EMI set “Pop Is Dead” for 10 May and put Radiohead on the Phoenix bill

“Pop Is Dead”, a wholly new track, is due on 10 May, EMI say in a biography of Radiohead issued this spring. Before that the band play abroad in March and come home for a UK tour at the end of April, and in July they play the Phoenix Festival as one of the newer acts on the bill.

By the label's account, “Creep” happened while the band were warming up at a summer 1992 session for the follow-up to the Drill EP, not knowing the tape was running, and was caught in one take. The crunch of guitar before the chorus, EMI say, was Jonny Greenwood trying to sabotage a song he did not like at first. The label calls it a song about self-hatred turned into something creative, and says it fell foul of a Radio 1 policy against depressing songs and got no daytime play.

With the media finding them unfashionable, EMI argue, their audience came by word of mouth, across more than 100 gigs in 1992, most of them in support. The label's figures have “Anyone Can Play Guitar” at number 32, their first UK Top 40 single, and Pablo Honey, out on 22 February after three weeks' recording the previous July, entering the album chart at number 25 with around 20,000 sold. On 23 February, the day after, the band played a Black Session in Paris, broadcast live on French national radio.

The release ends on a line it gives to the band.

We're going to save pop

Radiohead¹