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"Fake Plastic Trees" is a song by the English alternative rock band Radiohead, released on their second album, The Bends (1995). It was the third single from the album in the UK, and the first in the US. It charted on the UK Singles Chart, the New Zealand Singles Chart, the US Modern Rock Tracks chart, and the Canadian Rock/Alternative chart.

"Fake Plastic Trees"
Single by Radiohead
from the album The Bends
B-side	"India Rubber" "How Can You Be Sure?"
Released	15 May 1995 (1995-05-15)[1]
Recorded	1994
Genre	Alternative rock Britpop
Length	4:52
Label	Parlophone
Songwriter(s)	Radiohead
Producer(s)	John Leckie
Radiohead singles chronology
"High and Dry" / "Planet Telex" (1995) "Fake Plastic Trees" (1995) "Just" (1995)
Audio sample
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Writing

Singer Thom Yorke said "Fake Plastic Trees" was "the product of a joke that wasn't really a joke, a very lonely, drunken evening and, well, a breakdown of sorts".[2] He said the song arose from a melody he had "no idea what to do with". He did not take his usual approach of either keeping note "of whatever my head's singing at the particular moment" or forcing "some nifty phrases" he devised onto the melody. Instead, "That was not forced at all, it was just recording whatever was going on in my head, really. I mean, I wrote those words and laughed. I thought they were really funny, especially that bit about polystyrene."[3]

Recording

Guitarist Ed O'Brien described early attempts to record "Fake Plastic Trees" at London's RAK Studios as sounding "like Guns N' Roses' 'November Rain'. It was so pompous and bombastic." Frustrated at being at the studio for a prolonged period one day, Yorke "threw a wobbly" in his own description, after which producer John Leckie sent the rest of the band away while Yorke recorded a guide track for featuring only guitar and vocals. Yorke performed three takes of the song and cried afterwards, according to guitarist Jonny Greenwood.[2]

One source of frustration for the band at the time was their US record label, Capitol, which wanted a strong track for American radio to follow the success of their previous hit single, "Creep".[4] Surprised that the slow-paced "Fake Plastic Trees" was seen as a potential single to follow up "Creep", Yorke realised that Capitol had Bob Clearmountain remix the track without the band's approval: "I said 'No way'. All the ghost-like keyboard sounds and weird strings were completely gutted out of his mix, like he'd gone in with a razor blade and chopped it all up. It was horrible."[5]

Critical reception

Writing for NME in May 1995, John Mulvey felt that "Fake Plastic Trees" lacked substance, and drew comparisons with the stadium rock of U2.[6] It placed at number 385 on Rolling Stone's list of the 500 Greatest Songs of All Time, and at number 28 on Triple J Radio's Hottest 100 of All Time countdown.[7] The acoustic version of "Fake Plastic Trees" was used in the 1995 film Clueless and is credited for introducing Radiohead to a larger American audience.[8]

Music video

The song's music video, directed by Jake Scott, is set inside a supermarket, where the band are pushed around in shopping carts among several other characters, including clerks, children, an old man with a large beard who plays with toy guns, a woman in a large black hat, art director Stanley Donwood in basketball jersey who shaves his head with an electric razor, a young man playing with a shopping cart, etc. The director has said about the video: "The film is actually an allegory for death and reincarnation, but if you can read that into it you must be as weird as the people who made it."[9]

Track listings

All tracks are written by Radiohead (Thom Yorke, Jonny Greenwood, Ed O'Brien, Colin Greenwood, Philip Selway).

Personnel

• Thom Yorke – vocals, acoustic guitar
• Jonny Greenwood – electric guitar, Hammond organ
• Ed O'Brien – electric guitar
• Colin Greenwood – bass
• Philip Selway – drums
• Caroline Lavelle – cello
• John Matthias – viola, violin

Charts

Certifications

Region	Certification	Certified units/sales
Canada (Music Canada)[30]	Platinum	80,000
United Kingdom (BPI)[31]	Silver	200,000
Sales+streaming figures based on certification alone.

See also

• Artificial trees used for Carbon dioxide removal § Direct air capture

Notes

Footnotes

Citations

External links

• "Fake Plastic Trees" video on YouTube

На других языках

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- [en] Fake Plastic Trees

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[es] Fake Plastic Trees

«Fake Plastic Trees» —en español: «Árboles de plástico falsos»— es una canción del grupo británico Radiohead, de su segundo álbum, The Bends. También es el tercer sencillo proveniente de este álbum en el Reino Unido, pero el primero en el resto del mundo.[1]

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[ru] Fake Plastic Trees

«Fake Plastic Trees» (рус. Фальшивые пластиковые деревья) — песня британской рок-группы Radiohead, выпущенная как сингл из альбома The Bends в 1995 году. Это был третий сингл из альбома в Великобритании и первый в США.

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