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Radiohead Is Apple Is Radiohead
"This is the easiest of connections; I don’t even have my thinking cap on. Apple is the most valuable technology brand in the world. Their products are sold to People Of Wal-Mart but the aesthetic still shimmers diamond-hard, like faith beyond reason. When the first iPhone came out the cast of the Apple store applauded every buyer.
Radiohead is the most valuable band in the world. Their music references the phone book but sounds like nobody else. They’ve turned hard sell/soft sell into their own loud-quiet-loud solution. Their intelligence burns even at street level; the more they refuse to dumb it down the less they alienate even dumb people."
—Apple as Radiohead, Radiohead as Apple.
First time in a long time, here.
Just wanted to say "Oh, stfu."
Haha, why? It's a very good point about a specific kind of brand infallibility!
Your granny and I miss the old days of not giving a shit who else liked our music.
Comparing them on the level of brand infallibility makes sense, but I didn't read that in the link. It was all about how they go about their business the same way, or are somehow parallel in the products they put out. That kind of seems ridiculous to me.
Apple's whole shtick is to throw a massive marketing effort into being as trendy as possible at all times. Their brand saturation is absurd because of the budget they throw into it. Their aesthetic is often a higher design priority than usability, whether that be the technical issues with the latest iPhone or the candy coating of fluorescent plastic that made the first Macs I worked with such a pain in the ass. (Before you think I'm an indiscriminate hater, recent Macs are lovely to work with. Those G3s were objectively awful.)
Post-Bends Radiohead actively resists that kind of slick trendiness at every turn. Every album cover is by the frontman's buddy from art school. Their records are all produced by a tech guy they liked working with on a couple of Bends tracks. Their marketing is next to nonexistent; they're coasting on name recognition and they know it. They were asked to play at the Grammys and only two of them bothered to show up. Their response to worshipful words from trendy bands is surly at best.
So, in terms of fanboy dedication: YES. Totally parallel. In terms of what they do to earn that dedication? Pretty much nothing alike.
Agree. I was all "Wait — they have a new record?" the other day. I guess Radiohead just sort of finished it then released it.
Apple would have been suing websites for publishing rumors that Apple leaked about their new product. (Lawsuits = the new PR campaign?)
I'm not sure whether to smirk or snort.
Snirk.
I anxiously await the day I can give Apple however much money I want for an iPad.
Lord only knows what he could do WITH his thinking cap on!
Swear to God I posted that before I read this, for realsies.
I love when he talks about how Apple and Radiohead "GLAMMER" the market. What a great made-up word!
something something Glammer Rock.
Why do I have a feeling Chuck Klosterman plays the "Radiohead = Apple" game while high?
Man, I don't get it. Radiohead Fanboys salivate to pay double for this technically inferior music. Plus on the content side, Radiohead locks you into their walled (of sound) garden.
So, does this make Talking Heads a garage in California?
Radiohead is the most valuable band in the world [this week].
Fixed.
But Cake sold the most albums, all five of them.
Once I ended a date when he told me Cake was the best concert he ever went to.
Straight(ish) boys are the worst.
In defense of the straightish: some of us go to really excellent concerts.
Paying $9.99 on Napster for a Voivod album that you owned on cassette in 1989 from the comfort of a Dell PC Tower is still honest.
Honest Art, they'll call you.
As a consumer who owns goods produced by both these fine (NASDAQ) companies, I can assert confidently that each exhibits a meticulous sense of detail, I've only had to return a product of theirs 2-3 times for quality concerns, and I do not awake in the night, after having dreamt of either, in a puddle of Art.