Radiohead, one of my all-time favourite bands, has posted over 15 hours of previously unreleased demos and other recordings from the years leading up to the release of their seminal album, OK Computer. A hacker stole frontman Thom Yorke’s minidisc collection and demanded $150,000 in ransom for its safe return. In response, the band posted the following:
I’m only a few minutes in, but already fascinated with this deep dive into the band’s creative process behind one of their best albums. The fact that they circumvented a greedy thief and put the profit toward a worthy cause is just icing on the cake.
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The Guardian’s article on the release had some interesting details on what’s contained within:
The files are a treasure trove for Radiohead fans. Along with demo versions of OK Computer tracks, they feature a full-band version of True Love Waits, a live favourite that was finally recorded in a piano arrangement for 2016 album A Moon Shaped Pool. Much praised on the Reddit forum is an alternate version of Lift, a song that was eventually included on the 20th anniversary reissue of OK Computer – the alternate version, at the 10-minute mark of the MD125 recording, features an anthemic arena rock arrangement.
The collection opens with a version of Exit Music (For a Film) with alternate lyrics, including the line “living in a glass house”, which later cropped up on Life in a Glasshouse on Amnesiac. Disc three meanwhile contains an 11-minute version of OK Computer’s lead single Paranoid Android, while entirely unreleased songs include Attention and Hurts to Walk. There’s also a brief snippet of Thom Yorke beatboxing.
Redditors in /r/radiohead have also compiled a OK Computer Minidisc track listing document which identifies all the songs contained within and tracks the history of each.