Steven Hyden - This Isnt Happening

F uture dystopias look that way only from a distance. When youre actually living inside of one, it feels more like a late-night talk show.

In the year 2019the setting, coincidentally, for Blade Runner, the 1982 Ridley Scott film that most influenced how a generation of kids, burnouts, sci-fi freaks, and English rock musicians envisioned the futurethe talk show in question is The Late Show with Stephen Colbert. And tonights guest is the tiny, wizened singer for the most respected rock band in the world.

With his long, sandy brown hair and mostly gray beard set against delicate, almost feminine features, he comes bracingly close to resembling a younger, more agitated Willie Nelson. But when he strides out from stage left to the half-enthusiastic applause of an audience partly stocked with Radiohead fans, Thom Yorke doesnt exactly strike one as having a stoned, Zen-like presence. Hes fairly relaxed for him, casually dressed in a black jacket, black pants, and white sneakers with no socks. But otherwise his vibe is reminiscent of a lyric from the song Talk Show Host, which he wrote nearly twenty-five years prior: I want to be someone else or Ill explode.

But Thom doesnt explode. Instead, he shakes Stephen Colberts hand, takes a seat, and attempts to approximate the affable demeanor of a normal late-night talk-show guest. But he cant quite pull it off. His banter game is inadequate. He looks down a lot. Picks lint off of his pants. Falls easily into awkward pauses.

When Colbert asks Thomat the request of his sons, who are apparently huge Radiohead fansfor his favorite R.E.M. song, Yorke mumbles so low that Colbert asks him to repeat his answer.

So. Central Rain, Thom says again.

Colbert nods and smiles. Then he pivots hard to the first question of the interview.

For decades youve been writing music that is uneasy and anxious with regards to society, our government, technology, the general direction of the world, Colbert says, carefully setting up his punch line.

How does it feel to be right?

The audience bursts into applause. Thom chuckles, but its one of those chuckles where you laugh because its true, not because its funny. It is decidedly not funny, in fact, but what can you do but laugh?

If a time traveler from the early aughts had somehow ended up in the studio audience that night, she might have noted the oddness of Thom Yorkes walk-on music: A lounge-jazz, sorta-peppy rendition of one of Radioheads most pulverizing andheres a word forever linked to Radioheadbleakest tunes, The National Anthem.

There are no vocals, so the audience is spared the Thom Yorke lyric that truly seemed prescient nearly two decades later, during a time when the apocalypse has been reduced to fodder for tweets, stand-up comedy, and campaign commercials: Everyone is so near / Everyone has got the fear / Its holding on / Its holding on.

When you live inside of a future dystopia, you cant really stop and comment on the omnipresent bleakness. When bleak is right there, it is no longer bleak. The fear is so near you cant even see it. It is just normal.

Cue the APPLAUSE sign.

While Stephen Colbert didnt mention it by name, the Radiohead album that most epitomizes the music that is uneasy and anxious with regards to society, our government, technology, the general direction of the world is Kid A, the bands fourth LP, released in 2000.

Kid A was the first Radiohead album to top the charts in the United States, and in Britainwhere the band had initially struggled to find an audience, even as Creep made them stars in the States in the early 90sit went platinum within just one week. Kid A later won a Grammy for Best Alternative Album, along with garnering a nomination for one of the nights top honors, Album of the Year. It was the bands second nod in that category, after OK Computer in 1998.

In time, Kid A would come to be regarded as one of the best albums of the aughts, and then a defining record of the early twenty-first century. Even as rock music receded from the mainstream of music culture, Kid A remained one of the only rock records to be considered truly important, a landmark touchstone for the modern era.

And yet these statistics and accolades belie what was, in the fall of 2000, a highly contentious release. Kid A was Radioheads grand digression from the guitar-rock splendor of their previous two albums, 1995s The Bends and 1997s