Thom Yorke takes the Ivors Academy Fellowship and plays a new song

Thom Yorke was made a Fellow of the Ivors Academy, its highest honour, at the 71st Ivor Novello Awards at Grosvenor House in London on Thursday 21 May. He used his speech to go after the record labels and the streaming services, then sat at the piano for the first performance of a new song, reported as “Space Walk”, and played an acoustic “Jigsaw Falling Into Place”.

Harry Styles was the surprise presenter. He called Radiohead his favourite band, said he first heard them drifting down from his sister's bedroom while he did his homework, and joked that he lost his virginity to “Talk Show Host”, the 1996 B-side, before correcting it to the intro.

Yorke said he had assumed the award was probably a mistake and that he is not a solo artist, and dedicated it to Tom Skinner, Nigel Godrich, Jonny Greenwood and Stanley Donwood, and to his wife and children. Then he read a prepared speech. He said new artists are fragile and need time and room to make mistakes; Radiohead were lucky in their managers and in an old EMI that cut them slack, while he watched others get chewed up.

He called the value now put on a few older artists' catalogues an insane flow of money upwards that leaves dust for new artists. He went after self-serving playlists and the labels' opaque accounting, and told the streaming services to pull their finger out. This industry will die and arseholes with it, if all you do is devalue the next generation of artists and their fans. Just remember: without us, you ain't shit!⁴

After the ceremony he told Matt Everitt of BBC 6 Music what EMI's slack had looked like. The label's boss had promised him anything he needed. All we need is a van, some money for some gear and for you to leave us alone for a couple of years to figure our shit out¹⁰ Then came “Creep”, and EMI wanted another “Creep”, another The Bends, another OK Computer.

He told Everitt he is finishing and mixing a solo record made with Sam Petts-Davies, with a song on it called “Arse-Kissers”. It is pretty different for him, and too close to judge. It would be his first solo album since Anima in 2019, and Ed O'Brien had said in March that one was due later this year. Radiohead's 20 arena nights last year, their first shows since 2018, were overwhelming; he picked out walking through the crowd on the first night in Madrid. Asked whether they would do it again, he said maybe.

He said the people buying up old catalogues treat them like Picasso paintings in a vault, when a little of that money could carry an artist through the early days. Now one mistake ends a career, and people need an artist every couple of years who startles them. Like I remember when I first heard Nevermind and I was like, 'OK, it's on'.¹⁰