7 Things From the New Radiohead Online Archive That Excite Us

From the band’s first EP to Kid A blips that now resemble Instagram videos
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Radiohead circa 1997. Photo by Jim Steinfeldt/Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images.

After leaving assorted ephemera scattered across the internet over the past few decades, Radiohead are tidying up a bit. The rock visionaries have established the Radiohead Public Library, a free online compendium that puts rarities, visuals, and other artifacts all in one place. Out of a bounty of arcana, here’s what caught our eyes and ears most, in chronological order.


Drill EP

Radiohead’s first-ever commercially released EP shows the band still writhing through their pupal stages as a so-so Buzz Bin act. Most of the 1992 EP’s four tracks appeared, reworked and improved, on the band’s debut album, Pablo Honey, the following year; opener “Prove Yourself” got another polish, while “Thinking About You” was notched down from its alarmingly Green Day clip. The guys sound earnest, a little vapid, and above all, young. As with the juvenilia of many legendary bands, there is something magical about hearing this material and imagining the leap to their eventual masterpieces. –Jayson Greene


Meeting People Is Easy

This 1998 documentary—presented in its entirety in the archive—remains a cautionary tale, a snapshot of the seemingly endless barrage of attention that Radiohead faced in the wake of OK Computer. Questions from clueless journalists are spliced into candid clips of the band becoming increasingly haggard as their tour wears on, and Thom Yorke’s anxieties manifest in the frantic pace of the film’s edit. Revisiting Meeting People Is Easy in 2020, one scene stands out: the failed recording session for “Man of War,” which was resurrected for the band’s 2018 OKNotOK box set. It’s still fascinating to watch Radiohead struggle through tracking a song, but it’s especially satisfying now, knowing that they finally got it right. –Noah Yoo


Kid A Blips

Radiohead did not film music videos for 2000’s Kid A. Instead, they made a series of what were called “blips”—10-second, context-free animated nightmares that radiated mystery. When these clips—replete with toothy bears, Stanley Donwood artwork, and arch hints of surveillance—dispersed like locust clouds into the prehistoric era of televised promo spots, you were spooked into a glimpse of the future. Case in point: My coworker, who was still playing with Legos when Kid A came out, watched these and exclaimed, incredulous, “So they were just Instagram promo videos, but for the TV?” Correct. –JG


The Most Gigantic Lying Mouth of All Time, Episode 4

For 2003’s Hail to the Thief, Radiohead came up with another novel visual accompaniment: They launched “Radiohead TV,” an online station that aired short films made by the band and their fans. For those who missed out on the brief viewing window, which relied on clunky pre-YouTube technology, Radiohead self-released a DVD compilation of the films, The Most Gigantic Lying Mouth of All Time, in late 2004. Start with the fourth and final episode, which interperses otherwise-unreleased tracks like “Chernobyl 2” and “5ths Reversed” with surrealistic video sketches, a square-dancing George W. Bush animation, heart-warming audience footage, and a robotic line-reading of OK Computer classic “No Surprises.” –Marc Hogan


“I Am a Wicked Child”

Largely forgotten even among Radiohead diehards, “I Am a Wicked Child”—from 2004’s Com Lag compilation EP—is a strange entry in the band’s rarities canon. It’s a Beatles-esque song with double-tracked vocals, references to Mother Mary, and a wailing harmonica. For years, the only live recording of it was a clip from a 2002 show. Now you can hear a high-quality, live studio rendition, taken from the band’s “Amateur Night III” webcast in 2000. With noisy guitar solos and throaty wails from Yorke, this version is far more raucous than what was heard on Com Lag. –NY


“Ceremony” (New Order cover)

Among other things, Radiohead were ahead of the curve on streaming broadcasts, sending out hours of (admittedly grainy) video into the ether at a time when dial-up was still the norm. Many of the early ones—like “Amateur Night II” or “Inside Out Night”—were thought to be lost to the digital sands, so to finally see them (in less grainy form!) is pretty neat. But my favorite remains 2007’s “Thumbs Down,” which includes a sloppy, energetic cover of New Order’s 1981 classic “Ceremony”—a song that was originally released when Yorke and his cohorts were around the same age that I discovered Radiohead. For three-odd minutes, they’re just five school boys bashing their instruments, playing a song they really like. –NY


The King of Limbs: From the Basement video

2011’s The King of Limbs, Radiohead’s shortest and least substantial record, is unloved even among many Radiohead obsessives. Eight songs long with at least two filler tracks, it felt like two EPs at best. After trying to convince themselves the record was part of some to-be-revealed master plan, superfans instead gravitated toward this live set recorded 10 months after The King of Limbs’ release. From the Basement includes muscular versions of the album’s eight songs as well as the singles “Staircase,” “Supercollider,” and “The Daily Mail.” Reworked with a horn section and bristling with nervy energy, these recordings pump blood into the somewhat-brittle studio recordings. For a certain breed of rabid Radiohead fan—the kind who would be trawling an unmarked mega-archive—it is the only version. –JG