“Totally beautiful”: The producer Thom Yorke was jealous of
Radiohead are often regarded as one of the greatest rock bands to have emerged in the 1990s, and the fact that they’ve managed to outlast many of their peers from this period and maintain their legacy is testament to their excellence. The perfect antidote to the polished and commercial sound of Britpop, the Oxfordshire group’s breakout albums, The Bends and OK Computer were characterised by experimentation and a desire to push indie rock in a more progressive direction, but after the ‘90s came to an end, so did this chapter of the band’s existence.
While OK Computer may have been regarded as a modern rival to albums like Revolver and Dark Side of the Moon upon its release for how it stretched the parameters of what a rock album could sound like, frontman Thom Yorke was not content with the direction that things appeared to be heading, and was becoming increasingly disillusioned by the state of rock music.
Yorke felt as though he needed to distance himself from everything that he’d previously created by unlearning all of the techniques he’d applied to his songwriting practice, and began turning to increasingly avant-garde styles for inspiration. Judging by how Radiohead’s 2000 album Kid A turned out, he’d been living on a healthy diet of electronic music, particularly the output of the iconic British label, Warp Records.
Among the artists on their roster in the late ‘90s were sonic pioneers such as Autechre, Boards of Canada and Squarepusher, all of whom represented a completely different angle of groundbreaking British music without compromising their artistic integrity in an attempt to chase commercial success. However, leading the way in Warp’s output was Cornish pioneer Richard D James, better known as Aphex Twin, and the impression he had on Yorke forever altered his perspective on the creative process.
Many musicians from across a spectrum of genres have noted just how revolutionary James’ works under his range of pseudonyms have been, releasing everything from acid house to ambient techno under the guise of AFX, The Tuss, Caustic Window and of course, Aphex Twin. His singular approach often gets compared to that of a classical or jazz composer for how dramatically different it sounded to his contemporaries, and this wave of inspiration was exactly the sort of tonic that Yorke needed to remedy his disenchantment.
In an interview with Dazed in 2013, Yorke spoke about how hearing Aphex Twin for the first time was akin to a religious experience, and even expressed a sense of envy for his remarkable talents. “Aphex opened up another world that didn’t involve my fucking electric guitar, and I was just so jealous of that whole crew,” he claimed. “They were off on their own planet. I hated all the music that was around Radiohead at the time, it was completely fucking meaningless. I hated the Britpop thing and what was happening in America, but Aphex was totally beautiful, and he’s kind of my age too. He’s a massive influence.”
While Radiohead’s output from 2000 onwards isn’t solely indebted to the music of Aphex Twin, it’s clear that his approach significantly altered the way Yorke approached composition, and while they didn’t completely abandon their art rock roots, the introduction of a broader palette of sounds ultimately kept the band alive and helped them cement their status as one of the most ambitious bands of their generation.
