Radiohead's “Nude” enters the Hot 100 at 37, their highest American debut

“Nude”, the second single from In Rainbows, has given Radiohead the highest debut they have ever had in America. It is new at number 37 on the Billboard Hot 100 dated 19 April, the week's Hot Shot Debut.

Fans buying the song in pieces to remix helped put it there. With iTunes and GarageBand the band sold “Nude” in five parts (bass, voice, guitar, strings and effects, and drums) for anyone to remix, with a vote on the results open until 1 May. The full song and the parts together sold just short of 60,000 copies in the US, and every one counted towards the single.

Fred Bronson notes in Billboard that it is only the band's third Hot 100 entry, and that it came in far higher than “High and Dry” (83 in 1996) or “Creep” (92 in 1993). “Creep” went on to peak at 34 and is still their biggest American hit, three places above where “Nude” came in.

In Britain it entered the singles chart at number 21 and dropped to 44 a week later. It has spent two weeks at number one on the independent singles chart.

XL released it on 31 March on seven-inch, CD and download. The seven-inch carries “4 Minute Warning” and the CD “Down Is the New Up”, both until then only on the second disc of the In Rainbows box set. The film by Adam Buxton and Garth Jennings, first seen at the end of the Scotch Mist webcast on New Year's Eve, went out again as a stream on 17 March, and the day after release the band played a free show at the BBC Radio Theatre in London, two sets for Radio 2, 6 Music and Radio 1.

The band first recorded “Nude” during the OK Computer sessions and set that version aside. It has turned up live on and off ever since Thom Yorke sang it alone in Tokyo on 23 January 1998, sometimes under its working title “Big Ideas (Don't Get Any)”.

“Nude” on the charts