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Street Spirit (Fade Out)

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"Street Spirit (Fade Out)" is a song by the English rock band Radiohead, released on their second studio album, The Bends (1995). It was released as a single on 22 January 1996 and reached number five on the UK singles chart, Radiohead's highest position up to that point. Radiohead considered it a breakthrough in their songwriting. It was accompanied by a music video by Jonathan Glazer, and has been covered by acts including Peter Gabriel and the Darkness.

"Street Spirit (Fade Out)"
Single by Radiohead
from the album The Bends
B-side
  • "Talk Show Host"
  • "Bishop's Robes"
Released22 January 1996 (1996-01-22)[1]
Recorded1994
GenrePost-grunge[2]
Length4:13
LabelParlophone
Songwriter(s)Radiohead
Producer(s)John Leckie
Radiohead singles chronology
"Just"
(1995) 		"Street Spirit (Fade Out)"
(1996) 		"The Bends"
(1996)
Music video
"Street Spirit (Fade Out)" on YouTube

Composition

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Radiohead's songwriter, Thom Yorke, said "Street Spirit" was inspired by the American band R.E.M. and the 1991 novel The Famished Road by Ben Okri.[3] It features a guitar arpeggio written by Yorke and played by Ed O'Brien.[4] In 2018, Pitchfork wrote that the song "channels a sense of capitalist dread that even class-conscious Britpop artists repressed".[5]

Recording

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Radiohead recorded several versions of "Street Spirit" before settling on the final version. The members felt it was a breakthrough in their songwriting.[6] Yorke said later: "If I ever forget why I started this as a career, then ['Street Spirit'] is why I started ... We spent a day going round in circles until I was thinking, 'This is never going to happen.' Then suddenly something happened and I was transported to a place that I'd been willing myself to be in for months on end."[6]

Music video

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The music video for "Street Spirit" was directed by Jonathan Glazer and filmed over two nights in a desert outside Los Angeles. Glazer described it as a "turning point" for his work. He felt that Radiohead had "found their own voices as an artist" and that "I got close to whatever mine was, and I felt confident that I could do things that emoted, that had some kind of poetic as well as prosaic value".[7]

Release

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"Street Spirit" was released as the fifth single from Radiohead's second album, The Bends (1995), on 22 January 1996. It reached number five on the UK singles chart, Radiohead’s highest position up to that point.[8] After Radiohead's previous singles had failed to match the success of their 1992 debut, "Creep", "Street Spirit" demonstrated that they were not one-hit wonders.[9] In 2008, "Street Spirit" was included on Radiohead: The Best Of.[10] In 2020, the Guardian named "Street Spirit" the 12th-greatest Radiohead song, writing that it "makes for a spectacular showdown – a grand, doomed surrender".[11]

Covers

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The Darkness performed "Street Spirit" in their live shows in 2003; the critic Steven Poole wrote that they "reinvent it brilliantly by alternating speed-metal verses with half-time power-grunge choruses".[12] They included their cover on their album 2012 Hot Cakes.[13]

Peter Gabriel recorded a cover of "Street Spirit" for his album Scratch My Back (2010). Gabriel described his version as an "existential cry of mortality".[14] He hoped that, in return, Radiohead would record a version of his 1982 song "Wallflower" for his album And I'll Scratch Yours (2013).[15] According to Gabriel, Radiohead ceased communication after he sent them his version of "Street Spirit".[16] Gabriel said his rendition was "pretty extreme" and had since heard that Radiohead did not like it.[14]

In 2020, the System of a Down drummer John Dolmayan released a cover of "Street Spirit" with M. Shadows of Avenged Sevenfold and Tom Morello of Rage Against the Machine on his album These Grey Men.[17]

Track listing

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CD 1

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  1. "Street Spirit (Fade Out)" – 4:13
  2. "Talk Show Host" – 4:41
  3. "Bishop's Robes" – 3:25

CD 2

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  1. "Street Spirit (Fade Out)" – 4:13
  2. "Banana Co." – 2:20
  3. "Molasses" – 2:27

Personnel

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All personnel adapted from the liner notes.[18]

Charts

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Chart (1996) Peak
position
Canada Top Singles (RPM)[19] 57
Europe (Eurochart Hot 100)[20] 19
Iceland (Íslenski Listinn Topp 40)[21] 21
Ireland (IRMA)[22] 25
Netherlands (Dutch Top 40)[23] 28
Netherlands (Single Top 100)[24] 26
Scotland (OCC)[25] 7
UK Singles (OCC)[26] 5

Year-end charts

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Chart (2001) Position
Canada (Nielsen SoundScan)[27] 105

Certifications

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Region Certification Certified units/sales
United Kingdom (BPI)[28] Silver 200,000‡

‡ Sales+streaming figures based on certification alone.

References

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  1. ^ "New Releases: Singles" (PDF). Music Week. 20 January 1996. p. 31. Retrieved 29 June 2021.
  2. ^ DeLuca, Dan (13 August 2008). "Review: Everything right with Radiohead". The Philadelphia Inquirer. Retrieved 18 October 2021.
  3. ^ Draper, Brian (December 2004). "Chipping away". Third Way. Vol. 27, no. 10. Hymns Ancient & Modern Ltd. p. 16.
  4. ^ Amit, Sharma (9 June 2020). "Ed O'Brien: 'The guitar to me is like an oscillator on a synthesizer - it's the start of a sound rather than the sound in itself'". Guitar World. Retrieved 14 February 2022.
  5. ^ "The 50 Best Britpop Albums". Pitchfork. 29 March 2017. Retrieved 30 May 2017.
  6. ^ a b Kent, Nick (June 2001). "Happy now?". Mojo. Archived from the original on 6 February 2012. Retrieved 27 March 2012.
  7. ^ Kaufman, Anthony (12 June 2001). "Shooting the "Beast"; Jonathan Glazer Tames the Gangster Genre". indieWIRE. Archived from the original on 13 December 2007. Retrieved 8 January 2008.
  8. ^ Randall, Mac (1 February 2012). Exit Music: The Radiohead Story Updated Edition. Backbeat Books. ISBN 978-1-4584-7147-5.
  9. ^ Randall 2012.
  10. ^ Plagenhoef, Scott (5 June 2008). "Radiohead: The Best Of". Pitchfork. Retrieved 14 February 2022.
  11. ^ Monroe, Jazz (23 January 2020). "Radiohead's 40 greatest songs – ranked!". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 24 January 2020.
  12. ^ Poole, Steven (10 October 2003). "This is not Spinal Tap". The Guardian. Retrieved 27 February 2022.
  13. ^ Nelson, Michael (9 August 2012). "The Darkness – "Street Spirit" (Radiohead Cover)". Stereogum. Retrieved 25 January 2015.
  14. ^ a b Rogers, Jude (2 June 2010). "Peter Gabriel: 'It doesn't have anything to do with witchcraft!'". The Guardian. London. Retrieved 19 August 2015.
  15. ^ Bassett, Jordan (12 February 2010). "Peter Gabriel: 'Thom Yorke won't respond to my cover of 'Street Spirit'". NME. Retrieved 19 August 2015.
  16. ^ Young, Alex (15 February 2010). "Radiohead's Thom Yorke "disses" Peter Gabriel, preps "something" in April". Consequence. Retrieved 25 January 2015.
  17. ^ Blistein, Jon (23 January 2020). "System of a Down's John Dolmayan taps Tom Morello for cover of Radiohead's 'Street Spirit'". Rolling Stone. Retrieved 24 January 2020.
  18. ^ Street Spirit (Fade Out) (single liner notes). Radiohead. Parlophone. 1995.{{cite AV media notes}}: CS1 maint: others in cite AV media (notes) (link)
  19. ^ "Top RPM Singles: Issue 3027." RPM. Library and Archives Canada. Retrieved 14 August 2019.
  20. ^ "Eurochart Hot 100 Singles" (PDF). Music & Media. Vol. 13, no. 6. 10 February 1996. p. 15. Retrieved 17 October 2020.
  21. ^ "Íslenski Listinn Topp 40 (30.3. – 5.4. '96)". Dagblaðið Vísir (in Icelandic). 30 March 1996. p. 52. Retrieved 2 October 2019.
  22. ^ "The Irish Charts – Search Results – Street Spirit (Fade Out)". Irish Singles Chart. Retrieved 14 August 2019.
  23. ^ "Nederlandse Top 40 – week 15, 1996" (in Dutch). Dutch Top 40. Retrieved 14 August 2019.
  24. ^ "Radiohead – Street Spirit (Fade Out)" (in Dutch). Single Top 100.
  25. ^ "Official Scottish Singles Sales Chart Top 100". Official Charts Company. Retrieved 14 August 2019.
  26. ^ "Official Singles Chart Top 100". Official Charts Company.
  27. ^ "Canada's Top 200 Singles of 2001". Jam!. Archived from the original on 26 July 2002. Retrieved 28 March 2022.
  28. ^ "British single certifications – Radiohead – Street Spirit (Fade Out)". British Phonographic Industry. Retrieved 21 February 2020.
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