The year 1993 was not a hugely happy one for Radiohead. The Oxford five-piece had released their debut album Pablo Honey early in the year, a middling introduction to a band that would go on to reshape rock music but also one that contained a huge US hit in the anguished Creep. Radiohead were now having to hawk that song across America, becoming more and more disgruntled at the idea they were a one-hit wonder and that they were being pigeon-holed by a song they were quickly going off. The unease seemed to reach a peak at one such promotional stop-off their label had ill-advisedly pencilled in at MTV Beach House. I mean, it’s called MTV Beach House – it doesn’t exactly scream Radiohead, does it?
Footage from the event is an awkward (and awkwardly hilarious) watch. There is a look of disdain on the face of frontman Thom Yorke, at the time sporting bleached peroxide hair, as him and his band amble through a solid version of Creep, their insides dying. But it’s during the next song, Pablo Honey single Anyone Can Play Guitar, that everything really starts to unravel, Yorke delivering the most unhinged performance of his entire career. The first sign that all is not well is when Yorke changes the line “Maybe I could become Jim Morrison” to “Maybe I could become Jim Morrison – fat, ugly, dead”, his voices growing more crazed until he looks into the camera and unleashes a horrifying scream. And then another. And then one more, the camera operator getting right up in his nostril when the most sensible thing to do would be to call a cab and get out of there:
Speaking to Spin Magazine a year later, the band looked back on the whole ordeal. "The beach party, we swore that would be the last time we'd do that fucking thing,” he said. “An MTV Beach Party. Standing by a pool, because the sun didn't come out." "At least we played well," added Jonny Greenwood. "But I don't think the irony was lost on people. All these gorgeous, bikini-ed girls shaking their mammary glands, and we're playing Creep and looking terrible."
Radiohead would put all their angst about the music industry into the first single from their second record. Titled My Iron Lung, it helped to turn the tide. Read the story of how it came together here.
