Director: Brett Tumbull
A bog standard
live performance. It's too boring. Everything is covered with a translucent
glow. Laugh at Ed's haircut. This was before radiohead had any money to make interesting
videos. So there you go.
NOTE: MTV have decided to be clever, so clicking on any of the *MTV* links will take you straight to the mtv site. to get around this:
The realvideo files are gone for the moment. Maybe
they're re-appear soon.
You'll need a quicktime viewer to see these clips, so
if you don't have them, go here.
Full-length streaming radiohead videos can be
found at http://www.altvideos.com.
Note: The Radiohead video, Seven Television Commercials is now
available to buy on video. It features the 7 classic Radiohead promo videos:
Paranoid Android, Street Spirit, High & Dry (US version), No Surprises, Just, Fake
Plastic Trees and Karma Police. You can buy this online from CDNOW.
|
Creep: quicktime: ATN MTV Director: Brett Tumbull A bog standard
live performance. It's too boring. Everything is covered with a translucent
glow. Laugh at Ed's haircut. This was before radiohead had any money to make interesting
videos. So there you go. |
 |
El President: quicktime: MTV Drugstore duet with Thom Yorke released as a single which also had a video to accompany the release. The original idea for the video was for Isobelle Monteiro (Drugstore singer) and Thom to appear naked in the video bound in thick ropes. The idea was obviously ludicrous, but the band spread the rumour around that it was true. Which, of course, it isn't. This MTV clip is awfully biased towards radiohead; it's completely thom. You can see Isobelle's back... |
 |
Fake Plastic Trees: quicktime: ATN MTV Location: An aircraft hangar, Los Angeles Director: Jake Scott What happens: Thom
sits in a shopping trolley being pushed around a supermarket where goods are stacked
according to their colour. |
Various bizarre images pass by - old men with pistols, babies
being carried around and shop
assistants using pricing machines as tools of violence. Finally, as Thom reaches the end
of the
song he finds the exit and leaves.
The idea: "The film is actually an allegory for death
and reincarnation but if you can read that
into it you must be as weird as the people who made it." - Jake Scott
The inside story: "When Thom reachers the exit he looks
back and sees a little boy. That boy
is meant to represent Thom's reincarnation after death of leaving the supermarket."
Was it easy to get Thom to sit in the shopping trolley?
"Yeah, he'll try anything. He actually
said he was fascinated by watching himself in close-up because he'd never really observed
his strange eye in such detail.
The director on Radiohead: "They're bright guys so the
don't need all the ideas explaining to
them. They're a very open-minded kind of group."
 |
High & Dry (UK version): quicktime: ATN Location: Vasquez Rocks, California Director: David Mould What happens:
Radiohead play out in the desert in front of a water tanker. The picture resembles a radar
screen on an aircraft. As the song plays it starts to rain heavily. |
The idea: "We wanted to put the band somewhere a bit
alien. It's a very sensitive song so we
tried to create something a bit hard that would contrast with the mood of the music. The
targets were intended to make it look like it was beamed down from space to mssion
control." - David Mould.
The inside story: "We went to Los Angeles because we
were hoping for really beautiful
sunshine but when we got there they were in the middle of the biggest storms for 40 years
and ended up not being able to film for three days. Nobody had warned us."
The unnecessary humiliation: "When we turned on the rain
machine we didn't realise you
could warm up the water beforehand so the whole band ended up being doused in ice cold
water and getting flu. Colin was shaking so much I thought he was going to keel
over."
The director on Radiohead: "They were really cool and
just got on with it, despite us
covering them in freezing cold water for three hours."
 |
High and Dry (US version): quicktime: MTV Director: Paul Cunningham A Pulp
Fiction-esque video. Thom and Co enter a diner called 'Dicks', and order food there. Jonny
has a portable tv. People are singing high and dry (but not radiohead). thom goes to wash
his face in the washroom. |
He smiles at a boy. Meanwhile, strange things are happening
at the diner. A guy with his girlfriend
puts a key in mayonaise and it is taken away to the dishwasher, who
finds the key... There's another
man, clutching a briefcase. he looks worried about something. he leaves the
toilet, and runs outside
to make a phonecall. The guy and his girlfriend take a brown paper bag from
the dishwasher. They
promptly leave the bar and drive off in their car. The girl opens the package, and
it's a bomb. Scream.
Mr Paranoid with the briefcase gets assassinated (i think). Inside, a guy sits smug
and satisfied and
sings the last lines of High & Dry. No, I don't understand what's going on
either.
 |
Just: quicktime: MTV Location: Near Liverpool Street Station, London Director: Jamie Thraves What happens: A
man inexplicably lies down in the street. A crown gathers to try to help him up but when
he refuses they demand to know what's wrong with him. |
Meanwhile Radiohead play 'Just' in a nearby flat. Eventually
the man reluctantly agrees
to tell them why he's lying down. The subtitles cut out so we only see him mouthing the
words. When they hear his reason they all lie down as well.
The idea: "I'd already written a story along the lines
of the video and when I was sent the
track it seemed to fit perfectly with what I had already dreamed up." - Jamie
Thraves.
The inside story: "We weren't originally going to have
the band in the video very much but
when we filmed them in the bedroom Thom's performance of the song was so wonderful to
watch we had to include it."
What does that bloke say at the end? " I can't tell you.
To actually tell you the reason he's
lying down would deaden the impact. And it'd make you lie down in the street as well.
The director on Radiohead: "They're very sweet people. Very gentle."
 |
Karma Police: quicktime: MTV Director: Jonathan Glazer A
near-comatose Thom rides in the back seat of a car chasing a man down a country
lane. Turning to face his pursuers, the victim causes their car to reverse and,
spotting a trail of petrol leading to the vehicle, sets fire to it. The car fails to
outrun the flames and is engulfed. Thom has disappeared. |
Jonathan Glazer: "The idea came about from a silly
nightmare really. The song's all
about retribution, so I wanted to do something that was a metaphor, the pursuer becoming
the pursued, in a cicular, Kubrick-like linear shot. I wanted Thom to be seen as the
storyteller
rather than the subject. He keeps his eyes shut which gives the video a dream
quality as
if everything was just happening around him, while the viewer is actually behind the
wheel,
driving the car from their point of view. I think it worked because what Thom writes
is what
I would write if I could, and what I shoot is what he would shoot if he could. The
idea is
connected with him.
 |
My Iron Lung: quicktime: MTV Recorded live at the Astoria, 1994. |
 |
No Surprises: quicktime: MTV Director: Grant Gee Thom lip-synchs with his head in a fishbowl that's slowly filling up with water. As the back-to-front lyrics scroll up the screen, the water fills the bowl and Thom holds his breath until you think he's about to asphyxiate. The water drains away and, having first gasped grotesquely, Thom finishes the song grinning. |
Grant Gee: "The inspiration came from two things.
Firstly, Blue Peter, circa 1974:
Singleton, Noakes and Purves biting their nails to the quick as they watched some
minor escapologist in a Houdini scenario, locked, chained, strait-jacketed, and hung
upside down in a tank of water. Secondly, a freeze from 2001: A Space Odyssey.
HAL starts getting pissy with Bowman and wont open the doors to let him back on the
ship... a huge close-up of his face as panic starts to wash over it. It's the
perfect image
of anxiety and helplessness in the face of technology."
 |
Paranoid Android: quicktime: MTV Director: Magnus Carlsson A Robin
cartoon, Robin being an underground cartoon thing. Unlike 'Just', this doesn't come
with subtitles, leaving the viewer very confused. Don't know what the video is
about? No one else seems to know either. Some things that happen: |
Robin goes to a bar and meets people who make fun of him
(note the band sitting around
a table, ed's big ears!); he plays ping pong with an angel, and the like. There's a
fat naked
bloke who chops off his arms and legs before falling into a river. Strange.
Useless trivia: It's
interesting to note that this Robin video is actually longer than the normal Robin
cartoons you'll
see on TV, (6 minutes 22 seconds, as opposed to a cartoon which barely reaches 3
minutes).
 |
Rabbit In Your Headlights full video 6.5 megs, requires Quicktime 3 (link from Lucky) Director: Jonathan Glazer Without a doubt, Jonathan Glazer's best video to date. Set in a car tunnel in Stockholm, an absolutely insane person in duffle coat walks in the middle of the road in the tunnel. Cars behind and in front of him honk and screech their ways around around him. Some cars even knock the poor bloke over. |
People offer to give him a lift, but the man continues to
gibber to himself. At the end of
the video, he stands in front of the next car, and arms in a crucifix position, allows it
to
crash into him. The car does, and explodes, with the man still standing.
Banned by MTV.
Why am i not surprised?
Jonathan Glazer: "The idea is obviously controversial,
which was why we agreed to make
certain compromises for MTV. Firstly, they said they'd show it if we pixilated the
collisions
and, because so many people had worked on it and we really wanted it to be seen, we
agreed.
Then we had to remove the sound of the impacts. And they still refused to
show it because the
actor playing the madman was too unnerving and subversive. They won't show the video
because the actor is too good! What they're saying is anyone on the edge of society
shouldn't
be seen on television... MTV's definition of 'The Real World' is four models living
together in a
luxury flat. They seem perfectly happy to show videos featuring models who look like
they're
on heroin, but the UNKLE video isn't fashion pain or panto punk. Maybe I should have
stuck
the actor in a Stussy parka."
 |
Stop Whispering: quicktime: MTV Director: Jeff Plansker The US version
because there was no British version. Strangely enough, stop whispering wasn't
released as a single in the UK. This video features the band playing on a roof(?),
and thom's hair is... well see for yourself. There's a picture on the left... |
 |
Street Spirit: quicktime: ATN MTV Location: A stretch of desert just outside Los Angeles Director: Jonathan Glazer What happens: Thoms stands singing with his eyes closed while random images flash past, some of them in slow motion. Barking dogs, small boys, locusts, paint and smashed glass all feature heavily. Meanwhile the rest of the band fall off chairs and jump around, also in slow motion. |
The idea: "We wanted to make something really elegant
and beautiful. I wanted something
that would create space in the viewer's imagination to complement the steam of
consciousness of the song." - Thom.
The inside story: "Thom wanted it to be like a dream and
liked the idea of nobody really
getting anywhere." - Jonathan Glazer.
The mad stunt: Thom jumps backwards off the trailer and
appears to land an inch above the
ground. "He had three or four Jack Daniels beforehand but it was still pretty brave
of him to
do it himself. We had a mattress which he fell onto and that had to be edited out of the
final
version by computer." -Jonathan Glazer
The director on Radiohead: "They have a very clear idea
of who they are and what they
want. They're always aiming to make a statement."
Thom and Jonny at a photo shoot: quicktime from thebluedot.com/greenberg.
various (mtv links): anyonecanplayguitarlive thebendslive creeplive highanddrylive streetspiritlive
(Note: All infomation on the bends promo
videos (except H&D US) are taken from a Jan/Feb 1996 issue of RAW).
(also: Infomation on NS/KP taken from Select June 1998. RIYH quote from Select,
December 1998)
(The quicktime movies are a
bunch of links to clips that come from MTV and Addicted to Noise,
so if they don't work, it's not my fault)
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