Director Chris Weitz confirms both Thom and Justin Vernon wrote songs especially for New Moon, the sequel to the wildly successful hormonal vamp flick Twilight, in an interview with hitfix.com from Comic-Con in San Diego. OK then.
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Is this really surprising? At this point Billy Corgan will do anything…..oh wait THOM YORKE?!?
Sorry, dude. Billy Corgan already scored the soundtrack to my adolescence. He’s all plum-tuckered out.
Ugh. Thom hasn’t sunk low enough (or at all) to be called “Billy Corgan” or be compared to him.
Yea, this is depressing. I can understand if Justin Vernon might need the extra scratch here, but Thom? Really? I guess this is the trade-off for giving your album away for free. Are we OK with this?
Is it really that surprising for an artist to do something for money? Thom Yorke is not the first and surely won’t be the last. Yawn. I’ll save my outrage.
Maybe Thom is just a fan, in this case, I guess I will have to jump on the Twilight bandwagon afterall
I wonder if Pitchfork will have to review the soundtrack now?
http://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/9464-shine-on/
They’ll have to top that one!
I told you.
ugh to the power of fuck
Ah, little thommy depress his fans? he’s not a god? just mere mortal. Suck it monkies. Thom is a loser.
“now go get daddy a beer”
I love his music and I have a ton of respect for Thom Yorke, but yeah… this is pretty much a big DO NOT WANT. Honestly it’s a more than a bit surprising for someone who’s spoken strongly about the value of art and what it means to be a musician (and someone who usually appears to be very politically/socially conscious) to craft a song specifically for a multimillion dollar enterprise that makes no bones about being utterly artless on an epic level.
I don’t blame Justin Vernon though – I think it’s safe to say he probably hasn’t attained the level of financial security as the members of Radiohead. I’m a visual artist, and I know I’ve done similar things, albeit on a much smaller level, to pay the bills – and that’s also a big part of why I’m perplexed that someone in Thom’s position would do such a thing.
“Financial security” isn’t a very concrete concept. Today’s millionaire could easily be broke tomorrow. I don’t blame Thom Yorke or any musician for doing whatever it takes for more money– come on, he is just a popular songwriter. Songs were of much higher quality back when songwriters were unpretentiously motivated by revenues– listen to any of Irving Berlin’s songs from the movie Top Hat, then compare it to one of Yorke’s songs. When musicians began writing their own songs with this illusion that they are pure artists, a clear decline in the overall quality of popular music began. Hopefully he’ll take this job seriously and produce a fine product worthy of whatever sum the producers offered him.
Fair enough, maybe I should have worded that part of my comment differently. I don’t take issue with him making money. Radiohead’s playing Reading/Leeds next month, one of the biggest (and most corporate-funded) festivals in the UK, and I’m sure they’re not doing it for free. That doesn’t bother me at all – after all, if they’re not making money, there’s not going to be another Radiohead album. It’s how he’s making money here that bothered me, and that’s because many of the things he’s said in the past (about his music and the way it’s used) don’t match up with this decision. It’s the hypocrisy (I hate to say it, but that’s what it comes down to) that bothers me. If he hadn’t made an issue out of the subject in the past, I probably wouldn’t have thought nearly as much about it.
I also don’t think that the song will automatically be bad just because of what it’s for. Radiohead’s song Exit Music (For a Film) is a beautiful song, even though it was written for a not-so-great movie. Like I’ve said in other comments, at the end of the day I’m still a Radiohead fan so I hope whatever Thom does for this film (if this is really happening) turns out great.
there is still a chance this could turn out great. for instance, what if he just goes into the studio and records True Love Waits and that’s what’s called “writing a new song for Twilight”? artistic integrity is saved and we all get a nice clean recording of a great song.
Is there still any doubt that Thom has completely lost it?
why don’t we just wait and see what happens, eh? The movie and the soundtrack aren’t even out yet, nor has thom yorke or his management confirmed that this is happening. there was similar talk around radiohead/thom yorke doing the soundtrack for the first twilight movie, the prestige, a scanner darkly, etc., etc. and then it turns out they either contributed nothing or just one previously released song, and the filmmakers were running their mouths to get publicity. besides, the band has been putting songs on soundtracks their whole career (“talk show host” on romeo + juliet, anyone?) so why get all bent over it now?
I’d actually said very much the same thing in an earlier Stereogum post about this (and I still think it’s suspicious that no one from Radiohead has confirmed it yet), but…. this director would really have to be lying his ass off at this point. It’s not just one little vague mention of it here or there – this has been brought up several times now, and he’s been pretty specific about it.
And as for older examples of Thom/Radiohead contributing work to crappy films, I feel like it’s different now because they’re at a very different point in their career. OK Computer hadn’t been released when they gave Exit Music and Talk Show Host (both excellent songs, btw) to Romeo + Juliet. But why do that again now? I find it hard to believe they need attention from the 13 year old girl demographic at this point, you know?
Also, personally I’m really not all of that bent out of shape over it. Whatever comes of this I’ll still love Radiohead. I just find it kind of interesting/confusing at this point.
http://theplaylist.blogspot.com/2009/02/mcg-says-radioheads-thom-yorke-gustavo.html Here’s a director talking about Thom maybe doing the soundtrack for the new terminator movie. Here’s that story getting shot down 2 days later – http://popwatch.ew.com/popwatch/2009/02/yorke-terminato.html. So when Thom or his publicist comes forward and says yeah we’re doing twilight 2 with a brand new song, I’ll believe it.
so what if the demographic is 13 year old girls? So what if it low brow? I unfortunately have to admit that I got into radiohead when Creep was played on Beavis and Butthead when I was 13. My tastes have definitely changed since then, except I still love radiohead. So what’s wrong with a 13 year old girl finding them in a similar way? Better than handing them another britney spears or hannah montana wannabe, in my opinion.
And finally, they only gave talk show host to Romeo + Juliet. They wrote Exit Music (For a Film) specifically for the ending.
Yes, I know about the Terminator soundtrack thing (in the comment I was talking about in the old post, I mentioned that as well a rumor that Radiohead was doing music for the film Choke that turned out to be untrue). And like I said before, I agree that we shouldn’t believe anything 100% unless Radiohead’s management confirms it. But that being said, this guy is being a hell of a lot more specific, and has brought it up on several separate occasions. To me that makes a difference, buy hey, you’re right, time will tell.
For me problem isn’t 13 year olds possibly becoming Radiohead fans – hell, I wish more kids would listen to good music, just as you said. The problem is why it’s being done and who’s doing it. To me, it most certainly DOES matter when someone who has spoken so strongly about the value of art and music (here’s a good example, especially the last twenty seconds: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vUEwrwINSfY) for a long time now – AND someone who is beyond financially stable and who has no need whatsoever for expanding their fame – suddenly decides to create something they’ve claimed to hold so valuable for a movie like Twilight. Yes, I’m completely making this about principle, but these are things I think about. Thom Yorke is one of my favorite musicians in the world and I respect him greatly, but I find this decision to be hypocritical, to be perfectly blunt about it. But hey, that happens sometimes. Even great musicians are only human, and I don’t hold any illusions that Thom owes anybody an explanation for what he does with his music.
And I also knew that about Exit Music and Talk Show Host, but thanks for correcting me for not specifying. I just meant that they “gave” both songs in the sense that they allowed music of theirs to be used. I also feel like I’m spending way too much time discussing this already. As I said before, it’s not of great consequence to me in the long run, I just find it interesting.
what’s wrong with beavis & butthead?
What’s wrong with beavis and butthead?
as for previous questionably contributions, Fake Plastic Trees in Clueless was against their will, Romeo and Juliet, Thom was a big fan and it really wasn’t that bad.
But Twlight, I’m having a really hard time justifying this, was the whole Kid A, No Logo shit just a gimmick, was the pay-what-you-want also a gimmick to sell more records? (okay we know that was).
Um, how is this different from Radiohead doing Talk Show Host for Baz Luhrmann’s Romeo +Juliet?: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mcYu5Vg_YH8
You could argue that THAT film was artistic but that would mean you haven’t seen it.
^Crap, that’s what I get for not reading posts above. Let’s not kid ourselves, we’ll download the song illegally and probably love it, then forget this ever happened when the follow up to In Rainbows comes out. Also, this might be Thom’s way of ensuring Miley Syrius doesn’t ruin him.
!
I responded to your first post prior to reading this one. That Miley Cyrus comment is damn funny.
I think Moulin Rouge was the last Baz Luhrmann film i enjoyed. But Romeo and Juliett was an interesting take on the play and had a unique visual style. Whether or not you like it, and I can EASILY understand people not liking it, it certainly counts as art. It’s probably a good thing, but no other movies look like Baz Luhrmann movies. I don’t think giving music to R+J is embarrasing for radiohead. And if Thom Yorke wants to write another song who really cares how it comes out. It’s not like the old days where we’d have to buy an entire soundtrack. Though with Bon Iver and Thom Yorke confirmed, who knows, this soundtrack might actually be great.
Great I’m gonna have to jump on the Twilight bandwagon too! I just hope they don’t use True Love Waits.
I can understand this if he genuinely liked the people involved. Maybe he thinks the director’s funny or whatever, who knows. People are saying, “Why would he do this when he doesn’t have to?” Well, it works both ways. He also doesn’t have to worry about his image anymore AT ALL and can do just do shit because it’s fun. Case in Point: Robert DeNiro.
lol meet the fockers
This may come as a shock to you, but you don’t have to watch Twightlight 2 to hear his tunes. I don’t care who the genius writes for, just keep on giving him reasons to write more and more material.
NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
If they hate then let em hate and watch the money pile up.
I’m a huge Radiohead fan too but come on people, the were a mainstream band who were on a corperate label until in rainbows. anyway, can’t wait until the next album.
It’s just a stupid movie, goddamn. Look at the bright side, we get a new song out of it.
Johnny Greenwood and Phil Selway were in that fictional Harry Potter Band. I don’t believe that affected their abilities as musicians,though, as they put out In Rainbows two years later. All of these guys have kids, too. I know some musicians and celebrities will take on jobs because their kids are fans of said material being adapted. Thom Yorke could just be a fan of Twilight which I am fine with. I hate Twilight and the current vampire trend but it isn’t the end of the world so I am ok.
oh well, i’d still suck His or Jonny’s dick. I’m ready for a new album.
Just an FYI, “15 Step” was in used in Twilight, just not on the soundtrack. So this news shouldn’t be surprising…
maybe director Chris Weitz is a big music fan and asked these guys to do the music, don’t judge.
Eh, someone will drag me to New Moon (myself). By this news I expect a throroughly indie experience at my local AMC.
he probably needs some money anyways…you’ll all forget about it 2 weeks anyways.
His music will be the only thing good about this movie. Let’s appreciate that at least.
My thoughts exactly. New TY song + Twilight is better than Nothing + Twilight. I’m thankful we’re getting something.
obviously thom is going to do whatever he can to get in the pants of 13 year old kids.
No, he just wants to get in Jonny Greenwood’s pants.
Hey, you can’t blame the guy for that. Jonny’s pretty. ;-)
Thom Yorke is a genius. He’s gonna make even more millions off oblivious twilight tweeny fans!
I’m not so much worried about artistic integrity. I think both of them will produce quality for the film. I’m worried about 13-year-old girls making fan videos of Blindsided and not understanding any part of the song but the name. “it makes me cry soo hard!! hes so sad about not seeing the break up comin :((“, “It’s actually about walking around Ea Claire drunk”. “Whaa?!”
Why are we so possessive of our favorite bands? Why do we want them to fail financially?
a musicians that has been on the cover of rolling stone is nowhere near “failing financially”
the list of musicians who are bankrupt who have been on the cover of rolling stone is probably pretty long. TLC anyone?
Does this mean Coldplay aren’t on the soundtrack?
Expect a ton of tweens to show up when Radiohead goes on tour again.
Ugh. My stomach just turned.
welcome to the good life
blah, that was in response to Steve’s Kanye quote
I wanna see thom yorke fuck that vampire chick… that would be bawlin’
maybe it is his way of getting back at Hannah by stealing the teenage girl demographic from here
is this like thom yorke-gum nowadays?
I don’t know, but I kinda like it.
^her*
Whatever dude, I’m just excited to hear some new Thom Yorke, plus the Twilight series gets a bad rap. It’s not so bad. Poorly written, granted, but interesting story. All that is beside the point. NEW THOM YORKE WITH A SIDE OF BON IVER. Who could complain?
Doesn’t Thom Yorke have two young kids??? Give him a break, he cares more about them than his fan base, so he’ll do things to make them happy. I wouldn’t be surprised if thats his reasoning if this rumor turns out to be true.
wtf is all this chatter about? His a musician and he’s making music for a soundtrack. End of the discussion.
always fun to see hipsters thinking its the end of the world when something commercial happens to their precious radiohead/thom yorke
The word “hipster” is thrown around too easily and often.
Yes, it is actually disappointing when an artist you thinks is somewhat special, whose past work has fed your soul, contributes to a project so blatantly commercial and soulless and shallow. Damn, it’s Monday.
A self-fulfilling prophecy of endless possibility
You roll in reams across the street
In algebra, in algebra
The fences that you cannot climb
The sentences that do not rhyme
In all that you can ever change
The one you’re looking for
It gets you down
It gets you down
There’s no spark
No light in the dark
It gets you down
It gets you down
You traveled far
What have you found
That there’s no time
There’s no time
To analyse
To think things through
To make sense
I had a nightmare about vampires that suck (cough) at being vampires last night. And there was a Thom Yorke song playing. And…oh fuck.
you guys take thom wayyy more seriously than he takes himself. the very core of his genius is simply that he does NOT give a shit..so if any of you morons feel he’s doing this for money, you’ve absolutely missed the point since 1993. thom is eccentricity, and if you’ve ever read radiohead literature, you will know that the band is composed of a bunch of goofy let’s fuck around type of guys. twilight may be a teenyboppy hit, but it’s overall a sexy series and i can understand why thom would want to jump on. it’s probably a half joke to him. i’m not surprised in the least that he’s doing this, and if you are honestly comparing him to billy corgan, who has made it clear time and time again that he’s a moneythirsty old man, then you definitely don’t understand radiohead.
Thom Yorke can do whatever the hell he wants at this point! This is a guy who gave away his music for FREE! If he wants to donate a song to the stupid vampire franchise than let him! I’m sure it’s gonna be one hell of a song!
You haters are idiots. First off, its ONE SONG…OOOH. Sorta like the ONE songs hid just did for the Mulcahy cd, or the ONE song he did with PJ Harvey, or the ONE with Bjork, …not to mention his whole ONE solo cd. It’s called staying interested in the craft of music by doing more that ONE effing thing like a trained seal. Secondly, he already allowed this franchise to use A song in the first movie, clearly if you do that you’re going to feel a connection to the fucking project, no? Btw, the more you HATE? The more you prove you’re clear obessive jealous of ALL of Radioheadom:D fags.
OH speaking of Thom Yorke n vampires, go to youtube and look up the Pop Is Dead video:D I TOTALLY forgot about that lil joke video gem hahahaha.
R-head fans were trashing Phil Selway and Jonny Greenwood for appearing in Harry Potter’s Goblet of Fire as Weird Sisters along with Pulp’s Jarvis Cocker, even thanking that Thom was spared from that humiliation. Well look who just lost his Street Creds now (as in all of it) by lending his skillz to Twilight. At least Jonny has better creds by writing the soundtrack to There will Be Blood.
So Mr. Thom, shall we add the screamy tweeny demographic to your snobby die hard fans.
Musicians make music. If this is something that Thom or anyone wants to contribute to so be it. You have no idea why he has decided to do this, and really, if it is because he is a fan and has the opportunity. I am pretty sure that everyone of you that has lashed out about Thom doing this has enjoyed something to the same extent. It is life. Just because you write some of the greatest and most artistic songs in the business does not mean you have to only do that to stay true to your stuck up douche bag fans. Really, if you are a fan of Radiohead and Thom, or Justin and his amazing work as Bon Iver you would respect their decisions. At the end of the day they are doing something that matters and changes peoples lives? What are you doing? Crying on the internet that they are selling out? Music is something to be enjoyed so let artists enjoy it. If the tracks come out and they are “bad” so be it. Bitch all you want, but crying for the sake that they are doing it and calling yourself a fan us bullshit. If you were a fan you would respect the band and the artist and you may not like everything they do, but you would not tear them apart for their decisions. Look around… are their books or movies around that you hide when you have someone new over because you don’t want to give the wrong idea? Would you really be fine with someone seeing your entire iTunes collection? There are more important things to worry about instead of a band you like “selling” out. Grow up and care about the real world, yes it is scary but it is a reality.
yet more evidence that megafaun is way better than bon iver.
i love twilight and i love thom yorke
Don’t care about Twilight, don’t care about Thom or Radiohead. The reason why fans or even non-fans raise their eyebrows in this Twilight-Thom thing is that Thom built a reputation of being too abstract or unattainable or don’t give a crap about the whole music industry. A stance which many of his fans adopted (that’s why many of them were dissing Coldplay, Miley Ray or the whole pop music).
I agree with what @BuzzFair said, that’s pretty much what this all about. Fans feeling betrayed and disenchanted. As for his indie creds, it won’t go exactly Aerosmith singing a Dianne Warren penned song that was intended for Celine Dionne, it’s more like David Cross appearing on Alvin and the Chipmuinks. It’s really no biggie, but it will become an arsenal against Thom of his fans each time they trash Coldplay, Miley, etc on the message boards.
I’m a 14 year old female and a die-hard RH fan and I despise Twilight with a burning passion. I think I’m the only girl in my high school who listens to them (besides maybe a couple of guys). Anyway, the point is I’m bummed they will be included in the soundtrack but at least they will get more exposure and I’ll get a new song;)
I hope the song sucks.
Sucks to be you, then.
first off…only nerds listen to radiohead…that being said…if i were a film director or producer looking to really commercialize a product i dont think thom yorke would be my first choice…face it…the boy doesnt get alot of airplay…on the other hand …if i wanted to add to little class to an otherwise drab product…mormon vampires, honestly…i think i might consider thom yorke…or maybe…its the director who needs the money directing that crap…maybe when he isnt paying the bills directing twilight…he reads bukowski and listens to radiohead…but im an old man and a hopeless romantic
I would just like to point out two things….
1) Radiohead made more money from IN RAINBOWS than they did HAIL TO THE THIEF. A lot of people are commenting that since the last album IN RAINBOWS didn’t make a ton of money, Thom is forced to write a song for a SDTK……this is not the case.
2) Radiohead has contributed a ton of songs to different movie SDTK’s over the years this is nothing new for the band…..just do your homework. You might be surprised by what movies they have contributed songs to…..movies such as CLUELESS and ROMEO & JUILET.
<3 Just show some support….it will probably be a great tune and you might feel inspired by how they choose to use it in the movie…I guess we’ll all have to wait and see.
Thom Yorke is a vampire.
“We want young blood…”
The movie is a crappy teen movie (I’m 15 ) no doubt about it .. but Thom is a free musician he can do whatever he wants with his music.. maybe he likes the movie ..
It’s going to be weird to see 13 year old girls singing a Radiohead song .. but whatever.. is his choice .
Greets!
Maybe Thom is going to record a studio version of “Follow Me Around” for the movie. He did play it acoustically recently, which seemed to me to come out of nowhere considering Radiohead only did that song once or twice live and both times were 7-8 years ago. Good song too.
I think it’s important to remember that Radiohead (Thom in particular) have always been adament about their music being more of a reflection of external factors in their lives, not them personally. Yeah Twilight may seem out of place, but it is still new music and that makes me happy…it doesn’t mean that Thom or Radiohead are Twilight freaks or anything.
So let the director/actors/actresses etc. of the movie get off on the fact that real artists actually care about putting music onto their banal movie and enjoy the fact that Radiohead is putting some quality stuff out there. They sell music, not an image.
I can not think that anyone would ever doubt that this song is not going to be good. Also they used a radiohead song in the first movie it just was not on the soundtrack. So this is nothing new.
Just out of curiousity, have you read the Twilight books or are you basing all of you hatred on all the media attention? I understand why Twilight gets a bad rap when you hear about 13 year old stalker kids, but the audience is larger than that and people’s obsession with it is really no different than other people’s crazy obsession with Star Trek, etc. Give all these guys a break. It’s not the end of the world.
Is it so hard to believe that Thom Yorke may have read the books and enjoyed them? He did after all, approach the director. The books are a great read. I tried to avoid the Twilight series like the plague and finally broke down over the summer when work at my place of employment ground to a halt. I asked someone if they had a book I could read on my computer to pass time and what do you know, the only thing available was the Twilight series. After a long heavy sigh and some complaining I accepted the file and got sucked in like everyone who has ever bothered to pick up the book. They are very eloquently. I have no regrets..
The song featured in the film is lovely. More power to Thom Yorke for not being afraid to contribute to something so main stream.. and maybe enjoying a little bit of Twilight himself :)