“Left, right and centre”: the band Thom Yorke said he completely ripped off
For many of Radiohead‘s detractors, there’s often a begrudging acknowledgement that “yeah, fair enough” 1995’s The Bends is a complete ripper. If excursions into electronica, avant-garde classical and jazzy krautrock left you cold since Kid A—and maybe OK Compter a little too drenched in digital anxiety for your liking—then their sophomore effort’s widescreen alternative rock and gargantuan riff attacks spell an era when the Old Abingdonians were firing on all cylinders.
While in the shadows of their seminal experimental ventures to come, The Bends is a crucial LP in the Radiohead story. Hinting at creative promise on the My Iron Lung EP, the band were still yet to shake off the one-hit wonder tag from the enormous success of ‘Creep’—an albatross that would inspire said EP’s title track.
Seeking to enter new sonic terrain with an extra coating of haunted electronics, frontman Thom Yorke honed his lyrical barb toward a sharper introspective point, which offered the perfect antidote to Britpop‘s nostalgic knees up.
A steady string of fantastic singles had pushed Radiohead away from ‘Creep’ dependency, but it was The Bends‘ fifth single that finally saw them enter a new lease of life. Inspired by Ben Okri’s The Famished Road, he was reading while touring America, Yorke wrote ‘Street Spirit (Fade Out)’s spine-tingling arpeggio and gifted one of rock’s most eerily engrossing album finales ever—a far cry from the Blur vs Oasis pantomime that otherwise dominated Top of the Pops at the time.
It proved a watershed moment for Radiohead, finally gleaning a creative direction that truly didn’t sound like anything on the charts and pointed toward future intrepid explorations. “If I ever forget why I started this as a career, then ‘Street Spirit’ is why I started,” Yorke told Mojo in 2001. “We spent a day going round in circles until I was thinking, ‘This is never going to happen.’ Then suddenly something happened, and I was transported to a place that I’d been willing myself to be in for months on end…”
Yorke’s always been candid with who he and the band have creatively pilfered from. From Aphex Twin’s warped electronica, the live jazz pieces of Charles Mingus, and Can’s krautrock progressions, Radiohead have always worn their inspirations on the sleeves.
When discussing the band that sparked ‘Street Spirit (Fade Out)’s lightning bolt, Yorke made clear to High Profile in 2004, whose fingerprints are all over their stark classic: “REM—it was just a straight rip-off, you know. I’ve ripped them off left, right and centre for years and years and years and years”.
Having been obsessed with REM since his days as an art student, Yorke had watched the Georgian college rockers grow from the indie fringes to one of the 1990s’ biggest names. Subconsciously taking notes on how to enter the upper echelons of commercial stature with integrity, REM frontman Michael Stipe proved to be an authority for Yorke as their success picked up. Panged with stage fright during The Bends era, Stipe’s astral advice of “you’re not here, this isn’t happening” went on to lyrically find its way in Radiohead’s masterstroke ‘How to Disappear Completely’.
