Home | Songs By Year | Songs from 2011
The Daily Mail / Staircase
Buy The Daily Mail / Staircase now from AmazonFirst, read the Wikipedia article. Then, scroll down to see what other TopShelfReviews readers thought about the song. And once you've experienced the song, tell everyone what you thought about it.
Wikipedia article
"'The Daily Mail'" and "'Staircase'" are songs by the English alternative rock band Radiohead, released as a download on 19 December 2011. Both recordings are taken from the live video 'The King of Limbs: Live from the Basement' (2011), and feature additional drummer and percussionist Clive Deamer.
Recording
"The Daily Mail" was written six years before release. When Radiohead decided to perform it for 'From the Basement', they completed the arrangement within a week, featuring a brass section arranged by guitarist Jonny Greenwood. The song attacks the 'Daily Mail', a British tabloid newspaper, with lyrics such as "the lunatics have taken over the asylum" and "we'll feed you to the hounds / to the 'Daily Mail'". 'Vulture' described it as a "piano ballad that grows, bolstered by fury ... into a swaggering anthem".
"Staircase" features "atmospheric" synthesisers and "busy, skittering" beats. Radiohead worked on it before their eighth album, 'The King of Limbs' (2011), but it did not progress beyond the demo stages until after the album's release.
Both recordings are taken from the live video 'The King of Limbs: Live from the Basement' (2011), and feature additional drummer and percussionist Clive Deamer.
Reception
Reviewing a performance on 'The Colbert Report', 'Guardian' writer Hadley Freeman wrote that "The Daily Mail" was "a funny idea" but "barely touches its nigh on unmissable target". However, a 2020 'Guardian' article by Jazz Monroe named it the 39th best Radiohead song: "Its irresistible, suggesting an unlikely kinship between Radiohead and the venerable pop cynic Randy Newman: musical-theatre flair weaponised against tabloid hysteria." 'Stereogum' writer Chris Deville said that "The Daily Mail" was "among Yorkes most powerful piano rockers", and described "Staircase" as "like a Hot Chip song descending into purgatory (in the best way)". He speculated that 'The King of Limbs' would be a fan favourite had it included the songs along with "Supercollider" and "The Butcher", also released that year.
Track listing
Charts
References
Buy The Daily Mail / Staircase now from Amazon
<-- Return to songs from 2011