So what are Radiohead so abject about, anyway? In their new documentary, Meeting People Is Easy, the Brit rockers betrayal the torments of avant-garde life: bout buses, airports, photo shoots, the works. Video administrator Grant Gee, who fabricated Radiohead's "No Surprises" clip, followed them on their 1997-98 apple bout for their accomplished OK Computer, the headphone composition that dared to brainstorm Morrissey and Pink Floyd trading cabal theories in one of David Bowie's amplitude capsules. It's not absolutely account that bedrock distinction is a annoying gig, but it's never looked this bad before, and you can't yield your eyes off it. Gee uses all of his technically beauteous furnishings to about-face the bout into a jittery, about achromatic becloud of images, a ninety-four-minute consciousness-expanding collage of alley fatigue. There's no sex or drugs in Meeting People, and adored little bedrock & cycle – even the concert footage rarely gives up a accomplished song at a time. The music just weaves in and out of the accomplishments as the lads beam out of auberge windows and contemplate the base of their existential despair. They don't accommodated any groupies (sub-prize!), but they do get some account done, abnormally their own reviews. You don't feel apologetic for Radiohead, absolutely (that's their job). Instead, you just curiosity at – and backbiting – all the rock-star ego on display, the affectionate of ego that inspires 5 affluent and acclaimed adolescent men to agency a feature-length art blur about how apathetic they are with their work. Boredom has consistently been a key rockumentary ingredient; we adulation to see our bedrock gods ache for us, and we adulation to see them get apathetic on an ballsy scale. Think of Bob Dylan in 1966's Eat the Document, aggressive morning affection in the aback of a limo with John Lennon, searching like he'd rather be anywhere else. Think of the '72 Stones in Cocksucker Blues, aggravating to account a beggarly little bake-apple bloom from allowance service. Usually, though, there's some absolution in the music. Even Cocksucker Blues has that arena area Keith Richards blisses out audition the 45 of "Happy" for the aboriginal time, axis into an innocent fan appropriate afore our eyes, until the almanac skips and he snaps aback into his own angry Keithness. But there's no beatitude or angry in Meeting People, just the aloof accepted of able accessory celebrity. By the end, these guys attending like the TV could bandy them out the auberge window.
Meeting People's abnormally affecting highlight comes in the aback of a New York cab, rolling from a absurd gig to a absurd afterparty, as Thom Yorke starts absent out loud about his fans, apprehensive whether they apprehend his music the way he hears his admired Smiths and R.E.M. records. "The abstraction that you would be one of those bands to somebody," Thom muses sleepily. "That affair of it getting imprinted on your heart, you know? Every agenda of it." Again the cab arrives at the club, area the bouncer will not let him in. "Dude, address a song about it," the bouncer taunts as Thom staggers away. "Radiohead! Creep! Dickhead!" You can't acquaint whether it's the amiss club or whether the bouncer just will not let Thom into his own party, but either way it's a amusing moment, abounding of burghal activity and the blackmail of abandon – it feels about like bedrock & roll. And then, of course, it's aback to work.
This adventure is from the April 29th, 1999 affair of Rolling Stone.
From The Archives Affair 811: April 29, 1999
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