Radiohead Classically Reimagined

Jon Wheeler
7 days ago
3 min read

‘Radiohead Reimagined’ the Facebook ad said. A classical, candlelight interpretation of Radiohead’s greatest hits, live in Chichester Cathedral. Regular readers of the blog will know that anything that faintly whiffs of classical I leave to Tess, but this one had me a bit intrigued. Today I’m going to share a short video with you of part of the performance, and a few of the original Radiohead tracks that featured, so you can compare and contrast.

An ensemble orchestra in a cathedral — The London Concertante in Chichester Cathedral

For the uninitiated, Radiohead are a five piece rock band from Oxford. I first became aware of them when a track from their first album ‘Pablo Honey’, was featured on one of those cds you used to get with Q magazine. I can’t remember what the track was, but I invested, and I properly became a fan when their second album, ‘The Bends’ came out in 1995.

If you’ve heard of any Radiohead album at all, it would most likely be their third ‘Ok Computer’ which has been widely accepted as one of the defining records of the end of the 20th century. Themes of a dystopian world, full of consumerism, alienation, death, insanity and transport were not to everyone’s taste, and not everybody loves Thom Yorke’s vocal delivery, but the sheer epic quality and, I dunno, sonic bravery? of their music is hard to deny. If there was a rule book for a hit record, Radiohead never read it, but they did it anyway.

And then, with the critical world at their feet, they started making records even more progressive and devoid of obvious singles. Like The Beatles, the band had reached a stage where they could do pretty much whatever they wanted, regardless of what people expected or wanted them to do.

Anyway. Enough history for now. Radiohead’s music is unexpected, often beautiful…. Dynamic, and the London Concertante obviously believe that could translate well into an ensemble arrangement, so I went to check it out.

I think the only way I can give you a taster really is to show you a short video of them playing, and then offer you a video of the original track upon which it is based. Did they capture the mood of the original - I’ll let you decide…

My Iron Lung : Compare & Contrast

Most of the tracks selected for the evening came from the 2016 album ‘A Moon Shaped Pool’ - this was probably because the band’s later work is easier to imagine as a classical arrangement, with songs like ‘Burn The Witch’ (below) already possessing the right kind of instrumental elements.

So not actually quite so much ‘Radiohead’s Greatest Hits’ as a selection of those most effectively ‘reimagined’. Tracks like the band’s first, infamous single ‘Creep’, ‘Just’ and ‘Street Spirit (Fade Out) from “The Bends”, and ‘Karma Police’ and ‘Paranoid Android’ from “OK Computer” didn’t feature, despite being, I would have thought, potentially good choices. ‘Fake Plastic Trees’ and ‘No Surprises’ both featured however, and ‘Lucky’, which the band originally recorded and donated to the Warchild charity album.

Interestingly both of the tracks the band submitted to the James Bond franchise ‘Man Of War’ and ‘Spectre’ featured, even though neither actually ultimately featured in any of the films. ‘Man Of War’ was rejected because it wasn’t an original piece written specifically for the film (which apparently means that it couldn’t be eligible for an Oscar) and ‘Spectre’ was ultimately rejected in favour of Sam Smith’s ‘Writing’s On The Wall’.

Overall I thought it was really good....

Maybe a bit too much ‘Moon Shaped Pool’ and a little more actual ‘reimagining’ - if I’m going to be super critical. All of the tracks were played with the intensity and tempo of the original pieces, one could argue that a slower, stripped back version of a song like ‘Creep’ could have achieved. There are certainly many varied covers of the track out there that successfully ‘reimagine’ the song. Like this...