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Monday Morning Pick-Me-Up: The Gift of Radiohead and LCD Soundsystem

Seth Sommerfeld
Author: Seth Sommerfeld
1 min.read

HEAD, RADIOHEAD

While Sam Smith ended up singing the theme song for the latest James Bond movie Spectre, the crooner wasn’t the first choice. It turns out Radiohead was originally tapped to pen the film’s introductory tune. It didn’t work out, but a song entitled “Spectre” was recorded. As a Christmas gift to the band’s fans, Thom Yorke posted “Spectre” for streaming and download on Soundcloud. It may not have all the hallmarks of a typical Bond theme, but the complexity of its haunting and foreboding vibe would’ve made for a superb addition to the series’ sonic canon.

CHRISTMAS IS PLAYING AT MY HOUSE, MY HOUSE

In a minor Christmas miracle for fans of LCD Soundsystem, James Murphy rounded up the members of the defunct New York dance rock band to create a downtrodden holiday treat. On Christmas Eve, the group released “Christmas Will Break Your Heart” a beautiful and depressing tune where Murphy muses about how “Christmas will crush your soul” and “Christmas will break your heart / like the armies of the unrelenting dark.” It’s certainly no cheerful sing-a-long, but seeing as it’s the last LCD Soundsystem song for the foreseeable future, it’ll do.

RUNNING WITH THE BULLS

Pearl Jam’s Eddie Vedder turned 51 last week, and SI Vault marked the occasion by digging up a delightful old photo of the singer celebrating a NBA Finals win with the 1996 Chicago Bulls. There’s a solid chance this is the most ’90s picture in existence. And while Vedder has long been an unabashed fan of his hometown Chicago teams, the image still makes our Sonics hearts ache just a little bit.

SEASONAL NO MAN’S LAND

To be honest, there’s not a lot that happens on the pop culture front during the week between Christmas and New Year’s Day. To fill the void, here’s on old video of John Roderick in a Santa suit, sitting next to a camel, singing a song about said nebulous week (“The Week Between”).




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Seth Sommerfeld
Seth Sommerfeld
Assistant Editor (Arts) Seth Sommerfeld runs the arts department at Seattle Met, crafting the magazine's On the Town section, editing the Culture Fiend blog, and contributing to reader service features such as “The Ultimate Seahawks Guide” and the front-of-the-book department, Mudroom. Seth has written about music and culture for Rolling Stone, Spin, Pacific Northwest Inlander, Charleston Post and Courier, Syracuse Post-Standard, and Billings Gazette. He also extensively covered the NBA Draft for years for Fox Sports and NBADraft.net, and was published as part of Myth, Media, and Culture in Star Wars: An Anthology. Originally from Billings, Montana, Seth first lived in Washington while earning an undergraduate degree in journalism and broadcasting at Gonzaga University. He followed up those studies at Syracuse University, where he earned a master’s degree in arts journalism.