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Radiohead · S1 E7
The Demo Tape
Colin Greenwood hands a cassette to a record label scout at a gig. The scout works for EMI. The tape has a song called "Stop Whispering."
Colin Greenwood is working at the Our Price record shop in Oxford when an EMI sales representative named Keith Wozencroft walks in. Colin hands him a demo tape.
"Go to Sleep," Radiohead, official music video (2003). A building collapses in on itself, then rebuilds from the rubble, then collapses again. The perfect visual for this episode: On a Friday falls apart, and something called Radiohead is constructed from the same five people.
The Cassette
Keith Wozencroft is an EMI sales rep who regularly visits Our Price, the record shop where Colin works part-time. Colin, the extrovert of the group, gives him a demo tape that Hufford and Edge helped them record at Courtyard Studios. The tape is sometimes referred to as the Manic Hedgehog demo, containing early versions of "You," "I Can't," and "Thinking About You."
“I just handed it to him. We'd been playing for six years and I thought: if I don't give this to someone now, when do I?”
— Colin Greenwood, Q Magazine, 2001 [paraphrased]
TAP TO REVEAL: How did Radiohead get their name, and what does it mean?
Go to Sleep
"Go to Sleep" opens with a deceptively simple acoustic guitar riff in 10/4 time. The strumming pulls you in like a folk song, then Jonny Greenwood's processed electric guitar enters at a completely different angle and the floor tilts. The lyric "over my dead body" repeats like an incantation, and for a band that had to kill their old name to survive, the phrase carries extra weight.
The Deal
Radiohead signed to Parlophone, an EMI imprint famous for one other band above all others. Which one?
Prove Yourself
"Prove Yourself," Radiohead (Pablo Honey, 1993). The first track on the Drill EP, Radiohead's first ever official release. The chorus repeats "I wanna be, wanna be, wanna be perfect," written by a band that had just been told their name wasn't good enough. This is where the recorded history begins.
On a Friday is dead, and Radiohead has a record deal, a new name, and a studio. Next season: EMI, Pablo Honey, and a song called "Creep."
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To be continued
Season 2: Pablo Honey
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