LISTEN LIVE

We Have Your Card for the Radiohead Public Library

Actually, you don’t even need a card. The Radiohead Public Library is free and open to the public, chock-full of all things Radiohead. And that’s not an exaggeration. Every Radiohead…

391292 12: Musicians Colin Greenwood, left, and Thom Yorke from the band “Radiohead” joke as they perform onstage June 29, 2001 at the Santa Barbara Bowl, CA. (Photo by Lucy Nicholson/Getty Images)

Actually, you don't even need a card. The Radiohead Public Library is free and open to the public, chock-full of all things Radiohead.

And that's not an exaggeration. Every Radiohead release is represented, complete with era-specific b-sides, rarities, live performances, even merch and t-shirts--some of which has been long out-of-circulation. Have a favorite Radiohead album? (Mine is The Bends.) You can wander the stacks for hours, unencumbered by a need for a streaming service or login. It's a free public library, after all.

So why an online library in 2020? The band put it like this: “The internet as a whole has never been a reliable resource for detailed or even accurate information re: Radiohead. Many sites that attempted to provide some measure of service have long since gone dark as well. The overall effect has been ‘Radiohead’ search results that yield random and/or abbreviated shards: songs and album titles unaccompanied by detailed artwork or any additional context, low quality videos preceded by advertisements and shuffled via algorithms, and so on… That ends with the unveiling of the Radiohead Public Library.”

Pay a visit to the library here. I've already poked through the card catalogue and found their 1992 debut EP Drill, The "White Cassette" with all those OK Computer extras, and SO MANY COOL T-SHIRTS. If only I could check one out and then return it after I've worn it out.

adam12Writer
Adam 12 is the Program Director of Boston's ROCK 92.9, heard weekdays from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. He's been flexing his encyclopedic rock knowledge in New England for over 2 decades, both on-air and online, at WBCN, WFNX, Boston.com, and indie617. At ROCK 92.9, he keeps you in the know on the big stories from the Boston music scene and writes about great places to eat, drink (beer), and to spend time outdoors in and around Boston.