High and Dry / Planet Telex explained

High and Dry" / "Planet Telex
Cover:High and Dry Planet Telex CD1.jpg
Border:yes
Caption:CD1 single artwork
Type:single
Artist:Radiohead
Album:The Bends
Released:[1]
Recorded:1993
Genre:"High and Dry": "Planet Telex":
Prev Title:My Iron Lung
Prev Year:1994
Next Title:Fake Plastic Trees
Next Year:1995

"High and Dry" and "Planet Telex" are songs by the English rock band Radiohead. They were released as a double-A side single from Radiohead's second album, The Bends (1995), on 27 February 1995.

"High and Dry" was recorded as a demo during the sessions of Radiohead's first album, Pablo Honey (1993), and remastered for inclusion on The Bends. It is credited as an influence on the bands Travis and Coldplay. "Planet Telex" developed from studio experimentation with drum loops. Two music videos were produced for "High and Dry".

"High and Dry"

The Radiohead songwriter, Thom Yorke, performed an early version of "High and Dry" with another band, Headless Chickens, while attending the University of Exeter in the late 1980s.[2] He said the lyrics were about "some loony girl I was going out with", but became "mixed up with ideas about success and failure".[3]

In 1993, Radiohead recorded a demo at Courtyard Studios, Oxfordshire, with their live engineer, Jim Warren.[4] They dismissed it as "too Rod Stewart". The demo was rediscovered and remastered for inclusion on their second album, The Bends (1995). In 2006, Yorke said "High and Dry" was a "very bad" song that Radiohead's record label at the time, EMI, had pressured him to release.[5]

"Planet Telex"

Radiohead wrote and recorded "Planet Telex" in a single session at RAK Studios while working on The Bends. It developed from experiments with a drum loop taken from another song, the B-side "Killer Cars", to which Radiohead added piano processed with multiple delay effects. The band had recently returned from a restaurant, and Yorke recorded his vocals drunk, slumped in a corner. According to the producer, John Leckie, "We had the whole thing down within a couple of hours, which was really refreshing and fun to do." The original title was "Planet Xerox", but Radiohead were denied permission to use the Xerox trademark.[6]

Music videos

The first music video for "High and Dry" featured Radiohead performing at the Vasquez Rocks outside Los Angeles. For the American market, Radiohead's American record label, Capitol, commissioned a new video inspired by the 1994 film Pulp Fiction, set in a roadside diner. After MTV objected, the video was edited to remove a shot of an exploding car.

Legacy

Pitchfork credited "High and Dry" and another Bends song, "Fake Plastic Trees", for influencing the "airbrushed" post-Britpop of Coldplay and Travis.[7] The Irish Times said that "High and Dry" had "essentially invented Coldplay".[8]

Personnel

Radiohead

Production

Artwork

Charts

Weekly charts

Chart (1995–1996)Peak
position
Australia (ARIA)[9] 62
Europe (Eurochart Hot 100)[10] 70
Iceland (Íslenski Listinn Topp 40)[11] 15

Year-end charts

Notes and References

  1. New Releases: Singles. Music Week. 43. 25 February 1995. 27 June 2021.
  2. Web site: Rare Footage Surfaces of Thom Yorke Performing "High and Dry" With Pre-Radiohead Band . 16 July 2015 . Pitchfork.
  3. Bambarger . Bradley . 17 February 1996 . The Modern Age . Billboard.
  4. Web site: Randall . Mac . 15 May 2015 . Radiohead's 'The Bends,' 20 Years Later: Reexamining a Modern Rock Masterpiece . 20 September 2019 . Guitar World.
  5. Web site: Plagenhoef . Scott . 16 August 2006 . Pitchfork: Interviews: Thom Yorke . 3 March 2010 . Pitchfork.
  6. Book: Randall, Mac. Exit Music: The Radiohead Story Updated Edition. 1 February 2012. Backbeat Books. 978-1-4584-7147-5.
  7. Web site: 29 March 2017. The 50 Best Britpop Albums. live. https://web.archive.org/web/20170602164010/http://pitchfork.com/features/lists-and-guides/10045-the-50-best-britpop-albums/?page=5. 2 June 2017. 30 May 2017. Pitchfork.
  8. Web site: Power. Ed. 12 March 2020. Why Radiohead's The Bends is the worst great album of all time. 9 September 2020. The Irish Times. en.
  9. 228.
  10. Eurochart Hot 100 Singles. Music & Media. 12. 11. 27. 18 March 1995. 13 September 2020.
  11. News: Íslenski Listinn Topp 40 (15.4. '95 – 21.4. '95). Dagblaðið Vísir. is. 62. 12 April 1995. 1 October 2019.
  12. Web site: Canada's Top 200 Singles of 2001. Jam!. https://web.archive.org/web/20020726120310/http://jamshowbiz.com/JamMusicCharts/2001_singles2.html. 26 July 2002. 28 March 2022.