Radiohead 'Creep' Covered By Ex-Broadway Singer Carrie Manolakos (VIDEOS)

Radiohead's Thom Yorke is famous for having one of the best singing voices in rock 'n' roll, and now a former Broadway actress has paid homage to one of his band's greatest hits.

On April 2, Carrie Manolakos rocked the room at Greenwich Village's Le Poisson Rouge with her emotional cover of Radiohead's career-launching 1992 alternative rock anthem "Creep."

Manolakos, who Gawker reports "made her mark as Sophie Sheridan in Mamma Mia!" is no stranger to giving pop music the Broadway touch. But while her high notes are nothing short of stratospheric, the subtler moments of Manolakos' performance really shine.

Viewed in the context of the Radiohead discography, which has famously morphed from radio-friendly alt-rock, to mixed-breed electronica, to much-celebrated et cetera, "Creep" is one of the English band's most accessible, recognizable songs. If singers like Manolakos can imbue that tried-and-true rock "standard" with new flavor, what's to say the public wouldn't palate an entire Broadway muscial's worth of Radiohead covers?

The Huffington Post reached out to Manolakos for comment, but did not receive a reply as of press time.

Update:
Manolakos wrote back to HuffPost on Monday. The independent singer said that her boyfriend originally suggested that she cover "Creep" over brunch.

"I was familiar, but on the walk home, I listened carefully to the song on my iPod. By the time I got back to my apartment, I knew it could work," she wrote in an e-mail.

And as for a Radiohead musical: "Radiohead could definitely work on Broadway," Manolakos wrote. "Their cannon is filled with narrative-driven songs that speak of the human condition, which is precisely what theater explores... theater artists are only limited by their imaginations."

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Comments

[PlutocratsSuck]

05:25 AM on 05/24/2012

Blasphemy.

[Cye]

08:54 AM on 04/26/2012

This song is great - whoever sings it.

[cameron d]

12:34 AM on 04/25/2012

Speaking as a massive Radiohead fan (Toronto concert this summer!) all I can say is that Pablo Honey stinks.

[xRAOULDUKEx]

11:14 PM on 04/24/2012

I fully expected to like this cover, it seemed right up my ally. However, I did not like it at all.

[Billie Burns]

11:07 PM on 04/24/2012

That was pretty FN special!

[xRAOULDUKEx]

11:07 PM on 04/24/2012

Brandi Carlile covers this song better than anyone.

[MorpheusXNYC]

12:33 AM on 04/25/2012

She's good, but sounds like Johnny Cash crossed with K.D. Lang and Sarah McLachlan, so I think maybe your preferred aesthetic is more southern/country rock flavor.

I listened to her remake (its not a cover, damn it people!) of Creep. It's good, but it's more on the rough, raspy, pitchy, purposely imperfect sounding side of things whereas this version sounds a bit more ethereal and smoother.

It's a different sound, but very good.

[MIMom]

10:26 PM on 04/24/2012

Love the rendition overall, but...um, doesn't it lose the message in the translation?

In the original, you could get the "creepy" vibe the way it was delivered. I have a hard time buying this person as the protagonist in this song.

[EdGeren]

10:00 PM on 04/24/2012

Amazing voice & presentation!!

[stormbringer56]

04:47 PM on 04/24/2012

Abney Park has done the best cover of this song

[probo]

03:10 PM on 04/24/2012

Pretty special...love that song.

[BeingK]

10:10 PM on 04/23/2012

She is a good singer, but way too dramatic. Thom, aside having a better and deeper voice, sings Creep with so much earnest and at same time so much despair, that no other artist can match him. Thomas Yorke wins again.

[Manny Moss]

07:53 PM on 04/23/2012

At least one Radiohead cover by The Punch Brothers should be in this slideshow... my fave:
http://youtu.be/jtujwGZYQa8

Also check out their 'Kid A' cover on their new album!

[James Caroline]

03:41 PM on 04/23/2012

1.) Gross. 2.) She does know the song is meant as a bit of a lark? It's not sincere. 3.) This is horrible. 4.) Theater people/majors should stick to what they know. Bad songs done horribly.

[Ted Becksell]

08:23 PM on 04/23/2012

Agreed. People are just reacting to the dramatic crescendo. The actual interpretation is so fake and gross.

[SCVtap]

10:42 AM on 04/24/2012

Yes, the song may have a specific intent by the original vocalist/band.... but doing a cover is about reinventing and making it tuned to how you feel and hear it; not to just replicate what the original already did. There would be no value for the artist or the viewers and would then be a carbon copy. As artists, it's all about interpretation and vision. Perhaps her intention is for it to be sincere unlike the original version which then makes it her own. Perhaps you should try looking at it from a more open point of view of what it could be rather than from the dogmatic opinion you just expressed.

[James Caroline]

12:39 PM on 04/24/2012

That's all fine- or she just didn't get it and still recorded a horribly dramatic, naive version of a great song by great song writers.

[James Caroline]

12:32 PM on 04/27/2012

I'm not asking for a carbon copy. It's a bad version of a great. It's weak. She talk-sings a lot of it. It's embarrassing. Though, since she seems to have come up in musical theater, she's probably immune to humiliation.

[Eldergothfather]

03:19 PM on 04/23/2012

If you're going to tell me some cover of a song is done 'right', well it had better sodding knock me off my feet. This doesn't so WTF? Lame comparison; it's not really all that different. Now, Johnny Cash doing NIN's "Hurt" that was sodding unbelievable. Let that be your measuring stick and then I'll listen more...in the meantime, stuff a sock in your opine.

[xRAOULDUKEx]

11:10 PM on 04/24/2012

Cash was the man, but the original version of Hurt is so much better than his cover was.

[Eldergothfather]

11:46 PM on 04/24/2012

Even Trent said it was no longer his song...

[GaryNOVA]

01:28 PM on 04/23/2012

I love Radiohead to death, but I can't stand this song. (or the entire album for that matter.)

To me Pablo Honey was almost like Radiohead pretending to be something that they weren't. Radiohead is too good for that album.

[posterboy7596]

07:09 PM on 04/23/2012

Are you in the band? If not then you don't have any room to say what they are or aren't. I believe that a progressive change in sound can be heard from album to album, starting with Pablo Honey.

[GaryNOVA]

08:06 PM on 04/23/2012

did you not read that I wrote "TO ME" before I gave my opinion. I'm a fan and I have every right.

IMHO change can definitely be heard album to album, but to my taste they started out sub-par by their own standards. I like grunge but to me Pablo Honey was too "grungy" and generic for a band who's music is better in the prog rock style they developed afterwards.

but if it floats your boat have fun with it!