Michael John Osterhout, Senior Art Director, Palio

Whether in advertising, in film or, in the case of this blog post, in music, there is one common realization amongst all creatives –– art is work. But each individual work of art that someone creates is just one expression of many that constitute a continuum of creation throughout that artist’s career. Art can inspire us, alter our mood, or maybe bring us back to a particular time in our life, but almost always we experience the final product on its own — never fully understanding or appreciating what the artist went through when creating the work and how it relates to his greater opus.

These days, most of the time, it’s just one or two tracks that we download from iTunes (or wherever), but an artist’s intent is often to have the work appreciated within the context of an entire album or supporting tracks. For this reason, I want to present a three-part series of reviews of albums that I consider to be masterpieces of modern music. Masterpieces that, to be fully appreciated, need to be experienced in their entirety and appreciated in the context of the complete volume of the artist’s work. I will be drawing on video references that help to offer a peak into the creative process and the thinking of each artist/band. Track 1 in this series will focus on the alternative rock band from Oxfordshire, Radiohead.

In 1997, Radiohead released their album, OK Computer, an album that some, myself included, speak of in the same breath as Sgt Pepper for its groundbreaking sound and composition. Off of the success of this highly influential masterpiece, Radiohead decided to document their 1998 world tour with Meeting People is Easy, a film produced by Grant Gee. The film gained critical acclaim and was nominated for a Grammy.

Without any narration supporting the movie, it focused mainly on how the band coped with their difficult experiences while touring; the fame, accolades, criticisms, endless promotion, etc. that come along with such a revolutionary album; and how they dealt with and, eventually, learned from their experiences. However, mixed into that beautiful collage of concert footage, music, personal conversations, and interviews, was an exhausted and burnt out band, that, while on tour, let off some creative steam by working on a few songs.

One of those songs would become Nude, a song that appeared 10 years later on their In Rainbows album. The process was broken down from how they started to how they eventually finished in this excerpt from Meeting People is Easy.

In this second excerpt, we see Thom Yorke (lead singer, writer of Radiohead) finishing off the mixing for a track that wasn’t a part of OK Computer, but instead became a B-Side called Palo Alto.

By watching these video clips, you’ll get a little more insight into what drove the creation and meaning of these two important Radiohead songs. And you will begin to see what the greater “brand,” called Radiohead, stands for. Kind of like the way an advertisement or piece of marketing communications that I create on any given day here at Palio, is just one element to a greater whole of brand development and positoning.

Palio is a full-spectrum global pharmaceutical and consumer advertising, marketing, and communications agency that excels in brand creation and specializes in brand strategy, product launches, global marketing, and digital and integrated media.