Talk:Radiohead

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Misconceptions

Radiohead is not a band "from Abingdon". The members met at Abingdon School in Abingdon (which is near Oxford. both are a part of the region of OXFORDSHIRE) and some lived there for a while afterwards. The band was definitely founded in Abingdon in the mid 80s when they all attended the school, and it must be listed as the founding location. However, there is no evidence to suggest that any band members currently live in Abingdon. Thom Yorke at least is known to live in Oxford itself, while some other band members live in other parts of England. Ed O'Brien lives in London. No one lives or works in Abingdon or it's not public knowledge. The band's personal studio and management headquarters are not located in either Abingdon OR in Oxford, but in Didcot[1] another separate town. The unifying fact about all these places (besides London)? They are all in OXFORDSHIRE.

On Can

"Can? What is that? I've never heard of that!! Radiohead was never influenced by that!"

ahem...

"perhaps nowadays we look more to Can and electronica etc to work out how to stucture stuff." - yorke, on the Kid A sessions, 2000 [2]

"The reason why Radiohead had recorded in Paris, Copenhagen and Gloucestershire was because their own studio, which they had expected to be ready by the start of 1999, was still being fitted out and would not be fully operational until September. Yorke imagined Radiohead using their studio much as Can had used their Cologne fortress in the '70s: to record every minute of music played, editing the best stuff down to album length." - 2000 [3]

"I couldn't make any sense of Dollars & Cents, for example... Thom: Well, that started out as a IO-minute piece of us mucking around, trying to do the Can thing. It just came out spontaneously. Lyrically, I like doing things like that - where whatever happens in the first take is what stays." - on Amnesiac, 2001 [4]

"I’d say it’s so obviously taken… it’s a homage to something like Tago Mago or something by Can. It’s always been in that area for me, that song.” " - On "There There" from Hail to the Thief, 2003 [5]

Please stop censoring the article of anything you haven't heard of. Yes it's true an intro must be very generalized. In it we cannot even mention 5% of the influences Radiohead has admitted to liking or the press has cited for them, nor should we. We are supposed to give an accurate representation of things however. There is no point citing multiple similar examples of a single genre, and ignoring others when we could use the same number of pixels and present a broader image of the facts.

We don't namedrop in wikipedia in favor of fame vs accuracy. This is like the Pink Floyd re:OKC, and the Nirvana re:Pablo Honey issue. Just because a large amount of the press hadn't heard any angsty rock not made by Nirvana, any slow art rock not made by Floyd, or any experimental electronic music not made by Aphex Twin, or whatever, doesn't mean it didn't exist.

Yes, Thom Yorke was/is a huge fan of Aphex, as with the whole Warp Records style as of 2000. However there is already one representative of that movement of electronica mentioned in the intro, Autechre. If you insist it to be Aphex rather than Autechre fine. But Can represents a different strain of avant garde rock/electronica that influenced them.

and they covered a Can song for god's sake (out of about three covers of anyone they've done this decade). Like Spinning Plates itself is practically a cover version of a song from Tago Mago. Just move on to some articles you have a background in and stop proving your ignorance please.

Citations

If you quoted page numbers from books it would help a lot with the GA review. andreasegde 05:41, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

Yes, not only that, but there are a lot of great quotations in this article, particularly in the Bends/OK Computer sections, which don't have any source cited. It seems they did come from a book, but all the current books on Radiohead summarize interview material that appeared in magazines originally. A lot of these magazine interviews are available transcribed online (if you check out the links, "Follow Me Around Press Cuttings" and "Radiohead Articles Archive" listed near the end of the article). It would be nice if anyone can find where those quotes originally appeared, or better yet if whoever wrote that part of the article remembers where they got them. The problem is now if we search for this text, the main thing that comes up now is Wikipedia mirrors. 172.145.14.88 06:11, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

and they even covered a Can song, three times, for god's sake (out of about three total covers they've otherwise done once each this decade). Like Spinning Plates itself is practically a cover version of a song from Tago Mago. Just move on to some articles you have a background in and stop proving your ignorance please.

Formation date / Years active

There's no dispute on the facts of this, it's just how to present them.

• The five members of Radiohead formed a band in the mid 80s. 1985 to be precise, or 1986 if you start it with their first gig. Sometimes other members were also in this band, but from 1985/6 it always consisted of at least the current five members. This band was known mostly as On a Friday, though it had other names at times (i.e. Shindig). The members went to college and had other bands in some cases (Flickernoise, Headless Chickens for Thom) but they continued to play together every few months/years during holiday breaks and had ambitions to return to their original band.
• In the early '90s On a Friday formally got back together, began playing live a lot and releasing demos which they sold in local record shops, trying to get signed. During this time they hooked up with their current managers at Courtyard Studios.
• In late 1991 they were signed by Parlophone/EMI/Capitol and changed their name. They released their first recordings as "Radiohead" in early 1992, their first single (that would be Creep) in late 1992, and their first album in early 1993.

Given all that, which is already adequately covered in the appropriate history sections, what do we say about when they were formed in the sidebar and more importantly in the intro?

I think we can say first, "Radiohead are an English rock band from Oxfordshire, originally/initially formed by school friends in [pick your preferance: 1985/6/the (mid-?)1980s]." [Then we go on to say the stuff about their first single/album in 1992/3, so it becomes obvious they were not publicly releasing music in the 1980s. The "school friends" thing also lets you know how old they were at the time they formed the band.]

The sidebar can stick to "years active 1991-present" and be fully accurate. it's just that for the first sentence of the intro, the band was not "formed in 1991", but long before, even though they have only been active outside their local boys high school or under their current name since after '91. 172.144.0.252 23:02, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

Position on fan taping

Does anyone know if Radiohead has made any official statements on fan taping at concerts? I've always assumed they 'look the other way', but I've yet to hear an official statement from them. Whoblah 22:48, 16 January 2007 (UTC)

They never made an official statement, but if you go back to 2000-2001, the band made positive comments about their live songs being shared on Napster. They've also said other enthusiastic things in interviews and concerts about how fans will get used to the songs before they're out, and it may have been a factor in their touring mostly to introduce new songs that weren't out yet in 2002 and 2006. Even though in 2002 they were just touring Spain and Portugal, the fans in other areas could find the tracks via Internet.

So anyway I'm quite sure the band doesn't have an official taping-friendly policy where certain areas are reserved for tapers or anything, it's always up to fans who want to do it to get past venue security however strong or lax that may be, but the band themselves certainly doesn't oppose taping and sharing of live shows for nonprofit use. 172.149.220.25 07:57, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

Crossover influence of Radiohead

This may seem minor to rock fans, but Radiohead's compositions are quite popular/influential outside of rock. I like the mention of their compositions for Merce Cunningham's dance company (which I've seen). In addition, the prominent jazz pianist Brad Mehldau (I'm a fan) regularly adapts Radiohead tunes, on record and in concert. The classical pianist Christopher O'Reilly has also done at least two albums of Radiohead transcriptions: "True Love Waits" and "Hold Me To This". This is serious stuff, not the typical rip-off artists you get with lots of cross-over stuff - - like transciptions of classic rock for string quartet, or symphony.

I am but a fan of Radiohead and Mehldau [and wikipedia], not a writer myself. But I recommend anyone to look into the wider influence of Radiohead in the realm of "serious" music. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 199.36.20.5 (talk) 16:12, 28 December 2006 (UTC).

There used to be a separate article about Radiohead's influence on other musicians, for some reason- it was probably spun off from a section of this article at some point, but then that article grew a lot of extraneous information, original research and fannish writing and was deleted. That article had a comprehensive list of musical artists in different genres who covered Radiohead songs, including the classical and jazz things.

It's too bad this list is now gone along with the old article- you have to look in articles on each specific Radiohead album or song to find who did the cover versions- but maybe it's for the best, this article could become too cluttered every time a new person did a cover. I did add a citation to the intro statement of this article about their influence on musicians in many genres, with a representative list in the footnote of some of the artists that have covered Radiohead- the genres aren't listed, but they range from jazz to reggae to hip-hop to indie rock to pop to alt-country to singer songwriters to new/bluegrass to heavy metal, and not including any of those "the [x genre] tribute to..." by unknown musicians, either. I didn't put Christopher O'Riley, because his name isn't widely known aside from his Radiohead albums, however I know he is a respected classical pianist, it's true they've gotten a different sort of covers from most bands. I listed Mehldau, definitely. :)

Oh and something quite cool in terms of "high" art, which there isn't really any place to mention in the article: Michael Cunningham said OK Computer was a large influence on The Hours.

172.161.190.202 16:07, 6 January 2007 (UTC)

Radiohead single or plural

The article mostly treats Radiohead as a plural noun but sometimes as a singular one. Make consistent? (But which way: singular makes sense to me)

Moxbib 14:06, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

You have to be flexible with collective nouns (see this AskOxford FAQ for example). Phil Smith 12:09, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

Passed GA

Excellent article. Everything made perfect sense to me, as someone who has never heard of Radiohead. I could only recommend adding some inlines in paragraphs that don't have any. I'd also recommend a Peer Review to flesh out more problems. I really enjoyed reading it though. Nice work. DoomsDay349 21:17, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

Radiohead interview

I did an interview with Ed of Radiohead 10 years ago. (God, time flies.) I don't want to post the piece myself, but if any of you deem it worthy to quote, extract information from or otherwise use, feel free. :-)

http://sheknows.com/about/look/4364.htm

- Nancy

Andwhatsnext 22:40, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

"Band members" is TWO WORDS

Please stop using the word "Bandmembers." It does not exist.

Also, if you take the time to add new text mentioning an album, album titles should always be italicized, i.e. Kid A or Amnesiac. Song titles should have quotes around them, i.e. "Paranoid Android." (or "Paranoid Android", with the period/comma afterwards, depending on your country or style preference. I'm not sure the article is consistent). To get the italic effect just put ''around'' the word you want to italicize. If it's also a link, put the apostrophes just outside the "[[ ]]" 172.145.206.220 17:59, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

Bear graphic

Link to: historical moment of this article with the bear image to which I here shall write.

The bear graphic was removed quickly under the heading "collaborations." It is a small image, it has visual impact and is not only both informative and representative of Stanley Donwood's work for the band (appropriate for this heading "collaborations"), but it is a commonly identified icon strongly associated with the band as well. The reason for removal was "superfluous." Is this because it is not a genuine artisic collaboration? The subject matter of the text is not limited as such. Is the image genuinely superfluous to the article? If not, might there be other important reasons to keep it off of the article? - Steve3849 ^talk 22:34, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

An image very similar to the current one being discussed was once on the article; however while it is and was informative, a convincing fair use rationale could not be created for it, so it was scrapped. ErleGrey 22:51, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

Thank you, that's what I suspected. Sorry about the bother. - Steve3849 ^talk 04:29, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

Wikiproject collaboration

All right, I just finished a thorough copyedit of the article. Aside from the issue of me not being British (articles on British subject use British grammar) we should have no major problems with the prose. Now, I think we're close to making this article featured, but we need to take care of these things first:

• All references need to be properly formatted. This is arguably the main issue, judging by the last FA nomination.
• I'd really like to see some of the books listed cited in the article, or, if the editors on this page have read them, at least explain why they are not used to cite the article. If no one has read the books, I can borrow a copy of Exit Music from my university library.
• Some of the details about the albums since OK Computer can probably be moved to their individual album pages, or if applicable, to the "Musical style" section.
• As for the "Musical style" section, I think it would be fine the way it is for a book, but for an encyclopedia article it should be more ordered. Maybe start by discussing band member roles, then influences and changes and style, then influence on other groups, or some simliar outline.
• Are there any other notable aspects of Radiohead such as music videos, tours, themes, and references in pop culture that can be discussed in-depth? If so, we can create new sections. See Pixies and The Smashing Pumpkins for examples.

That's what I think should be done. Any thoughts? WesleyDodds 07:02, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

(removed comment) 172.132.243.101 07:14, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

These books with "More complex analysis and interpretation" would be great sources for the article. Plus books have ISBN numbers, which allow you to track down different editions of books easier. Unfortunately, links to fan archives of articles isn't necessarily sound copyright. I imagine the magazines and/or writers still own the rights to those articles. Plus, unless they are direct scans of the articles, their veracity is not the most reliable. Those citations must not link to sites violating copyright; list the sources as you would the original magazine article. That's just how it works. As for hard copies of articles, NME not too long ago put out a collection of article reprints. Can anyone get their hands on it? WesleyDodds 12:32, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

comment 172.132.243.101 07:14, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

My general point is that citing websites, books, and magazine articles, as well as not linking to material that violates copyright, is simply Wikipedia policy. I understand the difficulty in researching old magazine articles (which is why I was delighted to get thos NME collections on Britpop and goth), but that's just how we cite references. Say Jonny Greenwood mentioned that, oh, Jim Croce was a big influence on "Paranoid Android". We need to know what the original source of that quote is and/or a reliable source stating he said that quote. We don't necessarily need a link to a reproduction of the original source. WesleyDodds 13:42, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

(removed comment) 172.130.215.123 15:15, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

I don't mean to insult anyone; in fact I like looking up material on fansites. It's just that there is a difference between an interview with Thom Yorke and a fansite typing up a transcription of that interview. Chances are the transcriber took great care to reproduce the article, but we don't need to be able to read a reproduction of the text. We need verification of the original source via a citation. WesleyDodds 13:42, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

(removed comment) 172.130.215.123 15:15, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

As long as reliable sources discuss these aspects, they are notable for inclusion in the article and help add to a comprehensive study of the subject. Obviously we don't want to add random trivia, but Radiohead did appear in South Park, didn't they? That's certainly worth noting. WesleyDodds 12:10, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

The problem is what do you discuss about them, do you put in your interpretation of a video or song and then try to find reviewers or academic analysts that agreed with you in their review or thesis on Radiohead? That kind of thing doesn't seem appropriate for this at all. You are aware how many Radiohead fans there are on the internet who would just love to add their own ideas on every lyric or video to the article if we had such sections, right? As soon as someone starts a section on Lyrics, the article is doomed for at least a year. ;)

You cite the analysis by reliable sources. If random Radiohead fan puts in their own random interpretation, just remove it. WesleyDodds 13:02, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

Read that book please and then get back to me. It's a "reliable" source, but the thing is, it's not the type of information that is considered "notable" for an article on a pop band. Your replies indicate you don't understand the situation or the intent of books like that.

I don't understand the intent of books like that. All I need to know is that someone read the book and found it was not a usable source, because, y'know, I haven't read it. WesleyDodds 13:50, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

You don't understand the intent? Well that explains it. The intent was to present Radiohead in terms that you most likely wouldn't understand, and neither would most of the readers of this article, without more background in that area. Check out some postmodern philosophy and structuralism related articles. If we were to summarize the "findings" of these essays, it would read like that. I am not saying ALL the material in the book is irrelevant- some of it might provide an appropriate citation for one or two sentences in the article (for example, if you needed a citation that Radiohead was seen to have "themes of modern alienation", that book might work, as would innumerable reviews of the band). But a lot of it analyzes Radiohead in ways that don't have relevance to a general encyclopedia article on Radiohead. The book is linked as "further reading" from the page (like the fansites used to be), so that anyone who is interested can read it themselves and see what they think of the various interpretations. (yes, I did read it.) 172.130.215.123 14:45, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

Basic overview of themes is adequate for the main article. See Slayer. As you said, specifics can be detailed on the album pages. WesleyDodds 13:50, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

How do you do a basic NPOV overview of what a band means, that's what I want to know. I agree there is little context for their lyrics given on this page and there might be a way to mention it briefly- but it would still be a bad idea, in my opinion, because despite strict editing intentions, the page would eventually go downhill as more and more unnecessary information got added ("reliable" sources can be found for anything. then counter-sources and counter-paragraphs), and away from being close to featured quality. Again, I have not seen this focus on any other pages.

Re: Slayer, that information is actually far more notable on their page because the main fame of Slayer comes from criticism of their supposed message, and blaming them for current events. The Slayer page cannot avoid the issue of addressing their lyrics and citing what detractors and supporters said, and the band's own beliefs. This page CAN avoid it- we already say enough in the brief mentions throughout the article. For most bands the subject of their songs is only worth a passing mention, which we get in the history section here, in the appropriate chronological context (because of course, their lyric style changed, just like the music).

I feel actually what's more lacking, is much mention of Radiohead's "activism" for lack of a better word, their documented (non subjective) participation in certain events or causes, whereas when you go to articles like U2 and Coldplay (who are admittedly a bit more show offy about it as bands) it's up there in the first sentence, making it appear that all their music is in expression of these causes as well (I don't think it would be appropriate in the intro of this article, though). that's partly because when the section on current seventh album recording sessions was removed and spun off into its own article, it also removed the mention of some other things they have done as a band since 2004, i.e. their contribution to a second War Child compilation, which should eventually go back into the 2005-present area. 172.130.215.123 14:45, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

As for South Park, yes they did appear on it as a main part of the plot (didn't do their own voices though, apparently). It's worth noting, but not any more so than the fact that Radiohead got sampled by x song, toured with x bands, opened for x bands, or that their songs appeared in x films, or that their albums- specifically OK Computer- very frequently appear on critics' lists. All these were deleted when the small trivia section was removed. If you can find a way to incorporate them back into the text, fine. They are on the trivia page now along with a bit of other information that has more direct bearing on the subject of the article than South Park. If anything, the information found in the old (quite concise and relevant) trivia section that has now been spun-off to a new article (where it will no doubt quickly acquire irrelevant data), should be added back to this article wherever it best fits. 172.130.215.123 12:51, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

I don't think there is a set format for music articles, and personally I found big problems with the Pumpkins article despite its featured status- it had way too many (unapproved) images and clutter, and unnecessary sections verging on original research. Sadly due to the Radiohead article's more responsible adherence to copyrights, the main thing missing from this article besides what was removed to trivia, is any graphical representation of the band, i.e. the album covers or Donwood's artwork, because this is how they choose to represent themselves. I don't really understand why a case can't be made to allow a single image of an album cover or any other artwork, in the section describing band Collaborators, when other articles flagrantly violate the rule and get featured, but whatever. 172.132.243.101 07:14, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

Fair use images can be included if they are discussed in the text. That's why the images in The Smashing Pumpkins are there (I should know; I'm the one who brought it up to FA standard and submitted it to FAC and had to deal with all the image discussions. Sorry you don't like it :) Obviously you don't want to included a lot of fair use media, but if a copyrighted Radiohead image is worth commenting on in the text, then it falls under fair use. WesleyDodds 12:10, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

That's naive, I've seen these debates before. It doesn't matter how much the image is referenced in the text, it will still be removed by the anti-image people trying to protect Wikipedia from lawsuits that will never happen. We had the album covers visible in the disography section toward the bottom of the page, with a caption explaining their context as artwork done by Donwood and Yorke- removed! We had a tiny image of the Kid A bear logo Donwood designed, placed next to the text that explains Donwood's graphics work with the band- removed!

Yes, some editors are stricter than others when it comes to fair use. However, fair use does have a role on Wikipedia. If there is a suitable fair use rationale and it's integral to understanding a point, an argument can be made for that fair use media to stay. Why do you think there's soundclips (by the way, the soundclip descriptions do a great job of explaining why they are necessary)? WesleyDodds 13:02, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

Yes, discuss the musical traits when necessary in the biography. However, much can be achieved with a separate section that analyzes a band's musical style and influence. Such sections are now almost expected of music articles (and they very well should be, since we're dealing with the subject of music). WesleyDodds 12:10, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

You cite the analysis of others. WesleyDodds 13:02, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

Which others?

This is why that often-deleted text in the "formation and first years" section on Radiohead not being part of shoegaze, is very important to note in the article I think. They were from the area where the scene was, and shared the producers of the scene, but they weren't considered part of it, and their influences were different. Also they were the furthest thing from an American grunge band, but their influences were similar, and they may have come out just at the right time with a song like "Creep". With Britpop, they were not considered part of that, even though they rode the wave a bit. OK Computer to Kid A was yet another rock band "going electronic" but again their influences were far different from other bands that did that at the time (not club dance music), and jazz was almost as much of an influence, also Krautrock bands and modern composers, etc.

This article does hint at some stuff about what Radiohead's influence has been as far as music and also lyrics (not just the paragraph in that section, but phrases like "themes of modern alienation" in the intro, mention of press comparison between early Radiohead and Nirvana, the quote from Yorke about touring the third world, mention of No Logo and tent tour in Kid A section, mention of politics of Hail to the Thief), but if you start whole sections on Radiohead's "sound" or "meaning", fans will come in and destroy the page with unencylopedic bullshit. 172.130.215.123 12:51, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

So? There's always going to be unencyclopedic edits by well-meaning fans. You clean up the bullshit afterwards. WesleyDodds 13:02, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

Ultimately it comes down to this: if the books are not adequate sources, fine, as long as someone who's read them makes that clear here on the talk page, because it did come up in the last FAC. And those links to scanned or transcribed articles on fansites will have to go; references should reflect the original magazine sources. WesleyDodds 13:53, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

If that's being done for legal reasons, it makes sense, although of course will reduce the quality of this encyclopedia for readers who can no longer cross reference the originals. Otherwise, if there's just some "rule" that the worst print source is better than the best online source, it kinda signifies that Wikipedia has fallen into the trap of believing in its own inferiority and pretending to be a print encyclopedia. The flaws of Wikipedia will still remain in such a case- it'll never have the guaranteed editorial oversight, stability, consistent formatting and writing style of print encyclopedias- and it'll only become useless over time, if it accords innate superiority to print sources and tries to ignore the fact that media has changed and that it is a part of this. 172.130.215.123 14:45, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

That's always been been the citation format of Wikipedia. After all, that's what books and journals have used for decades. It's a standard. Personally I don't see the problem with it, plus I'm quite accustomed to it having studied both English and History in college. WesleyDodds 23:35, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

Just to clarify, I'm not talking about formal citation format and use of citations, of whose importance I'm familiar with (of course Wikipedia should use them!) but about automatically trusting certain sources over others simply because said sources appear in print.

Yes, if we have a claim in a serious academic discipline, a website is usually not advisable as a source, unless it's an official site of a noted authority. But my point is that pop music history, unlike history (or literary history) is written in cheap magazines, cheap TV and radio interviews, and increasingly in websites, from moment to moment, and books mostly come later and try to sum up what happened- and the good ones on Radiohead are just now beginning to be written, see? It took 25 years after post-punk before Simon Reynolds published Rip It Up and Start Again. Pop culture articles ARE held to different standards- that is a policy of Wikipedia. We should cite the primary sources where possible, whether or not we want to include links to unofficial websites that archive them. 172.132.243.101 23:53, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

My point is that proper citations are necessary in all articles, regardless of topic. I'm not debating the reference material. Pop culture articles rely on different sorts of references, but they are not held to different citation standards. I must note I've cited both magazine articles and Reynolds' post-punk book in Wikipedia articles using Wiki citation guidelines on a number of occasions. WesleyDodds 03:47, 14 April 2007 (UTC)

I still have no idea what you are talking about when you say "citation guidelines" and why the article didn't pass for featured. Do you mean the FORMAT of each citation was not consistent and correct, or do you mean the fact that some citations had links to copyrighted material not approved by original owners... or do you mean the appropriateness of the actual sources themselves, as justification for the claims?

Because I see the potential issue with the first two problems. I thought you were arguing that the third (the use of Internet linked magazine sources rather than books) was the main problem. Yes, some of the sources for claims could be improved- I'm working on it right now- but it mostly has nothing to do with the fact of whether they're Internet linked sources or not. We want to cite authoritative sources. As I keep trying to explain to you, but you obviously haven't checked out the books yet and don't realize, many of those books on Radiohead are actually less authoritative within the music world than a magazine article or interview written at the time, which the books draw from, often in a sloppy way compared to the original articles, and including some wrong facts as well as the author's own opinions, which have no more claim to being fact because they appeared in a book rather than in some newspaper or even website (again, we're NOT talking about Reynolds quality books here, for the Radiohead histories, not yet). That's what I'm saying. The issue of whether the sources appear on the Internet is getting confused with that.

It's not useful at all for readers of an Internet encyclopedia to cite for them page whatever of whatever poor quality book which was not the original source for that claim anyway. The express purpose of citations is to allow readers and other editors to easily check our level of accuracy, or to find more information on the subject. Like I said before, if worst comes to worst we can always remove all the questionable links but retain the citation to the original reputable source- which as article editors, we either found through our own copy of the magazine, or from a library source, or perhaps (by far most conveniently) from the full text reprinted in one of these online links we would remove.

The point is if as an editor you don't trust that transcribed text or you have some odd sense of guilt about reading articles that aren't even commercially available anymore, you CAN always go out and waste your money on an NME collection that might have one or two things of relevance if you spend 1000s of hours looking through it, and find the same articles there. Articles from magazines/newspapers are good sources by any definition. Even articles originally from websites are great sources for events or claims that originated on the web or are too recent to be included in any books- that describes a good part of this article. 172.132.243.101 19:45, 14 April 2007 (UTC)

Recent edits

Sorry but I don't see how this improved the history section.

I didn't have a chance to read the whole thing over again, and I'm not going to get into changing things back too much, but why for example was the mention of the poor sales of the Drill EP removed, just to give one example, and irrelevant quotes from Radiohead's former music teacher at Abingdon added in? How does this bring the article closer to featured status? I would say whoever made those changes doesn't have much conception what information is relevant or not. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 172.130.215.123 (talk) 15:46, 13 April 2007 (UTC).

About the recent additions of references to the article- it's best to standardize them in the {{cite web}} template. An easy way is to use this page. ErleGrey 19:37, 14 April 2007 (UTC)

Ok, I may look into that after I add the references. I'm not familiar with that template yet, but it seems it will be quite easy to do it afterward. Now will someone please stop removing the sentence about Radiohead's first gig being at the Jericho Tavern in 1986. If any sentence in that "Formation..." section is relevant, it's that one. Of course, it does need a good citation (but that's not why it was removed, as it did have one before!). 172.132.243.101 19:51, 14 April 2007 (UTC)

5 simple rules of British spelling... from a non-Brit

• US and UK, not U.S. and U.K.
• favourite colour to see while travelling, not favorite color to see while traveling
• band members, not bandmembers (actually I think this is just a rule of English, period- oh sorry, full stop)
• The best Radiohead albums are The Bends, OK Computer and Kid A. Not: The best Radiohead albums are The Bends, OK Computer, and Kid A.
• I hate "Creep", but I love "Anyone Can Play Guitar". Not: I hate "Creep," but I love "Anyone Can Play Guitar." (However, Wikipedia does use double quotes for quotations and song titles, in line with American usage)

Anyone else have any more to standardize the article? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 172.132.243.101 (talk) 00:30, 14 April 2007 (UTC).

Another simple rule - “standardise” - Kudasai 16:41, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

Second peer review

I suggest that this article be put up for a second peer review. I was the only one to respond to the first one, so more eyes and voices would be helpful. Probably not now (Peer Review is somewhat backed up at the moment); maybe in a week. I can also use that time to contact users who would be very helpful reviewers. WesleyDodds 09:45, 18 April 2007 (UTC)

It's a lot of overzealous and crufty edits that have ruined and bloated this article. FA is, more than ever, a distant and near-impossible goal. 71.170.30.9 18:05, 21 April 2007 (UTC)

To me, this article looks very close to featured status.--h i s s p a c e r e s e a r c h 00:59, 30 April 2007 (UTC)

Radiohead style and songwriting

Might I say that this section is a little bit over the top. We might play as some elitists bastards that understand and appreciate "difficult" music and say that Radiohead are very good band that are trying to be as different as possible, but this is too much even for me. Elitist bullshit is what I call this. And the article has seen a lot and some guy Pomte that claims it is essential. Don't see much essense in this really. I can only see overburdensome information that is staggering the article. The only place I can think about is a seperate article at which I also look with scorn and pessimism. So, really the article doesn't need such a section. Not to mention it is too fucking big for it. 65 KB is too much and we have some guidelines about size. So, let's get it back to where it belongs. In a seperate article and in seperate section. Needless to say, Radiohead themselves would look on such bullshit with scorn. They don't think of them as some elitist torchbearers. They don't give a shit. Should we too? Get over yourselves.

Regards: Painbearer 10:59, 22 April 2007 (UTC)

Here's a reword of my reply at my talk page:

The essence is its encyclopedic quality. In any encyclopedia or general knowledge article of a band or an artist or any sort of act, you expect to see facts about its inspiration, characteristics, development, reception and impact on others. These are what assert notability of the subject. Don't get me wrong, I could live without all the critcal reviews, interviews, and bandwagon opinions, but they exist as verifiable reliable sources, which happen to follow Wikipedia policy, so it isn't anyone's duty to maintain Radiohead's integrity and fork all of them just because it an elitist anti-elitist thing to do.

If you think the section is written in an elitist tone, improve it. I think elitism deals more with tone than content. What you think the band thinks has absolutely nothing with this article's content. If the article is getting staggered as in repetitive or overly indiscriminate, then remove the repeated or trivial content. 65kb isn't that much in today's standards and there is a lot of wikimarkup in the article that doesn't contribute to any actual content (infobox, citations, categories, interwiki links). See Wikipedia:Summary style and Wikipedia:Article series for a way to go about it. Deleting the entire section outright with zero summary gives undue weight to the huge history section. –Pomte 11:19, 22 April 2007 (UTC)

How is this section elitist? I might even go to the opposite extreme and say that it's too listy and needs a bit of a rewrite and compressing. Anyway, it does need to be on this page, and I would suggest that if you really want to help with this article, you might want to aid with reference fixing and cleanup of sections like this one, rather than doing the bs/"minor" edits that seem to riddle your user contribution list. 71.244.23.242 16:48, 22 April 2007 (UTC)

Your choice. I do not intend to do anymore work on this particular bullshit. The article will be best if the section doesn't exist at all, but it's not me to decide it. It's over the top, it's elitist and it's overburdensome. I don't think it's place is there at all.

Regards: Painbearer 06:48, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

Sections about a band's style are pretty much de rigeur now for Wiki music articles; it would be a bit silly if all we provided was biography and nothing about artistic traits. As for being "elitist" . . . there may be point there in respect to the section's tone, but we should have more input on that from others. WesleyDodds 10:11, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

Template

I have added 3 EPs to the Radiohead template that I discovered on the Stanley Donwood article. They are: Just for College, The Bends Pinkpop and Amnesiac College EP I hope this okay, as I'm fairly new here and as such am still pretty unsure about how to do things around here... The individual articles are pretty bad stubs and I thought if they were added to the template they would get some needed attention. I personally didn't even know these releases existed so I can't really add anything to them o_0. Peace

Franz T. Speeling 06:15, 27 April 2007 (UTC)