Radiohead: "Pop Is Dead", the book that enters the English band's room of secrets

The spotlight is back on Radiohead, with news of their new tour, arriving seven years after the last one. Their story is now told in "Pop is dead – La storia dei Radiohead", the new book by Fernando Rennis published by Nottetempo.

"Radiohead are a church with feast days, precepts, rites, sins and heretics". It's from this image that Rennis sets off on a years-long investigation: confidential sources, cross-checks, working materials. A work that gets inside where the music is born and the legend is built, returning Radiohead to their real-life dimension.

Rennis dismantles the stereotypes — the band as "sad, politicized and elusive" — and portrays Radiohead as a living paradox of pop: able to push boundaries without ever abandoning the song form. To reconstruct their trajectory, the author spoke with former schoolmates, technicians, musicians, directors and collaborators, piecing together a mosaic that runs from "OK Computer" to the case of "In Rainbows". The latter, released in 2007 with the "pay-what-you-want" formula, wasn't an improvised coup de theatre but an operation prepared for months in the strictest secrecy.

After "Kid A", the surprises often shifted onto the communication side: from the "The King Of Limbs" release day, followed live across the world, to treasure hunts weaving together physical clues and digital trails. A strategy that helped fuel Radiohead's mythological aura, but always with both feet in the real world.

Beneath the "experimental" surface, though, there remains a rock-solid pop foundation: even "Idioteque" is built on verse and chorus. So, according to Rennis, these aren't endless suites in the vein of Pink Floyd, but an attitude closer to the Beatles: take pop and push it past its limits without ever losing the song form. Two key tracks: the "total classic" "Paranoid Android" and Rennis's personal pick, "Body Snatchers", captured live in the studio with primal energy.

"Pop is dead", then, shows Radiohead not as untouchable icons, but as a living organism, made of method, contradictions and calculated risks. And so, forty years on from their first attempts in the rehearsal rooms of Abingdon and ready to return to Europe's stages in 2025, Radiohead remain a paradox that still works: accessible and restless, experimental and pop, always able to surprise.

Radiohead are gearing up to return to the stage after seven years away. The British band have announced a fall tour with twenty dates across five European cities, four of which in Bologna. Their last show was on August 1, 2018, when they closed out the tour for "A Moon Shaped Pool" in Philadelphia.

Fans' anticipation is naturally also focused on the setlist for the live shows. Bassist Colin Greenwood shed a bit of light on that, appearing on Adam Buxton's podcast: "I think it'll be a mixed set. I believe we've narrowed it down to around 70 songs. My brother Jonny and I aren't part of the committee that decides the setlist, we're not allowed, because we're too indecisive". Greenwood went on to add: "We'll play anything, in any order, at any time. We've got a busker's attitude towards the Radiohead setlist. I think it'll be the first time we do shows without any new material in the works, but you never know: there could be surprises, or there might not be".

The online calendar on the official website also includes several consecutive shows in each city. Here are the dates:

• Madrid (Movistar Arena) – November 4, 5, 7, 8
• Bologna (Unipol Arena) – November 14, 15, 17, 18
• Londra (The O₂ Arena) – 21, 22, 24, 25 novembre
• Copenhagen (Royal Arena) – December 1, 2, 4, 5
• Berlin (Uber Arena) – December 8, 9, 11, 12

Ride the wave of great music

Add OndaRock to your favorite sources on Google Discover. Don't miss our reviews, milestones and latest news straight in your feed.

Follow on Google