John Lydon on Radiohead: “They just wallow in their own seriousness a little too much”
It’s starting to feel like ancient history now, but there was a time when Public Image Ltd frontman John Lydon was always trusted with something interesting to say. Be it a scathing excoriation or a colourful takedown in jest, the former Sex Pistol exuded an air of elemental authenticity and a healthy disdain for the established orthodoxies of the day.
No one can ever take ‘Anarchy in the UK’ or Metal Box away from him, but his sad drift to clownish self-parody is painful to watch—happy to praise the capital class’ seizure of the American Executive just to indulge in some contrarian buffoonery. “The fascist regime / It made you a moron”…
Still, we can enjoy the quips and gleeful piss-taking from a time before 2023’s boorish ‘Being Stupid Again’. From lambasting Bono’s try-hard wardrobe, keen dollops of disapproval dunked all over pop-punks Green Day, to wry allusions on Joe Strummer’s alleged material comforts at odds with his class war, it seemed nobody was safe from Lydon’s chastising pot shots.
Certainly not Radiohead. Often a punchline for many who prefer their rock far away from their laptop blippy noodlings, the Old Abingdonians were highlighted as an example of the perennial glum Lydon’s keen to avoid. “I’m not part of the self-pity whinge brigade, so please don’t put a Radiohead album on,” he told Details in 2007. “They just wallow in their own seriousness a little too much. And I think that that’s a stance, and it’s an unhealthy one”.
The “misery” tag thrown at bands can often be a lazy, tired one. Who cares if someone naturally is compelled to downbeat music—sadness and melancholy a path of the human condition we all gotta navigate. At the time of Lydon’s interview, Radiohead was fresh off In Rainbows, an essential entry in their dazzling art-rock oeuvre, which encompassed garage fury, chopped indie breaks, and good ol’ pop rock among their typical sonic experiments. Just like the oil-slicked colour spectrum on its eye-popping cover, Radiohead was more than ever a band you couldn’t accuse of one-note woe.
The popular impression of eternal mope is largely triggered by the 1998 documentary film Meeting People Is Easy. Following Radiohead during their OK Computer tour, the overwhelming critical acclaim and commercial success flew straight over frontman Thom Yorke’s head. Numbed by the music industry and the newfound adulation, the film captures his sullen-faced traipsing from limousine to hotel, becoming ever more detached from the busy celebrity noise around them.
Anxiety and doldrums care not for status or wealth, but an enormously successful band bemoaning their good fortune was irksome to many. Radiohead has always relied on Oasis’ Noel Gallagher for a withering barb at hand, never afraid to express his bewilderment toward their success. “I’m aware that Radiohead have never had a fucking bad review,” he told Esquire in 2015. “I reckon if Thom Yorke fucking shit into a light bulb and started blowing it like an empty beer bottle, it’d probably get nine out of ten in fucking Mojo. I’m aware of that.”
