MetaFilter posts tagged with rock and documentary

Sing us a Song to Keep us Warm, There's Such a Chill

Rhaomi — Sat, 16 Jun 2012 12:06:13 -0800

In the wake of their grunge-y breakout hit "Creep" and the success of sophomore record The Bends, Thom Yorke and the rest of Radiohead were under pressure to deliver once more. So they shut themselves away inside the echoing halls of a secluded 16th century manor and got to work. What emerged from that crumbling Elizabethan castle fifteen years ago today was a shockingly ambitious masterpiece of progressive rock, a visionary concept album that explored the "fridge buzz" of modernity -- alienation, social disconnection, existential dread, the impersonal hum of technology -- through a mosaic of challenging, innovative, eerily beautiful music unlike anything else at the time. Tentatively called Ones and Zeroes, then Your Home May Be at Risk If You Do Not Keep Up Payments, the band finally settled on OK Computer, an appropriately enigmatic title for this acclaimed harbinger of millennial angst. For more, you can watch the retrospective OK Computer: A Classic Album Under Review for a track-by-track rundown, or the unsettling documentary Meeting People is Easy for a look at how the album's whirlwind tour nearly gave Yorke a nervous breakdown. Or look inside for more details and cool interpretations of all the tracks -- including an upcoming MeFi Music Challenge! Album tributes and cover versions: Quinton Sung deftly recreates the whole album in 8-bit chiptune style Stereogum's OKX: a multi-artist tribute (previ-ously) Strung Out on OK Computer: The Vitamin String Quartet's classical cover of the album Rockabye Baby! Lullaby Renditions of Radiohead: Airbag - Paranoid Android - Subterranean Homesick Alien - Let Down - Karma Police - No Surprises Amazingly choreographed renditions from the University of Arizona marching band: Airbag - Paranoid Android - Fitter Happier - Karma Police - Exit Music (From a Film) - Lucky Individual tracks: "Airbag" (notes)

Inspired (along with several other songs) by a car accident Yorke and his girlfriend had been in years before; muses on "the feeling you get when you realise that you've just missed having a serious accident, and the feeling of elation that follows."

"Paranoid Android" (notes)

The most ambitious track, a mutating six-minute sprawl in the tradition of Queen's "Bohemian Rhapsody" and the Beatles' "Happiness is a Warm Gun" that took the band eighteen months of practice to play live. Rooted in a harrowing experience Yorke had in a druggy Los Angeles club, he later passed the track off as a lark, but NME's Luke Lewis (who declared it the best single of the last 15 years) objects:
Far from penning a universal hymn of woe, Thom Yorke claims he picked the title as a self-mocking "joke", and says the lyrics are "not personal at all." Bassist Colin Greenwood remembers the writing process being "a laugh", the result of "getting wasted together". When the band came to actually play the song live, according to guitarist Ed O' Brien the whole thing was "completely hilarious" and had them "pissing ourselves as we played". Anyone would think they'd written 'My Humps', not one of the towering rock songs of the 20th Century. And yet... they protest too much. I have a theory. I think that Radiohead knew they'd written an era-defining masterwork, but - in a very British way - felt embarrassed by the grandeur of their creation, and ever since then have bashfully tried to make light of it. They're not fooling anyone. [...] Anyone with ears and a brain can tell that this is a song about the horror of modernity. Thom Yorke surveys the whole grand sweep of humanity and finds he's disgusted by all of it. [...] Besides, this idea that 'Paranoid Android' was intended as a joke - a sozzled attempt to rewrite Queen’s 'Bohemian Rhapsody' - doesn't quite tally with Yorke's own account of how he wrote the lyrics. They came to him at 5am following a hateful night out amongst coked-up music biz types in Los Angeles. "I was trying to sleep when I literally heard these voices that wouldn't leave me alone," he recalled in 1997. "Basically 'Paranoid Android' is just about chaos, chaos, utter fucking chaos." When pressed to reveal more about the "kicking squealing Gucci little" piggies who inspired the song, Yorke described them as "inhuman… you do often see demons in people's eyes. They're like fucking devils…. Everyone was trying to get something out of me. I felt like my own self was collapsing in the presence of it." Hmm. So not quite dashed off as a rib-tickling novelty wig-out then? Lest you doubt that 'Paranoid Android' burns with a core of genuine misanthropy, note the hex on the single sleeve. The ensuing world tour was called Against Demons. 'Paranoid Android' is a song about seeing evil in the world around you, and being absolutely terrified by it.
Don't miss the phenomenal cover version compiled from dozens of amateur YouTube videos (previously). Other notable takes: - Weezer - Mike Massé acoustic guitar (previously) - Christopher O'Riley on solo piano - jazz pianist Brad Mehldau's 9-minute interpretation - Male and female a capella - early demo version - Easy Star All-Stars reggae version - Sia Furler's soul version - University of Arizona marching band

- Big band arrangement "Subterranean Homesick Alien" (notes)

Namechecks Bob Dylan's Subterranean Homesick Blues and evokes the fanciful "Martian poetry" style to take an anthropologist's eye to mankind's troubles. The need for vintage soft keyboards has led to the track not being played on live tours in the last decade.

"Exit Music (For a Film)" (notes)

Written for the end credits of Romeo+Juliet and partially inspired by Zeffirelli's 1968 version, which had moved a 13-year-old Yorke to tears and wonder why the two lovers never tried to just run away from their families. The intimate vocals were recorded on the manor's stone steps.

"Let Down" (notes)

A melodic musing on the disappointment of glib sentimentality promoted in the media; guitarist Jonny Greenwood plays in a different time signature to amplify the feeling of disconnection and disorientation. For aural effect, it was recorded in the spacious manor ballroom at 3 a.m.

"Karma Police" (notes)

Named for a band in-joke about the "karma police" nabbing anyone who misbehaved, equated with the overly regimented atmosphere in large organizations. Originally passed on by Marilyn Manson, the concept for the backseat music video led to a hairy situation where Yorke was stuck in a car leaking carbon monoxide fumes (referenced later in "No Surprises").

"Fitter Happier" (notes)

A bleak piece dominated by increasingly surreal robotic pronouncements on ways to live a better life (voiced by the same synthesizer Stephen Hawking uses). Yorke claimed the list of imperatives was "the most upsetting thing I've ever written."

"Electioneering" (notes)

Late '90s Britain was swept by the landslide victory of Tony Blair's "New Labour" party, but this angry broadside held no illusions about modern politics. Inspired by both the Poll Tax Riots that helped remove Margaret Thatcher from power and the gladhanding "rope line" atmosphere that dogged the band's American tours.

"Climbing Up the Walls" (notes)

An eerie track from the perspective of various creeping horrors, from serial killers to insane asylums to "the monster in the closet." Prompted by Yorke's experience working part-time in a sanitarium emptied of many dangerous patients by Conservative budget cuts. Incorporates a string section modeled on Krzysztof Penderecki's nerve-wracking "Threnody to the Victims of Hiroshima."

"No Surprises" (notes)

The first song recorded for the album (and on the first take). The music video, involving Yorke locked into a 2001-esque space helmet slowly filling with water, was somewhat disturbing to make, even with special effects tricks to speed up the submersion sequence.

"Lucky" (notes)

Recorded in five hours for a charity benefiting Bosnian War victims, the band considered this track their best. Brian Eno agreed, calling it "the most beautiful song I've heard for a long, long time."

"The Tourist" (notes)

A slower, spacier closing track written by Greenwood as a reaction the breakneck pace of the other tracks. Thematically linked to the rampant pace of technology as well as to the opening track's car crash, implying a kind of Joycean circularity to the album.

MeFi Music Challenge: Recently announced and still open to applications is next month's Music Challenge -- multiple cover versions of every OK Computer track by Mefites of all stripes. Discussion is over in MetaTalk; here's the set list for now:

Airbag: unSane, The Great Big Mulp, naju, davejay, Corduroy, bedhead Paranoid Android: InfidelZombie, chococat, Ardiril, Jofus, ignignokt, ZsigE Subterranean Homesick Alien: snsranch, dobie, god hates math, Rube R. Nekker, burnmp3s, dismas Exit Music (For A Film): askmeaboutLOOM, koeselitz, th3ph17, two lights above the sea, O9scar, the_very_hungry_caterpillar Let Down: dubold, pyramid termite, The World Famous, curious nu, fleacircus, theichibun Karma Police: uncleozzy, tigrefacile, erikgrande, Acari, michaelh, lazaruslong, modernserf Fitter Happier: sleepy pete, azarbayejani, flapjax at midnite, Listener, threeants, freya_lamb Electioneering: TwoWordReview, motty, muhonnin, roboton666, not_on_display, MrVisible Climbing Up The Walls: Doleful Creature, Elmore, supercres, Captain Najork, Johnny Wallflower, Sebmojo No Surprises: cortex, Grangousier, John Cohen, visual mechanic, OrangeGloves, the jam Lucky: grog, cmoj, googly, idiopath, Karlos the Jackal, greenish The Tourist: cathodeheart, qnarf, sinnesloeschen, Philosopher Dirtbike, evoque, zix

Other: An entire OK Computer live show (previously) Liner notes and artwork (part 2) The album's cryptic liner art analyzed Interview with cover designer Stanley Donwood Were OK Computer and In Rainbows meant to be played over each other? Radiohead and T.S. Eliot Not from OKC, but this creepy animation based on "2+2=5" is worth watching (previously) as is the "Homeless Mustard" cover of "Creep" (previously)

Jim Fields and Michael Gramaglia's "End of the Century: The Story of the Ramones"

Trurl — Wed, 09 Nov 2011 14:01:49 -0800

The most vivid figure in Michael Gramaglia and Jim Fields's End of the Century was the least articulate and most archetypal of the Ramones: Johnny, the right-wing prole whose hard-ass sense of style the others nutballed and softened and accelerated and above all imitated. ... Exciting and absolutely right though their '70s sets always were, the film establishes that they kept the faith live till the end, lifted by Joey's goofy dedication and powered by the chords Johnny thrashed out like they were why he was alive. As unyielding in his aesthetic principles as he was in everything else, this reactionary was an avant-gardist in spite of himself. - Robert Christgau

Such Hawks Such Hounds

mhjb — Tue, 28 Jun 2011 02:17:50 -0800

Such Hawks Such Hounds explores the music and musicians of the American hard rock underground circa 1970-2007, focusing on the psychedelic and '70s proto-metal-derived styles that have in recent years formed a rich body of unclassifiable sounds.

I'm in love. What's that song?

Lovecraft In Brooklyn — Sat, 16 Apr 2011 09:49:09 -0800

Color Me Obsessed is a new documentary about legendary Minneapolis rock band The Replacements. It features over 140 interviews with rockers, journalists and fans (including Colin Meloy, Craig Finn, Tommy Ramone and Robert Christgau) but not one note of the Mats music. Director Gorman Bechard has been documenting the making of the film on his blog and screening it in select cities.

The Who Live in 1965

zzazazz — Sat, 11 Dec 2010 10:09:41 -0800

The Who in 1965. They are featured in a French documentary on the Mods. You can skip ahead to the Who live songs if you are not in the mood to watch the whole documentary.

From Google Translate: "Discover the new English youth in the district of Hammersmith, London suburbs and particularly the movement "mods" or "Modern", new dandies, mavericks ouvrier.Les interviews from rural youth about drugs, Police headquarters, politics, racism, society in general, alternate with concert footage of WHO on a small stage in London. Interview in French Kit Lambert, manager of the WHO, about Teddy Boys movement, rockers, mods."

Caught in a landslide, No escape from reality

zarq — Thu, 22 Apr 2010 18:14:16 -0800

The Story of Bohemian Rhapsody: Parts: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6. (From BBC Three.) Oh, and... Queen: Original Video, In concert at Live Aid. Other live performances: 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5. Here's the Wayne's World scene that's mentioned in the documentary, mixed with footage from the video. Wikipedia provides additional background. Many artists have covered Bohemian Rhapsody over the years, and some of those are available online: * Queen, Elton John and Axl Rose at the Freddie Mercury Tribute Concert. * P!nk 1, 2 (Funhouse Tour, where she's also been covering other songs, like I Touch Myself, Highway to Hell and Hey Jude.) * The Muppets (Previously on MeFi) * Phish (It's badly off-key in spots) * The Flaming Lips * Faye Wong (crappy quality) Lesser Knowns * Mnozil Brass * Constantine Maroulis (Former American Idol contestant) * The Braids * Hayseed Dixie * The Ten Tenors * Edgar Cruz * Jake Shimabukuro * Sing Live Unconventional Renditions * Rockabye Baby (website) Their We are the Champions is better, IMO. * Old School Computer Remix (Previously on Mefi) * The Kleptones (33 different cover versions in one song). * Direct link to MP3 for download. (Previously on Mefi) * Weird Al, Bohemian Polka Horrors * Kellie Pickler (Former American Idol Contestant) * Rick Miller (Celebrity Impersonations) We Will Rock You The Queen Jukebox Musical (yes, there was one) would play Bohemian Rhapsody after the curtain call. The curtains would close, and a question would appear: Do You Want Bohemian Rhapsody? Oh.... Alright Then. WWRY: 1, 2 and the cast at West End Live, here. (at 8:15) Audio Only * Audio Ogg Vorbis file: Bohemian Rhapsody (live at Milton Keynes Bowl, 1982) * YouTube: Rolf Harris Other The song was also used in a Mountain Dew commercial.

glimpses of the African Rock n' Roll Years

nickyskye — Tue, 30 Dec 2008 08:45:01 -0800

Clips from the BBC documentary, The African Rock n' Roll Years - Part 1 l Part 2 l Part 3 l Part 4 l Part 5 l Part 6 - a six-part series mixing interviews with key artists, concert footage and news archives, the series examines and explains the "styles that make up the continent's music, and the political and social pressures that led to their development." BBC documentary details. Found in YouTube member, Duncanzibar's, good collection of mostly African music videos. Details of the full documentary: "Episode 1: WEST AFRICA: Praise Singers and Superstars This is the story of how the musical caste lost their monopoly, taken over by state intervention and a craze for Cuban music, which helped to create one of the most exciting music scenes in the world today. Featured artists include Youssou N'Dour, Baaba Maal, Salif Keita, Orchestra Baobab, Rokia Traore, Ali Farka Toure and Daara J. Ep 2: SOUTH AFRICA: Rhythms of Resistance South Africa's vibrant music scene developed in the apartheid era, when songs were used as a way of hitting back against repression. Featured artists include Hugh Masekela, Miriam Makeba, Abdullah Ibrahim, Ladysmith Black Mambazo, Thomas Mapfumo from Zimbabwe and newcomer Thandiswa. Ep 3: COASTAL SOUNDS: Sierra Leone to Cameroon This programme explores the effect of calypso on the 'palmwine' styles that developed in Sierra Leone and Nigeria. It tells how music from Sierra Leone and elsewhere affected the massively popular highlife dance styles of Ghana, and how palmwine music was also to influence the makossa dance scene in Cameroon. Featured artists include Fela Kuti, Femi Kuti, King Sunny Ade, Osibisa, Alpha Blondy, Angelique Kidjo and Manu Dibango. Ep 4: CENTRAL AFRICA: Congo Jive Some of the most infectious dance music in Africa came from Kinshasa on the Congo river, as guitarists and band-leaders mixed local and Cuban influences to create the rumba and soukous styles that shook up dance floors across Africa and beyond. Featured artists include Franco, Tabu Ley Rochereau, Ray Lema, Pepe Kalle, Konono No 1 and Corneille. Ep 5: LUSOPHONE AFRICA: The Lisbon Legacy Angola, Mozambique, Guinea Bissau and Cape Verde were cut off from neighbouring states because the language of their colonisers was Portuguese and not French or English. The musicians developed distinctive styles; from the high-energy rhythms of Angola to the sad-edged blues and European-influenced ballads of the Cape Verde islands. Featured artists include Cesaria Evora, Manecas Costa, Mariza, Bonga and Mabulu. Ep 6: NORTH AFRICA: Rai Rebels and Desert Blues The programme follows the careers of rai stars like Khaled and the Arabic rocker Rachid Taha, and also the great female singers who have emerged from Islamic North Africa and from further east in Christian Ethiopia. Featured artists include Tinariwen, Khaled, Rachid Taha, Souad Massi, the musicians of Jajouka Amina and (from Ethiopia) Gigi and Aster Aweke." Each clip is about 1/7th the length of the original series but still worth watching. Lots of music, examples, so one can seek out music by those musicians and very listenable music history.

Rockabilly Rundown

Miko — Sat, 26 Apr 2008 13:24:09 -0800

Whole Lotta Shakin' - a PRI documentary series on the history of rockabilly, hosted by Rosie Flores.