Song · Pablo Honey era (1992–93)
Pop Is Dead
An epitaph for 1992 that the band spent the next thirty years trying to bury, and the one single they have effectively deleted.
1993
an epitaph
It was written and released fast, a standalone single that came out on 10 May 1993, a few months after Pablo Honey, recorded at Chipping Norton with Jim Warren co-producing. Jonny Greenwood's chromatic riff drives it. The words go after the music press and the industry, the same target as “Anyone Can Play Guitar”.
I wrote ‘Pop Is Dead’ as a kind of epitaph to 1992. Hence the lines ‘Pop is dead / died an ugly death by catalogue’.
thom yorke
At a show in 1994 he dedicated it to “members of the press… fucking bunch of losers”.
1993
the coffin video
Dwight Clarke directed the video from Yorke's own treatment: Yorke plays Pop as a dandified vampire in a glass coffin, carried by members of the band's fan club. EMI supplied a stylist and a clothing budget, with results Colin Greenwood still remembers.
We looked like we were in four different bands.
colin greenwood · nme, 17 october 2024
Yorke's later verdict on the videos of that era: “In the early '90s, we probably thought those videos were all right, but looking back at them now, we all just want to die.”
the b-sides
the better songs
The single carried an acoustic “Banana Co.”, which Mac Randall called Beatlesque, with a dislike of multinationals showing through the words; an electric version turned up on “Street Spirit (Fade Out)” in 1996. The other side was a live “Ripcord” from the Town and Country Club in February 1993, when they opened for Belly, with an extra line: “They can kiss my ass!”
after
scrubbed
It reached number 42 in Britain and was not released in America. Reviews were poor, the band came to hate it, and Ed O'Brien has called it a hideous mistake. It is not on streaming services, and the 1995 video Live at the Astoria is one of the few places a performance survives.
1992–95
eighty nights
Before the disowning it was a working song: first played in Plymouth on 18 November 1992, fifty-five times in 1993, closing the show fourteen times.
the video
The recording.· I really don’t know watch on youtube →
Live history
| Times played | 80 shows |
|---|---|
| Live debut | Wednesday 18 November 1992 · Plymouth |
| Last played | Saturday 24 June 1995 · Tokyo |
| Closed the night | 14 times |
Nights played include broadcasts; opened and closed count gigs only. A cancelled night has no setlist. All setlist stats →
Tabs (1)
sources7
- Niall Doherty, “‘A hideous mistake’: the 1993 song that Radiohead have tried to scrub from their history”, Louder, 4 November 2024.
- Mac Randall, Exit Music: The Radiohead Story, Omnibus.
- Jonathan Hale, Radiohead: From a Great Height, ECW Press.
- Wyndham Wallace, “World class: how Radiohead gave us The Bends”, The Quietus, 3 March 2015.
- “Out of control on videotape: the 10 best Radiohead music videos”, Stereogum, 13 March 2015.
- Colin Greenwood, interview, NME, 17 October 2024.
- Ryan Dombal, oral history of the “Karma Police” video, Pitchfork, 21 March 2017.