Reckoner
Encyclopedia
"Reckoner" is a song by the English alternative rock
Alternative rock
Alternative rock is a genre of rock music and a term used to describe a diverse musical movement that emerged from the independent music underground of the 1980s and became widely popular by the 1990s...

 band Radiohead
Radiohead
Radiohead are an English rock band from Abingdon, Oxfordshire, formed in 1985. The band consists of Thom Yorke , Jonny Greenwood , Ed O'Brien , Colin Greenwood and Phil Selway .Radiohead released their debut single "Creep" in 1992...

, and is the seventh track on their 2007 album In Rainbows
In Rainbows
In Rainbows is the seventh studio album by the English rock band Radiohead. It was first released on 10 October 2007 as a digital download self-released, that customers could order for whatever price they saw fit, followed by a standard CD release in most countries during the last week of 2007. The...

. The song was released as the third and final single
Single (music)
In music, a single or record single is a type of release, typically a recording of fewer tracks than an LP or a CD. This can be released for sale to the public in a variety of different formats. In most cases, the single is a song that is released separately from an album, but it can still appear...

 from In Rainbows on 23 September 2008. It was released through the Radiohead Remix website in the form of "stems", individual parts of the song (e.g. vocals, guitar, piano) for fans to remix
Remix
A remix is an alternative version of a recorded song, made from an original version. This term is also used for any alterations of media other than song ....

, as with "Nude
Nude (song)
"Nude" is a song by the English rock band Radiohead, appearing as the third track on their 2007 album In Rainbows. The song was released as the second single from In Rainbows on 31 March 2008. "Nude" was written in 1997, and the band began to perform it live soon after. However, a recording was not...

". The band had James Holden
James Holden (producer)
James Holden is a British electronic music artist and DJ. Holden started his career in 1999, at age 19, when he released the trance single, "Horizons". After this he released numerous singles and remixes on different labels such as Lost Language, Perfecto Recordings, and Positiva Recordings...

 and Diplo create the first remixes of "Reckoner".

The song was listed at #254 on Pitchfork Media
Pitchfork Media
Pitchfork Media, usually known simply as Pitchfork or P4k, is a Chicago-based daily Internet publication established in 1995 that is devoted to music criticism and commentary, music news, and artist interviews. Its focus is on underground and independent music, especially indie rock...

's "Top 500 songs of the 2000s". In October 2011, NME
NME
The New Musical Express is a popular music publication in the United Kingdom, published weekly since March 1952. It started as a music newspaper, and gradually moved toward a magazine format during the 1980s, changing from newsprint in 1998. It was the first British paper to include a singles...

placed it at number 93 on its list "150 Best Tracks of the Past 15 Years".

History

In 2001, Radiohead performed a song with the working title of "Reckoner" in George, Washington
George, Washington
George is a city in Grant County, Washington, United States. The population was 528 at the 2000 census. Its name is a play on the name of George Washington.The city is known for being near the Gorge Amphitheatre, sometimes being called, "The Gorge at George"....

. This song, also known as "Feeling Pulled Apart by Horses" after a part of the lyrics, was a fast-paced, 'thrashy' rock song. In 2005, at a Trade Justice Movement
Trade Justice Movement
The Trade Justice Movement is a British coalition, founded in 2000, of more than 80 organizations campaigning for trade justice.The coalition has a particular focus on UK and EU trade policies...

 rally where he also played "Nude", Radiohead singer Thom Yorke
Thom Yorke
Thomas "Thom" Edward Yorke is an English musician who is the lead vocalist and principal songwriter for Radiohead. He mainly plays guitar and piano, but he has also played drums and bass guitar...

 performed this early version of "Reckoner" on acoustic guitar. Yorke was later asked about the band's plans for "Reckoner", and he declared it "dead and buried". The song, in either form, was not played on the 2006 Radiohead tour where most In Rainbows material was introduced live. However, the song title was included in the final track listing of their seventh album.

"Reckoner" on In Rainbows bears little resemblance to the earlier incarnation of the song. When the album came out in October 2007, critics and listeners who had heard both versions remarked that the recorded version of "Reckoner" was a completely different, calmer song, taking the form of a ballad sung in falsetto
Falsetto
Falsetto is the vocal register occupying the frequency range just above the modal voice register and overlapping with it by approximately one octave. It is produced by the vibration of the ligamentous edges of the vocal folds, in whole or in part...

, with dominant percussion and insistent, softer guitar riffs, and entirely different lyrics. The recording also features a string arrangement
String orchestra
A string orchestra is an orchestra composed solely or primarily of instruments from the string family. These instruments are the violin, the viola, the cello, the double bass , the piano, the harp, and sometimes percussion...

 by guitarist Jonny Greenwood
Jonny Greenwood
Jonathan Richard Guy "Jonny" Greenwood is an English musician and composer, best known as a member of the English rock band Radiohead. Greenwood is a multi-instrumentalist, but serves mainly as lead guitarist and keyboard player. In addition to guitar and keyboard, he plays viola, harmonica,...

.

Late in 2007, members of Radiohead gave an interview to BBC Radio 1
BBC Radio 1
BBC Radio 1 is a British national radio station operated by the British Broadcasting Corporation which also broadcasts internationally, specialising in current popular music and chart hits throughout the day. Radio 1 provides alternative genres after 7:00pm including electronic dance, hip hop, rock...

 in which they explained that the new "Reckoner" in fact came out of an attempt to record the earlier song with that title. Late in the sessions, Yorke and Greenwood tried adding a coda
Coda (music)
Coda is a term used in music in a number of different senses, primarily to designate a passage that brings a piece to an end. Technically, it is an expanded cadence...

 to the original version of the song, and eventually the band decided to abandon everything except the new coda, which became "Reckoner".

The pre-coda, original version of Reckoner was eventually reworked by Thom Yorke (with Jonny Greenwood) and released as a solo effort, bearing the title Feeling Pulled Apart By Horses.

When played live, Yorke's guitar chords are more prominent in the outro section of the song. This part is played on an acoustic guitar in the studio version. The chords bear a vague harmonic
Harmonic
A harmonic of a wave is a component frequency of the signal that is an integer multiple of the fundamental frequency, i.e. if the fundamental frequency is f, the harmonics have frequencies 2f, 3f, 4f, . . . etc. The harmonics have the property that they are all periodic at the fundamental...

 similarity to the intro of the original version.

"Reckoner" is featured in the 2008 film Choke
Choke (film)
Choke is a 2008 American black comedy film directed by Clark Gregg. The film stars Sam Rockwell and Anjelica Huston. Production took place in New Jersey in 2007. It premiered at the 2008 Sundance Film Festival and was purchased by Fox Searchlight Pictures for distribution...

based on the novel by Chuck Palahniuk
Chuck Palahniuk
Charles Michael "Chuck" Palahniuk is an American transgressional fiction novelist and freelance journalist. He is best known for the award-winning novel Fight Club, which was later made into a film directed by David Fincher and starring Brad Pitt, Edward Norton, and Helena Bonham Carter...

, and in the 2010 Warren Miller
Warren Miller (director)
Warren Miller is an American ski and snowboarding filmmaker. He is the founder of Warren Miller Entertainment and produced, directed and narrated his films until 1988. His credits include over 750 sports films, several books and hundreds of published non-fiction stories...

 film, "Wintervention". It was also featured in Season 2 of television drama series Life and is used for the closing credits of the 2009 eco-documentary The Age of Stupid
The Age of Stupid
The Age of Stupid is a 2009 British film by Franny Armstrong, director of McLibel and Drowned Out, and founder of 10:10, and first-time producer Lizzie Gillett...

and 2010 documentary Countdown to Zero
Countdown to Zero
Countdown to Zero is a documentary film released in 2010 which argues that the likelihood of the use of nuclear weapons has increased since the end of the Cold War due to terrorism, nuclear proliferation, theft of nuclear materials and weapons, and other factors.The documentary film was set for a...

. The song was also used during the climax of the season 1 finale of the television series Detroit 1-8-7
Detroit 1-8-7
Detroit 1-8-7 is an American crime drama series about Detroit's leading homicide unit, created by Jason Richman for ABC. It features an ensemble cast of actors including Michael Imperioli and James McDaniel...

. Gnarls Barkley
Gnarls Barkley
Gnarls Barkley is an American soul duo comprising Danger Mouse and Cee Lo Green. Their first studio album St. Elsewhere was released in 2006; along with its first single "Crazy". Both single and album were a major commercial success and have been noted for their large sales by download...

 have played a cover of the song numerous times on tour.

Music video

The official music video for "Reckoner" is Virtual Lasagna's submission to a video contest conducted by Aniboom
AniBOOM
Aniboom is an online production studio that makes animation by reaching out to its database of over 9,500 creators who are located around the globe...

. The video was chosen on 1 October 2008. The video depicts a situation in which a place filled with greenery is being replaced with structures, which hints at the gradual depletion of the world's forests for human benefit.
The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
 
x
OK