Awesome Radiohead

Karma Police, arrest this girl; her Britney hairdo is making me feel ill. There I Ruined It used AI voice matching tech to make Radiohead’s Thom Yorke sing the lyrics to Britney Spears’ Baby One More Time and Oops, I Did It Again to the tune of Karma Police. It sounds like a terrible idea, but it’s way better than we thought it would turn out.

Radiohead is one of our favorite bands of all time. While some of their music can be a bit esoteric, they’ve produced an equal number of sharp and memorable guitar-driven melodies. Guitarist Bloxsy claims he’s no Radiohead expert, but we think he sells himself short with this excellent medley of classic riffs.

The Radiohead track Creep has been covered countless times. But we bet you’ve never heard it quite like this. Scary Pockets shared this awesomely ’80s version of the alternative classic performed by Promises and vocalist Therese Curatolo. The cyberpunk music video aesthetic is the icing on the cake.

Ice age coming. Ice age coming. Blue are the people here. Remixer Willam Maranci is a master at combining songs that don’t seem to belong together. One of our recent favorites is this combo of Radiohead’s climate change chant Idioteque and Eiffel 65’s Eurodance hit Blue. It’s as unlikely a successful pairing as ham and pineapple.

Radiohead and The Smiths are both English bands, and they’ve both taken up political and social causes in their music. But sonically, they couldn’t be more different – until now. Musician Desmond Doom took the restrained sounds of No Surprises and gave it the jangly guitar and vocal stylings of This Charming Man.

Musician Navzad Dabu provided late-night commuters in NYC’s Metropolitan Avenue / Grand Street subway station with a phenomenal private performance. His graveyard shift concert included back-to-back covers of a dozen Radiohead tracks. We would have stood there for the whole show and missed our train.

Musician Scott Bradlee has proven that just about anything can be a Ragtime song with the proper arrangement. His 1920s cover version of Radiohead’s 1997 classic Paranoid Android sounds fantastic, and we can totally imagine it being played in the speakeasy in Westworld’s Golden Age.

Despite its eclectic nature, there’s one thing you can count on with Radiohead’s music – it will always be evocative. YouTuber CmcBkT put together this hilarious, meme-filled edit of the emotional rollercoaster ride you’ll be in for if you play your Radiohead collection on shuffle. Part two here.

Radiohead’s In Rainbows was some of their most experimental and best work. Now you can listen to the album as if it was the soundtrack to Super Mario 64. On4word created this amazing interpretation of the entire album using the game’s soundfont. It’s available as a pay-what-you-want download on Bandcamp.

Radiohead’s Paranoid Android is about a young man who feels alienated by a materialistic world. Super Mario 64 is about a plumber trying to rescue a princess. You’d think they’d have nothing in common, but on4word managed to create a version of the in the steel drum style of the game’s soundtrack.

With its strange textures and haunting lyrics and vocals, Radiohead’s OK Computer is a classic. But you’ve never heard it like this. Shonkywonkydonkey re-recorded the entire album with nary a musical instrument, replicating every sound with his voice. It quickly escalates from silly to awesome.

We suppose that a frog who dates a pig is a bit of a weirdo, so it only makes sense that Kermit would want to sing the Radiohead track Creep. This tasty morsel of Internet eccentricity comes to us courtesy of singer Rich Alvarez.

There I Ruined It lives up to their name again by transforming Radiohead’s 1992 hit Creep into something you might hear coming out of one of Nashville’s Broadway honky tonks at three in the morning. The only thing missing is a cowboy hat atop Thom Yorke’s mop of blonde hair.

Radiohead’s KID A MNESIA drops on 11.5.21, and includes reissues of Kid A and Amnesiac, along with unreleased tracks from their 1999 to 2000 recording sessions. The music video for the acoustic track Follow Me Around looks like it was shot on VHS tape, and features Guy Pearce doing everything he can to avoid the camera.

Daft Punk and Radiohead are two of our all-time favorite musical acts. But what would it sound like if the robots decided to play Paranoid Android? Well, Jehan has the answer, and it’s pretty awesome. Between the fat synth beats and the wailing electric guitar, it reminds us more than a little bit of Muse.

Something about Radiohead’s music lends itself very well to being played on string instruments. Zack Reaves‘ multi-track performance of Everything In Its Right Place is a perfect example, as the warm and expressive sounds of the cello bring out even more emotion in the track. He also did a great cover of Burn the Witch.

Radiohead’s 1997 classic Paranoid Android always cuts deep when we hear it, and it’s as power-packed as ever with this amazing cover version by UK brass band Old Dirty Brasstards. The trumpet does a surprisingly good job standing in for Thom Yorke’s vocals.

“Thou art like an angel. Thy skin makes me cry.” Hildegard von Blingin‘ is back with another medieval cover of a modern song, this time changing up Radiohead’s 1992 classic Creep with a proper old English vibe. Though it’s too bad the “F” word wasn’t in common usage until the 16th century or so.

Musician Mick Mazz continues to bring the retro with another solid cover version reinterpreted for the decade of big hair and Rubik’s Cubes. This time, he reworked Radiohead’s Creep with a thick coating of frequency modulated synthesis, digital drums, and other instrumental tropes of the 80s.

Musician Cihan Gulbudak turns in an epic performance of Radiohead’s 1997 hit Paranoid Android using a theremin to replace the main vocal track. The spooky alien sounds suit the song just perfectly. Be sure to check out his cover of Massive Attack’s Teardrop too.

Musician Luna Lee is back with one of her best covers yet, an arrangement of Radiohead’s Paranoid Android. It’s really amazing how well the melody works on the ancient Korean string instrument. Luna really knows how to rock.

PAB_Music pulls off a impressively accurate cover version of Radiohead’s 1997 classic, performing each of its instrumental and vocal parts, then layering them together. He previously worked his magic on Under Pressure and Where the Streets Have No Name.

A bit from a 2012 Central Park performance by Reggie Watts in which he replicated the esoteric and offbeat sounds of Thom Yorke and the gang from Radiohead. It’s so spot-on that some are calling it a “cover” rather than a “parody.” Download or stream the track here.