RadioheadWhen Harry Styles introduced Thom Yorke for his Academy Fellowship at the Ivor Novello Awards (the awards for UK music’s Ivors Academy), you might have collectively heard the eye rolls of certain critics.
What is he doing introducing HIM?
What would someone like Styles even know about Yorke and his achievements? How could Styles possibly grasp the gravity of Yorke’s influence? Styles surely lives in a mainstream pop bubble - shouldn’t he stick in his lane?
Except that in that moment, Styles was not ‘Harry Styles, international megastar’. He was Harry Styles - a little brother who first heard glorious music coming from his big sister’s bedroom, and later nephew to a cool uncle who proceeded to burn them both CDs to continue the musical education on ‘some of the weird stuff.’
Headline writers all over have already jumped on a key part of the speech, Styles’ declaration: “I lost my virginity to Talk Show Host.” To be fair, the better part was the joke that followed immediately after, “I lost my virginity to the introduction of Talk Show Host.”
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Not only is the story delightfully daggy, but it is the kind of ordinary human experience that provides what the majority of the music industry, no matter the genre, is actually worth. Music is the soundtrack to huge, multimillion-dollar events and to everyday life.
The rest of the speech was heartfelt, funny and nuanced. Styles knows that someone like him doesn’t fit the ‘acceptable’ path for Radiohead devotion - reminding those in the room he was born a year after their first album (cue gasps - wasn’t that only 15 years ago?), and spelling out the influence Radiohead had on him as an artist and a fan.
“For so many of us, he lives atop this magical musical mountain that we’re all attempting to climb”, Styles said of Yorke.
And later, “Without Exit Music, there would be no Watermelon Sugar. Imagine that, a world without that song … doesn’t bear thinking about.”
Styles delivered the line with delicious, ambiguous emphasis - fully aware of the apparent farce of bringing those two songs together. Except, why should it be so ridiculous?
Why should it be unimaginable that Radiohead’s anthem from mega-album, OK Computer, could inspire Styles' anthem from his mega-album, Fine Line?
In that pause, no doubt, gatekeepers of all types got up to sharpen their pitchforks.
“How very dare you connect these, you pop… pop…. pop… THING”*
*I imagine that’s what they were thinking - they might have different words than ‘thing’, but I’m sure they were all very short words.
If the comparison between Radiohead’s work and Styles’ work upsets you, maybe think about why. And if it helps, it hasn’t upset Thom Yorke. Styles described first meeting him and despite being worried Yorke might “be mean to me, and then I may never emotionally recover”, instead he detailed how Yorke was “light, friendly and kind.”
Again, the story was not about one megastar meeting another, but one fan meeting a hero. And that hero holding that space, and being just a nice human in return.
The comparison, or suggestion, that Radiohead and Harry Styles somehow shouldn’t exist in the same orbit reminds me of the Nick Cave/Kylie Minogue anomaly that still seems to puzzle so many.
Even Nick Cave still seems surprised by it, saying in the recent Kylie Netflix documentary about their pairing that they were opposites because “she had everything but credibility, and I had credibility but nothing else.”
Ah, credibility. And there it is.
What even is credibility? Who gets to decide whose taste is more worthy than someone else’s taste?
And more to the point, who gets to say that one artist’s fans are worth more than another artist’s?
This premise of musical value is what much of the music industry is based on. In the analogue music world, it was a divide that played out in record stores and radio stations according to genre - turn left in the shop or on the dial if you were THIS kind of fan; turn right if you were THAT kind of fan. Like it all? Sorry, surely that’s not possible. Make a choice, pick a lane, stick to it.
In the digital world, division has gotten even worse as algorithms increasingly tell you what type of fan you are. Not what you should be, but what you are. Unless you already know the name of a new artist in a genre outside that deemed yours by the machine, your chances of finding them are so much smaller than they once were.
Of course - fans of music, lots of different types of music, of both Exit Music and Watermelon Sugar do exist. For all the snark of those likely poo-pooing the comparisons and laughing AT Styles, I hope there are many more discovering one, or both, for the same time as a result of the speech: bridging a musical divide that had no reason to exist in the first place.
Styles ended the speech by declaring that Radiohead is his favourite band. And why should you care?
You should care because two artists who no algorithm would easily pair were brought together by human experience. A recommendation from an older sibling. Supported by a cool Uncle. A little pilot light that once lit has continued to fire.
It also doesn’t matter if you prefer Exit Music over Watermelon Sugar, or the other way around.
Personally, my preference depends on the context - like whether to have ice cream in the winter just to lean in, or eat baked beans at a fancy restaurant to be just a bit defiant.
What you should care about is that music continues to influence us in apparently unlikely and glorious ways.
Also, if you try to sing the words to Watermelon Sugar while Exit Music is on, it does kind of fit—a delightful discovery.
