Songs · explained
Radiohead, explained
Videos that take Radiohead songs apart, picked one by one, from the meter of “Pyramid Song” to the beat hidden in “Videotape”.
the whole catalogue
Odd meters and clave in “15 Step”, “Everything in Its Right Place” and “Paranoid Android”.· David Bennett Music Theorywatch on youtube →
videos(14)
song by song
| Song | What it shows | Whose |
|---|---|---|
| Pablo Honey 1993 | ||
| the record | A long interview with Paul Kolderie, the album's co-producer, on Radiohead and the Pixies. | Daniel S |
| Creep +2 | The I, III, IV, iv progression and the songs that share it. | David Bennett Music Theory |
| The Bends 1995 | ||
| the record | The lyrics track by track, starting from the pressure that followed “Creep”. | Stemp |
| Fake Plastic Trees +1 | How Yorke came to the lyric, and how the band recorded it. | Poetic Wax |
| Just +1 | The chromatic writing: borrowed chords, blue notes and a key change. | David Bennett Music Theory |
| My Iron Lung | What is Yorke singing under the distortion in the chorus? | James Hargreaves Guitar |
| OK Computer 1997 | ||
| the record | The album's story, cut down to the essentials. | Pitchfork |
| Airbag | The add9 chord in the riff, and the bass line's unexpected turns. | ixi |
| Paranoid Android +2 | Rick Beato goes through the suite section by section with the multitracks. | Rick Beato |
| Subterranean Homesick Alien | The rhythm section and the vocal in detail, then a few facts from the recording. | ixi |
| Exit Music (For a Film) +1 | The classical turns in the harmony, and the Mellotron choir before the climax. | ixi |
| Let Down +2 | The guitar parts first, then Yorke's vocal line. | ixi |
| Karma Police +1 | Why listeners disagree about whether it is in E minor or A minor. | David Bennett Music Theory |
| Climbing Up the Walls | Section by section, from the first bars to the strings at the end. | ixi |
| No Surprises | The glockenspiel line and the harmony under it, section by section. | ixi |
| Kid A 2000 | ||
| the record | Why the swerve after OK Computer worked. | Middle 8 |
| Everything in Its Right Place +2 | How a four-chord loop carries the whole track. | Charles Cornell |
| How to Disappear Completely +1 | Jonny Greenwood's string writing: the clusters and the glissandi. | Listening In |
| Idioteque | A syncopated rhythm does the work that the melody does not. | Ari Koinuma |
| Motion Picture Soundtrack | It predates “Creep” and waited years before it closed Kid A. | Stemp |
| Amnesiac 2001 | ||
| the record | NPR's Throughline on making Kid A and Amnesiac at the turn of the millennium. | NPR Podcasts |
| Pyramid Song +2 | Is it 4/4 with a swing, or groups of 3, 3, 4, 3 and 3? Both readings, played out. | David Bennett Music Theory |
| Hail to the Thief 2003 | ||
| the record | The lyrics of the 2003 record, read against its politics. | Stemp |
| Sail to the Moon | The case for this as their most complex song, from the meter to the modes. | David Bennett Music Theory |
| Myxomatosis | Which time signature it is in, and why that is so hard to hear. | David Bennett Music Theory |
| Scatterbrain | Each section's chords, and how the outro differs from the passage before it. | The Pop Descriptivist |
| In Rainbows 2007 | ||
| the record | The pay-what-you-want release, and what it did to the industry. | Middle 8 |
| 15 Step | The 5/4 drum pattern rebuilt from scratch on a drum machine. | Captain Pikant |
| Nude | Ten years from a 1997 live song to the In Rainbows version. | Lie Likes Music |
| Weird Fishes/Arpeggi | A producer rebuilds the track layer by layer. | Alex Wilcox |
| Videotape +2 | The piano chords land half a beat early, so the ear hears the wrong downbeat. | Vox |
| The King of Limbs 2011 | ||
| the record | The case for their most divisive record. | Poetic Wax |
| Bloom | Every sound in the track drawn as an animated symbol, as it plays. | Anatomy of a Track |
| Lotus Flower | Two musicians talk through the harmony of the song. | WARRENMUSIC |
| A Moon Shaped Pool 2016 | ||
| the record | The lyrics, read against Yorke's separation and how long some of the songs had waited. | Stemp |
| True Love Waits | From the 1995 Brussels debut to the 2016 recording, and every attempt between. | Poetic Wax |
| elsewhere: singles, b-sides and the rest | ||
| Polyethylene (Parts 1 & 2) | The harmony of the acoustic first part, then each section of the second. | The Pop Descriptivist |
| Spectre +1 | The chords Bond themes are built on, and how the theme the producers turned down uses them. | Listening In |