Radiohead's Fake Plastic Trees (May 15, 1995)

Fifteen years ago today, on May 15, 1995, Radiohead released "Fake Plastic Trees," the third single from their second album, The Bends. Earlier this year, we here at Chronological Snobbery paused to reflect upon it, a nearly perfect rock song. You can find that prior commentary here.

Radiohead's "Pop is Dead" (May 1993)

Radiohead's "Pop is Dead," the band's first single, is probably its least well known song. Released some time in May of 1993 (some sources say May 10, 1993, seventeen years ago today), it hit stores just a few short months after the release of the band's debut album, Pablo Honey. As a non-album single dwarfed by the success of their mega-hit "Creep," the song is little remembered today, especially since the band appears to have permanently retired it from its set list. B-sides on the original "Pop is Dead" single included "Banana Co. (Acoustic)" and live versions of "Creep" and "Ripcord." You can see the video for the song here (and wonder how the band depicted therein could have ever written the stellar "Paranoid Android" just a few years later).

There's been a bit of Internet analysis of the song and its place in the Radiohead oeuvre. The Radiohead fan site Green Plastic comments:

Bound for Pablo Honey, this song was actually left off the album. Thom describes it as "a king of epitaph to 1992. Hence the lines, 'Pop is dead/long live pop/Died an ugly death by back catalogue.'" Band members seem to concur that this is a very weak track, deserving of the scathing reviews it received.

"Pop Is Dead" is the second single released by Radiohead. It is the only Radiohead single not available on one of their albums.

Released only several months after their debut single "Creep" and their debut album Pablo Honey, the song also hit before "Creep" had begun its slow and surprising ascent up the pop charts worldwide. "Pop Is Dead" reached number 42 on the UK Singles Chart in May 1993.

James Doheny, writing in his book, Radiohead: Back to Save the Universe: The Stories Behind Every Song, notes:

Although not strictly a B-side, "Pop is Dead" was actually the band's final single of 1993. However, it deserves to be treated as a B-side for the simple reason that its' not very good. This, presumably, is why the track was left off Pablo Honey in the first place.

Comedy, however ironic, only works when the underlying music is top class, and the fundamentally routine rocker tries to be a little to clever for its own good.

For the longest time, the original "Pop is Dead" CD single remained out of print, making the song incredibly difficult to locate in that format. (It also appeared as a b-side on the similarly difficult to find "Stop Whispering" single, which I believe is also now out of print.). If a collector wanted to own the original CD single, eBay was one of his or her options, and a high price was expected.

A live version of the song did appear on the 1995 Live at the Astoria videocassette release, which documented the band's May 27, 1994 concert at that venue. (Lead singer Thom Yorke introduced the song at that show by noting that it was "dedicated to members of the press, as it always has been."). That concert was later released on DVD in 2005. However, unlike several of the band's other EPs and singles, the original "Pop is Dead" single remained out of print. However, when the Collector's Edition of Pablo Honey was released in 2009, its second disc, a collection of b-sides and rarities, included "Pop is Dead." But like most things, it wasn't really worth the wait.

Conan O'Brien Covers Radiohead's "Creep" (April 12, 2010)

Sure, you probably already saw this clip of Conan O'Brien covering Radiohead's "Creep" during the sound check for the first stop on his"Legally Prohibited from Being Funny on Television Tour" in Eugene, Oregon this past week. But I couldn't resist reposting it. It's a Radiohead cover.

Stereogum notes in a post this week that Radiohead was Conan O'Brien's very first musical guest on his old NBC show, "Late Night with Conan O'Brien," back in 1993, and that blog even posted a video of that performance which was, of course, of the band playing "Creep." The blog Green Plastic Radiohead has a similar post but also includes a clip of Radiohead's very first U.S. television appearance, on "The Arsenio Hall Show." My, how things come full circle.

The Week That Was (3/6 - 3/12)

Below, you'll find some quotes and links from The Week That Was:
1. "I hate that Radiohead didn’t break up after OK Computer. Had that happened, I guarantee that OK would have shot up the totem pole of legendary records. I consider it to be one of the many travesties in rock history, alongside the death of John Bonham and the existence of Hall and Oats [sic]. And Kid A, the album to follow OK Computer, is also on that list of travesties. Look, I’m not going to bash Radiohead in the same snobby manner as others; they once were and still have the capacity to be an amazing band. But Kid A is where the buck stops." - K.A. Coldwell, writing in this piece, on the blog entitled Tipping the Lion, on March 6, 2010. Really? Coldwell would do away with not just Kid A, but also Amnesiac, Hail to the Thief, and In Rainbows? This seems rather extreme, don't you think? Coldwell must have really hated Kid A. Really hated it. It's not for everyone, but I wouldn't erase it from existence, either.

2. Picky Girl, author of the blog, Picky Girl: Discussions of food, film, and fiction (and everything in between), finally gets around to reading The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay by Michael Chabon. Says she: "I loved the characters. I wanted them to be happy. I hurt when they hurt. That being said, I was very conscious that I was reading this book. I wasn’t wrapped up in it. There were times when Chabon lost me. There were moments when I swore if I read another sentence as long and convoluted as the last that I would put down the book and mark it off my list as “I sure gave it my best…” Chabon likes his sentences. They’re pretty, and he knows it. I wish he weren’t so darn conscious of that fact," - The Picky Girl, writing in this piece, on the blog entitled The Picky Girl, on March 7, 2010.

3. Chris over at The Invincible Super Blog has a post entitled, "Wake Up and Smell the '90s." How could I not link to that? A caveat: It's about Wolverine.

4. Ryan V. at Distorted Veracity is a self described "voracious reader," and this week, he walks us through the latest tomes he's read and enjoyed. He appears to dig non-fiction.

Radiohead's "Fake Plastic Trees" (1995)

Listening to Radiohead's "The Bends" record, and to the "Fake Plastic Trees" song in particular, takes me back to 1995, when I was attending a large public university. Music certainly has the ability to take us back to the past in a powerful Proustian rush. Of course, like most, I had come to know Radiohead several years before with the release of Pablo Honey, which featured the single "Creep," the song with crashing and crunching guitar. But at that time, most people assumed that Radiohead was simply destined to be an alternative one hit wonder. With the release of 1997's OK Computer, I officially rediscovered the band and was hooked. With that album, Radiohead became RADIOHEAD (bold, underlined, starred, et cetera).

But before all of that, there was "Fake Plastic Trees." Its slow and perfect wistfulness really does bring me back to the mid-1990s, although unlike some songs, I don't associate it with a particular person or event. I do know, however, that I have listened to the compact disc so many times that I had to purchase it again because my original was scratched to hell from repeated use. How many records besides The White Album can you say that about?

In sum, this is the perfect rock ballad. (Should I say power ballad, or is that song forever associated with the despicable likes of Poison and Warrant, who appropriated the term for their own nefarious and talentless purposes? And I have condemned myself to rock critic hell for mentioning Poison and Warrant in the same paragraph as Radiohead, by far the best band of the 1990s?) Regardless, the song begins with light, acoustic guitar accompaniment, and with each succeeding verse, more instrumentation is added, until finally, we hear a symphonic arrangement of electric guitar as the song reaches its ultimate crescendo. All of this, led by lead singer Thom Yorke's hauntingly melancholy voice, and you have a recipe for one of the better singles released at that time. Really, were there any worthy competitors in 1995?

Oh, and if you haven't heard the acoustic version of this song (which appeared on the soundtrack for the film, Clueless, of all places), then you're missing out. That soundtrack also includes a swell cover of Mott the Hoople's "All The Young Dudes" done by World Party.

Radiohead on Top of the Pops (February 1, 1996)

Fourteen years ago today, on February 1, 1996, Radiohead appeared on the British television show, "Top of the Pops," and performed "Street Spirit (Fade Out)" from their then new album, The Bends. (The video of this performance can be found above.). It was with that album, their second, that the band established that they would not remain a one hit wonder (something that even their most fierce partisans suspected they might become in 1993 when "Creep" was their hit single.). Not only does The Bends contain the radio friendly "High N' Dry," and the introspective "My Iron Lung," it also features "Fake Plastic Trees," a nearly flawless rock song, which starts softly but gradually builds until it a powerful and emotive power ballad, if that term applies. But "Street Spirit (Fade Out)," with its haunting opening, is what they played 14 years ago today.

The Week That Was (1/23 - 1/29)

• Above you'll find a recent "Chuck and Beans" comic strip published by Brian at the Shoebox blog this past week. (See the original post, with comments, from that blog here.). How wonderfully it encapsulates the violence that the Internets have done to nostalgia. (Hat tip to Ryan, former author of The League of Melbotis, for forwarding this gem.).
  
  
• Brad Luen at the East Bay View blog posits an interesting theory: Not only did Radiohead not release the best album of 1990s, they also did not release the best album of the 200os. Can he be correct? In advancing this heresy, he rejects the recent best of decade lists claiming that 2000's Kid A was the best album of the past few years; he also goes so far as to claim that 1997's OK Computer was neither the first nor second best of its decade as well. Is it possible that one of the greatest bands of the past two decades could not have captured a best album of the decade designation in either of those two decades? Surely not.


• "This is going to be the last post on this blog for a while, if not ever," the author of the sporadically updated Ramblings of a 21st Century Digital Boy, perhaps soliciting a myriad of comments begging him to reconsider, but more likely, permanently retiring from the blogosphere, in this announcement, entitled "My Only Friend, The End." (1/22/10). Although this is not the first time the author of this site has threatened to retire, it appears that on this occasion, he may be serious, particularly in light of the (successful?) farewell of the related site, The League of Melbotis, a now defunct pop culture blog. Accordingly, I have moved Ramblings from the official blog roll to the Dead Blog Cemetery in the sidebar.


• Resquiat in pacem: J.D. Salinger (1919 - 2010). Though this site has existed (sporadically) for the past three years, I've written only one post mentioning J.D. Salinger. If you're interested, click here to see that post, entitled "J.D. Salinger and Two Films of 2002."