Eclectic Analysis of Radiohead "Idioteque" - Historical

Radiohead - "Idioteque"

Band Lineup

Thom Yorke (vocals, guitar, piano, etc.)

Jonny Greenwood (guitar, keyboard, etc.)

Ed O'Brien (guitar, backing vocals)

Colin Greenwood (bass, synth's)

Phil Selway (drums, percussion)

History

Radiohead formed in 1986 at a private school in Oxfordshire, England under the name "On A Friday" (a reference to their rehearsal day; NME). Six years later, and a year after their signing to EMI Records, the band released Pablo Honey. The record's big single was Creep, which propelled them to mainstream success. Five years later, upon the release of OK Computer, Radiohead was launched into international superstardom (later named the 73rd most important artist of all time by Rolling Stone). The track Paranoid Android had much to do with the album's success. The album commenced the band's use of electronic and computer instruments and processing, inspired by the likes of "Autechre" and "Aphex Twins" (Lanksy). Such insight is critical in understanding the track Idioteque off their 1999 release Kid A.

Kid A's pre-decessor, OK Computer, would prove to be a vital turning point for the band, not only marking their foray in electronics but also serving to paradigmatically shift their compositional process. Paul Lansky, who is responsible for the chord sequence in Idioteque (more on that later), wrote in his article "My Radiohead Adventure" that, "the motivation for [being experimental] is undoubtedly directly related to the artistic crisis that reportedly followed the success of OK Computer." (p.173) This sentiment is related by Yorke himself in an interview, "Reflections on Kid A". In the video, he says that the lyrics to the track, and more than half of them on Kid A, are fragments of lyrics that were picked from a hat. It was a cure for Yorke's post OK... writer's block (two years!), where he would write something and throw it away, which Yorke equates to "losing someone you love" (00:01:34).

As alluded to earlier, the harmonic progression, established solely by the lush, repeating synth line is a sample from the 1973 computer based composition mild und leise, by Paul Lansky (at 00:45). Mild... is itself a sample from Tristan and Isolde by Wagner; it is an attempt to deconstruct the Tristan chord (Lansky blog). Jonny Greenwood heard the piece in a record shop, composed an 18-minute demo including it, and gave it to Yorke who wrote Idioteque around it (Lansky). A second sample used is from Arthur Kreiger's Short Piece (1974; found at 1:10), and is merely ornamental to the dense percussive landscape of Idioteque.

It has also been suggested that Radiohead owe their directness of emotion, rebellious attitude and defeatist lyricism to 1990s grunge icons Nirvana and the Pixies. In the foreword to The Music and Art of Radiohead, Kevin Dettmar writes, "having replaced hubris with vulnerability - and substituted indie (dare we say, proto-emo?) honesty for cock-rock posturing [80's metal] - Radiohead seems to have figured out a way to emerge victorious while singing of defeat. Nowhere is Radiohead's debt to Nirvana more obvious," (p. xvi).

The socio-political climate of 1999 is also important in understanding the work, most significantly its lyrics. While the text resists suggesting narrative, each line hints at the onto-historical world Yorke inhabits. Important events include an increased awareness about global warming (and the melting of polar ice caps), the war in Kosovo, the growing ubiquity of mobile electronic devices (cellular phones in particular), corporate and capitalist greed (the dot-com bubble, Enron scandal) which led to increased consumerism, fear-based network news casting, and growing social isolation due to a new digital lifestyle.