Music (Over)Analysis - Symphony No. 5 by Dmitri Shostakovich, the condemnation of Stalin regime and vindication of Stalin's anti-formalism

While Shostakovich is nowhere near my favourite artist, he's by far has the most interesting story. Shostakovich Great Masters Lecture series by Robert Greenberg should be recommended to even people who have no interest in music in general and would be interesting for anyone just interested in history. I'm going to comment on Shostakovich assuming that the "Testimony" biography is 100% accurate (this is disputed). Robert Greenberg believes it was accurate and the Great Masters series is reliant on it's accuracy and apparently the book Shostakovich Reconsidered defended the attacks on it's credibility.Shostakovich Symphony No. 5 is probably the most interesting background story behind a composition in the history of western music.

The background was that Shostakovich who had the reputation as the leading and most talented Russian-based composer in music at that current time. However this all changed when Shostakovich written the opera "Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District". Although that opera was a massive hit in Russia and internationally. One day Josef Stalin personally attended the opera and everything changed that day. Josef Stalin was offended by the sexual explicitness of the opera as well as the modernist dissonance characteristic of the opera that was considered pandering to the bourgeois. The term that was used in denouncing modernist music that doesn't glorify the state was called "formalist" music. Josef Stalin and his officials left the theatre after the first act and was quoted as calling the opera "that degenerate music!" 

Two days later on January 28, 1936, apparently Josef Stalin himself wrote an editorial called "Muddle instead of Music" denouncing the opera and giving an undisguised threat to Shostakovich himself. This is a key quote from the editorial

"From the first minute, the listener is shocked by deliberate dissonance, by a confused stream of sound. Snatches of melody, the beginnings of a musical phrase, are drowned, emerge again, and disappear in a grinding and squealing roar. To follow this "music" is most difficult; to remember it, impossible.

Thus it goes, practically throughout the entire opera. The singing on the stage is replaced by shrieks. If the composer chances to come upon the path of a clear and simple melody, he throws himself back into a wilderness of musical chaos - in places becoming cacophony. The expression which the listener expects is supplanted by wild rhythm. Passion is here supposed to be expressed by noise. All this is not due to lack of talent, or lack of ability to depict strong and simple emotions in music. Here is music turned deliberately inside out in order that nothing will be reminiscent of classical opera, or have anything in common with symphonic music or with simple and popular musical language accessible to all. This music is built on the basis of rejecting opera - the same basis on which "Leftist" Art rejects in the theatre simplicity, realism, clarity of image, and the unaffected spoken word - which carries into the theatre and into music the most negative features of "Meyerholdism" infinitely multiplied. Here we have "leftist" confusion instead of natural human music. The power of good music to infect the masses has been sacrificed to a petty-bourgeois, "formalist" attempt to create originality through cheap clowning. It is a game of clever ingenuity that may end very badly."

After that article was published, Shostakovich became an "enemy of the people" and the public stopped playing his work. the performance of Symphony No. 4 was cancelled due to it's "formalist' nature. Shostakovich fully believed that he would be purged, however that purged never happen. The Russian state believed that Shostakovich could be an asset if he was rehabilitated from his "formalist mistakes". 

So Shostakovich went on composing fifth symphony that would either rehabilitate him or led him being purged. His life was actually in stake with this composition. He was instructed that the composition of music should be accessible to the masses and in the future, the submission of any proposed project was screened by the committee. Immediately before the premier, Shostakovich 5th symphony was performed to party select who would screen it for ideological suitability. Publicly Shostakovich stated that the composition was "a Soviet artist’s creative response to justified criticism." and that the work was about "A lengthy spiritual battle, crowned by victory". 

However no matter how much Shostakovich said publicly that this was about his personal rehabilitation from the formalist composer to the person who is aligned with the doctrine of the state, the audience understood what the piece was about which was about the horror of the "great purges" by Stalin and for the audience who experienced friends and family being purged, emotionally relate to this work and afterwards gave him a standing ovation for hours. Shostakovich seemingly did the impossible, he rehabilitated himself to the state while at the same time tapping into the grief and anger of the public condemning the regime. This is essentially the subversive, underdog version of George Orwell "doublespeak". Instead of doublespeak as a way to subjugate the population, it's doublespeak to rebel against authority.

In fact I have to say it's a miracle that Shostakovich got away with the Symphony No. 5. If I was a party hack scrutinising his work for ideology suitability, I would have easily recognised that this was an attack on Stalin regime and had him executed. The first time I listened to this symphony with absolutely zero background reading, at no point did I felt this was celebratory glorification music but instead it struck me as essentially as an incredibly disturbing dark music.. Shostakovich must have been a brilliant bullshit artist for him to convinced the party hacks this was his rehabilitation.

The first movement is essentially disturbing horror music of people hiding from a terrifying danger and in the development section it morphed into a violent terrifying marched that seems like a violent caricature of the soviet military music and the music ended in a sombre note. The second movement is like a scherzo (a joke) of a scherzo (which is essentially a joke of the minuet and trio). I mean technically it's a waltz but this time Shostakovich tendency to subvert expectation comes to a fore. Where this seemingly accessible dancing melody becomes off-balanced and gets twisted that feels dissonant. It's a grotesque parody of a dance. The third movement reduced the audience members who were suffering under Stalin rule to tears. When I first read that description, you would think this was some melodramatic "sad" music like "Adagio for Strings" by Barber that tugs on your heart string but instead of this tragic depressing sad music, unexpectedly what we get instead was this horrified shock. The music is quite brilliantly subdued that suits the message of the music. The imagery I get is an aftermath of a massacre seeing dead bodies and be in complete shock and numb unable to process what they saw rather than something really depressing. It's a far more interesting and unexpected slow movement that took me by surprised. 

The 4th movement is one the greatest concert closer I have ever heard. As a first time audience was quoted, it was the sound of "The iron tread of a monstrous power trampling man" and the music depicts a military march but portrayed it with extreme brutality. The military march then fades into quiet despair as people react to the consequences of the violence from organised state violence. The highlight of the last movement was the tense and final build up from the preceding despair via a repetitive ascending stabbing strings that initially sounds violent but resolves in a seemingly celebratory major key. It was perhaps the only thing that could have been perceived to be "optimistic" in the entire symphony and perhaps the reason why Shostakovich was able to lie to the Communist party members that this was a victorious conclusion to a lengthy spiritual battle but considering the incredibly violent and brutal build up to that ending and how the repetitive stabbing like string sounds incredibly brutal still remained when the major transition occurs and how the major key ending seems almost abrupt, I can easily dismissed this happy ending as a red-herring and quite frankly it made a hell of a lot more sense to view the rejoicing to be '"forced" as the major key ending was a result of atrocity and violence as depicted in the previous tension. As stated in Testimony by Shostakovich "The rejoicing is forced, created under threat, as in Boris Godunov. It's as if someone were beating you with a stick and saying, "Your business is rejoicing, your business is rejoicing," and you rise, shaky, and go marching off, muttering, "Our business is rejoicing, our business is rejoicing."

Symphony No, 5 is a great subversive "doublespeak" composition that makes a mockery of Stalin request to write optimistic music glorifying the state. However as you may notice by the heading, It's my view that despite it's subversive nature, it's as much of a vindication of Stalin's anti-formalism as it is a criticism of Stalin enforcing it.

The fact of the manner is that Symphony No. 5 is one of the most accessible works in Shostakovich career. Shostakovich was forced to tone down his modernistic tendency and create work that is emotionally direct that captures the spirit of the population instead of the bourgeois intellectuals. It's what happen when you meet the audience half-way, tempering your self-expressive values and balancing it with accessibility and the desire for the audience to listened to music that is somewhat pleasurable to listen to. The funny thing is that Shostakovich learned his lesson and exactly addressed what Stalin asked "The power of good music to infect the masses has been sacrificed to a petty-bourgeois, "formalist" attempt to create originality through cheap clowning." Shostakovich wrote music with this symphony that was designed to infect the masses and none of the modernist elements of the composition felt like gratuitous and is completely integrated with the emotions of the music. If Shostakovich didn't have the restriction imposed on him, I wonder whether he could have ever created a work that became a cultural milestone even if the piece had the same message as it could have never touched the hearts of the listeners, it would have never reduced the audience to tears and it would have never brought a standing ovation that last an hour. Sure it was music condemning the Stalin regime but it was music that perversely Stalin right on the fallacy of modernist attitude. Stalin may have been extremely unethical for threatening to purge Shostakovich for writing modernist work but without that restriction his work could have never flourished.

Music (Over)Analysis - Ludwig Van Beethoven's Symphony No. 5

Mozart: "Oh, Papa, you have no education for the wide world, and you speak so few languages"

Haydn:  "But my language is understood all over the world."

Beethoven's Symphony No. 5 is a pretty generic choice for the favourite work of all time especially considering the opening motif to be the most famous line in concert music history. However just because it's a typical boring predictable choice doesn't mean it's wrong and I'll explain why out of every piece of music I've heard this is my personal number 1. Even though I have barely scratched the surface of the huge world of concert music, I seriously doubt I would ever hear a work that will eclipse it as I simply can't conceive how it's possible for a work to eclipse it.

I'm not going to do a musicologist music theory analysis as I'm simply not knowledgeable enough or qualified for it but I believe the strength of this work goes beyond the intelligence of well organised notes on the scores. To me the whole debate about absolute music vs programmatic music is answered by this symphony and the whole validity of music as a genre of the arts itself is answered by this symphony better than any other work I have heard so far.

First I'll describe the type of imagery this symphony elicits in me personally and I have put timecode which align the described section with the video link. (0:07) The opening motif aka the famous "fate motif" and that description is perfectly apt (even if it wasn't assign by Beethoven himself). To me it represents the feeling when someone broke bad news,  such as you've been diagnosed of a terminal illness, your family member has died, or you found out your deafness is incurable. In the end it doesn't matter what specific event it is but the general universal human principles that a traumatic event has occured in your life. The whole sequencing and transformation of the "fate motif" represents the immediate impact of hearing the bad news where your entire mindset is dominated by that event. No matter what you do, where you look, you can't stop thinking about this tragedy and it completely dominates your life at this point of time as that motif pops up everywhere in the first theme. The entire first theme of the movement just exudes extreme despair at the situation. 

The horn call (0:50) signals the second more lyric and beautiful theme appears and it ends in a seemingly triumphant C major key. This to me represents the person in denial and fantasising the problem away and pretending it doesn't exist and everything is ok. However no matter how much you wished the problem goes away, fate comes knocking at the door as the fate motif of theme one returns back to C minor. In the end everyone has to face the current reality of the situation.

The development section (2:50) has the horn call theme which represented hopeful denial being fragmented and torn apart leaving just a single soft chord beating (3:47) (symbolising the individual beating heart) but barely alive. This development section symbolises hope being torn apart and the protagonist feeling isolated (as shown by the single soft chord beating) leaving the person contemplating suicide before snapping out of that moment (4:00). This leads to the recapitulation (4:15) where the minor key fate motif is more subdue that represent sad reflection rather than the angst at the beginning of the movement and the section end in a more optimistic major key (5:23) that represents the protagonist rescuing themselves from the edge of suicidal despair.

However the darkness returns in the coda (5:38) which I also serves as a second development section and  I can hear (even with no words) during the match-like climax of the coda (6:05) of the protagonist saying 'it's not fair" and raging in anger at the events that surround their lives as the movement ends in a very dark note. The protagonist may well be alive but the person mind is in a dark place.

The second slow movement (7:00) represents behavioural activation as the protagonist picking up the pieces from the first movement. The essential day to day activities has to be attended to and life doesn't stop for any tragedy that any individual faces.  The slow beginning to me represents the protagonist going through the motions of daily activities. However as the movement goes on, each variations of the themes (such as 8:12) are presented more heroically and more trumphantly. This isn't a victory over the darkness in their mind (which will occur later in this symphony) but rather a defiant I'm enduring and surviving despite the problems in my life. The act of enduring and pushing through and maintaining daily activity is therapeutic in of itself as shown by how the C Major second theme of the variation plays the role of hope (as it does in every movement) returning, this hope itself re-energises the first theme in subsequent variations where it is portrayed more energetic. The constant soft minor key melancholy shifts in between the triumphant themes (example 8:28) as well as the rhythmic call back to the "fate motif" (9:49) by the viola represents that the darkness is still very much there but it hasn't defeated the person.

The third movement "scherzo" (15:54) is the famous confrontation between light and dark or "C Major" and "C Minor".  The bombastic "A" theme (16:12) with the rhythmic "fate motif' by the horns represents the imposing depression that dominates the mind of the protagonist that threatens to overwhelm the listener (and hence the protagonist). However the "B" the contrasting C Major theme (17:36) responds with humour and life. What defeats the internal forces of darkness was the ability to look at the problems facing in your life and laugh at it. It's really an example of cognitive restructuring where by viewing the same problems via a different lens and thought process, the problems no longer seems so big. In a way the message of this symphony is laughter/humour is the best medicine and an example of how Beethoven uses humour as a coping strategy and used that to challenge his negative thoughts. So when the "A" theme returns (18:53) it's a shadow of its former self as the protagonist no longer put fuel on his negative thoughts as shown by the theme is played softly with pizzicato strings which represents the impending defeat of the depression of the protagonist life.

The depression in the mind is defeated by the joys of life that transitions to the celebratory final movement where it's pure emotional ecstasy (20:30). C Major has triumph over C Minor. The movement documents the defeat of depression as man heroic triumph over adversity.   The rhythmic pattern of the fate motif returns (21:38)  with the horns but instead of being used to represent despair it represents triumph as not only did the protagonist endured and survive the traumatic event but that event built character and became a stronger person due to prevailing over adversity which matched how Beethoven composing flourish due to his personal battles over his fluctuating deafness. There is also a moment of nuance as there is a transition to the minor key in the modulating bridge (23:00) that leads back to the dark C Minor "A" theme from the scherzo made a brief return in the final movement (24:00). This represents that the underlying trauma and damage is still there and will always be there for the rest of the person life and there is always a risk of return or relapse back in the darkness. After all whatever traumatic event happened in the first movement (terminal illness, death in the family, chronic illness etc) is still there but it's not going to defeat the person mentally as the triumphant C Major return (24:33) movement wipes away the darkness.

Beethoven's 5th symphony is an inspirational tale of how a person can triumph over adversity. However what made this the ultimate quintessential piece of western music is that it told this story purely from the music without having to say a single word. I find this symphony as the most direct example of communication purely by music without words in western music. Now what I've written previously may be my own personal interpretation of the symphony however plenty of people out there have very similar interpretations of what I mention and that was derived purely from the music.

If someone asked to justify the validity of music as a genre of the arts. Beethoven Symphony No. 5 to me is the best example of this because it shows how music is a form of universal language of emotions that is able to communicate with people that words can't adequately portray. Sure Beethoven could say in words that he felt depressed after finding out his hearing loss is incurable but if he was alive today and told me that i wouldn't be able to understand because I can't speak German (despite doing German lessons up to Year 10). There is a language and cultural barriers that prevent verbal communication between two people. 

However listening to this Symphony not only do I understand what he was feeling, I felt the same emotions along with him. If someone told the person how they feel, they may be able to understand how they feel  in an abstract sense and they can only feel what other people feel by using their imaginations and putting themselves in other peoples shoes. Music directly transports you into the other person shoes. As the quote from Gary Oldman portrayal of Beethoven in the film "Immortal Beloved" "It is the power of music to carry one directly into the mental state of the composer. The listener has no choice." This type of communication crosses cultural barriers as even someone from let say Asia (judging by the popularity of Beethoven in Japan due to the annual New Years Ode To Joy) could understand the music and the message. I feel that Beethoven understood more than most that music is the "language understood all over the world" than any other composer.

Now there are plenty of examples of elaborate programmatic music that tells a story such as the brilliant Hector Berlioz "Symphonie Fantastique" where it's instrumental narrative goes beyond even what Beethoven was trying to do. However can anyone derived the plot purely from listening to the music without referring to the program notes? I really don't think so and I believe that only by reading the program notes that describe the plot of the symphony does the message of the music and it's cleverness reveals itself.  This is the reason why I rate Beethoven symphonies higher because the message from the symphony is derived purely by the music. Hell this is the reason why I rate Beethoven Symphony No. 5 higher than No. 9 (which is my second favourite piece of all time) as even though Symphony No. 9 is brilliant, it requires words to make sense of the last movement as I don't believe the utopian message could be derived from the music without lyrics.  Due to that it lacks the music purity of Symphony No. 5. Ironically Symphony No. 5 is probably more universal and more inclusive than Symphony No. 9 due to that. The message of a person struggling and overcoming adversity in their life is probably more universal theme than a utopian all men are brothers which although I agree with that message, certainly there are plenty of people who don't agree with that message.

Beethoven resolved the programmatic vs absolute music debate that was popular in the romantic era even before it even started. Symphony No. 5 is absolute music that tells a story. It has the drama as any programmatic music and represents extramusical concept without any program notes or vocal text. This is music that transcend the whole debate.

Now I'm first to admit that I'm not familiar with the massive repertoire of concert music to make definitive statements about what is the greatest work of all time. However I find it difficult to imagine how anyone can topped that work but I'm open to suggestions. Can anyone tell me a piece of work that is able to communicate an emotional journey purely by the music as good as what Beethoven achieved in Symphony No. 5? 

Music (Over)Analysis - Highway Star by Deep Purple

The shear genius of Highway Star

This is my essay on why Highway Star is the greatest car song of all time and one of all time favourite song.

What makes me gush over this song is how the music of the song work to create this speeding in a highway atmosphere Whenever I listen to this song I get vivid imagery of street racing . Hell this is someone who doesn’t particularly enjoy driving and hate road hoons (I’m probably more in line with Thom Yorke’s feeling about cars). Yet this song manage to deceive me and make me think for a moment that driving car fast is fun. Oh yeah, also because this song kick arse.

So this is my fan fiction in creating a narrative (purely by the music) on what is going on in the song

So the song starts off with some chord strumming (mostly one strum per bar instead of the regular power chord that soon follow) by the guitar with a regular bass playing. This intro creates imagery in my head of the car being turn on and speeding off.

When the guitar starts playing some regular bar chords it sounds like the car is chuggling along at cruising (especially when the audible pick scratching noise give it a more mechanical sound to it) and then you hear Gillan screaming that signifies the car is speeding up and the adrenaline it feels.

Later in the song when you hear “it’s a killer machine, it’s got everything”, you hear a descending chromatic 4 notes. (F, E, D#, D), everytime I hear that four note sequence throughout the song I get imagery of the driver is changing gear (of course he is driving manual).

The chorus has Jon Lord playing chords in between Gillan singing. To me those chords symbolizes cars on the street beeping at the driver for driving like a maniac (as this is street racing he may even be driving in the wrong side of the road).

The chorus I hear this
(Beep) I love it (Beep) I need it (Beep) I bleed it (Beep) (Beep) (Beep) Yeah it’s a wild (Beep) machine, alright hold tight I’m a highway star.

Before the keyboard solo, you hear a buzzing noise (I think it’s a distortion from a guitar) that pan from the right of the speaker to the left. To me it sounds like another car that you are racing against is accelerating and catching up to you

Then Jon Lord plays a killer solo. To me this section signifies two cars are dualing with each other during the race. To me what added to this sensation that the two car are dualing is that Jon Lord plays this rapid keyboard section but with both of his hands and they are playing different notes harmonizing each other (but with the same rhythm). So with the left hand harmonizing the right hand it sounds like two cars are neck to neck battling it out with each other.

At the end of the solo you hear Lord’s solo go to a stop with a single chord finishing off the solo with a distorted sound whilst at the same time the rest of the song goes back to normal. So to me this signifies the protagonist cars spins out and goes to a stop whilst the opposing car drives on unharm (because you can hear the regular strumming pattern). The little interlude at the 2:50 minute mark signifies the protagonist getting the car back on and back to the race

So the song continues on and the protagonist catch up with the opponent and during the Ritchie Blackmore’s guitar solo. This signified the second car racing dual between the protagonist and his opponent and because I can hear some double tracking and hearing two lead guitars during that solo) again it does sounds like it’s two cars dueling each other.

At the end of the solo you hear Blackmore pulling the tremolo bar and that strange wobbling noise signifies the opposing racer spun out and is left behind as the protagonist drives on.

At the end, Gillan repeats “I’m A Highway Star” numerous time as this is him saying to himself that he is the star as he is reaching the finishing line. You hear Blackmore playing a ascending one string guitar line during that section and each time the guitar line ascend it signifies it’s getting closer and closer to the finishing line for winning the race. The final “Highway Star” with the drum doing a final fill, and Blackmore doing a final riff signifies the car crossing the finishing line and winning the street race.

So yes that’s the imagery I get from listening to this song. Man this song is just pure genius.

Music (Over)Analysis - Climbing Up The Walls by Radiohead

This is one of my favourite songs of all time and why I get disappointed when people say this song is too ‘difficult” or succeeds too much in its own goal or too uncomfortable to listen to.

I guess the reason why I like this goes back to one of the conflicts of ideology between Listenability and Emotional Resonance.

I’ll just define those two terms by the way I interpret it. The subjective component of listenability subjectively is whether you feel the song is catchy and the song is cohesive. The objective component of listenability it is whether the song follows traditional conventions of songwriting. Emotional resonance subjectively is whether you feel emotionally moved by the song but the objective component is the sincerity of the songwriter (or how good at acting is the performer) and whether the song attempts to capture a deep emotional state.

Usually those two category have a synergistic relationship because it’s based on happy = major scales, sad = minor scales and if you follow the western convention of song you could still create emotionally resonant music within the context of those emotions.

However what happens when a person tries to create an eerie, disturbing or violent or mentally unstable atmosphere. The idea of writing music following the traditional western conventions of songwriting where it sounds natural and everything fits together in a cohesive manner is in direct conflict to listenability So how do we resolve this conflict?

Well artist like Nick Cave, Kate Bush, PJ Harvey, Bjork, Can (by the way I love all of those artist) etc they try to deliberately sound ugly and break songwriting conventions. Some will add dissonance to the song, some will start screaming or start emulating a donkey, go on an angry vengeful rant, some will completely abandon cohesive structure in the song (I’m thinking of Peking O and Aumgm) etc. Of course they don’t completely go to the extreme and they mix those moments with conventional hooks and melodies but in the end it’s a compromise between listenability and emotional resonance. Those artist walk a tight line sacrificing elements of music that is pleasant to listen to with elements that accurately reflects the emotions of the song.

So the reason why I single out Climbing Up The Wall is because in my opinion judging the core elements of the song. There is no compromise.

IF you look at the song from an objective standpoint, this is a conventional minor key ballad. The chords of the song follow the conventional chords “allowed” in pop songwriting (the chords I, IV, V and the relative minor/major of those three chords are the 6 chords that summarise 95% of pop music), The chord progression of the song (Bm (I), G (IV of relative major), Em (IV), G. The chorus is just Em and G. So the chord proression is perfectly natural. Also the melodies, there is no dissonance. Thom Yorke perfectly sings within the key of the song and majority of the lead instruments and the tuned effects there is no dissonance either. There’s only one note in the entire song which was during the synth line in the instrumental break where they played an F over a Bm chord which is a tritone (the devil interval) and even then that tritone resolves the next note as the F becomes an F# (perfect 5th). However apart from that one note during that progression (and really it’s an effective used of dissonance but it’s hardly essential to the song and hardly anyone I heard criticising that song points out to the synth solo as a problem). This is a perfectly normal, conventional minor key ballad (although I haven’t looked at the score using this judgement but I’m listening to it by ear and I detect no dissonance but if missed out any, someone can point it out). Apart from that one note, this song is objectively listenable (whether someone finds it enjoyable to listen to is subjective as I admit listenablity as it subjective component as well) How they achieved the eerie atmosphere is by the production, the effects and the sound of the instruments and the sound of Thom Yorke’s voice.

To show how conventional the melodies is, have a listen to Powderfinger's My Happiness which in my opinion rips off the melody from Radiohead and yet this is essentially a pop song. The idea that this melody can be transform to have an eerie effect is genius in my opinion.

I guess I appreciate this song in the same way George Starostin appreciated Eight Miles High where he commented that Eight Miles High was “just about any other harmony-ruled, jangle-powered pop anthem on the 1965 albums. You could take away the atmosphere, change the lyrics to something more socially conscious and give it to Pete Seeger”. Well with Climbing Up The walls. without the atmosphere and the creepy lyrics, it’s just another minor key ballad that anyone can sing along to. Stripping this song to its core element and it’s just a well written pop song (a broad definition of pop perhaps) and you can do a acoustic cover of this song and it’ll still work. This song demonstrated that Radiohead understood that atmosphere, emotional resonance is not contradictory to solid melodies and making the song listenable.

That’s why I kind of get disappointed when people say this is a weak song and its too difficult to listen to. I can understand if someone says this song is too poppy and doesn’t go far enough but I don’t get the opposite perspective that this song is too unpleasant. To me it achieves the perfect balance. The core song is listenable whilst the atmosphere is given free reign to suit the emotions of the song

Of course someone can point out other songs that does the same thing (I can’t think of any in the top of my head) and please show me some examples of other songs that achieved the creepy atmosphere without compromising listenability however even if other songs achieved it before Radiohead, I will say that from a personal perspective this song was the first song that I heard that taught me that lesson.