The sunny day in 1993 that ‘Creep’ almost ended Radiohead for good
Radiohead‘s presence in alternative music over the last few decades can be attributed to their constantly changing sound and pursuit of creative integrity. Yet, for a time at least, the band were considered to be one-hit wonders, cherishing their time in the MTV spotlight, blinded by its power and being drawn to the allure of fame and fortune as so many other musical moths in their time had been.
The tension between the band’s global success and their refusal to play any kind of industry game has always been part of why the band feels so important to their fans. They aren’t here for any other reason but to make music, and that is hard to ignore. But, for one moment, under the harsh spotlight of MTV in 1993, Radiohead almost fell into the trap.
On paper, the moment was abreakthrough opportunity for the band. MTV’s Beach House might feel like a truly bizarre home for the Oxfordshire band today, but as they had only just begun their careers, it seemed like another step forward to get their careers in the US off to a good start. This was national television, after all, and they were being asked to play their biggest hit, ‘Creep’, a track which had begun to dominate the dormitories of colleges across the country as a perfect anthem for Generation X.
The song can be rightly seen as one of the most powerful tunes they ever made, even if it now finds itself slammed on to the top shelf of their hits, only to be dusted off once in a blue moon to be played live. Despite the protestations that the track might be considered one of their more “stupid” efforts, there was a point to it. “You have Jon’s ‘Ker-runch’ thing come in, and the song is like, slashing its wrists,” Yorke told Ian Fortnam in The Scene fanzine in 1992. “Halfway through it suddenly starts killing itself off, which is the whole point of the song really. It’s a real self-destruct song.”
‘Creep’ offered the band a way into the biggest market for rock music in the world, and they took it. Though Radiohead were touring America for the first time, their postcards home didn’t exactly shout about the Beatlemania that followed them. In fact, quite the opposite. ‘Creep’ had provided the band a platform to perform on, but it seemed outside of that, America wasn’t quite ready for Radiohead.
Though the slow rise of ‘Creep’ in the charts had been a small slice of success, the group had been struggling to gather any momentum with their live performances. In fact, the problem ran so deep that audiences were noticeably leaving venues once the single was played. It was a disappointing scene for a band with such heavy credentials and such a clear vision of the future
The single’s success was largely down to MTV’s ‘Buzz Bin’, which had seen the track put on heavy rotation. The song’s message resonated with the grunge generation, but where Nirvana et al backed up that message with heavy distortion and violent vocals, aside from ‘Creep’s pulsating guitar, Radiohead were a little more purist.
The truth is, for the most part, the song had become an albatross capable of choking them out completely. “It was frustrating being judged on just that song when we felt we needed to move on,” Yorke told The Denver Post in 1995. “We were forced on tour to support it, and it gagged us, really. We were on the verge of breaking up. It was a lesson.”
It meant that Yorke and co. disengaged with the American market as a focal point and returned to making music. But before the tour was concluded, MTV would come knocking once again to offer Radiohead the chance to perform at their 1993 edition of MTV’s Beach House. With a new single, ‘Anyone Can Play Guitar’, due for release, Radiohead just couldn’t turn it down.
That fact means we have a rather juxtaposing set of images to look back on. The bleach blonde Yorke, with a ghostly visage and the pain of performing ‘Creep’ once again hidden by dark shades, delivers a powerful and rousing ‘radio edit’ performance of the song that would act as an albatross around their neck for years to come. The frustration, though, clearly bleeds through every single image that floats by.
Given how the track was built out of an accidental flurry of self-loathing in 1987, it feels particularly fitting that it could induce such a new run of the feeling so clearly strewn across Yorke’s face. The Beach House didn’t really feel like the happy-go-lucky glamour that MTV had positioned it as, with Yorke and Greenwood so clearly uncomfortable in their bikini-drenched setting.
After the performance of the new single ‘Anyone Can Play Guitar’, Yorke would nearly electrocute himself as he jumped into the pool with a live microphone. Whether or not the provocation for the subconscious suicide attempt was, in fact, the shambolic pop scene laid out before him, we will never know. But it certainly feels like a moment, much like within the song, where Yorke decided that this was not a life he was willing to lead.
What we do know is that only one year later Radiohead would write and record ‘My Iron Lung’ a song about the misery of playing a track over and over, despite it being the very thing that gave you life in the first place. The performance is certainly one thing, though; it is the crystalline moment that Radiohead both died and were reborn. Clearly, this day was the last time they would play ball and chase the opportunity for promotion over their artistic values; it can be seen and felt in every single sneer. And, with that, it is arguably the moment the Radiohead so widely cherished were born.
This performance, playing for a bunch of disinterested youths more clearly focused on being on TV than listening to a band with a message, could have been the moment Radiohead accepted their fate and began a life chasing the same high of fame. Instead, they rejected it all and became everything an alt-rock fan needed.
