Radiohead at Reading

If you didn’t catch headliners Radiohead’s gig at Reading Festival on TV last weekend, you can still check it out on BBC Red Button (and maybe online at iPlayer).

The gig was sensational. Playing a one hour (on TV) greatest hits set, Radiohead showed just why they are revered: a memorable, diverse, anthemic songbook, musical vision and innovation rarely encountered in rockpop, and a charismatic main man in Thom Yorke.

And the Reading staging did justice to the great music pouring from the speakers.

Marvellous stuff – Reading underlined Radiohead’s claim as the most interesting rockpop band since The Stone Roses.

If you can’t catch the BBC recording, consider buying the recent Best Of CD.

Gerry Smith

Fine new introduction to Radiohead

If you’ve resisted the charms of Radiohead, but now want to check out what all the fuss is about, The Best Of Radiohead, released on Monday, is a long overdue new sampler.

 

Of course, some of the band’s fans are very sniffy about the release – “they’re an album band and you can’t cut up album tracks like this… it’s against the band’s wishes … blah, blah, blah… .”

 

But if you’re new to their music, this is a good way in.  Just don’t expect easy listening singalongarock.

 

 

Tracklist:

1. Just 

2. Paranoid Android 

3. Karma Police 

4. Creep 

5. No Surprises 

6. High and Dry 

7. My Iron Lung 

8. There There 

9. Lucky 

10. Fake Plastic Trees 

11. Idioteque 

12. 2+2=5 

13. The Bends 

14. Pyramid Song 

15. Street Spirit (Fade Out) 

16. Everything In Its Right Place 

 

The 16 tracks sample the first six studio albums, with six songs from The Bends, four from OK Computer, the band’s masterpiece, two each from Kid A and Hail To The Thief, and one track each from Pablo Honey and Amnesiac (there’s nothing from the live album, or In Rainbows, the most recent release).

 

I bought my 1CD version from Bang CD for £5.99 delivered.  If you spot the 2CD version of The Best Of for about £10, better buy that, instead of the single CD version. 

 

 

 

Gerry Smith

Radiohead box at a bargain price

I usually avoid HMV these days – too expensive – and have warmed to Zavvi since it was bought out from The Bearded One.

 

But … HMV’s current sale has a tempting offer on the Radiohead albums box:

 

 

Radiohead – Album Box Set: 1993 – 2003: Deluxe: 7cd: Ltd

 

HMV 15/04/08: Was £55.00 Your saving £25.01.  CD £29.99,  free delivery

 

 

Radiohead

Release date: 10-12-2007

Availability: in stock

Number of Discs: 7

Catalogue Number: 5172292

Label: PARLOPHONE

 

 

 On 10th December Radiohead are releasing a limited edition deluxe 7-CD box set collection of all their Parlophone albums from 1993-2003. Each CD within the box will be re-packaged in a digipack sleeve featuring original artwork and booklet.

 

The first six albums Radiohead recorded for Parlophone are collected in this box set, charting the band’s journey from the indie rock chancers of ‘Pablo Honey’ to the seasoned experimentalists and political commentators of ‘Hail To The Thief’. In between we see the band’s incarnations as prog revivalists on ‘OK Computer’ and chart-friendly emotional giants with ‘The Bends’. Also included is the 2001 live recording ‘I Might Be Wrong’ which notably features the unlikely live favourite ‘Idioteque’ from ‘Kid A’, perhaps their most experimental release. Radiohead’s is a difficult career to summarise, but this completist option is possibly the most rewarding choice.

 

Radiohead burst onto the Britpop scene in the early 1990s with a clamorous, post-U2 take on guitar rock, buoyed by the hit “Creep.” They subsequently developed their songwriting and production skills on THE BENDS and achieved iconic status with their breakthrough album OK COMPUTER, making art-rock cool again in the process. The mercurial band’s long-awaited follow-up three years later was a sharp left turn full of ambient electronics and Can-like sonic deconstruction, and they’ve continued the trend with subsequent albums and solo projects. The connecting thread through all the band’s phases has been Thom Yorke’s intense vocal frenzy.

 

track listing

 

disc 1

1. You

2. Creep

3. How Do You

4. Stop Whispering

5. Thinking About You

6. Anyone Can Play Guitar

7. Ripcord

8. Vegetable

9. Prove Yourself

10. I Can’t

11. Lurgee

12. Blow Out

 

disc 2

1. Planet Telex

2. Bends

3. High And Dry

4. Fake Plastic Trees

5. Bones

6. Nice Dream

7. Just

8. My Iron Lung

9. Bullet Proof…I Wish I Was

10. Black Star

11. Sulk

12. Street Spirit (Fade Out)

 

disc 3

1. Airbag

2. Paranoid Android

3. Subterranean Homesick Alien

4. Exit Music (For A Film)

5. Let Down

6. Karma Police

7. Fitter Happier

8. Electioneering

9. Climbing Up The Walls

10. No Surprises

11. Lucky

12. Tourist

 

disc 4

1. Everything In Its Right Place

2. Kid A

3. National Anthem

4. How To Disappear Completely

5. Treefingers

6. Optimistic

7. In Limbo

8. Idioteque

9. Morning Bell

10. Motion Picture Soundtrack

 

disc 5

1. Packt Like Sardines In A Crushed Tin Box

2. Pyramid Song

3. Pulk/pull Revolving Doors

4. You And Whose Army

5. I Might Be Wrong

6. Knives Out

7. Morning Bell/Amnesiac

8. Dollars And Cents

9. Hunting Bears

10. Like Spinning Plates

11. Life In A Glasshouse

 

disc 6

1. National Anthem [live]

2. I Might Be Wrong [live]

3. Morning Bell [live]

4. Like Spinning Plates [live]

5. Idioteque [live]

6. Everything In It’s Right Place [live]

7. Dollars And Cents [live]

8. True Love Waits [live]

 

disc 7

1. 2+2=5

2. Sit Down Stand Up

3. Sail To The Moon

4. Backdrifts

5. Go To Sleep

6. Where I End And You Begin

7. We Suck Young Blood

8. Gloaming

9. There There

10. I Will

11. Punch Up At A Wedding

12. Myxomatosis

13. Scatterbrain

14. Wolf At The Door

  

 

Gerry Smith