(Parlophone/EMI)

Comprehensive catalogue of music videos from The Best Band In The World

While this DVD collection isn’t authorised or condoned by Radiohead themselves, it’s still an excellent release that, despite its disconnection from the band itself, thoroughly documents Radiohead’s visual component since the beginning of their career. The 21 videos are handily chronologised, showcasing Radiohead’s development as a band over the span of their career, and accordingly so too do the videos increase in quality and creativity. The Creep video represents the bare requirements – the band play in a live setting, and a young Thom Yorke channels as much angst as he can muster. Anyone Can Play Guitar and Pop Is Dead are great fun and suitably cheesy given their era. In the Bends material you can see the changes beginning in both the music and the video. The clever slow-mo of Street Spirit is still memorable, and the Just video may have the best ending of any music video ever, with its masterful narrative twist still a mystery. There’s then OK Computer territory; the surreal, bizarre animation of Paranoid Android, the cleverly made Karma Police and Thom Yorke drowning sadly in No Surprises. Amnesiac provides the computer glitch traverse of Pulk/Pull and Michel Gondry’s very excellent Knives Out video. The video for There There is a highlight, Yorke wandering around a forest in stop-motion animation, but I Might Be Wrong and Sit Down. Stand Up are lacklustre. Proceedings end with a live performance of 2+2=5 which only serves to remind that we really need a live Radiohead DVD. This could have been a lot more had it involved the band’s input and smells like a cash-grab from a mile off. But nonetheless, you can’t go past what is a bunch of great songs and a bunch of great videos.

****

MICHAEL PINCOTT

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