Description
Book SynopsisSince Radiohead's formation in the mid-1980s, the band has celebrated three decades of creative collaboration and achieved critical acclaim across music genres as cultural icons. Recognized not only for their musical talent and daring experimentation, Radiohead is also known for its work's engagement with cultural and political issues. Phil Rose dissects Radiohead's entire catalog to reveal how the music directs our attention toward themes like cyber technology, the environment, terrorism, and the inevitability of the apocalypse. With each new album, Radiohead has sought to reinvent its sound and position in the music industry. Abandoning traditional distribution for their 2007 In Rainbows album, Radiohead experimented with a pay-what-you-want model that embraced the crowd-sourced commerce that has continued to gain prominence in modern consumer culture. In addition to chronicling the band members' various solo projects, Rose outlines Radiohead's political and civic activism. As the mo
Trade ReviewPhil Rose brilliantly walks us through the vibrant vision of Radiohead. As Rose writes, it’s time to wake up to our new world, and the easiest way to do this is to realize that for years, Radiohead has been writing the owner’s manual. -- Brian Cogan, author of The Encyclopedia of Punk
This book is a masterfully written, creative investigation of Radiohead’s interrogation of alienation, mass surveillance, information overload and other conditions that inform so much of what it means to live in the modern world. -- Rob Bowman, York University
An all-encompassing book for Radiohead fans as well as for anyone who is interested in popular music and wants to know what all the fuss is about. Rose elegantly and eloquently illuminates what Radiohead’s music, and Thom Yorke’s lyrics, offer to us as (in the words of Kenneth Burke) a counter-statement against the life of these times in which we live. -- Thom Gencarelli, Manhattan College
Table of ContentsChapter 1 - Becoming Radiohead (1985-1993) Chapter 2 - Towards Technological Apocalypse (1994-1995) Chapter 3 - A Sergeant Pepper for the 'Net' Generation (1996-1998) Chapter 4 - OK Computer (1996-1998) Chapter 5 - Media Fallout (1998-1999) Chapter 6 - Kosovo and the First Human Clone (2000-2001) Chapter 7 - Creeping Totalitarianism (2002-2003) Chapter 8 - Goodbye EMI, Hello Pay What You Want (2004-2008) Chapter 9 - Post-Apocalypse? (2009-2012) Chapter 10 - Forging Forward (2013-2016) Chapter 11 - Looking Backwards (2017-2018)
