RADIOHEAD have said that they feel “excluded” by UK radio stations, including RADIO 1, for not playing their songs on air.
Radiohead famously refused to release any singles from recent album ‘Kid A’. However, in an interview with the Radio 3 show ‘Mixing It’, bassist Colin Greenwood claimed that the “demographics” of certain stations mean their music does not get played.
He said: “I heard the controller of Radio 1 say the demographic for their station is now 14 or 15 to 25 (years old), so I think we are kind of excluded. It is getting harder for our music to be heard.
“It is the nature of the times we are in. Other artists of considerable stature launched albums in the past few months only to see them drop out of the top twenties and thirties two weeks later.”
According to this morning’s Observer newspaper (January 7), Greenwood’s comments, which form part of a larger interview about the musical influences on their work, are unlikely to be aired.
A spokesperson for Radio 1 defended the amount of coverage the band receive. Recently, Radiohead recorded a live session for the station, a DJ session for the station, and Radio 1 were one of the first UK radio stations to premiere material from ‘Kid A’. He commented: “We have actually made far more room for Radiohead than commercial stations have, so it seems unfair that we have been picked out. Both Radiohead and U2 had major live performances on Radio 1 last year and Radiohead had unprecedented exposure.”