How Radiohead Learned To Loathe The Bomb

IN THE DAYS following the terrorist attacks on New York, the Pentagon and Pittsburgh on September 11, 2001, Radiohead were not the kind of band anyone wanted to listen to. As news networks broadcast raw hand-held footage shot by bystanders – film that probably cost a couple of dollars to process but looked like scenes out of Independence Day – and as surrealist montage and reportage fused into one, this writer had to force himself to play their last three albums. Too emotional. Too paranoid. Too aware.