In the later 1990s and early 2000s, Radiohead had a real talent for creating some folklore around their music videos. I'm thinking about the final moment of "Just" or the holding-your-breath stunt in "No Surprises". Somewhere in 2003 they decided all their videos were going to be dance and/or computer imagery expirements, but at one point "hey let's film Thom drowning" was an acceptable music video idea and it was awesome.
There was one story that I remembered circulating at the time the video for "Karma Police" came out, however, that brings things to another level. The story goes that during the take that appears in the video, carbon monoxide started coming through the car's air conditioning system (accidentally, we presume), slowly poisioning him. Shortly after the end of the take, Thom Yorke fainted - it almost killed him!
This is the sort of story that has few sources (the top hit on Google for "Karma Police carbon monoxide" is a Radiohead fan site on tripod), but I definitely remember hearing this in high school and thinking simply "That. Is. Awesome.".
So today on Music Video Relapse we're taking a look at the video that almost definitely killed Thom Yorke, 1997's "Karma Police" by Radiohead, directed by Jonathan Glazer.
It's refreshing when directors are open and honest about what videos of theirs didn't turn out great. Jonathan Glazer sounds like he was being pretty honest when he called this video a "complete failure" a few years after this video came out. Here's the full quote:
I regard "Karma Police" as a complete failure, because I decided to do a very minimalist, subjective use of camera, and tried to do something hypnotic and dramatic from one perspective, and it was very hard to achieve and I feel that I didn't achieve it.
He's being a little hard on himself, I think, since "Karma Police" is near or at the top of Radiohead's list of music videos in terms of recognizablity. "Karma Police" is a track off of OK Computer, which was a massive success in 1997. It was a dark, bizarre video with a nightmarish twist, and it still looks good today, 16 years later.
The video has a simple "plot" - Thom Yorke is riding in a 1976 Chrysler New Yorker, chasing a man who is desperatly tring to get away from him on a dark country road. The car is moving itself - Thom Yorke is in the backseat and we only see him for the chorus. He's subdued (which is understandable since he was almost definitely getting poisoned by carbon monoxide). Eventually the chased man (Lajos Kovács), turns on the car and destroys it by igniting gasoline with a match.
Radiohead exists in some part in order to be interpreted, and this music video is no exception. I wonder how Glazer feels about it now, looking back with some time under his belt. He has said in multiple interviews that what he was looking to do in "Karma Police" he did a year later in "Rabbit in Your Headlights" by UNKLE ft. Thom Yoke:
Looking at these two videos in 2013, I think "Karma Police" holds up just as well as "Rabbit", and turns out to be a much more memorable video. Part of that owes itself to the more distinctive art direction of "Karma Police" (thank you 1976 Chrysler New Yorker), but we also get more plot and more screen presence in the form of Thom Yorke in "Karma Police". So calm down, Jonathan Glazer, "Karma Police" is a great video.
Plus, carbon monoxide. Actually - I think there's some carbon monoxide pouring into the IMVDb offices right now! Somebody send hel
