“How to Disappear Completely” is another song off Kid A. Given that it constantly polls among the ten most depressing songs of all time, I don’t reach for it often (iTunes tells me six plays since 2004).
Weirdfish did a Shoegaze cover of it in a day that’s more drowning in a wall of sound rather than lying in a well of echoing loneliness like the original. It’s still sad, but has an added dimension of grandeur.
Weirdfish (who I think is one guy) has a newer version he spent more time on, but I prefer his first try here for it’s glorious wall of sound aesthetic.
Back in the late 1990s, I listened to Radiohead a fair amount. I really enjoyed “Street Spirit (Fade Out)” when I heard it on a compilation CD I picked up cheap, and I actually picked up OK Computer new when it came out (which was fairly uncommon, as I mostly bought CDs used), and enjoyed it quite a bit (I prefer “Subterranean Homesick Alien” over “Paranoid Android”). I wouldn’t have guessed that it would end up on so many critics lists of best album of the decade.
And then came that creative turn starting with Kid A, and they quickly became a band I didn’t feel a need to pick up every new release for. At least Kid A had “Optimistic,” which is a really strong track. Amnesiac had…well, I couldn’t tell you. I bought it, listened to it, and none of the tracks rang a bell when I looked at the CD just now.
So Radiohead now has (counts) four studio albums since Amnesiac, including In Rainbows, their last album to sell more than 1 million copies. (I know, streaming era, etc.) One song off that album is “All I Need.”
On an online forum I frequent, someone mentioned they were “Playing guitar to shoegaze versions of Radiohead songs,” and that sent me scrambling around YouTube, where I found Dead Rituals’ cover of that song.
On the one hand, I’m a huge Peter Gabriel fan. (Hell, I even bought Ovo, which is largely an overpriced bag of suck with a few bright spots.) Peter Gabriel III still ranks among my favorite albums of all time.
On the other hand, when artists I like came out with similar albums (Fish’s Songs from the Mirror and Tori Amos’ Strange Little Girls), they sucked pretty hard. Plus I think the “orchestral versions, no drums or guitars” idea sounds more like a lame gimmick than a wisely-considered choice.
And here’s his cover of Radiohead’s “Street Spirit (Fade Out)”. Man, Gabriel’s voice sounds awful, much worse than Tom Waits, but without his pitch or power. I sure hope this isn’t the final version. And the original version of that song is great.