Creativity Quote by Colin Greenwood

Colin Greenwood is puncturing a romantic myth the music world clings to: that the “underground” is where authenticity lives and commerce can’t reach. His tone isn’t mourning; it’s opportunistic, almost relieved. “I don’t think anything’s underground anymore” reads like an acknowledgment that the old map is gone - no more stable pipeline of tiny venues, zines, gatekeeper critics, and regional scenes that incubate sound before it “breaks.” The internet collapsed the waiting room. Discovery and distribution happen in public, instantly, and at scale.

The subtext is a quiet power shift. When everything is visible, the label “underground” stops functioning as a protective badge and starts functioning as branding - a vibe you can buy, perform, or algorithmically target. Greenwood’s “good thing” is a refusal to treat obscurity as moral superiority. If “everything is up for grabs,” then influence is less about who controls the channels and more about who can move fastest, remix hardest, or build the stickiest community. It’s also a musician’s pragmatic admission: you can’t guard a scene from exposure when your audience lives online.

Context matters: coming from a Radiohead member - a band that navigated the shift from alt-culture to global institution, then experimented with self-release tactics - this isn’t naive tech boosterism. It’s a veteran’s read on cultural liquidity. When scarcity dies, the fight moves from access to attention, and the only underground left is the one you make in real time.