| Radio | |
| Type: | Album |
| Artist: | Naked City |
| Cover: | Radio (Naked City Album).jpg |
| Released: | 1993 |
| Recorded: | April 1992 |
| Length: | 57:50 |
| Label: | Avant Avan 003 |
| Producer: | John Zorn |
| Prev Title: | Leng Tch'e |
| Prev Year: | 1992 |
| Next Title: | Absinthe |
| Next Year: | 1993 |
Radio is the fourth studio album by the band Naked City, and their first to be composed entirely by bandleader John Zorn. The album was also released as part of on Tzadik Records in 2005.
Radio marked a return to the eclectic, "jump cut" style of the band's 1989 debut album, making drastic shifts from one musical style to another often every few seconds. The liner notes cite a wide range of musical influences including Charles Mingus, Little Feat, Ruins, Booker T. & the M.G.'s, Colin Wilson, Albert King, Chuck Brown, Orchestra Baobab, the Accüsed, the Meters, Tony Williams' Lifetime, Anton Webern, Sammy Cahn, Frank Sinatra, Morton Feldman, Igor Stravinsky, the Melvins, Beatmasters, Septic Death, Abe Schwartz, Ivo Papasov, Naftule Brandwein, Repulsion, Led Zeppelin, Bernard Herrmann, Santana, Extreme Noise Terror, Conway Twitty, Siege, Ornette Coleman, Corrosion of Conformity, Massacre, Quincy Jones, Sam Fuller, Funkadelic, Carcass, Liberace, Jan Hammer, Eddie Blackwell, Charlie Haden, Mick Harris, Carole King, Red Garland, Boredoms, Jerry Reed, SPK and Roger Williams in addition to Zorn's previously identified touchstones.[1]
In his 4 star review for the Allmusic website, Maurice Rickard states "Several genres and bands are skillfully evoked... and helpfully listed in the liner notes in order of occurrence. Jazz, surf, R&B, death metal, funk, acid rock, and serialism are grafted together in this collection, often into the same song, and the band shifts genres, tempos, and arrangements on a dime. Supposedly, Radio was conceived as a set for a college radio program, making it a kind of "Young Person's Guide to Naked City," beginning with accessible tunes, gradually building up listener tolerance to dissonance, and finally sandbagging the listener with evil blasts of dissonant metallic noise and convincing perpetrator-and-victim screaming."[2]
All music composed and arranged by John Zorn.