"So ultimately, it's idealistic to think that artists are able to step away from the power of the media and the way it controls things, and go on doing their own things"
About this Quote
Yorke punctures the comforting myth of artistic independence by pointing to the gravitational field of media power. Culture is not a neutral space where artists simply make what they want and audiences simply find it. Visibility, timing, narrative, and even the form of the work itself are shaped by the channels that distribute it. Gatekeeping used to mean broadcast schedules and magazine covers; now it means algorithmic feeds, playlist placement, and platform policies. Either way, the economy of attention exerts pressure on what gets made and how it is framed.
Yorke has lived the paradox. Radiohead tried to slip free of standard cycles with Kid A, avoiding singles and traditional promotion. The press and industry simply told a different story on their behalf, amplifying mystique into a marketing asset. The pay-what-you-want release of In Rainbows was a genuine intervention in distribution, yet it still relied on the media apparatus to spread and legitimize the move. Even stepping off a platform becomes content for that platform to circulate. Resistance is metabolized by the system it resists.
Calling the hope of total autonomy idealistic does not reduce artists to helplessness. It marks the terrain honestly. To reach people, creators must traffic through systems that reward certain tempos, lengths, moods, and controversies. The challenge is to navigate without surrendering intent: to make work that acknowledges the conditions of its circulation while refusing to be entirely defined by them. Yorke’s career has modeled experiments in that direction, from austere press strategies to alternative releases to later, pragmatic returns to streaming services. Each move recognizes that there is no outside; there are only tactics.
Art’s task, then, is not purity but lucidity. Accept the influence, study it, bend it, subvert it. Let the work expose the logic of the media even as it travels through it. The friction between expression and infrastructure becomes a source of urgency and invention.
Yorke has lived the paradox. Radiohead tried to slip free of standard cycles with Kid A, avoiding singles and traditional promotion. The press and industry simply told a different story on their behalf, amplifying mystique into a marketing asset. The pay-what-you-want release of In Rainbows was a genuine intervention in distribution, yet it still relied on the media apparatus to spread and legitimize the move. Even stepping off a platform becomes content for that platform to circulate. Resistance is metabolized by the system it resists.
Calling the hope of total autonomy idealistic does not reduce artists to helplessness. It marks the terrain honestly. To reach people, creators must traffic through systems that reward certain tempos, lengths, moods, and controversies. The challenge is to navigate without surrendering intent: to make work that acknowledges the conditions of its circulation while refusing to be entirely defined by them. Yorke’s career has modeled experiments in that direction, from austere press strategies to alternative releases to later, pragmatic returns to streaming services. Each move recognizes that there is no outside; there are only tactics.
Art’s task, then, is not purity but lucidity. Accept the influence, study it, bend it, subvert it. Let the work expose the logic of the media even as it travels through it. The friction between expression and infrastructure becomes a source of urgency and invention.
Quote Details
| Topic | Art |
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