Tuesday, March 4, 2014

Style in "Idioteque"

In the song "Idioteque", Radiohead uses a slow electronic beat that gets chirpier as the song breaks into chorus, coinciding with their switches from serious situations to a few moments of relief.  Radioheads begins their song with a slow, mysterious beat to set the perfect mood for their opening lyrics about women and children going into a bunker first.  As the song moves into the chorus, the beat gets longer and happier to show the audience that although all of these negative things (nuclear war threats, Ice Age warnings, scaremongering, mobile takeover) are happening in our world, we are here, alive.  Radiohead also repeats the last line of every verse, differentiating between fading out and staying solid.  When the verse fades out, Radiohead is letting us know that these times have past, and when the verse repeats the entire line, these times are still occurring.  By repeating certain lines, Radiohead is also making sure that their audience is grasping and remembering everything about their song.  Lastly, "Idioteque" is ended with yet another mysterious beat that trails off with the line "the first of the children" to reiterate one of their conflicts and to also add to the overriding tone.      

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