock band or a rock group. Furthermore, it typically consists of between three (the power trio ) and five members. Classically, a rock band takes the form of a quartet whose members cover one or more roles, including vocalist, lead guitarist, rhythm guitarist, bass guitarist, drummer, and often keyboard player or another instrumentalist. Rock music is traditionally built on
15870-900: Is the Band." Thom Yorke Thomas Edward Yorke (born 7 October 1968) is an English musician who is the main vocalist and songwriter of the rock band Radiohead . He plays guitar, bass, keyboards and other instruments, and is noted for his falsetto . Rolling Stone described Yorke as one of the greatest and most influential singers of his generation. Yorke formed Radiohead with schoolmates at Abingdon School in Oxfordshire . They gained notice with their debut single, " Creep ", and went on to achieve acclaim and sales of more than 30 million albums. Yorke's early influences included alternative rock acts such as Pixies and R.E.M . With Radiohead's fourth album, Kid A (2000), Yorke moved into electronic music , influenced by Warp acts such as Aphex Twin . For most of his career, he has worked with
16100-535: The Billboard Hot 100 . The British Invasion greatly influenced garage bands, providing them with a national audience, leading many (often surf or hot rod groups) to adopt a British influence, and encouraging many more groups to form. Thousands of garage bands were extant in the United States and Canada during the era and hundreds produced regional hits. Despite scores of bands being signed to major or large regional labels, most were commercial failures. It
16330-484: The Billboard Hot 100 ; it was Radiohead's first song to enter the chart since "High and Dry" (1995) and their first US top 40 since "Creep". In July, Radiohead released a digitally shot video for " House of Cards ". Radiohead held remix competitions for "Nude" and " Reckoner ", releasing the separated stems for fans to remix. In April 2008, Radiohead launched W.A.S.T.E. Central, a social networking service for Radiohead fans. In May, VH1 broadcast In Rainbows – From
16560-545: The 2020 Grammy Awards . Yorke performed two shows in 2017, and toured Europe and the US in 2018. That year, Yorke and the artist Tarik Barri created an audiovisual exhibition, "City Rats", commissioned by the Institute for Sound and Music in Berlin. I See You , a limited-edition zine edited by Yorke with Crack Magazine , was published in September 2018, with profits donated to Greenpeace . Yorke contributed music to
16790-524: The American folk music revival had grown to a major movement, using traditional music and new compositions in a traditional style, usually on acoustic instruments. In America the genre was pioneered by figures such as Woody Guthrie and Pete Seeger and often identified with progressive or labor politics . In the early sixties figures such as Joan Baez and Bob Dylan had come to the fore in this movement as singer-songwriters. Dylan had begun to reach
17020-541: The Apollo in 1985 inspired him to become a performer; Yorke said he had never seen anyone "captivate an audience like she did". Yorke attended the boys' private school Abingdon in Oxfordshire. He felt out of place, and got into physical fights with other students. He found sanctuary in the music and art departments, and wrote music for a school production of A Midsummer Night's Dream . At school, he performed
17250-645: The Coachella and Glastonbury festivals. They were joined again by Deamer. The tours included a performance in Tel Aviv in July 2017, disregarding the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions campaign for an international cultural boycott of Israel . The performance was criticised by artists including Roger Waters and Ken Loach , and a petition urging Radiohead to cancel it was signed by more than 50 prominent figures. In
17480-501: The London Contemporary Orchestra and Choir , and Yorke's son, Noah, on drums. Yorke cited inspiration from the 1982 Blade Runner soundtrack and music from Suspiria 's 1977 Berlin setting, such as krautrock . The lyrics do not follow the film narrative and were influenced by discourse surrounding President Donald Trump and Brexit . "Suspirium" was nominated for Best Song Written for Visual Media at
17710-597: The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a member of Radiohead in 2019. Yorke was born on 7 October 1968 in Wellingborough, Northamptonshire . He was born with a paralysed left eye, and underwent five eye operations by the age of six. According to Yorke, the last surgery was "botched", giving him a drooping eyelid . He decided against further surgery: "I decided I liked the fact that it wasn't the same, and I've liked it ever since. And when people say stuff I kind of thought it
17940-426: The UK singles chart when EMI rereleased it in September. To build on the success, Radiohead embarked on a US tour supporting Belly and PJ Harvey , followed by a European tour supporting James and Tears for Fears . Radiohead began work on their second album in 1994 with the veteran Abbey Road Studios producer John Leckie . Tensions were high, with mounting expectations to match the success of "Creep". To break
18170-482: The US charts , the album eventually met with mainstream recognition there, earning Radiohead their first Grammy Awards recognition, winning Best Alternative Album and a nomination for Album of the Year . " Paranoid Android ", " Karma Police " and " No Surprises " were released as singles, of which "Karma Police" was most successful internationally. OK Computer went on to become a staple of "best-of" British album lists. In
18400-510: The University of Exeter . On a Friday entered hiatus aside from rehearsals during breaks. At Exeter, Yorke performed experimental music with a classical ensemble, played in a techno group called Flickernoise, and played with the band Headless Chickens, performing songs including future Radiohead material. He also met his future wife Rachel Owen , and Stanley Donwood , who later produced artwork for Radiohead and Yorke's solo releases. According to Yorke, his paintings at Exeter were "shit"; he
18630-706: The Unkle track " Rabbit in Your Headlights ", a collaboration with DJ Shadow . Pitchfork cited "Rabbit in Your Headlights" as a "turning point" for Yorke, foreshadowing his work in experimental electronic music. For the soundtrack of the 1998 film Velvet Goldmine , Yorke, Jonny Greenwood, Andy Mackay of Roxy Music and Bernard Butler of Suede formed a band, the Venus in Furs, to cover Roxy Music songs. In 2016, Pitchfork wrote that Yorke "weirdly comes off as
18860-422: The garage rock / post-punk revival in the 2000s. Since the 2010s, rock has lost its position as the pre-eminent popular music genre in world culture, but remains commercially successful. The increased influence of hip-hop and electronic dance music can be seen in rock music, notably in the techno-pop scene of the early 2010s and the pop-punk-hip-hop revival of the 2020s. Rock has also embodied and served as
19090-509: The indie charts , Radiohead's managers planned to have Radiohead use American producers and tour aggressively in America, then return to build a following in the UK. Paul Kolderie and Sean Slade , who had worked with the US bands Pixies and Dinosaur Jr. , were enlisted to produce Radiohead's debut album, recorded quickly in Oxford in 1992. With the release of their debut single, " Creep ", that September, Radiohead began to receive attention in
19320-417: The protest song , rock music has been associated with political activism , as well as changes in social attitudes to race, sex, and drug use, and is often seen as an expression of youth revolt against adult consumerism and conformity . At the same time, it has been commercially highly successful, leading to accusations of selling out . A good definition of rock, in fact, is that it's popular music that to
19550-519: The top 40 on the US Billboard Hot 100 . Rolling Stone named Radiohead one of the 100 greatest artists of all time , and included five of their albums in its lists of the " 500 Greatest Albums of All Time ". Radiohead were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2019. The members of Radiohead met while attending Abingdon School , a private school for boys in Abingdon, Oxfordshire . The guitarist and singer Thom Yorke and
19780-480: The war on terror and the resurgence of right-wing politics in the west after the turn of the millennium, and his shifting worldview after becoming a father. Yorke and Jonny Greenwood contributed to the 2004 Band Aid 20 single " Do They Know It's Christmas? ", produced by Godrich. Yorke recorded his debut solo album, The Eraser , during Radiohead's 2004 hiatus. It comprises electronics songs recorded and edited with computers. Yorke, who formed Radiohead while
20010-454: The 1950s saw the growth in popularity of the electric guitar, and the development of a specifically rock and roll style of playing through such exponents as Chuck Berry, Link Wray , and Scotty Moore . The use of distortion , pioneered by Western swing guitarists such as Junior Barnard and Eldon Shamblin was popularized by Chuck Berry in the mid-1950s. The use of power chords , pioneered by Francisco Tárrega and Heitor Villa-Lobos in
20240-467: The 19th century and later on by Willie Johnson and Pat Hare in the early 1950s, was popularized by Link Wray in the late 1950s. Commentators have traditionally perceived a decline of rock and roll in the late 1950s and early 1960s. By 1959, the death of Buddy Holly, the Big Bopper and Ritchie Valens in a plane crash, the departure of Elvis for the army, the retirement of Little Richard to become
20470-546: The 2018 short films Why Can't We Get Along? and Time of Day for the fashion label Rag & Bone . On 29 March 2019, Yorke was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a member of Radiohead. He did not attend the induction ceremony, citing cultural differences between the UK and America and his negative experience of the Brit Awards , "which is like this sort of drunken car crash that you don't want to get involved with". Yorke's third solo album, Anima ,
20700-618: The Astoria , was released in 1995. By late 1995, Radiohead had already recorded one song that would appear on their next record. " Lucky ", released as a single to promote the War Child charity's The Help Album , was recorded in a brief session with Nigel Godrich, the young audio engineer who had assisted on The Bends. Radiohead decided to self-produce their next album with Godrich, and began work in early 1996. By July they had recorded four songs at their rehearsal studio, Canned Applause,
20930-477: The Banshees , Ultravox , and Simple Minds , showed the influence of progressive rock, as well as their more usually recognized punk influences. In the late 1960s, jazz-rock emerged as a distinct subgenre out of the blues-rock, psychedelic, and progressive rock scenes, mixing the power of rock with the musical complexity and improvisational elements of jazz. AllMusic states that the term jazz-rock "may refer to
21160-520: The Basement , a special episode of the music television show From the Basement in which Radiohead performed songs from In Rainbows . It was released on iTunes in June. From mid-2008 to early 2009, Radiohead toured North America, Europe, Japan and South America to promote In Rainbows , and headlined the Reading and Leeds Festivals in August 2009. Days after Radiohead signed to XL, EMI announced
21390-628: The Beatles, demonstrating "to the rock generation in general that an album could be a major standalone statement without hit singles", such as on The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan (1963). Folk rock particularly took off in California, where it led acts like the Mamas & the Papas and Crosby, Stills, and Nash to move to electric instrumentation, and in New York, where it spawned performers including
21620-424: The British music press, not all of it favourable; NME described them as "a lily-livered excuse for a rock band", and "Creep" was blacklisted by BBC Radio 1 as "too depressing". Radiohead released their debut album, Pablo Honey , in February 1993. It reached number 22 in the UK charts. "Creep" and its follow-up singles "Anyone Can Play Guitar" and " Stop Whispering " failed to become hits, and " Pop Is Dead ",
21850-617: The Byrds ' shift from folk to folk rock from 1965. The psychedelic lifestyle, which revolved around hallucinogenic drugs, had already developed in San Francisco and particularly prominent products of the scene were Big Brother and the Holding Company , the Grateful Dead and Jefferson Airplane . The Jimi Hendrix Experience 's lead guitarist, Jimi Hendrix did extended distorted, feedback-filled jams which became
22080-431: The Byrds adopted rock instrumentation, including drums and 12-string Rickenbacker guitars, which became a major element in the sound of the genre. Later that year Dylan adopted electric instruments, much to the outrage of many folk purists, with his " Like a Rolling Stone " becoming a US hit single. According to Ritchie Unterberger , Dylan (even before his adoption of electric instruments) influenced rock musicians like
22310-594: The Dominos , followed by an extensive solo career that helped bring blues rock into the mainstream. Green, along with the Bluesbreaker's rhythm section Mick Fleetwood and John McVie , formed Peter Green's Fleetwood Mac , who enjoyed some of the greatest commercial success in the genre. In the late 1960s Jeff Beck , also an alumnus of the Yardbirds, moved blues rock in the direction of heavy rock with his band,
22540-530: The Dragon Swallowed the Sun . In 2011, Radiohead released their eighth album, The King of Limbs , which Yorke described as "an expression of physical movements and wildness". Yorke sought to move further from conventional recording methods. The music video for " Lotus Flower ", featuring Yorke's erratic dancing, became an internet meme . By 2011, Radiohead had sold more than 30 million albums. In
22770-507: The Gates of Dawn . Key recordings included Jefferson Airplane's Surrealistic Pillow and the Doors ' self-titled debut album . These trends peaked in the 1969 Woodstock festival , which saw performances by most of the major psychedelic acts. Sgt. Pepper was later regarded as the greatest album of all time and a starting point for the album era , during which rock music transitioned from
23000-471: The Jeff Beck Group . The last Yardbirds guitarist was Jimmy Page , who went on to form The New Yardbirds which rapidly became Led Zeppelin . Many of the songs on their first three albums, and occasionally later in their careers, were expansions on traditional blues songs. In America, blues rock had been pioneered in the early 1960s by guitarist Lonnie Mack , but the genre began to take off in
23230-506: The Joint " (1949), also covered by Bill Haley & His Comets in 1952; and " Rocket 88 " by Jackie Brenston and his Delta Cats (in fact, Ike Turner and his band the Kings of Rhythm ), recorded by Sam Phillips for Chess Records in 1951. In 1951, Cleveland, Ohio disc jockey Alan Freed began playing rhythm and blues music (then termed " race music ") for a multi-racial audience, and
23460-568: The La Fabrique studio near Saint-Rémy-de-Provence , France. The sessions were marred by the death of Godrich's father and Yorke's separation from his wife, Rachel Owen , who died from cancer in 2016. Work was interrupted when Radiohead were commissioned to write the theme for the 2015 James Bond film Spectre . After their song, " Spectre ", was rejected, Radiohead released it on the audio streaming site SoundCloud on Christmas Day 2015. Radiohead's ninth studio album, A Moon Shaped Pool ,
23690-503: The Lovin' Spoonful and Simon and Garfunkel , with the latter's acoustic " The Sounds of Silence " (1965) being remixed with rock instruments to be the first of many hits. These acts directly influenced British performers like Donovan and Fairport Convention . In 1969 Fairport Convention abandoned their mixture of American covers and Dylan-influenced songs to play traditional English folk music on electric instruments. This British folk-rock
23920-543: The Moon , although Yorke said the lyrics were inspired by observing the "speed" of the world in the 1990s. Yorke's lyrics, embodying different characters, had expressed what one magazine called "end-of-the-millennium blues" in contrast to the more personal songs of The Bends . According to the journalist Alex Ross , Radiohead had become "the poster boys for a certain kind of knowing alienation" as Talking Heads and R.E.M. had been before. OK Computer received acclaim. Yorke said he
24150-488: The R.E.M. singer Michael Stipe , along with distinctive music videos for "Just" and "Street Spirit", helped sustain Radiohead's popularity outside the UK. The night before a performance in Denver, Colorado, Radiohead's tour van was stolen, and with it their musical equipment. Yorke and Jonny Greenwood performed a stripped-down acoustic set with rented instruments and several shows were cancelled. Their first live video, Live at
24380-476: The Rolling Stones and the Yardbirds , were much more directly influenced by rhythm and blues and later blues music. Soon these groups were composing their own material, combining US forms of music and infusing it with a high energy beat. Beat bands tended towards "bouncy, irresistible melodies", while early British blues acts tended towards less sexually innocent, more aggressive songs, often adopting an anti-establishment stance. There was, however, particularly in
24610-588: The Searchers from Liverpool and Freddie and the Dreamers , Herman's Hermits and the Hollies from Manchester. They drew on a wide range of American influences including 1950s rock and roll, soul, rhythm and blues, and surf music, initially reinterpreting standard American tunes and playing for dancers. Bands like the Animals from Newcastle and Them from Belfast , and particularly those from London like
24840-672: The Seeds ) to near-studio musician quality (including the Knickerbockers , the Remains , and the Fifth Estate ). There were also regional variations in many parts of the country with flourishing scenes particularly in California and Texas. The Pacific Northwest states of Washington and Oregon had perhaps the most defined regional sound. The style had been evolving from regional scenes as early as 1958. "Tall Cool One" (1959) by
25070-598: The Thief tour, Radiohead went on hiatus to spend time with their families and work on solo projects. Yorke and Jonny Greenwood contributed to the Band Aid 20 charity single " Do They Know It's Christmas? ", produced by Godrich. Greenwood composed soundtracks for the films Bodysong (2004) and There Will Be Blood (2007); the latter was the first of several collaborations with the director Paul Thomas Anderson . In July 2006, Yorke released his debut solo album, The Eraser , comprising mainly electronic music. He stressed it
25300-440: The UK and in the US. The success was Radiohead's highest chart placement in the US since Kid A . It became their fifth UK number-one album and sold more than three million copies in one year. The album received acclaim for its more accessible sound and personal lyrics. It was nominated for the Mercury Music Prize and won the 2009 Grammy awards for Best Alternative Music Album and Best Boxed or Special Limited Edition Package. It
25530-527: The US Billboard 200 and number seven on the UK Albums Chart . It was nominated for five categories in the 54th Grammy Awards . Two tracks not included on The King of Limbs , " Supercollider" and "The Butcher ", were released as a double A-side single for Record Store Day in April. A compilation of King of Limbs remixes by various artists, TKOL RMX 1234567 , was released in September. To perform
25760-676: The US was becoming dominated by lightweight pop and ballads, British rock groups at clubs and local dances were developing a style more strongly influenced by blues-rock pioneers, and were starting to play with an intensity and drive seldom found in white American acts; this influence would go on to shape the future of rock music through the British Invasion . The first four years of the 1960s has traditionally been seen as an era of hiatus for rock and roll. More recently some authors have emphasised important innovations and trends in this period without which future developments would not have been possible. While early rock and roll, particularly through
25990-629: The US. It was the fifth Radiohead album nominated for the Mercury Prize , making Radiohead the most shortlisted act in Mercury history, and was nominated for Best Alternative Music Album and Best Rock Song (for "Burn the Witch") at the 59th Annual Grammy Awards . It appeared on several publications' lists of the best albums of the year. In 2016, 2017 and 2018, Radiohead toured Europe, Japan, and North and South America, including headline shows at
26220-619: The USSR and South Africa from 1955 to 1957, influencing the globalisation of rock. Johnny O'Keefe 's 1958 record " Wild One " was one of the earliest Australian rock and roll hits. By the late 1950s, as well as in the American-influenced Western world, rock was popular in communist states such as Yugoslavia, and the USSR, as well as in regions such as South America. In the late 1950s and early 1960s, American blues music and blues rock artists, who had been surpassed by
26450-534: The United States in the late 1940s and early 1950s, developing into a range of different styles from the mid-1960s, particularly in the United States and the United Kingdom. It has its roots in rock and roll, a style that drew directly from the genres of blues , rhythm and blues , and country music . Rock also drew strongly from genres such as electric blues and folk , and incorporated influences from jazz and other musical styles. For instrumentation, rock
26680-751: The Wailers and " Louie Louie " by the Kingsmen (1963) are mainstream examples of the genre in its formative stages. By 1963, garage band singles were creeping into the national charts in greater numbers, including Paul Revere and the Raiders (Boise), the Trashmen (Minneapolis) and the Rivieras (South Bend, Indiana). Other influential garage bands, such as the Sonics (Tacoma, Washington), never reached
26910-527: The advent of rockabilly, saw the greatest commercial success for male and white performers, in this era, the genre was dominated by black and female artists. Rock and roll had not disappeared entirely from music at the end of the 1950s and some of its energy can be seen in the various dance crazes of the early 1960s, started by Chubby Checker 's record " The Twist " (1960). Some music historians have also pointed to important and innovative technical developments that built on rock and roll in this period, including
27140-424: The album's leak on the file-sharing network Napster a few months before its release, and to advance anticipation based, in part, on the success of OK Computer . Although Radiohead released no singles from Kid A , promos of " Optimistic " and " Idioteque " received radio play, and a series of "blips", short videos set to portions of tracks, were played on music channels and released free online. Radiohead continued
27370-650: The ambient sections of Tomorrow's Modern Boxes , with some digitally spoken sections similar to "Fitter Happier" from OK Computer . The music was not released. In July 2015, Yorke joined the band Portishead at the Latitude Festival to perform their song " The Rip ". Yorke composed music for a 2015 production of Harold Pinter 's 1971 play Old Times by the Roundabout Theater Company in New York City. The director described
27600-405: The band experimenting with song structures and incorporating ambient , avant-garde and electronic influences, prompting Rolling Stone to call the album a "stunning art-rock tour de force". Radiohead denied being part of the progressive rock genre, but critics began to compare their work to Pink Floyd . Some compared OK Computer thematically to the 1973 Pink Floyd album The Dark Side of
27830-544: The band had "all of the elements of Radiohead", but with a rougher, punkier sound and faster tempos. At Courtyard Studios, On a Friday recorded the Manic Hedgehog demo tape, named after an Oxford record shop. In late 1991, Colin happened to meet the EMI A&;R representative Keith Wozencroft at a record shop and handed him a copy of the demo. Wozencroft was impressed and attended a performance. That November, On
28060-412: The band regrouped in Oxford, sharing a house on the corner of Magdalen Road and Ridgefield Road. They recorded another demo, which attracted the attention of Chris Hufford, Slowdive's producer and the co-owner of Oxford's Courtyard Studios. Hufford and his business partner, Bryce Edge, attended a concert at the Jericho Tavern; impressed, they became On a Friday's managers. According to Hufford, at this point
28290-413: The bassist Colin Greenwood were in the same year; the guitarist Ed O'Brien was one year above, and the drummer Philip Selway was in the year above O'Brien. In 1985, they formed On a Friday, the name referring to their usual rehearsal day in the school's music room. The band disliked the school's strict atmosphere—the headmaster once charged them for using a rehearsal room on a Sunday—and found solace in
28520-585: The biggest selling rock band of all time and they were followed into the US charts by numerous British bands. During the next two years British acts dominated their own and the US charts with Peter and Gordon , the Animals, Manfred Mann , Petula Clark , Freddie and the Dreamers, Wayne Fontana and the Mindbenders , Herman's Hermits, the Rolling Stones, the Troggs , and Donovan all having one or more number one singles. Other major acts that were part of
28750-534: The case was dropped under the Jordan ruling , which sets strict time limits on trials. Radiohead released a statement condemning the decision. A 2019 inquest returned a verdict of accidental death . After the King of Limbs tour, the band members worked on further side projects. In February 2013, Yorke and Godrich's band, Atoms for Peace, released an album, Amok . The pair made headlines that year for their criticism of
28980-461: The chart. Their first appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show on 9 February 1964, drawing an estimated 73 million viewers (at the time a record for an American television program) is considered a milestone in American pop culture. During the week of 4 April 1964, the Beatles held 12 positions on the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart, including the entire top five. The Beatles went on to become
29210-889: The cliffs, writing and drawing. He restricted his songwriting to piano; the first song he wrote was " Everything in Its Right Place ". During this period, Yorke listened almost exclusively to the electronic music of artists such as Aphex Twin and Autechre , saying: "It was refreshing because the music was all structures and had no human voices in it. But I felt just as emotional about it as I'd ever felt about guitar music." Yorke gradually relaxed and came to enjoy his work again. Radiohead took Yorke's electronic influences to their next albums Kid A (2000) and Amnesiac (2001), processing vocals, obscuring lyrics, and using electronic instruments such as synthesisers, drum machines and samplers. The albums divided listeners, but were commercially successful and later attracted acclaim. Kid A
29440-424: The delights and limitations of the regional , and to deal with the depredations and benefits of mass culture itself. — Robert Christgau in Christgau's Record Guide (1981) Unlike many earlier styles of popular music, rock lyrics have dealt with a wide range of themes, including romantic love, sex, rebellion against " The Establishment ", social concerns, and life styles. These themes were inherited from
29670-455: The early 1970s among existing blues-rock and psychedelic bands, as well as newly formed acts. The vibrant Canterbury scene saw acts following Soft Machine from psychedelia, through jazz influences, toward more expansive hard rock, including Caravan , Hatfield and the North , Gong , and National Health . The French group Magma around drummer Christian Vander almost single-handedly created
29900-460: The early 1970s, Robert Christgau wrote in Christgau's Record Guide: Rock Albums of the Seventies (1981): The decade is, of course, an arbitrary schema itself—time doesn't just execute a neat turn toward the future every ten years. But like a lot of artificial concepts—money, say—the category does take on a reality of its own once people figure out how to put it to work. "The '60s are over,"
30130-462: The early stages, considerable musical crossover between the two tendencies. By 1963, led by the Beatles, beat groups had begun to achieve national success in Britain, soon to be followed into the charts by the more rhythm and blues focused acts. " I Want to Hold Your Hand " was the Beatles' first number one hit on the Billboard Hot 100 , spending seven weeks at the top and a total of 15 weeks on
30360-519: The electronic treatment of sound by such innovators as Joe Meek , and the elaborate production methods of the Wall of Sound pursued by Phil Spector . The instrumental rock and roll of performers such as Duane Eddy , Link Wray and the Ventures was further developed by Dick Dale , who added distinctive "wet" reverb , rapid alternate picking, and Middle Eastern and Mexican influences. He produced
30590-527: The engineer Darrell Thorp received the Grammy Award for Best Engineered Album . In May 2003, Radiohead launched radiohead.tv, where they streamed short films, music videos and live webcasts from their studio. The material was released on the 2004 DVD The Most Gigantic Lying Mouth of All Time . A compilation of Hail to the Thief B-sides, remixes and live performances, Com Lag (2plus2isfive) ,
30820-581: The example set by the Beatles ' 1965 LP Rubber Soul in particular, other British rock acts released rock albums intended as artistic statements in 1966, including the Rolling Stones ' Aftermath , the Beatles' own Revolver , and the Who 's A Quick One , as well as American acts in the Beach Boys ( Pet Sounds ) and Bob Dylan ( Blonde on Blonde ). Garage rock was a raw form of rock music, particularly prevalent in North America in
31050-498: The first record, and worldwide hit, for the Virgin Records label, which became a mainstay of the genre. Instrumental rock was particularly significant in continental Europe, allowing bands like Kraftwerk , Tangerine Dream , Can , Focus (band) and Faust to circumvent the language barrier. Their synthesiser-heavy " krautrock ", along with the work of Brian Eno (for a time the keyboard player with Roxy Music ), would be
31280-455: The folk scene. The first group to advertise themselves as psychedelic rock were the 13th Floor Elevators from Texas. The Beatles introduced many of the major elements of the psychedelic sound to audiences in this period, such as guitar feedback , the Indian sitar and backmasking sound effects . Psychedelic rock particularly took off in California's emerging music scene as groups followed
31510-513: The format of rock operas and opened the door to concept albums , often telling an epic story or tackling a grand overarching theme. King Crimson 's 1969 début album, In the Court of the Crimson King , which mixed powerful guitar riffs and mellotron , with jazz and symphonic music , is often taken as the key recording in progressive rock, helping the widespread adoption of the genre in
31740-426: The free music streaming service Spotify . Yorke accused Spotify of only benefiting major labels with large back catalogues, and encouraged artists to build their own "direct connections" with audiences instead. In February 2014, Radiohead released an app, Polyfauna , a collaboration with the British digital arts studio Universal Everything, with music and imagery from The King of Limbs . In May, Yorke contributed
31970-574: The greater depth they aimed for on their second album. It was Radiohead's first collaboration with their future producer, Nigel Godrich , then working under Leckie as an audio engineer , and the artist Stanley Donwood . Both have worked on every Radiohead album since. Though sales of My Iron Lung were low, it boosted Radiohead's credibility in alternative circles, creating commercial opportunity for their next album. Having introduced more new songs on tour, Radiohead finished recording their second album, The Bends , by 1995, and released it that March. It
32200-458: The impetus was soon taken up by a second wave of bands that drew their inspiration more directly from American blues , including the Rolling Stones and the Yardbirds . British blues musicians of the late 1950s and early 1960s had been inspired by the acoustic playing of figures such as Lead Belly , who was a major influence on the Skiffle craze, and Robert Johnson . Increasingly they adopted
32430-464: The implications for the music industry. Yorke described it as a statement of Radiohead's belief in the value of music and a "contract of faith" between musicians and audiences. In the same year, Yorke sang on the Modeselektor track "The White Flash" from the album Happy Birthday! . Pitchfork likened it to The Eraser and wrote that Yorke's vocals "work so perfectly that it feels like this
32660-621: The influential DJ Yoav Kutner , and in March, after the song became a hit there, Radiohead were invited to Tel Aviv for their first show overseas. Around the same time, "Creep" became a hit in America, a " slacker anthem" in the vein of " Smells Like Teen Spirit " by Nirvana and " Loser " by Beck . It reached number two on the Billboard Modern Rock chart , number 34 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart, and number seven on
32890-467: The invasion included the Kinks and the Dave Clark Five . The British Invasion helped internationalize the production of rock and roll, opening the door for subsequent British (and Irish) performers to achieve international success. In America it arguably spelled the end of instrumental surf music, vocal girl groups and (for a time) the teen idols , that had dominated the American charts in
33120-486: The jazz musician Wynton Marsalis to rearrange the song as a ballad reminiscent of 1950s Miles Davis . It was shortlisted for Best Original Song at the 92nd Academy Awards . Yorke's first classical composition, "Don't Fear the Light", written for the piano duo Katia and Marielle Labeque , debuted in April 2019. In April 2020, Yorke performed a new song from his home, "Plasticine Figures", for The Tonight Show . In
33350-458: The label were R&B oriented white rock bands that made use of jazzy horn sections, like Electric Flag , Blood, Sweat & Tears and Chicago , to become some of the most commercially successful acts of the later 1960s and the early 1970s. British acts to emerge in the same period from the blues scene, to make use of the tonal and improvisational aspects of jazz, included Nucleus and the Graham Bond and John Mayall spin-off Colosseum . From
33580-446: The late 1950s and 1960s. It dented the careers of established R&B acts like Fats Domino and Chubby Checker and even temporarily derailed the chart success of surviving rock and roll acts, including Elvis. The British Invasion also played a major part in the rise of a distinct genre of rock music, and cemented the primacy of the rock group, based on guitars and drums and producing their own material as singer-songwriters. Following
33810-407: The leading rock acts of the 1990s. Yorke struggled with the attention the success brought him, and the stress of the OK Computer tour. Colin Greenwood described the "hundred-yard stare" in Yorke's eyes when performing, and said "he absolutely did not want to be there... You hate having to put your friend through that experience." Yorke said later: When I was a kid, I always assumed that [fame]
34040-436: The line, we just seemed to piss off a lot of people ... What we're doing isn't that radical." The album was ranked one of the best of all time by publications including Time and Rolling Stone; Rolling Stone , Pitchfork and the Times named it the best album of the decade. Radiohead's fifth album, Amnesiac , was released in May 2001. It comprised additional tracks from the Kid A sessions, including "Life in
34270-410: The loudest, wildest, most electrified fusion bands from the jazz camp, but most often it describes performers coming from the rock side of the equation." Jazz-rock "...generally grew out of the most artistically ambitious rock subgenres of the late '60s and early '70s", including the singer-songwriter movement. Many early US rock and roll musicians had begun in jazz and carried some of these elements into
34500-476: The many recordings which have been suggested as "the first rock and roll record ". Contenders include " Strange Things Happening Every Day " by Sister Rosetta Tharpe (1944); " That's All Right " by Arthur Crudup (1946), which was later covered by Elvis Presley in 1954; " The House of Blue Lights " by Ella Mae Morse and Freddie Slack (1946); Wynonie Harris ' " Good Rocking Tonight " (1948); Goree Carter 's "Rock Awhile" (1949); Jimmy Preston 's " Rock
34730-455: The members were in school, said he was curious to try working alone. He stressed that Radiohead were not splitting up and that the album was made "with their blessing". According to Jonny Greenwood, Radiohead were happy for Yorke to make the album: "He'd go mad if every time he wrote a song it had to go through the Radiohead consensus." Godrich said that working with Yorke on The Eraser was easier than working with Radiohead, as "when we were in
34960-617: The mid-1950s by white singers such as Carl Perkins , Jerry Lee Lewis, Buddy Holly and with the greatest commercial success, Elvis Presley . Hispanic and Latino American movements in rock and roll, which would eventually lead to the success of Latin rock and Chicano rock within the US, began to rise in the Southwest ; with rock and roll standard musician Ritchie Valens and even those within other heritage genres, such as Al Hurricane along with his brothers Tiny Morrie and Baby Gaby as they began combining rock and roll with country- western within traditional New Mexico music . In addition,
35190-550: The mid-1960s the Left Banke , the Beatles, the Rolling Stones and the Beach Boys, had pioneered the inclusion of harpsichords , wind , and string sections on their recordings to produce a form of Baroque rock and can be heard in singles like Procol Harum 's " A Whiter Shade of Pale " (1967), with its Bach -inspired introduction. The Moody Blues used a full orchestra on their album Days of Future Passed (1967) and subsequently created orchestral sounds with synthesizers. Classical orchestration, keyboards, and synthesizers were
35420-479: The mid-1960s and so called because of the perception that it was rehearsed in the suburban family garage. Garage rock songs often revolved around the traumas of high school life, with songs about "lying girls" and unfair social circumstances being particularly common. The lyrics and delivery tended to be more aggressive than was common at the time, often with growled or shouted vocals that dissolved into incoherent screaming. They ranged from crude one-chord music (like
35650-435: The mid-1960s as acts developed a sound similar to British blues musicians. Key acts included Paul Butterfield (whose band acted like Mayall's Bluesbreakers in Britain as a starting point for many successful musicians), Canned Heat , the early Jefferson Airplane , Janis Joplin , Johnny Winter , the J. Geils Band and Jimi Hendrix with his power trios , the Jimi Hendrix Experience (which included two British members, and
35880-401: The mid-1960s onwards, rock music often used the verse–chorus structure derived from blues and folk music, but there has been considerable variation from this model. Critics have stressed the eclecticism and stylistic diversity of rock. Because of its complex history and its tendency to borrow from other musical and cultural forms, it has been argued that "it is impossible to bind rock music to
36110-425: The music as "primeval, unusual ... The sort of neurosis within [Yorke's] music certainly has elucidated elements of the compulsive repetition of the play." That year, Yorke performed with Godrich and the audiovisual artist Tarik Barri at the Latitude Festival in the UK and Summer Sonic in Japan. Radiohead released their ninth album, A Moon Shaped Pool , on 8 May 2016. Yorke contributed vocals and appeared in
36340-420: The music department. They credited their music teacher for introducing them to jazz , film scores , postwar avant-garde music , and 20th-century classical music . While each member contributed songs in the band's early period, Yorke emerged as the main songwriter. According to Colin, the band members picked their instruments because they wanted to play together, rather than through any particular interest: "It
36570-421: The name "sums up all these things about receiving stuff ... It's about the way you take information in, the way you respond to the environment you're put in." Radiohead recorded their debut EP, Drill , with Hufford and Edge at Courtyard Studios. Released in May 1992, its chart performance was poor. As it was difficult for major labels such as EMI to promote bands in the UK, where independent labels dominated
36800-414: The new music genre zeuhl with their first albums in the early 1970s. Greater commercial success was enjoyed by Pink Floyd, who also moved away from psychedelia after the departure of Syd Barrett in 1968, with The Dark Side of the Moon (1973), seen as a masterpiece of the genre, becoming one of the best-selling albums of all time. There was an emphasis on instrumental virtuosity, with Yes showcasing
37030-433: The new music. In Britain the subgenre of blues rock, and many of its leading figures, like Ginger Baker and Jack Bruce of the Eric Clapton -fronted band Cream , had emerged from the British jazz scene. Often highlighted as the first true jazz-rock recording is the only album by the relatively obscure New York–based the Free Spirits with Out of Sight and Sound (1966). The first group of bands to self-consciously use
37260-426: The period as a "real low point"; he and O'Brien developed depression, and the band came close to splitting up. After the success of OK Computer , Radiohead bought a barn in Oxfordshire and converted it into a recording studio. They began work on their next album with Godrich in early 1999, working in studios in Paris, Copenhagen, and Gloucester before their new studio was completed. Although their success meant there
37490-423: The producer Nigel Godrich and the cover artist Stanley Donwood . Yorke's solo work comprises mainly electronic music. His debut solo album, The Eraser , was released in 2006. To perform it live, he formed a new band, Atoms for Peace , with musicians including Godrich and the Red Hot Chili Peppers bassist Flea . They released an album, Amok , in 2013. Yorke's second solo album, Tomorrow's Modern Boxes ,
37720-533: The producer Spike Stent , but the collaboration was unsuccessful. In September 2005, Radiohead contributed "I Want None of This", a piano dirge , for the War Child charity album Help: A Day in the Life . The album was sold online, with "I Want None of This" the most downloaded track, though it was not released as a single. In late 2006, after touring Europe and North America with new material, Radiohead re-enlisted Godrich and resumed work in London, Oxford and rural Somerset , England. Recording ended in June 2007 and
37950-433: The protracted recording and more conventional rock instrumentation of In Rainbows , Radiohead developed The King of Limbs by sampling and looping their recordings with turntables . It was followed by a retail release in March through XL, and a special "newspaper album" edition in May. The King of Limbs sold an estimated 300,000 to 400,000 copies through Radiohead's website. The retail edition debuted at number six on
38180-412: The psychedelic rock and the Canterbury scenes came Soft Machine, who, it has been suggested, produced one of the artistically successfully fusions of the two genres. Perhaps the most critically acclaimed fusion came from the jazz side of the equation, with Miles Davis , particularly influenced by the work of Hendrix, incorporating rock instrumentation into his sound for the album Bitches Brew (1970). It
38410-485: The rapper MF Doom . In May, Yorke debuted a new band, the Smile , with Jonny Greenwood and the jazz drummer Tom Skinner , produced by Godrich. Greenwood said the project was a way for him and Yorke to work together during the COVID-19 lockdowns. The Smile made their surprise debut in a performance streamed by Glastonbury Festival on May 22, with Yorke singing and playing guitar, bass, Moog synthesiser and Rhodes piano . The Guardian critic Alexis Petridis said
38640-518: The recordings were mastered the following month. In 2007, EMI was acquired by the private equity firm Terra Firma . Radiohead were critical of the new management, and no new deal was agreed. The Independent reported that EMI had offered Radiohead a £3 million advance, but had refused to relinquish rights to the band's back catalogue. An EMI spokesman stated that Radiohead had demanded "an extraordinary amount of money". Radiohead's management and Yorke released statements denying that they had asked for
38870-617: The recordings. On 16 June 2012, an hour before gates were due to open at Toronto's Downsview Park for the final concert of Radiohead's North American tour, the roof of the venue's temporary stage collapsed , killing the drum technician Scott Johnson and injuring three other members of Radiohead's road crew . After rescheduling the tour, Radiohead paid tribute to Johnson at their next concert, in Nîmes, France, in July. In June 2013, Live Nation Canada Inc, two other organisations and an engineer were charged with 13 charges under Ontario health and safety laws. In September 2017, after several delays,
39100-413: The regional hit " Let's Go Trippin ' " in 1961 and launched the surf music craze, following up with songs like " Misirlou " (1962). Like Dale and his Del-Tones , most early surf bands were formed in Southern California, including the Bel-Airs , the Challengers , and Eddie & the Showmen . The Chantays scored a top ten national hit with " Pipeline " in 1963 and probably the best-known surf tune
39330-442: The rhythmically complex King of Limbs material live, Radiohead enlisted a second drummer, Clive Deamer , who had worked with Portishead and Get the Blessing . In June, Radiohead played a surprise performance on the Park stage at the 2011 Glastonbury Festival, performing songs from The King of Limbs for the first time. With Deamer, Radiohead recorded The King of Limbs: Live from the Basement , released online in August 2011. It
39560-400: The rise of rock and roll in the US, found new popularity in the UK, visiting with successful tours. Lonnie Donegan 's 1955 hit " Rock Island Line " was a major influence and helped to develop the trend of skiffle music groups throughout the country, many of which, including John Lennon 's Quarrymen (later the Beatles ), moved on to play rock and roll. While former rock and roll market in
39790-475: The romantic concept of art as artistic expression, original and sincere". In the new millennium, the term rock has occasionally been used as a blanket term including forms like pop music, reggae music , soul music , and even hip hop , which it has been influenced with but often contrasted through much of its history. Christgau has used the term broadly to refer to popular and semipopular music that caters to his sensibility as "a rock-and-roller", including
40020-468: The same era, and by percussion produced from a drum kit that combines drums and cymbals. This trio of instruments has often been complemented by the inclusion of other instruments, particularly keyboards such as the piano, the Hammond organ , and the synthesizer. The basic rock instrumentation was derived from the basic blues band instrumentation (prominent lead guitar, second chordal instrument, bass, and drums). A group of musicians performing rock music
40250-414: The same year, Radiohead became one of the first bands in the world to have a website, and developed a devoted online following; within a few years, there were dozens of fansites devoted to them. OK Computer was followed by the year-long Against Demons world tour, including Radiohead's first headline Glastonbury Festival performance in 1997. Despite technical problems that almost caused Yorke to abandon
40480-422: The same year, Yorke collaborated with the electronic artists Burial and Four Tet on "Ego" and "Mirror", and collaborated with Greenwood and the American rapper MF Doom on "Retarded Fren". In 2012, Yorke provided vocals for "Electric Candyman" on the Flying Lotus album Until the Quiet Comes . He also remixed the single " Hold On " by the electronic musician Sbtrkt , under the name Sisi BakBak. His identity
40710-462: The same year, he collaborated with Four Tet and Burial again on "Her Revolution" and "His Rope", and remixed "Isolation Theme" by the electronic musician Clark . Yorke said his remix mirrored the COVID-19 lockdowns , "entering a new type of silence". In March 2021, Yorke contributed music to shows by the Japanese fashion designer Jun Takahashi , including a remixed version of "Creep". That August, he contributed two remixes of " Gazzillion Ear " by
40940-555: The second half of the 1970s, punk rock reacted by producing stripped-down, energetic social and political critiques. Punk was an influence in the 1980s on new wave , post-punk and eventually alternative rock . From the 1990s, alternative rock began to dominate rock music and break into the mainstream in the form of grunge , Britpop , and indie rock . Further fusion subgenres have since emerged, including pop-punk , electronic rock , rap rock , and rap metal . Some movements were conscious attempts to revisit rock's history, including
41170-498: The singles format to albums and achieved cultural legitimacy in the mainstream. Led by the Beatles in the mid-1960s, rock musicians advanced the LP as the dominant form of recorded music expression and consumption, initiating a rock-informed album era in the music industry for the next several decades. Progressive rock, a term sometimes used interchangeably with art rock , moved beyond established musical formulas by experimenting with different instruments, song types, and forms. From
41400-413: The skills of both guitarist Steve Howe and keyboard player Rick Wakeman , while Emerson, Lake & Palmer were a supergroup who produced some of the genre's most technically demanding work. Jethro Tull and Genesis both pursued very different, but distinctly English, brands of music. Renaissance , formed in 1969 by ex-Yardbirds Jim McCarty and Keith Relf, evolved into a high-concept band featuring
41630-401: The stage, the performance was acclaimed and cemented Radiohead as a major live act. Grant Gee , the director of the "No Surprises" video, filmed the band on tour for the 1999 documentary Meeting People Is Easy . The film portrays the band's disaffection with the music industry and press, showing their burnout over the course of the tour. Since its release, OK Computer is often acclaimed as
41860-403: The steering wheel and I was white-knuckled, and I didn't care who I hurt or what I said." He later apologised to his bandmates for his behaviour. Paul Q Kolderie , the co-producer of Pablo Honey, observed that Yorke's songwriting improved dramatically after Pablo Honey. O'Brien later said: "After all that touring on Pablo Honey ... the songs that Thom was writing were so much better. Over
42090-470: The strength of an early demo, On a Friday were offered a record deal by Island Records , but they decided they were not ready and wanted to go to university first. They continued to rehearse on weekends and holidays, but did not perform for four years. At the University of Exeter , Yorke played with the band Headless Chickens, performing songs including future Radiohead material. He also met Stanley Donwood , who later became Radiohead's cover artist. In 1991,
42320-429: The support of Gilmore-James and the head of the art department for his success. Yorke had classical guitar lessons with his future bandmate Colin Greenwood . In sixth form at Abingdon, Yorke played with a punk band, TNT, but left when he was dissatisfied with their progress. He began playing with Colin Greenwood, Ed O'Brien and Philip Selway , joined later by Colin's younger brother, Jonny. In 1985, they formed
42550-558: The three-octave voice of Annie Haslam . Most British bands depended on a relatively small cult following, but a handful, including Pink Floyd, Genesis, and Jethro Tull, managed to produce top ten singles at home and break the American market. The American brand of progressive rock varied from the eclectic and innovative Frank Zappa , Captain Beefheart and Blood, Sweat & Tears , to more pop rock orientated bands like Boston , Foreigner , Kansas , Journey , and Styx . These, beside British bands Supertramp and ELO , all demonstrated
42780-457: The track "Hearing Damage" to the Twilight Saga: New Moon film soundtrack . That year, Yorke formed a new band, Atoms for Peace , to perform songs from The Eraser . Alongside Yorke, the band comprises Godrich on keyboards and guitar, the bassist Flea of the Red Hot Chili Peppers , the drummer Joey Waronker and the percussionist Mauro Refosco of Forro in the Dark . Yorke said: "God love 'em but I've been playing with [Radiohead] since I
43010-472: The typical formalities of record promotion, placing them on the same level as Beyoncé and Kanye West ". In May 2009, Radiohead began new recording sessions with Godrich. In August, they released " Harry Patch (In Memory Of) ", a tribute song to Harry Patch , the last surviving British soldier to have fought in World War I , with proceeds donated to the British Legion . The song has no conventional rock instrumentation, and instead comprises Yorke's vocals and
43240-409: The vehicle for cultural and social movements, leading to major subcultures including mods and rockers in the U.K., the hippie movement and the wider Western counterculture movement that spread out from San Francisco in the U.S. in the 1960s, the latter of which continues to this day. Similarly, 1970s punk culture spawned the goth , punk, and emo subcultures. Inheriting the folk tradition of
43470-414: The video for "Beautiful People" from Mark Pritchard 's 2016 album Under the Sun . Yorke's first feature film soundtrack, Suspiria , composed for the 2018 horror film , was released on 26 October 2018 by XL. It was Yorke's first project since The Bends not to feature production from his longtime collaborator Nigel Godrich; instead, it was produced by Yorke and Sam Petts-Davies. Suspiria features
43700-571: The weak link", with understated vocals that did not resemble the Roxy Music singer Bryan Ferry . Following the OK Computer tour, Yorke suffered a mental breakdown and found it impossible to write new music. He experienced imposter syndrome , and became self-critical and over-analytical. He was approached to score the 1999 film Fight Club , but declined as he was recovering from stress. Around this period, acts influenced by Radiohead emerged, such as Travis and Coldplay . Yorke resented them, feeling they had copied him. He said in 2006: "I
43930-418: The work of the Beach Boys , formed in 1961 in Southern California. Their early albums included both instrumental surf rock (among them covers of music by Dick Dale) and vocal songs, drawing on rock and roll and doo wop and the close harmonies of vocal pop acts like the Four Freshmen . The Beach Boys first chart hit, " Surfin ' " in 1961 reached the Billboard top 100 and helped make the surf music craze
44160-533: The work of established performers such as the Rolling Stones' Beggar's Banquet (1968) and the Beatles' Let It Be (1970). Reflecting on this change of trends in rock music over the past few years, Christgau wrote in his June 1970 "Consumer Guide" column that this "new orthodoxy" and "cultural lag" abandoned improvisatory, studio-ornamented productions in favor of an emphasis on "tight, spare instrumentation" and song composition: "Its referents are '50s rock, country music, and rhythm-and-blues, and its key inspiration
44390-512: The work". In December 2014, Yorke released the album on the online music platform Bandcamp along with a new track, "Youwouldn'tlikemewhenI'mangry". In 2015, Yorke contributed a soundtrack, Subterranea , to an installation of Radiohead artwork, The Panic Office , in Sydney, Australia. The soundtrack was composed of field recordings made in the English countryside and played on speakers at different heights with different frequency ranges. The radio station Triple J described it as similar to
44620-451: The world could experience the music at the same time, and preventing leaks in advance of a physical release. A special "discbox" edition of In Rainbows , containing the record on vinyl, a book of artwork, and a CD of extra songs, was also sold from Radiohead's website. The retail version of In Rainbows was released in the UK in late December 2007 on XL Recordings and in North America in January 2008 on TBD Records , reaching number one in
44850-404: The world, except as a new brand of painkiller ... In the '70s the powerful took over, as rock industrialists capitalized on the national mood to reduce potent music to an often reactionary species of entertainment—and to transmute rock's popular base from the audience to market." Roots rock is the term now used to describe a move away from what some saw as the excesses of the psychedelic scene, to
45080-462: Was John Mayall ; his band, the Bluesbreakers , included Eric Clapton (after Clapton's departure from the Yardbirds) and later Peter Green . Particularly significant was the release of Blues Breakers with Eric Clapton (Beano) album (1966), considered one of the seminal British blues recordings and the sound of which was much emulated in both Britain and the United States. Eric Clapton went on to form supergroups Cream, Blind Faith , and Derek and
45310-404: Was "amazed it got the reaction it did. None of us fucking knew any more whether it was good or bad. What really blew my head off was the fact that people got all the things, all the textures and the sounds and the atmospheres we were trying to create." OK Computer was Radiohead's first number-one UK chart debut, and brought them commercial success around the world. Despite peaking at number 21 in
45540-415: Was 16, and to do this was quite a trip ... It felt like we'd knocked a hole in a wall, and we should just fucking go through it." Atoms for Peace performed eight North American shows in 2010. They went unnamed for early performances, billed as "Thom Yorke" or "??????". In February, Yorke performed a benefit concert at the Cambridge Corn Exchange for the British Green Party . In June, he performed
45770-460: Was 1963's " Wipe Out ", by the Surfaris , which hit number 2 and number 10 on the Billboard charts in 1965. Surf rock was also popular in Europe during this time, with the British group the Shadows scoring hits in the early 1960s with instrumentals such as " Apache " and " Kon-Tiki ", while Swedish surf group the Spotnicks saw success in both Sweden and Britain. Surf music achieved its greatest commercial success as vocal pop music, particularly
46000-544: Was Radiohead's final album for EMI. Radiohead self-released their seventh album, In Rainbows (2007), as a download for which customers could set their own price , to critical and chart success. Their eighth album, The King of Limbs (2011), an exploration of rhythm, was developed using extensive looping and sampling . A Moon Shaped Pool (2016) prominently featured Jonny Greenwood's orchestral arrangements. Yorke, Jonny Greenwood, Selway and O'Brien have released solo albums. In 2021, Yorke and Jonny Greenwood debuted
46230-436: Was a badge of pride, and still do." The family moved frequently. Shortly after Yorke's birth, his father, a nuclear physicist and later a chemical equipment salesman, was hired by a firm in Scotland. The family lived in Lundin Links until Yorke was seven, and he moved from school to school. The family settled in Oxfordshire in 1978, where Yorke attended primary school in Standlake . Yorke said he knew he would become
46460-473: Was a major influence on subsequent rock-influenced jazz artists, including Herbie Hancock , Chick Corea and Weather Report . The genre began to fade in the late 1970s, as a mellower form of fusion began to take its audience, but acts like Steely Dan , Frank Zappa and Joni Mitchell recorded significant jazz-influenced albums in this period, and it has continued to be a major influence on rock music. Reflecting on developments that occurred in rock music in
46690-527: Was accompanied by a short film directed by Paul Thomas Anderson , which was nominated for the Grammy for Best Music Film . In August, Yorke released Not the News Rmx EP , comprising an extended version of the Anima track "Not the News" plus remixes by various artists. A solo tour set to begin in March 2020 was canceled due to the COVID-19 pandemic . For the 2019 film Motherless Brooklyn , Yorke wrote "Daily Battles", with horns by his Atoms for Peace bandmate Flea . The director, Edward Norton , enlisted
46920-474: Was also broadcast by international BBC channels and released on DVD and Blu-ray in January 2012. The performance included two new songs, " The Daily Mail" and "Staircase ", released as a double A-side download single in December 2011. In February 2012, Radiohead began their first extended North American tour in four years, including dates in the United States, Canada and Mexico. On tour, they recorded material at Jack White 's studio Third Man Records , but discarded
47150-424: Was continued in the 1970s by figures such as George Thorogood and Pat Travers , but, particularly on the British scene (except perhaps for the advent of groups such as Status Quo and Foghat who moved towards a form of high energy and repetitive boogie rock ), bands became focused on heavy metal innovation, and blues rock began to slip out of the mainstream. By the 1960s, the scene that had developed out of
47380-413: Was critical of the release, calling it a "wasted opportunity". In 2009, EMI reissued Radiohead's back catalogue in expanded editions. As social media expanded around the turn of the decade, Radiohead gradually withdrew their public presence, with no promotional interviews or tours to promote new releases. Pitchfork wrote that around this time Radiohead's "popularity became increasingly untethered from
47610-437: Was driven by dense riffs and ethereal atmospheres, with greater use of keyboards. It received stronger reviews for its songwriting and performances. While Radiohead were seen as outsiders to the Britpop scene that dominated music media at the time, they were finally successful in the UK, as the singles " Fake Plastic Trees ", " High and Dry ", " Just ", and " Street Spirit (Fade Out) " became chart successes. "High and Dry" became
47840-423: Was engineered by Nigel Godrich , who became one of Yorke's longest-running collaborators. The Bends received critical acclaim and brought Radiohead wider international attention. It influenced a generation of British and Irish alternative rock acts; The Observer wrote that it popularised an "angst-laden falsetto" which "eventually coalesced into an entire decade of sound". The American rock band R.E.M. ,
48070-449: Was founded in Britain), and Band of Gypsys , whose guitar virtuosity and showmanship would be among the most emulated of the decade. Blues rock bands from the southern states, like the Allman Brothers Band , Lynyrd Skynyrd , and ZZ Top , incorporated country elements into their style to produce the distinctive genre Southern rock . Early blues rock bands often emulated jazz, playing long, involved improvisations, which would later be
48300-515: Was going to answer something – fill a gap. And it does the absolute opposite. It happens with everybody. I was so driven for so long, like a fucking animal, and then I woke up one day and someone had given me a little gold plate for OK Computer and I couldn't deal with it for ages. In 1997, Yorke provided backing vocals for a cover of the 1975 Pink Floyd song " Wish You Were Here " with Sparklehorse . The following year, he duetted on "El President" with Isabel Monteiro of Drugstore , and sang on
48530-420: Was like 'This is going to happen... Failure is not an option.' ... He wasn't some ranting diva or a megalomaniac, but he was so focused on what he wanted to do." In 1991, when Yorke was 22, On a Friday signed to EMI and changed their name to Radiohead . They gained notice with their debut single, " Creep ", which appeared on their 1993 debut album, Pablo Honey . Yorke grew tired of "Creep" after it became
48760-524: Was made with the band's blessing, and that Radiohead were not breaking up. Jonny Greenwood said: "He had to get this stuff out, and everyone was happy [for Yorke to make it] ... He'd go mad if every time he wrote a song it had to go through the Radiohead consensus." Selway and Jonny Greenwood appeared in the 2005 film Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire as members of the fictional band the Weird Sisters . Radiohead began work on their seventh album in February 2005. Instead of involving Godrich, Radiohead hired
48990-429: Was more of a collective angle, and if you could contribute by having someone else play your instrument, then that was really cool." They played few gigs, and focused on rehearsing in village halls in Oxfordshire. The area had an active independent music scene in the late 1980s, but it centred on shoegazing bands such as Ride and Slowdive . On a Friday played their first gig in 1987, at Oxford's Jericho Tavern . On
49220-462: Was named the best album of the decade by Rolling Stone and Pitchfork . In 2000, Yorke contributed vocals to three tracks on the PJ Harvey album Stories from the City, Stories from the Sea , and duetted with Björk on her song " I've Seen It All " from her soundtrack album Selmasongs . Radiohead released their sixth album, Hail to the Thief , a blend of rock and electronic music, in 2003. Yorke wrote many of its lyrics in response to
49450-458: Was no longer pressure from their record label, tensions were high. The members had different visions for Radiohead's future, and Yorke suffered from writer's block , influencing him toward more abstract, fragmented songwriting. O'Brien kept an online diary of their progress. After nearly 18 months, recording was completed in April 2000. Radiohead's fourth album, Kid A , was released in October 2000. A departure from OK Computer , Kid A featured
49680-404: Was nominated for five other Grammy awards, including Radiohead's third nomination for Album of the Year . Yorke and Jonny Greenwood performed " 15 Step " with the University of Southern California Marching Band at the televised award show. The first single from In Rainbows , " Jigsaw Falling into Place ", was released in January 2008, followed by " Nude " in March, which debuted at number 37 in
49910-438: Was nominated for the 2006 Mercury Prize and the 2007 Grammy Award for Best Alternative Music Album . It was followed by a B-sides compilation, Spitting Feathers , and a remix album by various artists, The Eraser Rmxs . In 2007, Radiohead independently released their seventh album, In Rainbows , as a pay-what-you-want download, the first for a major act. The release made headlines worldwide and sparked debate about
50140-427: Was not confirmed until September 2014. In February 2013, Atoms for Peace released an album, Amok , followed by a tour of Europe, the US and Japan. Amok received generally positive reviews, though some critics felt it was too similar to Yorke's solo work. That year, Yorke and Jonny Greenwood contributed music to The UK Gold , a documentary about tax avoidance . The soundtrack, described by Rolling Stone as
50370-454: Was positive, and Radiohead were praised for finding new ways to connect with fans. However, it drew criticism from musicians such as Lily Allen and Kim Gordon , who felt it undercut less successful acts. In Rainbows was downloaded an estimated 1.2 million times on the day of release. Colin Greenwood explained the internet release as a way of avoiding the "regulated playlists" and "straitened formats" of radio and TV, ensuring fans around
50600-499: Was really, really upset about it, and I tried my absolute best not to be, but yeah, it was kind of like— that sort of thing of missing the point completely." Godrich felt Yorke was oversensitive and told him he did not invent "guys singing in falsetto with an acoustic guitar". He saw Yorke's resentment as "a byproduct of being so focused on what he wanted to do that he figures he's the only person that's ever had that idea". To recuperate, Yorke moved to Cornwall and spent time walking
50830-459: Was rejected by his classmates and "went AWOL for three months". Yorke credited his art school education for preparing him creatively for his later work. On a Friday resumed activity in 1991 as most of the members were finishing their degrees. Ronan Munro, the editor of the Oxford music magazine Curfew , gave the band their first interview while they were sharing a house in Oxford. He recalled: "Thom wasn't like anyone I'd interviewed before ... He
51060-458: Was released digitally in May 2016, followed by retail versions in June via XL Recordings. It was promoted with music videos for the singles " Burn the Witch " and " Daydreaming ", the latter directed by Anderson. The album includes several songs written years earlier, including " True Love Waits ", and strings and choral vocals performed by the London Contemporary Orchestra . It became Radiohead's sixth UK number-one album and reached number three in
51290-428: Was released in 2014, followed by Anima in 2019. In 2021, Yorke debuted a new band, the Smile , with the Radiohead guitarist Jonny Greenwood and the drummer Tom Skinner ; they have released three albums. Yorke has collaborated with artists including PJ Harvey , Björk , Flying Lotus and Modeselektor , and has composed for film and theatre, including the films Suspiria (2018) and Confidenza (2024). Yorke
51520-409: Was released in April 2004. In May 2003, Radiohead embarked on a world tour and headlined Glastonbury Festival for the second time. The tour finished in May 2004 with a performance at the Coachella Festival in California. Hail to the Thief was Radiohead's final album with EMI; in 2006, The New York Times described Radiohead as "by far the world's most popular unsigned band". Following the Hail to
51750-420: Was released on 27 June 2019. It became Yorke's first number-one album on the Billboard Dance/Electronic Albums chart. At the 2020 Grammy Awards , it was nominated for Best Alternative Music Album and Best Boxed or Special Limited Edition Package . Philip Sherburne of Pitchfork wrote that it was Yorke's most ambitious and assured solo album and the first that felt complete without Radiohead. The album
51980-411: Was taken up by bands including Pentangle , Steeleye Span and the Albion Band , which in turn prompted Irish groups like Horslips and Scottish acts like the JSD Band , Spencer's Feat and later Five Hand Reel , to use their traditional music to create a brand of Celtic rock in the early 1970s. Folk-rock reached its peak of commercial popularity in the period 1967–68, before many acts moved off in
52210-548: Was taking place globally in the aftermath of the Second World War . Cliff Richard is credited with one of the first rock and roll hits outside of North America with " Move It " (1959), effectively ushering in the sound of British rock . Several artists, most prominently Tommy Steele from the UK, found success with covers of major American rock and roll hits before the recordings could spread internationally, often translating them into local languages where appropriate. Steele in particular toured Britain, Scandinavia, Australia,
52440-439: Was the first commercially successful folk song to be recorded with rock and roll instrumentation and the Beatles " I'm a Loser " (1964), arguably the first Beatles song to be influenced directly by Dylan. The folk rock movement is usually thought to have taken off with the Byrds ' recording of Dylan's " Mr. Tambourine Man " which topped the charts in 1965. With members who had been part of the café-based folk scene in Los Angeles,
52670-430: Was the major force in American record sales and crooners , such as Eddie Fisher , Perry Como , and Patti Page , who had dominated the previous decade of popular music, found their access to the pop charts significantly curtailed. Rock and roll has been seen as leading to a number of distinct subgenres, including rockabilly, combining rock and roll with "hillbilly" country music, which was usually played and recorded in
52900-400: Was the most popular genre of music in the U.S. and much of the Western world from the 1950s to the 2010s. Rock musicians in the mid-1960s began to advance the album ahead of the single as the dominant form of recorded music expression and consumption, with the Beatles at the forefront of this development. Their contributions lent the genre a cultural legitimacy in the mainstream and initiated
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