Now, consider the magnitude captured: Three of-the-era “Lift” studio recordings are the crown jewel of the minidiscs, the best of which appears 10 minutes into Minidisc 125, a striking rendition complete with the Casio intro, soaring guitars lockstep with strings-mimicking synths and Yorke’s impassioned vocals. With Minidiscs, that window has been smashed open and now the house is being looted.Īs 17 hours of music is a lot for even Radiohead diehards to endure – “I Promise,” a thoroughly okay song, appears 14 times here – we wilted down Minidiscs to the 30 must-hear minutes that even casual fans should endeavor to explore.įor decades, the unreleased “Lift” – showcased live in post- The Bends concerts but never placed on a studio album or B-side – was Radiohead fans’ great white whale, a perfect synthesis of The Bends‘ Britpop brilliance and the looming OK Computer‘s arthouse aspirations, weaponized with the band’s best hook since “Creep.” When “Lift” finally did arrive as a bonus track on OK Computer‘s 20th anniversary reissue, the version – restrained, decelerated and boasting an uncharacteristically blasé Yorke vocal take – failed to capture the magnitude of those live renditions.

That 80-minute cassette – the contents of which feature throughout Minidiscs – included sound collages, rough sketches, unheard songs, rehearsals and aural experimentation that offered an opaque window into the making of the landmark LP. While the origin story of the leak is still unclear – the band themselves mention that the files were “reportedly” ransomed for $150,000 by a hacker – the edited-down minidiscs served as a foundation for the cassette included in the deluxe edition of the OKNOTOK 1997 2017 reissue.

As the title suggests, the Bandcamp file dump came nearly a week after the 18 disc-length mp3s leaked onto the internet. On Monday, Radiohead officially (and begrudgingly) released Minidiscs, a 17-hour deep dive into the OK Computer birthing process courtesy of Thom Yorke’s own minidiscs.

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