Format Music download Length 5:00 | Genre ElectronicaIDM Label Ticker TapeXL | |
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Released 18 February 2011 (2011-02-18) | ||
"Lotus Flower" is a song by the English alternative rock band Radiohead, released on their eighth studio album The King of Limbs (2011). It features singer Thom Yorke's falsetto over syncopated beats and a "propulsive" bass line. Its music video, featuring Yorke's erratic dancing, spawned an internet meme.
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Despite not being released as a single, "Lotus Flower" charted on the UK Singles Chart, the Ultratop 50, the US Alternative Songs chart and the US Rock Songs chart. It received positive reviews and was nominated for Best Rock Performance, Best Rock Song, and Best Music Video at the 54th Annual Grammy Awards.
Background and recording
On tour with his band Atoms for Peace, singer Thom Yorke debuted a solo acoustic version of "Lotus Flower" at the Echoplex in Los Angeles on 2 October 2009. Like the rest of The King of Limbs, the song was possibly recorded in the house of actress Drew Barrymore, who is thanked in the album's liner notes.
Composition
According to the NME, "Lotus Flower" combines the "keyboard-and-drum machine sound" of Radiohead's fourth album Kid A (2000) with the "sonic warmth" of their seventh album In Rainbows (2007). It features Yorke's "Prince-like" falsetto over syncopated beats and a synthesized "propulsive" bass line. Though the main percussion beat is in 4/4 time, the hand claps are in 5/8 time, creating a metric dissonance. The song has a more traditional song structure than the first half of The King of Limbs; Luke Lewis of the NME described it as "probably the only song on The King of Limbs with an actual chorus", and speculated that the lyrics are about "transcendence, self-effacement", and "the magic of losing yourself in music and the senses".
Reception
The song received positive reviews from critics. Billboard and The New York Times praised it as The King of Limbs's best track. The A.V. Club described it as "a sensually slinky come-on that's one remix away from being a dance-floor favorite". The Independent described the song as "not exactly a singalong anthem" but "just blank and cryptic enough to sustain various interpretations". The NME called it "subtle but powerful". It was nominated for Best Rock Performance and Best Rock Song at the 54th Annual Grammy Awards.
Music video
Radiohead released a music video for "Lotus Flower" on their YouTube channel on February 16, 2011. It features black-and-white footage of Yorke dancing. It was directed by Hammer & Tongs member Garth Jennings and choreographed by Wayne McGregor. The video sparked the "Dancing Thom Yorke" internet meme, whereby people replaced the video's audio or edited the visuals, and led to the hashtag "#thomdance" to become a trending topic on Twitter.
The video received positive reviews from critics. IndieWire wrote that director Jennings had turned Yorke's "spastic" dancing into art that it was "bizarrely compelling ... with Yorke's flailing, curiously spellbinding limbs as the main attraction". Metro praised Yorke's performance, writing that "somehow, even though he seems to be mass of tangled limbs in the grip of an attack of some sort, it works", but criticised the video set as "sparse to say the least". The video was nominated for Best Music Video at the 54th Annual Grammy Awards.