Radiohead

Yoav Kutner, the Israeli DJ who first played “Creep” on the radio there again and again until it was a hit, interviews the band before their first concert in Tel Aviv. With listener phone-ins and concert tickets along the way, they give the first broadcast of a recording nobody had heard, “Pop Is Dead”. It was the first thing they recorded themselves with their live engineer rather than an expensive producer, and it is about the death of pop music.

That leads Thom Yorke on to the record industry as seen from the shop floor. He had worked in a record shop and sold the same greatest hits compilation with depressing regularity. His objection is to the economics, not the record. Every couple of years a long-dead act is rediscovered because that is cheaper than investing in anybody new, particularly in a recession. He wants labels to give bands time to develop and learn, instead of signing them, spending heavily and dropping them when a hit does not arrive at once.

They also touch on the politics of the pit closures at home, and on the song title that came from García Márquez.

Asked whether they express themselves better quietly or loudly, they say neither. They do it best when they are chasing new ideas and sounds.