FEATURE:
The Lockdown Playlist
Nigel Godrich at Fifty
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I like doing birthday Lockdown Playlists…
IN THIS PHOTO: Nigel Godrich with Ultraista (with Joey Waronker and Laura Bettinson)
as it allows me to focus on the work of a particular artist and open my eyes to their brilliance. Today, I am celebrating one of the greatest producers in the world. Nigel Godrich is fifty on 28th February, so I wanted to salute a producer who I first discovered from listening to Radiohead’s OK Computer back in 1997. I am going to end with a playlist of songs that Godrich has either produced, assisted, mixed, engineered, performed or worked on. Before then, I want to bring in some Wikipedia information about the great man:
“Nigel Godrich was born in Westminster, London, the son of Victor Godrich, a BBC sound supervisor, and Brenda Godrich. He was educated at William Ellis School in North London, where he shared classes with his friend and future Zero 7 member Henry Binns. Godrich began playing guitar, inspired by Jimi Hendrix and Frank Zappa. He became interested in sound engineering and studied at the School of Audio Engineering. After graduating, Godrich became a junior staff member at the Audio One studio complex, working primarily as a tea boy.
After the closure of Audio One, Godrich became the house engineer at RAK Studios, where he became a tape operator for producer John Leckie, with whom he worked on albums by Ride and Denim. In 1995, Godrich left RAK to work with Binns on electronic dance music at their collective Shabang studio.
Godrich first worked with Radiohead when Leckie hired him to engineer two songs for their 1994 EP My Iron Lung. The band nicknamed him "Nihilist", approving of his efforts to take their sound in new directions. He went on to engineer Radiohead's second album The Bends (1995), working under Leckie as producer. When Leckie left the studio to attend a social engagement, Radiohead and Godrich stayed to record B-sides; one of the songs intended for a B-side, "Black Star", was instead included on the album. In 1995, Godrich produced Radiohead's charity single "Lucky", plus the B-sides "Bishop's Robes" and "Talk Show Host", released on the "Street Spirit (Fade Out)" single.
Radiohead invited Godrich to produce their third album, OK Computer (1997). Working in improvised studios without supervision, he and the band learned as they went, and credited the open process with the record's success. In 2013, Godrich told the Guardian: "OK Computer was such a big thing for me because I was given power for the first time. Some of these incredibly intelligent and insightful people said 'do what you want' to me so I worked my arse off for them and together we did something that represents where we all were at the time. And it stuck for some reason. People got it, so that changed my life.”
Godrich has produced every Radiohead studio album since, and won the Grammy Award for Best Engineered Non-Classical Album for Hail to the Thief (2003). Godrich's father died during the recording of Radiohead's ninth album, A Moon Shaped Pool (2016); Godrich wrote: "Making this album was a very intense experience for me. I lost my dad in the process. Hence a large piece of my soul lives here in a good way”.
To nod to a legendary producer on his fiftieth birthday, here are some remarkable songs that Nigel Godrich has played a part in. As an innovator, mixer, engineer., musician and producer, I think that he is one…
OF the finest of his generation.