Radiohead Airbag/How Am I Driving? CD

Re-issue of the limited Radiohead mini-album, originally released in 1998.

Radiohead: Thom Yorke, John Greenwood, Ed O'Brien, Colin Greenwood, Phil Selway.
All tracks except track 1 were previously unavailable in the United States.
AIRBAG/HOW AM I DRIVING? was nominated for the 1999 Grammy Award for Best Alternative Music Performance.
Once the incredible OK Computer went platinum, proving (at last) to be as impressive to the populace as to the press, Capitol salivated for quick new product, with a new LP two years away. Fortunately for the company that made Sinatra and the Beatles famous, their powerhouse Oxford five had been releasing B-sides in the U.K., on the back of the singles "Paranoid Android," "Karma Police," and "No Surprises." Presto!! Out pops this seven-song mini-LP, basically the LP's "Airbag" and six B-sides. Mind you, Radiohead are effective judges of their own material. Unlike many U.K. bands, they never serve up a non-LP track so fantastic it should have made the first team. But Airbag is a fine purchase, as their lesser material is still provocative, ambitiously stretching (Thom Yorke and pals take a few chances, such as the spacy instrumental here, "Meeting in the Aisle"), and, as usual, clash several moods together at once. So, if you didn't buy the expensive English singles, get this. You can't go wrong with the pile-driving "Palo Alto." Like the other true standout, "Polyethylene, Pts. 1 & 2," it deliciously comes off its hinges on a dirty-sounding guitar slash in the chorus (a nerve-racking churn comparable to the Kinks' smashed-up riff in "You Really Got Me"), triggering a descending, scary guitar trill that oddly echoes the keyboard solo in Frankie "Boom Boom" Cannon's 1963 number 3 hit "Palisades Park." Typically traumatic! One loud boo, though, to all concerned, for omitting the fine, gently moving "Lull" (from the "Karma Police" U.K. single). Likewise, where's the curious, glassy voice-and-piano fragmentary vignette "How I Made My Millions" off the "No Surprises" single? Or the live versions of "Airbag" and "Lucky"? What, there wasn't room on the CD (snicker)? ~ Jack Rabid
1998 saw Radiohead perform pop music's most difficult task--their album OK COMPUTER was a critical smash, a worldwide pop hit, and, most importantly, a revolutionary step forward from the edgy, perfectly crafted pop music of their already masterful early efforts. Reintroducing a sense of intellectual adventure into rock music, at times they hearkened back to Pink Floyd, from whose compositional experimentation and epic scale they obviously gleaned a lesson or two. OK COMPUTER's opening track, "Airbag," serves as a starting point for AIRBAG/HOW AM I DRIVING.
The self-proclaimed "mini-album" opens with the stormy "Airbag," whose furious drum loop and emotive vocal build slowly into a guitar-led orchestra, where swirling, ghostly melody lines float and dart, crashing dramatically into the song's recurring musical motif. "A Reminder" sets a gentle, ominous melody against a backdrop of cascading guitar stabs, while "Polyethylene" contrasts pared-down metrical shifts with raging passages full of arena rock swagger. The curious, rambling "Melatonin" features almost no vocals, and the closer "Palo Alto" is chaotic and moody, filled with dynamic hurtles and skittering melody lines.