House of Cards (Radiohead song)

"House of Cards" is a song by the English rock band Radiohead, from their seventh studio album, In Rainbows (2007). It was serviced to American modern rock radio on April 6, 2008 as a promotional single.

The music video, directed by James Frost, was produced using lidar technology and released in June 2008. "House of Cards" was nominated for the Grammy Awards for Best Rock Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocal, Best Rock Song and Best Music Video.

Writing
The Radiohead singer, Thom Yorke, first performed "House of Cards" in an acoustic rendition at the 2005 Trade Justice rally in London. According to the bassist, Colin Greenwood, an early version had a bass riff in the style of R.E.M. Yorke and the drummer, Philip Selway, reworked the song with the rhythm on the final version. Yorke described it as "mellow and summery", and likened it to the 1968 instrumental "Albatross" by Fleetwood Mac.

Rolling Stone described "House of Cards" as "surprisingly sexy", with references to the key parties of the 1970s and 1980s. In a 2008 television performance, Yorke dedicated the refrain, "denial, denial", to the American president George W. Bush for rejecting the Kyoto Protocol, an international treaty to reduce greenhouse gases.

Music video
The music video, directed by James Frost, was produced in a minimal set in Florida. It features rendered images of Yorke's face as well as those of several other people, interspersed with images of suburban landscapes and people attending a party. In lieu of traditional cameras, the video was made with lidar technology, which detects the proximity of objects from the sensor.

The lidar gives the video a grainy, grid-like appearance. The filmmakers passed sheets of acrylic glass and mirrors through the lasers to create scenes in which the image appears distorted, partially disappears, or disintegrate as if being carried by wind. The data used to make the video was released as open source under the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 license and is available at Google Code as both CSV raw data and Processing code.

Release
"House of Cards" was released on Radiohead's seventh album, In Rainbows (2007). Along with another song, "Bodysnatchers", it was serviced to American modern rock radio on April 6, 2008, as a promotional single. At the 51st Annual Grammy Awards, it was nominated for Best Rock Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocal, Best Rock Song and Best Music Video. A performance of "House of Cards" was included on the 2008 live video In Rainbows – From the Basement.

Personnel
Adapted from the In Rainbows liner notes.

Radiohead
 * Colin Greenwood
 * Jonny Greenwood
 * Ed O'Brien
 * Philip Selway
 * Thom Yorke

Production
 * Nigel Godrich – production, mixing, engineering
 * Richard Woodcraft – engineering
 * Hugo Nicolson – engineering
 * Dan Grech-Marguerat – engineering
 * Graeme Stewart – preproduction
 * Bob Ludwig – mastering

Artwork
 * Stanley Donwood
 * Dr Tchock