Stanley Donwood

Stanley Donwood is the pen name of English artist and writer Dan Rickwood. Donwood is best known for his work with the English alternative band Radiohead, having created all of their album and poster art since 1994, often in collaboration with Radiohead singer Thom Yorke. He also creates artwork for Yorke's solo albums and Yorke's band Atoms for Peace.

Career

After graduating from the University of Exeter, Donwood worked as a freelance artist in Plymouth, England. Aside from his work for Radiohead, Donwood also maintains his own website, Slowly Downward, where short stories and various other writings are published.

Radiohead

Stanley Donwood and Radiohead frontman Thom Yorke met as art students at the University of Exeter. Donwood said his first impressions of Yorke were that he was "Mouthy. Pissed off. Someone I could work with." Yorke wrote: "I met him first day at art college and he had a better hat and suit on than me. That pissed me off. So I figured I'd either end up really not liking this person at all, or working with him for the rest of my life." Yorke asked Donwood to produce the cover art for Radiohead's 1994 single My Iron Lung, beginning a working relationship that has continued for all Radiohead's art and promotional material, as well as Yorke's solo albums and work with Atoms For Peace. Yorke is credited alongside Donwood under the monikers "The White Chocolate Farm", "Dr. Tchock", "Tchocky" or similar abbreviations.

Thom Yorke

Thomas Edward "Thom" Yorke (born 7 October 1968) is an English musician best known as the singer and principal songwriter of the alternative rock band Radiohead. As a multi-instrumentalist, Yorke mainly plays guitar and piano, but also plays instruments including keyboards, bass, and drums, and works extensively with synthesisers, sequencers and programming. He is known for his falsetto vocals; in 2008, Rolling Stone ranked him the 66th greatest singer of all time.

Yorke was born in 1968 in Northamptonshire. His family moved often before settling in Oxfordshire, where Yorke attended Abingdon School and founded Radiohead with his schoolmates. After he graduated from the University of Exeter, Radiohead signed to Parlophone; their early hit "Creep" made Yorke a celebrity, and Radiohead have gone on to achieve critical acclaim and sales of over 30 million albums. Their fourth album Kid A (2000) saw Yorke and the band move into electronic music, often manipulating his vocals.

In 2006, Yorke released his debut solo album, The Eraser, comprising mainly electronic music. In 2009, to perform The Eraser live, he formed Atoms for Peace with musicians including Red Hot Chili Peppers bassist Flea and Radiohead producer Nigel Godrich; in 2013, the band released an album, Amok. In 2014, Yorke released his second solo album, Tomorrow's Modern Boxes. He has collaborated with artists including DJ Shadow, Björk, Flying Lotus and PJ Harvey, and has composed soundtracks for documentaries and theatre. With artist Stanley Donwood, he creates artwork for Radiohead's albums.

Stanley

Stanley may refer to:

Places

Australia

Canada

Democratic Republic of Congo / Uganda

Egypt

Falkland Islands

Hong Kong

Papua New Guinea

United Kingdom

England

The King of Limbs

The King of Limbs is the eighth studio album by the English rock band Radiohead, produced by Nigel Godrich. It was self-released on 18 February 2011 as a download in MP3 and WAV formats, followed by physical CD and 12" vinyl releases on 28 March and a special "newspaper" edition on 9 May 2011. The physical editions were released through the band's Ticker Tape imprint on XL in the United Kingdom, TBD in the United States, and Hostess Entertainment in Japan.

Following the protracted recording and more conventional rock instrumentation of In Rainbows (2007), Radiohead developed The King of Limbs by sampling and looping their recordings. Singer Thom Yorke described the album as an expression of "wildness" and "mutation". Radiohead released no singles from the album, but released a music video for "Lotus Flower" that spawned an internet meme.

The album was named one of the best albums of 2011 by publications including the Wire, the NME, and PopMatters, and was nominated for five categories in the 54th Grammy Awards, including Best Alternative Music Album. It sold an estimated 300,000 to 400,000 download copies in two months of release and became a bestseller on vinyl. The album was followed in the same year by a remix album, TKOL RMX 1234567, and a live video, The King of Limbs: Live from the Basement.

The Universal

"The Universal" is a song by English alternative rock band Blur and is featured on their fourth studio album, The Great Escape. It was released 13 November 1995 as the second single from that album, charting at #5 in the UK Singles Chart (see 1995 in British music).

In keeping with the song's science fiction theme, the single's cover art is an allusion to the opening shot of 2001: A Space Odyssey, and the music video is a tribute to the movie A Clockwork Orange, with the band dressed up in costumes similar to Alex and his droogs. Both movies were directed by Stanley Kubrick.

Music video

A music video for the song was directed by Jonathan Glazer. The band is presented in imitation of the opening scenes from the 1971 film A Clockwork Orange, in the Milk Bar. Blur star as the quasi-Droogs, complete with Damon Albarn wearing eyeliner similar to the character Alex DeLarge. They perform in the bar in all-white. Though the band do not engage in their usual vibrant stage demeanor, Damon Albarn frequently turns to the camera and gives a sly, crooked smile. Graham Coxon spends the majority of the video sitting against the wall while playing.