Music Blogs

Anyone who had the dubious pleasure of watching the Grammy Awards on Sunday will have noted, once again, just how many light years ahead of their time Radiohead are. No disrespect to MIA, who sang with a series of flexing rap big-hitters while a full nine months pregnant, or Katy Perry, whose appearance out of a massive banana left Famethrowa cross-eyed as to which of them was actually the total fruit. Later, Radiohead took home a gong for "In Rainbows" and delivered a performance worthy of champions.

Thom Yorke and Johnny Greenwood were joined by the University of Southern California marching band for an ear and eye-popping rendition of "15 Step". Away from the glitz, this week they also helped launch an advertising campaign to support Shelter, the UK homeless charity, lending the song "Videotape" to a moving commercial highlighting the escalating property crisis amid the global credit crunch. Entitled "House Of Cards", the initiative will be seen across London on billboards and on national TV, with an estimated 75,000 homes set to be repossessed in 2009, while nearly two million households await social housing.

Speaking about the terrific clip, which you can see below, Radiohead explained: "We have always been big supporters of Shelter and believe that now more than ever Shelter urgently needs help and support to keep up its vital work. ‘Videotape' is the perfect track to support the ad so we decided to let Shelter use it in the hope that it will help make a real impact." Samantha Morton, star of "Control" and "Minority Report", voices the commercial, a contribution reinforced by the fact she used to be homeless. It's a great piece of work but, more importantly, a really important cause. For more information, visit www.shelter.org.uk/cards.