Thom Yorke and Nigel Godrich take aim at Bruno Mars, Amazon, EDM & more in new interview

Thom Yorke and Nigel Godrich used a recent interview with Rolling Stone to air their grievances on everything from the state of modern electronic music to their unfairly weighted chart battle with American singer, Bruno Mars.

Speaking ahead of Atoms for Peace’s global tour, Yorke also alluded to the future of Radiohead, remarking “We said a year, but I’m sure it’ll probably be slightly longer than that, ’cause I am actually going have to have a break.”

On the topic of “really weird” DJ culture, Yorke spoke of his distaste at the current trend of DJs pocketing exorbitant sums for merely showing up and churning out the same set, without experimenting with different genres and techniques:

“When I was in Australia, Mark Pritchard was talking about how for a lot of DJs, it’s their main source of income, so they’ll do what works, ’cause otherwise they don’t get booked. So they don’t take risks. But he was talking about how, like, in the Panorama Bar in Berlin, for example, and in Plastic People when it first started in London, and in Low End Theory , people would come in and play what the fuck they wanted, and they would switch styles, and that’s the whole point!”

He did however reserve praise for a small number of modern electronic acts including Gaslamp Killer, his “current obsession” Actress, Flying Lotus and the Low End Theory clique amongst others.

Speaking to Rolling Stone, Godrich continued:

“Electronic music is really weird right now, because it is bleeding into the mainstream, but, at the same time, it’s fashion, you know? You have this sort of avant-garde end of it– the haute couture sort of thing he’s talking about, especially in smaller clubs and smaller scenes, like the scene in L.A. around Low End Theory. But what you end up with in the mainstream is horrible– this distillation of the DJ thing.”

The duo held back a special piece of their mind for crooner Bruno Mars and Amazon after their debut AMOK missed out on the top spot in America recently, after Amazon promoted Mars’ new album for a measly $1.99 in the same week. Yorke quipped to Rolling Stone, “Who the fuck is Bruno Mars? Sorry. I’ll get slandered now… Amazon fucks with us every time. They undercut us.” Before Godrich added his own take on the cynicism of online music retail, “They’re just trying to get people to their site. It’s modern marketing in the dotcom era.”

Read the full interview here.