I'm trying to get to you,
girl. Oh,
oh, oh.
I'm Adam Maness.
And I'm Peter Martin.
And you're listening to the You'll Hear It podcast.
Music. Explored.
Brought to you today by Open Studio.
Go to openstudiojazz.com for all your jazz lessons needs. Peter, we're back.
It feels like we're back.
We're back.
I mean, we were away.
Where'd we go?
I don't know. We were here, but we weren't doing anything.
I'm feeling in the groove.
Good.
Yeah.
About time.
I know.
My friend.
I haven't been in the groove. I'm locked in right now.
Yeah.
Hey, we are... Speaking of back-
Yeah
... we're bringing something back.
I know. I'm so excited about this.
It's called the Speak Pipe. Many people have never heard of it.
No.
So we want to do a mailbag episode where we hear from you.
If you go to youllhearit.com-
Mailbag
... If you go to youllhearit.com, you could leave us a message.
So go to youllhearit.com. You could leave us a voicemail.
We can't promise that you'll get your voicemail read on the air, but we are going
to take some questions for the audience. It could be about anything.
It could be about these albums, about the show, about music, whatever, Open Studio,
you name it. It could be anything.
I got a question.
Yeah.
How come you're all so dope? That's something someone could ask us.
Is how come you're all so dope?
Yes.
Please ask us that.
That's just an example. Feel free to say whatever you want.
Peter's got ideas.
Yeah.
Peter, today, this is a continuation.
I'm so excited.
This is an evolution. So last season, as a crazy experiment-
Yeah
... we put on the docket Radiohead's 2000, in my opinion, masterpiece, Kid A.
Yeah.
You had never really heard the album.
Mm.
We listened to it. You gave it a try. You seemed to like it.
Yeah.
Yeah. You seemed to really like it.
I was curious, and then I was enraptured-
Yeah
... somewhat.
It's a fantastic album.
And I got sold over pretty quickly, as I recall.
So I'm hoping that energy continues, because during that time, we also did a bunch
of polls on our Instagram. I did one on my personal Instagram about what is your
all-time favorite Radiohead album.
Now, being as Xennial as I am, I assumed it was gonna be Kid A.
Not a thing.
Not even close. It was the album that we're listening to today. It was In Rainbows.
Wait, wait, wait. I thought we were listening to Robert Glasper and Brad Mehldau
play. See, this is how he gets me in here.
Adam's like, "We're gonna check out-"
We totally could.
Nothing. Radiohead.
We totally could listen to a whole album of Robert Glasper and Brad Mehldau play
Radiohead.
But I joke.
I-
That would be fun, though
... next, the next one, whenever we listen to OK Computer, I'm gonna tell you that
it's that.
An Adam Maness trio plays.
Oh, yeah. No, we do a version of "Weird Fishes" here, which we're gonna talk about
in a little bit.
Yeah.
But no, we're doing In Rainbows. This was released in 2007.
It has such an interesting release story, Peter, but before we get that-
Yeah
... release story going, let's listen to the first track, "15 Step."
And again, we're kind of looking for Peter's reaction during.
Can Radiohead keep Peter's attention past Kid A?
I come running up, but I slow down. I come running up, but I want out.
One, two, three, four, five, one, two.
Won't take my eyes off the ball again. You reel me out and then you cut the string.
I come running up, but I slow down. I come running up, but I want
out. Won't take my eyes off the ball again.
You reel me out and then you cut the string.
That's me.
Beautiful voice.
What happened?
So we're in 5/4 here.
Yeah.
Starting off this album with an odd time signature.
It's a great program.
Album that sold 3 million copies.
Right.
You know? It has it.
That's a really great program drum sound.
Oh, it sounds amazing.
And then combined with the... That's Thom Yorke, right?
Yep.
Singing. I mean, like, the-
Look at him. It's Thom Yorke singing.
See, I know it wasn't Robert Glasper, at least. I think it's not.
No,
we talked about this last time. He has such a unique voice, but the way they have
it placed here, very difficult to...
With the guitar as sort of the bridge between the humanity of the voice and the
potential automation. They're actually using the automation of the drums.
They're not hiding from that.
Yeah.
That's part of the shtick on this, and I love it.
Well, during this whole era, they're flirting with this mechanical, industrial-
Yeah
... and then organic.
Mechanical industrial complex. They took over Guitar Center. It's a big problem.
I believe it is a mix of acoustic and electric drums throughout this, but-
Yeah
... that program drums is so strong here.
Yeah.
And I love these chords here that make up the main riff of the song.
It's like an A flat minor
to a D flat-
Yeah
... major to an E flat minor. It's like in A flat Dorian mode, which is kind of an
odd mode for-
Right
... one of these kinds of songs.
It's a kind of forlorn... It's nostalgic, but kind of-
Yeah
... wistful.
Yeah.
Wispy, forlorn, a little bit.
It's-
Evocative of a mansion in the rain, in-
Oh
... somebody would be eating Yorkshire pudding.
No, they're eating Yorkshire pudding.
We're gonna get to that.
Okay.
We're gonna get to that. No, it's interesting because I think this is a great-
Who took my pudding? Sorry. That was random.
Yeah. No, that was definitely what they were saying over there.
No, that's Jonny Greenwood. This sounds just like that.
Who took my pudding?
But no, it's a really high energy first track.
It's not my favorite first track on a Radiohead album.
I don't think you can do better than "Everything in Its Right Place" in my opinion.
Wait, did you just say, "It's not my favorite" and Radiohead in the same sentence?
I never thought I'd hear the day.
I have many opinions. But I think it's awesome.
I think it sets the stage for what this is.
What is great about "15 Step" is that it sets the stage with what makes In Rainbows
so good, and what makes it so popular-
Mm
... is because In Rainbows is Radiohead sort of getting back to a very
guitar-based sound.
Mm.
When we listen to Kid A, lots of synthesizers, lot of like-
But that was very intentional, right? As I recall.
Very intentional. They were getting away from guitar-based sounds.
Right. A little bit of a reaction.
We want some more atmospheric stuff, right?
Yeah.
We want some of ambient music's influences.
And this is them going back to a little bit of a great mix between some of that
program drums-
Yep
... and the sort of ambient synths.
But almost the entire album, the guitars have really come back to take the lead as
the instrument. Whereas throughout Kid A, throughout Amnesiac, even Hail to the
Thief, the piano is pretty heavy on all that, and all the keyboards are pretty
heavy on that.
Yeah.
So I think that's why this is so successful.
It's like they're at a place in their career where they're balancing these two
things.
Yeah. Well, it's interesting. I think you mentioned as we were prepping beforehand,
that this album, In Rainbows, has had a resurgent-
100%
... resurgence amongst... We think of this, oh, it's 2007, which was just a few
years ago. No, that would be 19 years ago, my friend.
I know.
But you said with younger folks, kind of 20s now?
Well, no. These would be 30s.
Oh.
Basically millennials-
Okay
... who were teenagers in 2007.
Oh.
So for me, in 2007, I'm almost 30 years old.
Yeah.
You know what I mean? So for me, nostalgic Radiohead is OK Computer.
Right.
It's from 1997.
Interesting.
It's from 2000, right?
Yeah.
And so Radiohead had such a big
high point of their career, such a good peak.
Over the course of probably 12 years, they were really at a good artistic peak,
that this is, I think, their last great album, in my opinion.
Mm.
I love the last two albums. I think they're wonderful, but I think this is when
they really had their last great artistic push.
Mm-hmm.
And so for me, a mid millennial, a young millennial, I think they feel very
nostalgic about this album because whenever we talk...
First of all, they're a huge generation. They're a lot of people.
It is, right.
So in all those polls that I was talking about, they just, In Rainbows just
crushed.
Yeah.
And I think when I talk to a lot of Gen X Radiohead fans-
Yeah
... it's always Kid A, OK Computer.
This is past the-
Yeah.
Right. So you're kind of... Yeah, now I'm seeing how you're sort of straddling
between that, because I know you love this album, but there's definitely some...
When we first talked about which Radiohead, we had a little meeting about it,
remember?
Yeah.
And you thought this was gonna be a meeting of equals. It was not.
It was me saying, "Well, whatever.
Whatever one you like best, go with that one."
Yeah.
But it's interesting, too, and just saying because it's been resurgent because
this, I see the notes here. It did sell 3 million copies in the first year, so it
wasn't a slow burn-
That's-
... I would imagine
... for 2007, that's really, really good.
Right, and no big hits on it or anything really.
No, it's a Radiohead album.
Yeah.
There never is.
There never is. And was the best-selling vinyl record of 2008.
But this is-
Talk about a little mini resurgence on vinyl
... this is right before vinyl was about to start even resurging.
Right.
So, and-
It sold 17 copies on vinyl.
Best album.
Which in 2008, that puts you on the chart.
Kind of. Well, it sold 16.
Another interesting thing about the release of In Rainbows-
Yeah
... which I remember this happening because I thought it was so cool and so
interesting.
Yeah.
There was very little press around the release.
I think they announced it the week before.
Yeah.
"Hey, we're coming out with our new album." They were off of a major label.
Right.
So they left, what was it, EMI, I think, is the label they were on?
They left EMI, and they were Self-releasing this, and for the digital
download, it was pay what you want.
I remember this now. This was really the first time at scale anyone had done this,
right?
It was kind of a big deal.
It was a very big deal.
And I remember buying this for $5 because I was a traveling musician.
I was like, wait-
And wasn't there even like a thing with...
They even had something variant on it with iTunes, with Apple iTunes, where you
could get it on the store.
No, I don't remember.
It was some kind of funny pricing or something.
Oh, maybe like later.
Or maybe they were trying to get a pay and they were-
Yeah
... Steve Jobs was like...
No, you could go to Radiohead's website and literally put in $0 if you wanted to.
Right.
But you know what's funny is, no one knows for sure, but I read that they probably
averaged
between $6 and $8.
Yeah
And because there was no label in between, this was, for them, a very commercially
successful album.
Interesting.
Because they kept all of the money.
Right.
That they made. So-
Mostly on virtual product, not on...
Yeah. So there's no overhead.
Yeah.
So I'm sure they sell however many copies of Kid A on CD for
$16.99 and $19.00.
Yeah
Maybe more than this. This-
Wholesale price, $6 or $7 or something.
Yeah, exactly.
With the label on it.
And then the label takes and their whatever.
This is like all them, which is really smart.
Interesting, yeah
Especially if you have that kind of power.
I feel like Prince around this time, maybe it was a little later, or maybe at the
same time, was definitely trying some things like this, too.
Yeah.
It was such an interesting kind of Wild West, like what's going to...
Yeah
Everyone still loves music, but how is it going to be consumed?
Because it was post-Napster mostly.
Totally. There was the Napster scare, and this is the bands being like, "No, we can
do this ourselves."
And remember the labels were trying to do some jankety online, where you had to
sign up for the... But you could only get stuff on that label.
Apple was really the only one to have kind of figure it out with the iTunes.
Yeah
But even that was like plug in the iPod and-
Yeah
... which was fun.
There were like, so the comedian Louis C.K., I remember he'd sell his specials off
of his website.
Mm.
You could pay $10 or whatever for-
Right
... a digital download of the special instead of on iTunes or whatever.
So this was that time where people were really taking advantage of that
post-Napster, pre-Spotify-
Yeah
... kind of vibes.
Yep.
Okay. The second track is "Bodysnatchers."
And again, driving guitars. This is not something you would hear-
Right
... three or four years ago as much.
I do not
understand
What it is
I've done wrong
For mother old
checks the post
And itchy eyed won't forget
To know
me
I have no idea what I talk
about
I'm chasing ideas that got
away Ooh
I feel like those single note synth lines.
Yeah.
It's like when you hear Stevie layering the single note synths-
Yeah
... in his classic era. This is classic era Radiohead, where you hear those warbly
single note synths that come in-
Yeah
... and create this eerie line.
And they're almost more affecting the music harmonically than melodically.
Their melody line's almost secondary to the harmony.
That's what came in and-
Yeah
... kind of pushed things. Very interesting.
I have no idea what I talk about
The last words I remember Someone said of you
Wow, this is one vocal take.
Yeah.
Left virtually untouched.
First take.
Interesting.
And again, the warbly synth,
and the harmony there.
And he's so... The tom drum is so far placed back in the mix.
Yeah. Yeah, on top of-
It's kind of tucked right in there
... it's what I love about the way they-
Much more than the first record
... I love the second half of the song.
Now this,
as little as I know about Radiohead, as soon as I hear that kind of...
Was that keyboard or guitar?
That's acoustic guitar.
Man, I would immediately know it's Radiohead. To me, this is classic.
It broke into a run And I scared from the end And I
scared from the end I
raised a
glass to see
Just gorgeous. They have so many songs that are like this, that are kind of like A,
B, A, B, C.
Mm-hmm.
In the last minute and a half-
It's something, yeah
... it's something completely different. And always so harmonically interesting.
Like, if that were in the hands of another sort of rock band from that time, it's
going to stay pretty straightforward.
The producer's going to be like, "No, guys, we've got to keep it-
Yeah
... palatable or whatever."
Yeah
But they're adding all this, like when that warbly synth comes in and it's going to
those weird minor six chords-
Yeah
... and minor major seven chords, and then the end has these the classic,
like the minor chord over the third.
Yeah.
That's another huge thing with their harmony. I love it, man.
I'm such a sucker for it. Hey, everyone, taking a break real quick.
We throw around a lot of music theory terms here in the show.
If you're Googling things like what is a triad, or-
Hold on. I'm Googling what is a triad.
Okay
... or what is a Lydian chord?
How do you spell Lydian?
You don't have to play that, bro.
Okay. Sorry.
Good news. We have all the answers for you in the Liner Notes.
You'll find the Liner Notes companion guide with clear, simple explanations of the
concepts we explore in this episode in the episode description.
Download the Liner Notes for this episode for free today.
The next track, this is actually one of their oldest songs.
Mm.
They could never find a version that they liked in all their years of recording
until 2007. This is called "Nude."
Don't
care that
bigger tears
That are
gonna burn
The contrasting textures here are the dry drums and the wet vocals.
Yeah.
Mm.
New pages of white
reflect all
There's so much intentionality to their harmonic progression.
Yeah
Very clear and like...
Something missing
I mean, we talked about this when we talked about OK Computer, but it's no wonder
that a lot of modern jazz musicians really respond to this music well.
You could hear
someone, like a young modern jazz musician-
Right
... writing a tune that sounds like this.
Yeah, and I think for folks that are like, "What are you talking about?
This isn't jazz. How the hell do you hear that?" There's a
certain type of...
I mean, it's really composition. I mean, yes, there's the songwriting part of it,
but I think for this kind of thing, it's really the composition that could be any
style. I don't even know what we would call this style or genre.
But when a jazz musician hears it, we're connecting, I would say primarily
with the harmony, and how the harmony changes.
And that's what we talk about, the changes.
Yeah
It's primarily a harmonic thing, and then we start thinking about, "Oh, how could
we adapt that?" Not necessarily just...
I know a lot of times we get a bad rap for like-
Yeah
... mess it up and ruin it.
Yeah
But it's more like, is there something there that inspires us?
Not unlike the tradition coming out of the bebop musicians taking- A Cole Porter
song
Great American Songbook songs
Great American Songbooks
And it is the harmony. And-
I know. Because if it doesn't have that, you have to manufacture it
Yeah
Which we might do anyway.
Yeah, we might do. But also, I think it's the way the melody and the harmony
interact.
Yes, for sure.
There's a lot of these long, held notes where the harmony changes underneath in an
interesting way.
Right
That's like a Wayne Shorter thing. You know what I mean?
But if you think about the great pop songs that have beautiful melodies, and they
don't have those necessarily interesting things with the harmony underneath.
When a jazz musician would take that, we have to create all that ourselves, right?
Yeah
And maybe we shouldn't be, but that's what we do.
Whereas with this type of material, I can definitely hear it on that.
And I correct myself, there was a hit. This was actually a top 40 hit.
This was in the US and the UK.
Okay, it was? Oh, interesting.
Yeah. Number 37
Wow
But-
First US top 40 hit since Creep.
Right.
Crazy.
Yeah.
Wow.
Well, as you said before, that was not their jam-
No
... to put out a bunch of singles. What was I... Oh, yeah.
So the harmony underneath, when there's already some interesting things, actually,
we don't need to do as much with this type of material.
Same way with a great standard tune that you don't have to re-harmonize and stuff.
So it
more, I think, comes from a fairly organic place for jazz musicians to take
different- It's not about like, "Oh, let me jazz up Radiohead because I always
love that, but now I want to turn it into what I want to do." It's more like we
hear something there. We hear possibilities-
Yeah
... beyond that, but not like we're having to take it apart so much we should've
just written our own tune. Although some people say that.
It's true, it's true.
But when it's done well-
When it's done well
... when it's done well-
It feeds us
... it's an extension, maybe, of it
It feeds us enough nutrients
Right
... musical nutrients that we can really dig in.
You're saying it feeds our soul.
Yes.
Yes.
The next track is, this might be my favorite track on the album
Yep
... so much so that I got a little surprise for everybody after we listen to it.
This is "Weird Fishes."
Hmm.
I love the bass here. In fourths.
Boom, boom, boom, boom.
Now it's an octave
Yeah.
Yeah, nice.
I wish there was a simple way to learn that.
Me too.
More soon
Down in the deepest ocean
The bottom of the sea
Your eyes
They turn me
Why should I stay here
Why should I stay
Can
we get an angsty movie to throw this-
Oh, I'm sure there's been a few movies this has been on
... this soundtrack on now? Teenage angst
I'd be crazy not
to follow where you lead
It's just keeps building.
Adding layers
Yeah
... things are swirling.
We play this song in my trio, and maybe we'll do a version for this show, but
I tried to figure out the pattern in that swirling main guitar, and it's not
random, but it's also not-
It's not square.
Yeah.
Right
It's like they're kind of just playing it.
Yeah
And I think whoever is playing that, probably Jonny Greenwood, is doing whatever
he wants with it. You know?
But it's interesting, too. You hear as the different layers come in, as the
intensity grows, the one thing that's not changing, I don't think at all, is
the drum groove. Well, you have that cymbal crash-
Yeah
... which hasn't been there in a while. Now it's opening up.
Now it's opening up.
So that was a long way of disciplining that same pattern-
For sure
... but using the other elements, whereas the drums is the most obvious one.
Now you save that.
Now you got it. Everything's open, right?
They'll take everything
Now there's guitars, there's synths serving.
Yeah. Definitely more guitar heavy over the right
As long as you lead It's
my turn
And then he moves into that background vocal, which has a lot more verb and effect
on
I'm drawn by the worms
Hmm. And then all of a sudden, it feels like we're in a fish tank
Weird fishes
And all of a sudden, his voice is dry.
Totally dry.
But it's a weird fish. A dry fish.
Drawn by the worms Weird fishes
Weird fishes
It's a great build, and break it down
Weird fishes
Guitars are back in it now
Yes
Again, it's that
two distinct sections.
Yeah.
This is the whole end of the song is totally different
Right
It's not going to go back.
Two stories.
Yeah.
Yeah, once they broke down without the drums, it was like either going to stay
there or if they came back in, which they did, it's something different.
It's great. Man, their use of large form within these
songs that are not that long, actually, but each one kind of feels epic because of
their mastery of form and balance in terms of how the music is presented.
Totally
Which is really certainly the composition, but also the production.
And one thing about In Rainbows is this might be the most complete album where
there's really no filler on it. Every song is very, very solid.
Not that there's ever that many skippable tracks at all on a Radiohead album, but
man, everything is so slamming on this.
And this song in particular-
Everything's in its right place, is that what you're saying?
Yeah, everything's in its right place.
Hey, Peter, remember last week I made a lesson to teach beginners how to play
"Isn't She Lovely" from Songs in the Key of Life?
Mm-hmm.
I did it again.
Oops. He did it again.
No, not yet. That's later this season.
Okay.
Yeah. No, I took a song from In Rainbows. I took "Weird Fishes."
And I made a lesson aimed at people who have never played piano before.
So if you want to learn how to play "Weird Fishes" on the piano and you've never even
touched a piano before, or maybe you took lessons years ago, I don't know.
Yeah.
I'm going to show you how to do that.
It's starting to become a little bit of a club. A little bit of a club for players.
Oh, so you're saying like a Players Club.
A little bit of a Players Club.
Nice. I like it.
Yeah. I've been having such a blast making these lessons.
I show you exactly what to do, where to put your hands.
We even had our producer, Liz, try this, and she is nailing it.
Really? I didn't even know Liz had a piano.
Me either.
That's awesome.
This is a bit of a first for Open Studio, where we're teaching even early beginners
how to play.
Right. And this is not a free offering, we want to be clear, but it is a value pack
offering, so I'm excited about it.
It really is. So go check it out. I'll teach you how to play "Weird Fishes."
And you can learn how to play "Isn't She Lovely," too.
We're calling this series of lessons the Players Club.
You can find out more at the show notes. Go check it out.
Now, I mean-
Track number five, right?
Track number five. Now we're really getting into-
We're getting into the-
... some great stuff. This is "All I Need."
F, Ph.
I'm the next act
waiting in the wings.
I'm an animal trapped in
your car.
I am all the days that you choose to
ignore.
You are all I need.
You're all I need.
What I love about this is where it sits.
So we're coming out of the thickest song on the album, just those swirling guitars
and synths for four minutes.
Yeah.
And then we just go to a bass line and a vocal.
Yeah.
Simple drum beat.
And I love that this was assembled from four different takes.
Oh, really?
Yes. And they actually did this in some other places in the album, but this is kind
of the thickest version of that. Vocals from one take, drums from another,
and they kind of picked all the best bits, then forced them together.
Thom Yorke called it deliberate disembodiment.
Wow.
Yeah.
Next up, we've got "Faust Arp." These are featuring strings from the Millennia
Ensemble, conducted by Sally Herbert.
Y2K.
Everton Nelson.
What's up?
This is a great song. This is-
You survived
... "Faust Arp."
One, two, three, four.
Wakey wakey, rise and shine. It's on again, off again, on again.
And watch me fall like-
One, three
... a falling nose. Pretty patterns-
Oh, it's up
... in the back of my eye. And tingling, tingling, tingling is what you feel.
No, what you are to, what you are to. Reasonable is sensible.
Good.
Deaf from the neck up. I guess I'm stuck.
I think that's the Radiohead.
You thought you had it enough.
Yeah.
No, no.
Well, who was it? They called it-
Squeeze the tubes and empty bottles. I take a bow, take a bow, take a bow.
It's what you feel
... Thom Yorke called it their "Revolver," this album.
Oh, that makes total sense, actually.
Yeah. He called it Radiohead's-
Oh, that's-
... later on
... super interesting.
Yeah.
Wow. I never heard that.
This is also the earliest I've ever heard Thom Yorke enter a song.
Yeah. He comes right away.
He's usually like, "Get the vibe happening, then I'll get there when I get there.
Let me know when the party's started."
So true too.
"Let me know when the angst is elevated, then I'm entering."
Great call.
No. Tell me, baby, that I can go.
Yeah, but it's very
Beatlesque. And with the strings super present.
Yeah.
Whenever the Beatles bring in the strings, they'll be like, boom.
There's no real reason.
Ooh, that's a well-recorded, well-played guitar.
The balance between the bass tenor strings and the...
And then the low bass comes in there for the first time.
I wouldn't be surprised if they even spent
tens of hours mixing each of these tracks.
For sure.
There's a lot of intentionality in the mix.
But
I-
Two minutes, that's all you need. Yeah.
And so when we talk about mix, I know sometimes people are like, "What do you mean
they spend time mixing it up when they're playing songs?" No, after the track is
finished, I have the feeling with them too, correct me if I'm wrong, Mr. Radiohead.
Let me text Robert Glasper, see who can out-Radiohead who.
Can we please get Robert Glasper on the show?
And we can just listen to what he wants to listen to.
I'm really interested in what is on his playlists.
Right. So when we talk about putting the track together, rehearsing,
recording, and on the track before this,
for "All I Need," for using different tracks to assemble it.
That's still not mixing. The mixing process starts, I'm telling you, you know this
because you've done this, this is for the dear listeners.
Yeah.
The mixing process traditionally starts in earnest once everything is done
musically. The whole thing has been-
Ideally.
Ideally. Although actually, you know what?
There's a lot of mixing that goes on as it goes.
There's a lot of mixing. I know, I know.
But traditionally, you've got the track.
At a certain point, you have to be like, the music is what it is.
But you would be shocked at how much, especially I know on an album like this-
Oh, my God
... the mix affects the music. And by its very most basic definition, the mix
is just how much guitar there is, how loud it is-
Yeah
... in relation to the drums, in relation to the vocal.
That's just the basic thing, and moving those.
And so when you talk about a mixer, it's like pushing those, let's try it with
this. But it's also like, well, no, just push up the vocals a little bit for that
one word-
Yeah
... or pull it back.
Well-
That's called active mixing
... and sometimes-
You don't have to over-active mix it
... comping of the tracks happens in the mix because you hear things-
Right
... in a new way, and you're like, "Should we take out that four-bar section?" That
happens.
Right. But then the other big part of the mix is how each of the tracks or the
instruments sound. So you brought up a couple of times how wet or how
dry-
Yeah
... a vocal is, reverb, not EQ, pushing up the high.
There's so many different things, you would be shocked.
So somebody who mixes an album, and I have the feeling that I'm sure Greenwood and
Thom Yorke and stuff were very involved with that.
It just feels like that kind of band, right?
For sure.
Where they're very involved with the mix, with the engineer, with the producer.
Yeah. Compared to acoustic music that we make-
Yeah
... where the mix is maybe 10, 15% of the art on the album.
Right.
You would say like-
Yeah, and just the amount of time spent-
Yeah
... compared to. Although it can get pushed, too.
It's like 50% or more-
Yeah
... on an album like this.
Right.
It's so important. Like you mentioned, when Thom Yorke's vocals go dry in that
breakdown in "Weird Fishes," that is an incredible artistic choice.
Right.
That's art happening in the mix.
Yeah, and it affects the music as much as the harmony that was chosen.
Yeah, totally.
When to drop the drums out. And I'm sure for most of this, if not all of it, they
have total isolation. That's another reason in a lot of acoustic music or jazz or
whatever, classical, there's not as much put on to mix because you can't mix things
separately because there's bleeding through and stuff like this.
But the fact that they piece some of these things together from different takes on
different instruments would indicate that they had total separation.
So you can do any more, and a lot of times people over-mix and get too active with
it.
Well, since we're talking about reverb, we're talking about this next track,
"Reckoner," which is one of my favorite Radiohead tracks of all time.
Isn't it Rickoner?
Rickoner. I think it's "Reckoner," and it's also one of my favorite reverbs ever.
Woo.
That's like
big empty hall, box theater reverb.
It reminds me of these Brazilian albums in the '70s-
Mm.
... that were samba school albums.
Right.
Sounded like they were recorded in a cave.
Right.
Drums in a big hall like that-
Yeah
... sound unbelievable.
The guitar doesn't have it, I don't think.
Yeah, it's just drums.
This song came out of a jam.
Yeah. Loose group jam.
Apparently. But Thom Yorke's melody throughout here is haunting.
That's the normal timing, Thom Yorke comes in.
That's right.
The party's started.
50 seconds in.
He's not like, "Oh, party's at 8:00?
I'll be there at 8:00."
Yeah. He's coming at 10:30.
He's going to roll up out there.
There's still no
pleasure.
It's a five-chord phrase.
Yeah.
You know what I mean? Like that verse part.
You are not
to blame for
this.
Man, that gives it such a-
Yeah.
It's so like that, but it's just enough.
It's jarring in the most subtle way when you do that.
For sure. It's great.
Does this make sense?
Very subtle.
It gives you this rolling but unsettled macro environment right now.
I'm telling you, you can hear Charles Lloyd playing this song.
Yeah.
You know what I mean? Just this soulful, uneasy but-
Yeah.
Ooh.
It's a Radiohead song. We've got to have a whole different part.
Breakdown.
Yeah.
Write down or break apart.
Let's hook. This is all totally dry.
Damn. Woo.
There's at least two different angles on how that whole section, you could feel the
time, and then when the drums came back in, it totally reset it.
I'm telling you, man,
every song on this one, one after the other.
This next song, "House of Cards," had a Grammy nomination for Best Rock
Performance, Best Rock Song, Best Short Form Music Video.
Sam, we need to use more reverb variations when we do our tracks here.
You know what I mean?
These are extreme, man. Yeah.
To have totally dry drums-
Yeah
... and then one haunting voice.
It's very rare that you feel that much.
It's so cool.
Yeah.
It's usually like 20% deep.
That doesn't introduce until
later.
No, still 55 seconds.
Oh.
He's right in that 50-second mark.
Oh, he's still. Oh, I thought it was more than a minute.
No. That's when Thom Yorke joins the party, about a minute in.
That little rattle percussion, it's almost like the classical percussion.
What is that called?
How's
the
music video for this?
Well, this is past your music video days.
This is past my music video days.
Okay.
Yeah, I'm sure it's awesome.
You didn't watch your MTV anymore then?
No. Actually, like I said, man, I was 30.
I was married and getting ready to have kids during this time.
Oh, wow.
And I was on the road a lot, too-
Yeah
... at this time. So I actually kind of let go of my fandom for a lot of things
during that time.
Wow.
You know how it goes. It's like you kind of went deep.
It goes deep, man. It's deep.
I'm back now.
Really? I think you're back.
The kids are teenagers now, so I'm totally back.
They kind of pulled you back, too, a little bit, right? Yeah.
They did. Actually, my daughter, last summer, gave a PowerPoint presentation for
the family and some of our friends on every Radiohead album ranked, and it took
everything in my being not to sob through all of it-
Of course
... because she put Kid A number one.
Cool.
And without-
I'm surprised you could even get that out
... and without me influencing her.
I had no idea that she was going to do that, or she was that even into this band,
and I was like, "I love you so much." So we're the same person.
Rewriting your will as she-
I know.
She gets everything. Thom Yorke gets everything.
That's awesome.
All right. The next track, "Jigsaw Falling into Place," this incredible track.
This was the lead single off this album. Came to number 30 in the UK charts.
Didn't get anywhere in the US.
Interesting.
Charts were fiddly by this time.
Charts, man, charts are next to zero by...
How many seconds?
We're at 23 right now. We'll see how long it takes.
It is such a vibe, though, to come in, to have that as part of their
style.
Who's
that singing?
That's Thom Yorke. That is Thom Yorke singing.
Dude, his range is ridiculous.
That's crazy, man.
He so often sings in his falsetto-
Yeah
... that when he goes down that low, it's like, "What the f**k?"
Man, this is
not a rock band.
Yeah.
Is it?
Art rock is what we landed on before.
Art rock. Did we say that? Okay.
Yeah, but I don't know, man.
There should be... I know you hate genres, famously.
Famously.
But I guess art rock makes... That always has a certain level of pretension
whenever you say art something.
Yeah. I think there's a level.
No one would ever say art classical or art jazz.
No.
Because they're already hoity-toity.
But they would call jazz and classical art music.
I know. I don't like that.
Yeah.
Because it's like art music and folk music.
Totally.
Ignorant folk music and highbrow classical.
High class.
It is.
"We know what we're doing. We've got a take on things."
But I think in this, yeah, there's like an implication of
thoughtful rock and roll.
All right. The last track on the album is the closer, and Thom Yorke called this
absolute agony.
Yeah.
He built it on a fast four-to-the-floor pulse, then came back to find Jonny and
Godrich had stripped it bare bones, reduced him to tears.
Come on, guys.
Hospital Studio, December 2006, the first moment he'd felt that they got something.
What's hospital studio?
I don't know.
Okay.
Was he that bad that they put him in the hospital?
Four on the floor, AMS.
This is such a beautiful closing track on the album, though, Peter.
This is like a piano song.
Just gorgeous, man.
His,
Thom Yorke's intonation is so-
Great. But there's times when he's not, and it's got to be intentional because you
can tell he can control, and so it gives it such a kind of unaffected
humanity, I think, to it.
Yeah.
Certain notes are just stunningly in tune, but others are not.
Yeah.
And I think it's
a great thing to- Obviously, we're in this days of Auto-Tune, but they had it at
that time, too.
Yeah.
This was the way it was on purpose, right?
I got some flack last time when we did Kid A when I said that-
You read the comments still, man?
No.
I don't read the comments.
My wife told me. No, but I mentioned that I don't think Thom Yorke's a great
singer.
Yeah.
Like in the way that Luther Vandross was a great singer.
Right.
Has all this control.
Which is flawed. Yeah.
Flawless tone.
But he does have a lot of control.
But he does have control.
Yeah.
He's not a great singer, but he's a great vocalist.
He is.
He is an incredible artist, and he does actually have great control.
I think what is so special about his voice is the vulnerability to it.
Yes.
Or the fact that it's not this perfectly-
No
... manicured vocal performance that is like-
He has a lot of control over it, very unique.
It's like a beautiful... It's not a Lamborghini or a Ferrari, but
it's something else. It's a beautiful vehicle that's unique.
Yeah.
And that the driver- Because vocalists, they're not like pianists where we're
like, "Oh, I got a great note instrument." They're like, "This is my instrument."
Yeah.
And so how do you get dialed in on your own instrument?
I think his level of dialed in is pretty much 100.
Yeah, and also he just has a really cool instrument. You mentioned the range.
Yeah.
When he's low in that song before, he pulls that gear out sometimes, and then he
can sing in this sort of like whale-
Yeah
... falsetto almost, like mixed voice almost.
I see what you mean, the whale. "Weird Fishes."
Whales. "Weird Fishes."
Oh.
There it is.
If you stay in the end, that's what you get.
Okay, so reaction to In Rainbows post Kid A.
Wait, this was In Rainbows? I thought we were listening to Kid A.
I got confused again. What, so you can't- No, this is OK Computer, right?
Doggone it.
You know what my reaction is? That piano, Robert Glasper or was that Brad Mehldau?
Who was playing piano on that last bit?
Eh, maybe.
No, I would say, I think,
man, I love what I just heard, and I want to dig in deeper to this.
I think I will go back and listen to this a little bit more than Kid A, actually.
You're like a millennial. Well, I feel like Kid A is great.
This is a much more even, some people might say much smaller range album.
Yeah.
But to me, this felt like, look, and we appreciate you guys listening to my
ignorant drivel about this.
Man, I love these episodes.
Right.
I love hearing your takes on these things-
Right
... from a very fresh perspective.
Love you, too, man.
You know what I mean?
Yeah.
It's great.
No, but I think that we're not giving it, I'm thinking even as I go, the fact that
I want to go back and just sit and listen to this and vibe out on this.
Yeah.
This felt like, and I'm not doing it total justice because I feel like until you do
that, you don't really know. But it's kind of like when you sample something,
you're like, "Oh." It's like previews to a movie.
You don't really know, and sometimes, especially for comedies, you're like, "Oh,
that's so funny." You're laughing and then you're like, "Wait, are those the only
good jokes that are going to be in the movie?
Did I just see it?" It's a lot on Netflix.
Yeah.
But with this, I feel like I want to get the transitions.
We don't have time or the legal license to do that here.
No, we do not.
But this makes me want to feel the transitions from this, to feel the balance and
the journey, which I definitely got some, and as you guiding through, it was great.
And so I think that from beginning to end, I would prefer this.
But I'm a little nervous as I say this. Don't hate me.
No, you're with the majority.
Oh.
You're with the majority of people who prefer this to any other Radiohead.
Oh, I'm a sellout.
Yeah. You're a sellout. You're very commercial.
What does Brad Mehldau think? What's his favorite?
Brad loves OK Computer. You just know he does.
What about Robert Glasper?
Glasper loves Kid A. I'm just telling you.
There was a video that was going around the internet recently.
I don't know if you saw it, of Robert Glasper playing "Everything in Its Right
Place."
Oh, I saw. It was fed to me everywhere I went.
He's teary-eyed in that video.
Yeah, in Paris.
And it was so powerful there.
During the heatwave. Yeah. It's a great version. What about Adam Maness?
What does Adam Maness say? Can you give me a stack ranking of those three at least?
I know you mentioned-
Okay
... the two after this you didn't prefer.
Well, let's talk about the run. So for me, there's a Radiohead run.
They have Pablo Honey and they have The Bends, which are their first two albums,
and actually their biggest hit, "Creep," is from that first album.
But to me, they hit their artistic stride with OK Computer.
And then-
Did we do the joke? Who was the comedian that did the "Creep" joke?
Did we cover that last time?
Yeah.
Okay.
With Joe O'Neill. Yeah. White people love "Creep." The "Eh-nih.
Eh-nih." Yeah, you got to check it out. It's great. No, so 1997 is OK Computer.
Yeah.
And then from there, they're on a run until this album.
And like I said, I like The King of Limbs, I like A Moon Shaped Pool, but I think that
run between, that's really just OK Computer, Kid A, Amnesiac, Hail to the Thief,
and In Rainbows. And then I'm also going to throw in-
That's pretty cool. You're talking about 10 years.
10 years.
Five albums.
Yeah. And I'm going to throw in Thom Yorke's solo album-
I love it
... The Eraser, which I'll play a little bit of it here.
Was that later? Wasn't that after this?
That was 2006, The Eraser.
Oh, it was right before.
Right before this.
Oh, wow, okay. I got to check that out.
So yeah, actually that's what's my up next Radiohead run.
That was a great, when we talk about other classic periods-
Oh, yeah
... that's such a great output. Even though I know that there's some tortured, like
they were sitting in the ramshackle English manor house for months on end
and stuff. But if you look at the
Yeah. Well, think about it. This is the end of that period.
Yeah.
The last album of that period, and this is their most popular album afterwards.
Which is like, we've covered Steely Dan, right? Gaucho.
Yeah.
Which was their sort of last album until 20 years later.
Yeah.
And that was the end of a sort of 10-year run from them.
Yeah.
We've covered people like Miles Davis.
Right.
We've talked about Miles, and he's got this electric era and the 80s era.
But from '57 to like '67-
Right
... when you think of Miles-
Prestige to Columbia
... you're thinking of that.
Yeah
A lot of people are thinking of that.
But I know people love Bitches Brew and On the Corner.
Right.
I love that stuff, too. But I think most culturally, we think of Miles in that late
50s, 60s period.
We could do like a stack ranking or tier list of classic periods.
Classic runs?
Yeah. Stevie-
Stevie
... Miles-
Yeah
... Radiohead.
I mean, think about-
Coltrane
... Herbie.
Herbie.
Herbie's got a couple.
Right.
Stevie's run, right? Music of My Mind, or maybe the album previous to that.
What was that one called?
Fulfillingness' First Finale.
No, that was after.
Oh. Music of My Mind.
Music of My Mind was the first one that was considered-
Yeah. Oh
... the TONTO period.
It was the one before.
It was his last Blue Note album before the TONTO period.
Right.
Put it in the comments. We talked about it, and now I'm spacing.
But Music of My Mind up until when?
as far as I can keep alive.
'76?
Yeah.
Six years? You don't think Hotter Than July and Secret Life of Plants?
That's definitely not the classic. You talking about the classic period?
I'm talking about a run, because he was still on a run after the classic period.
Yeah, but there was a break there. You know what I mean?
And I think that maybe
Thom Yorke and the boys would look at this differently, be like, "No, this is not
how we were thinking about it." But sometimes other people are better objectively
to, you kind of have this demarcation point from '97 to '07 based on the albums,
and not only your love for them, but kind of the lineage of it.
Yeah.
And so they are somewhat arbitrary, but once you've had some space to look back
artistically and what the flow...
Because there's other stuff in terms of
sometimes the instrumentation and what.
Because Stevie had that whole period where he was playing everything.
Yeah.
And he did that some, and then everything changed.
Yeah.
Stevie stayed the same.
Stevie stayed the same, but everything changed.
And I think also there's a cultural thing where you kind of age out-
Yeah
... a little bit. They're still in their 30s here. You know what I mean?
And isn't there a thing, we could say this for anybody, but we're talking about
Radiohead here, too, where you have the presence of mind.
You're not only great musicians, but you
made a great important rock band, one of the most important of all time.
You know what I mean?
Yeah.
The fact that you could even be like, "This is our Revolver." I don't even know
these guys. I don't know how cocky they are, but I don't think they're too cocky to
say that.
Yeah.
Or they're cocky enough to say that.
But the idea-
I think they're appropriately cocky.
Yeah, all right.
If I had to guess.
Right. But the fact that I'm sure at this same point, they could look back a couple
years after this record and be like, "Damn, we made some stuff."
You made some good stuff.
This isn't some one-hit wonders. It wasn't even a lot of hits.
It would be-
But it was a lot of important albums, right?
How much fun would it be to do a classic run episode? We should do that.
Yeah.
Because think about The Beatles.
Beethoven. I thought of Beethoven.
Beatles, '63, '64.
Yeah.
'70?
Yep.
That's it. They're not even a band anymore.
Can't say their name. We can
Hey.
Peter, you're so cool, man.
Should we do some categories real quick?
Oh, damn. I'm sorry.
"Desert Island." What's your apex moment/desert island?
I got "Weird Fishes"-
You go first
... for my desert island track.
I like "Weird Fishes." I'm going to be really following your lead on this.
I like that "Reckoner."
"Reckoner."
That was f*****g-
Amazing, man
... I mean, even if I hadn't seen this described as growing out of a loose group
jam, that was immediately the feel and the vibe.
So good.
And that was a nice little pattern interrupter, not so much with the sound or the
vibe, but with the approach.
Yeah.
You know?
Yeah. Quibblets. I have "It Was Too Expensive."
Was it expensive?
No, it was pay what you want.
Oh, I thought you meant the production of it.
It was a joke.
That was good. I love jokes that have to be explained. Thank you. Accoutrements.
I wouldn't know. I wasn't there.
It was an iPod V2.
Okay. Is this their best album?
No, I'm going to say for me, Kid A.
Really? Yeah, okay.
There you go.
Okay, this will be a good one. Snobbometer.
Five.
Man, you used to hate the five, and now you're dialed in on the five.
I'm bought into the five. I'm dialed in.
I mean, I-
I'm locked in on five
... I feel like Radiohead is always... Wait, 10 is more snobby, right?
Yeah.
I feel like anything Radiohead has to at least be a six.
I kind of agree.
I'm going to go seven.
But it sold three million copies.
Dude, Robert Glasper. Brad Mehldau did it. And Adam Maness.
All right.
That's the trifecta of snobbiness.
All right.
And Ethan Iverson, I'm sure. And Allen Iverson happens to love Radiohead.
Fun fact. Hey, come on the show. Up next, I have that 2006 Thom Yorke solo album
that I mentioned called The Eraser. This is Atoms for Peace.
Ooh.
This is such a cool project. If you haven't checked out The Eraser, the whole
thing is beautiful. It's 2006.
Yeah.
How's it going to be up next?
You've heard it before.
Well-
You're going back in time now
... it's weird with time travel.
That's true.
We have all of this.
But that's kind of what I was saying, when you have, forget about 20 years later,
even a couple of years later, you can look back and be like, "Oh." You start
explaining in a way that they didn't even know at the time.
It's like, "Oh, this makes sense that that led to that."
"No more going to the dark side with your flying saucer
eyes"
The other guys in Radiohead should have sued Thom Yorke for not calling this a
Radio... I can already tell where that's going.
Well, you can hear what Thom is into on that one. What do you think on next, Peter?
What are you putting next to this?
Oh, this might be controversial for reasons that-
I see what you're doing. I love it.
Kanye-
I love it.
2007.
I love it.
Kanye West. I'm not even going to say his name.
Graduation.
Such a good album.
That's a great album.
Such a great album.
Yeah, and that was the same year.
Who?
Kanye West. He was a different person in that time.
Man, I wish he was still that person so we could talk about some of that music
because it was so amazing.
And I think I wasn't listening to him a lot, but I remember that year.
Now I know, remember, it's 2007. I can even place it was like, "Yes."
Buddy, can we please do some more from this era? Can we do some Dilla beats?
Yeah.