A Call For Truth In Advertising

Yesterday I received my DVD of Radiohead: Logical Emotions in the mail. I'd ordered it in mid-April and was eagerly awaiting the arrival of this "film documentary" of one of my favourite bands.

I knew things had gone south with my purchase, though, when the film opened with white letters on a black background stating:

"This documentary contains no original music by Radiohead. It is not authorized by the band, their record company or their management."

And they weren't kidding. You won't hear a single second of Radiohead music anywhere in its entirety, which was certainly a huge disappointment considering that their name was plastered all over it. Also, the vast majority of clips involve peripheral players (a self-important "Radiohead biographer" (probably also unauthorized); members of a no-name band from the same area of England; a rock promoter) with very few - and very short - sound bites from the band members themselves (all presumably taken from interviews done by other sources).

Now, being a big fan, I did enjoy parts of Logical Emotions because it provided some background on the band that I didn't already know. There was quite a bit of coverage of their early days operating under the name of On Any Friday which I found entertaining. But there were also extended stretches featuring annoying analyses of the music - of which we got exactly zero examples, remember! - by people without one-tenth the talent of anyone in Radiohead.

And while I'll readily admit that I could have researched the thing better before buying it online (and I'm not looking to get my money back), the bloody DVD cover shows a concert shot with Thom Yorke standing in front of thousands of people... which I think a reasonable person would interpret as meaning that the band actually will show up in it, and you'll get to hear some of their music! Pretty much wrong on both counts, though. I just finished writing a very negative review of it on Chapters.ca, to possibly save future generations from repeating my mistake.

I've got Astoria Live playing at the moment, just to wipe the bad taste of that experience out of my mouth. Now that's a fucking Radiohead DVD, dickwads!