User:Carlinal/track lists

Centrovenous ⭐️

Maybe you can tell what kind a Radiohead fan is by asking about their favorite one or two albums. Mine is Kid A first and In Rainbows second, which I guess signifies both my love for electronic music and a wide atmosphere while engorging in a prog pop spectacle of sound. I also love the Basement version of The King of Limbs, as well as the recut of Hail to the Thief. But while OK Computer is my third favorite, it's arguably my favorite era when it came to its B-sides, especially with how much I love the Paranoid Android single. I mean, it's got a pocket symphony, my favorite OKC album cut after "Karma Police", two diamond cut outtakes, and two really strong remainders. There's nothing else like the OKC era, as every last one of its songs feature a musicianship so strong they're dripping with self-love and confidence, of a band pushing itself to the limits while making all of its beautifully crafted works sound effortless. These B-sides reveal another part of music I love best, the kind of hard rock with so much depth and replayability in its dynamics. When I first heard "Polyethylene" I knew I was entering a goddamn dimension, and "A Reminder" made me revisit like it's my favorite café. It got to the point where I needed a playlist to easily find these songs whenever I needed to.

I made two editions of this compilation. The first, which I call the "Online" edition or "Mark I" (made on August 31 – September 2, 2024; publicized on September 19), comprises B-sides and outtakes as they're officially released and available on streaming services, including stuff from The Bends and the My Iron Lung EP. The second "Offline" edition or "Mark II" (made on November 15, 2025), has a different approach; all of the tracks are from the OK Computer era but several are from the unofficial compilations OK Outtakes and MiniDiscs (Hacked). Neither edition is necessarily better than the other; the first edition has some more quality control, is a little longer and is more acoustic, while the second edition is more thematically consistent and is generally heavier (especially given that OK Outtakes mixed the bass more loudly than Radiohead would allow lol), plus it has the admittedly better version of "Lift". Both editions are sequenced with cassette tapes in mind, so the playlist can be more flexible should it be ported to physical formats. Regardless, this is what you get when someone loves the music too much. Oh yeah, I'm more of a "Mark II" person now.

I formerly called the playlists Chipping Norton Driving Lessons, after Radiohead's former local studio in Oxfordshire in the 1990s; that title was a reflection of their growth in the decade. As of February 5, 2026, they're now titled Centrovenous, after the central venous line; I found that the hospital imagery fit best with OK Computer's aesthetics and songs. Also check out this artwork by HeikoFour, it's awesome!

sImple SMiLE ⭐️

To quote this essay on SMiLE by Scot Livingston;

Try this as an experiment; put together a tape of all the SMiLE songs as they were officially released from Smiley Smile and 20/20 through Surf's Up. Put them in whatever order you think best suits them. Now, what does that sound like? How much of SMiLE can you glean from that tape? Sure it would've been weird, but how much of SMiLE's power and beauty shines through on those versions? And then think - until the first bootlegs started showing up in the mid '80s, this is all anybody had to go on. We should be grateful that the torch for SMiLE was carried on for so long.^[1]

As much as SMiLE is my favorite album of all time, I love its lo-fi equivalent, Smiley Smile, so, so much. The following years of material the Beach Boys released up to Surf's Up is also among the pinnacles of their career, and this was partly helped by recycling tracks written for a lost album. So what does a semi-primitive yet upgraded version of Smiley Smile sound like? Well, half of it still sounds simple, but its spirit–in complexity, themes, and modular songwriting–remains playful and completely genuine in passion. And when put together with the central tracks "Cabinessence" and "Surf's Up", a playlist like this will retain almost as much emotional impact as a fanmix of the SMiLE sessions. Not like it's exactly like SMiLE, but it's an alternate experience that's more than worth appreciating. I certainly appreciated the hell out of it. Loved it more than Smiley Smile, even.

Only album cuts between Smiley Smile and Surf's Up are included. For sequencing, you'd have to base it on what you find best with the original SMiLE anyway. So I based the sequencing on the fanmix SMiLE – The 19.67 Mix, which is not only both compact and thematically unified, but also suggests areas for skits between the main tracks. Although "Good Vibrations" is more thematically ambiguous, its placement on side two seems to align it more with the cycle of life than the classical elements. In addition, I included "Little Bird" from the album Friends; while the song is unrelated to SMiLE aside from a sampling from "Child Is Father of the Man", I found it strengthened the cycle of life theme, assuming you interpret the song as a yearning for childhood innocence. In addition, while "You're Welcome" was released in 1967 as the B-side to "Heroes and Villains", it's excluded to preserve the thematic consistency on side two. (On The 19.67 Mix, "You're Welcome" immediately succeeds "Good Vibrations".) And lastly, the 20/20 version of "Do It Again" is not counted despite its "Workshop" outro.

Writing credits are listed below. Van Dyke Parks was not credited for "Mama Says" and the Smiley Smile version of "Wind Chimes". Brian Wilson deliberately refrained from co-crediting himself on "Little Bird". Lead vocals are also noted.