Radiohead do Portishead’s ‘The Rip’

I didn’t manage to see Radiohead at the weekend (A moral choice. I refuse to pay for overpriced tickets) and have heard very mixed reports but instead, here’s a great clip of Radiohead covering my favourite track (‘The Rip’) off the excellent new Portishead album (Third). True, it doesn’t have the deadly synth bit that’s on the original but still, well worth checking out.

Radiohead – All I Need

I’m not sure if this is the new single by Radiohead or not (I thought it was ‘Nude’)  but they have made a video for ‘All I Need’ in collaboration with MTV (who ironically barely show videos anymore) to bring attention to child exploitation. It’s a nicely made video with an important message, yet I can’t help but feel this is not the right video for this song and vice-versa. ‘All I Need’ is my favourite song off ‘In Rainbows’  which still gets fairly regular listens on my mp3 player. After all the hype, I still think it stands up as a fantastic Radiohead record (easily one of their best) and ‘All I Need’ makes me think of mountaintops and forests and dark dark nights. Nothing like this video, in fact.

Amplive – Rainy Dayz: Radiohead Remixes

Hip-Hop producer and half of Zion I, Amplive, attempted to release his Radiohead remix album a few months ago buy was swiftly informed to cease and desist by Radiohead’s people. After much protesting via Youtube clips, Radiohead have given them the go-ahead and you can now download the remix album, ‘Rainy Dayz’ for free by clicking here. The album includes collaborations with Del the Funky Homosapien, Chali 2na of Jurassic 5, Too $hort and MC Zumbi of Zion I.

At this stage, the idea of remixing Radiohead or using Radiohead samples is pretty old – there seems to be a new one every week but, on first listen, Amplive seems to do it pretty well. A lot of the tracks have a spacey, late-night feel to them and Thom Yorke’s chopped floating vocals work well weaving in and out of the other guested vocals. You can also see Amplive thanking Radiohead for giving him permission to use the tracks below.

Radiohead Discbox/Webcast

It’s a week since I received my copy of the ‘In Rainbows’ discbox. It’s a beautiful thing, even if a lot of the fun of hearing the album has now disappeared, seeing as it’s nearly three months since the download became available. The bonus disc, although a nice extra, isn’t exactly essential. Yes, there are some good songs on there (Bangers & Mash, Four Minute Warning, Down is the New Up) but I also understand why none of them were included on the album proper. There definitely is a Radiohead-by-numbers quality to some of the songs and few jaw-dropping ‘I didn’t expect that’ moments. Certainly nothing to complain about but not something that will change your life either. It is nice to hear the ‘In Rainbows’ songs in their full audio-quality glory, however. And it’s still one of my favourite albums of the year and my favourite Radiohead record since ‘Kid A’.

Was it worth the 60 or so Euros? It’s a difficult one to answer. It certainly feels like a luxurious item, with it’s coffee-table style cover, glossy photo-book, double vinyl , cd and download of the same album plus the coveted bonus disc. And it could certainly be accused of style over substance but I’ve a feeling in five years time, it will be quite a treat to take out this extravagantly packaged album and listen to the rarely-played vinyl (or cd – let’s face it – at least one of these isn’t going to get played very often). I certainly don’t regret buying it so I suppose that answers my own question.

For Radiohead fans that are staying in tonight (New Year’s Eve), Radiohead celebrate the official CD release of the album with a pre-recorded webcast at Midnight GMT at www.radiohead.tv. They will apparently play the album in it’s entirety and in the correct running order. There is also rumoured to be some more cover versions, including a Siouxsie & The Banshees one. Should certainly be worth a peek.

Radiohead do The Smiths, New Order & Bjork

Thanks to Keith, here’s three covers for you taken from Radiohead’s webcast on Friday night. They tackle The Smiths’ ‘Headmaster Ritual’, Joy Division/New Order’s ‘Ceremony’ and Bjork’s ‘Unravel’. What’s intriguing about these covers, is how straight they are. All of them are performed similarly to the originals and Thom Yorke almost sings them in the style of each of the vocalists.

But it’s exciting to see songs by three of my favourite artists covered by another excellent band. Unsurprisingly, none of them match the originals but they still make for intriguing viewing, all the same. For me, The Smiths’ one is particularly fascinating, having grown up as a big Smiths fan. Interestingly, Thom Yorke introduces the song as “about when we were younger but we didn’t write it”.