"Nude" is a song by the English rock bandRadiohead, released in March 2008 as the second single from their seventh studio albumIn Rainbows. Radiohead first recorded "Nude" during the sessions for their third album, OK Computer, but were not satisfied with the results. They performed it several times over the following decade, and it became one of their best-known unreleased songs. For In Rainbows, Radiohead rearranged the song around a bassline written by Colin Greenwood. "Nude" was promoted with a music video of Radiohead performing in slow motion, and a competition inviting fans to create remixes using the separated stem tracks. Boosted by the stem sales, it became Radiohead's most successful single on the BillboardHot 100 chart since their debut single "Creep" peaked in 1993.
History
"Nude" had various working titles, including "Failure to Receive Repayment Will Put Your House at Risk", "Big Ideas" and " Big Ideas". The final title derives from an early version of the chorus, which had the lyric "What do you look like when you’re nude?" Radiohead recorded a version of "Nude" during the first sessions for their third album, OK Computer, with producer Nigel Godrich. This version, inspired by Al Green, featured a Hammond organ, a "straighter" feel, and different lyrics. The band was initially pleased with the recording but, according to Godrich, "for some reason everyone went off it". "Nude" was first performed in the late 1990s by singer Thom Yorke in a solo performance in Japan. Radiohead performed it several times over the following decade, and it became one of their best-known unreleased songs. They and Godrich worked on "Nude" again during the sessions for their albums Kid A and Hail to the Thief, but were not satisfied with the results. During the early sessions for Radiohead's seventh album In Rainbows, Colin Greenwood wrote a new bassline for the song. According to Godrich, this "transformed it from something very straight into something that had much more of a rhythmic flow". The band also removed a chorus and wrote a new ending. They performed the new arrangement, along with other new material, on their 2006 tour before recording three takes for In Rainbows. The final take was used, with overdubs recorded in Covent Garden, London. Godrich said in 2008:
Composition
Pitchfork described "Nude" as a "graceful and sorrowful version" of "sneering, knees-up" songs by the Kinks or Blur, or an inverse of Radiohead's 1997 single "No Surprises". The lyrics address "suburban ennui, crushing boredom, unfulfilling go-nowhere lives". The chord progression uses a double-tonic complex, suggesting the keys of both E major and its relative minor C#.
Music video
The music video for "Nude" was directed by Adam Buxton and Garth Jennings. It was released on December 31, 2007, one day before the retail release of In Rainbows, as a part of Radiohead's Scotch Mist webcast. The video features Radiohead performing in slow motion with feathers filling the screen. Greenwood said:
Release
"Nude" was released as a single on 31 March 2008. Radiohead held a competition for fans to create remixes from the individual stem tracks of guitar, drums, bass, vocals and strings, available to purchase via iTunes. The entries were streamed on the Radiohead website. "Nude" outperformed the previous In Rainbows single, "Jigsaw Falling into Place", reaching number 21 on the UK Singles Chart. It reached number 37 on the Billboard Hot 100, making it Radiohead's second top 40 hit after "Creep" reached number 34 in 1993. It was also the first Radiohead song to make the Pop 100. Sales included sales of the remix stems, boosting its chart performance. In 2020, the Guardian named it the seventh greatest Radiohead song, writing: "After kicking around in Radiohead lore for more than a decade, 'Nude'... found stunning form, first by channelling Björk – choppy coos, weeping strings – and then in a finale as bright and penetrating as dawn." Early versions of "Nude", recorded in the OK Computer period, were included in the special edition of the 2017 OK Computer reissue OKNOTOK 1997 2017 and the 2019 compilation MiniDiscs |MiniDiscs .
