OK Computer

For a long time I have considered this one of the top 5 most overrated albums ever produced, and another listen today really didn't change my opinion. Part of it is simply Thom Yorke's whiny, insipid delivery, and another part is the cacophonous use of electronic noises and intonations that permeates its entirety. A few songs like Paranoid Android and Karma Police keep it from being a complete dud, but I can't reasonably give higher than a 3/5 to an album that it would never occur to me to listen to without this type of prompting.

(3/5).. Full confession. I've never heard this whole thing and I'm not a huge Radiohead fan. Why the confession? Well, this landed when I was fresh in college, still deep into popular culture (and susceptible to some of it) and Radiohead wasn't too far off my taste-radar. I guess it was just the deeply self-serious stuff they were making that really turned (and turns) me off. Yeah, they're good/great musicians and they can create/evoke a 'mood'/feeling but that sort of 'constantly on the verge of crying' feeling fully 3/4ths of this album invokes is just not my style. I attribute them, amongst other bands, at the end of the 90s to turning me off of more mainstream popular music and heading in different directions, musically. Even this listen has me asking, "Why do people piss their pants over this?" It's exactly like I felt with Coldplay (who seem like successors to this..). Please sell me the drugs people are taking to make them believe this is earth-shattering stuff, because I don't get it. I don't hate it and it's ok, but of all the 'top rated' albums on the list this is probably the only one I *respectfully* disagree with. That and Floyd's "Wish You Were Here".. I gave that a '4'. As for it being 'essential'.. sure. Fine. Whatever. I'll grant it its place as successful and influential. I concede that.

There are times that I just don't get the Cult of Radiohead. Then there are times, and many of them are on this album, particularly, where I absolutely buy in. My nostalgia for this album begins and ends though with the track "Paranoid Android." There were too many late nights of teenage insomnia in high school of watching that fever dream of a prog rock music video on MTV. "Karma Police," spooky video aside, couldn't match Paranoid Android for attention. How weird were the guys that did "Pablo Honey" gonna get? I had no idea. Do I enjoy this album? I'm not sure to be honest. Thom Yorke has a pained ache in his voice and the rest of the guys craft a continually unsettling soundscape. Whether accurate or not I get the feeling of music for people to be sad to and do nothing about it. Just sit in the muck and disappoint the millions of years of natural selection winners that resulted in you, here and now. That's unfair of me though, and I know it. Things fall apart. Even beautiful things. I will sit with that feeling for a moment but I can't stay there. This blip of existence is what we get so we gotta try. God loves his children...doesn't he?

The title, "refers to embracing the future, it refers to being terrified of the future, of our future, of everyone else's. It's to do with standing in a room where all these appliances are going off and all these machines and computers and so on ... and the sound it makes." -Thom Yorke It's what modern urban life sounds like. desperation, despair, loneliness, anxiety, emptiness, alienation, mistrust, anger. Unfortunately, its themes have grown even more striking over the past 30 years. One of the greatest of all time. Just can't listen to it too frequently.

246. OK Computer - Radiohead (1997) 10.26.26 Variety: 5 Adequacy: 5 Listenability: 5 Uniqueness: 5 Emotionality: 5 = 5.0 "But either way you turn, I'll be there/ Open up your skull, I'll be there/ Climbing up the walls" Radiohead is one of those bands I've followed from the very beginning when "Creep" popped up on MTV and kinda sorta blew my brain apart with how much of a hook delivery system the band was. Like millions of people I picked up Pablo Honey ( very similar experience with Beck's Mellow Gold) expecting more of the same and it was... just ok. Also like millions of others, I promptly wrote them off as one hit wonders and went back to whatever it was I had been listening to before and forgot about them for roughly two years or so. Then I saw the music video for "High and Dry", "Fake Plastic Trees" and "Just" off The Bends and did a metaphorical double take. This was obviously the same band, but they had massively upped their game and the album was an immediate buy. And it ended up ( spoilers) being a 5-star, no skips classic, and a favorite of mine. Any follow up was doomed to suck by comparison. Great, but likely another fluke, right? Cut to another two years later and we get this. I loved it right away, and while it was fresh in my mind and being listened to repeatedly I almost convinced myself I liked it more than The Bends. It took a few years to realize I just preferred the more approachable sound on the previous album, but it was very close. And it still might be the "better" album. I don't know. It certainly got more accolades and quickly became a critical darling, though I do feel like it was a slight case of an overreaction in that asthmatic, 99lb weakling rock critics were slavering for an good "SEE WE TOLD YOU!" candidate to project their decades of pretentious, self congratulatory evangelizing of "difficult" rock music onto. And I say this as a proud, card-carrying pretentious art rock fan. The problem is that OK Computer, as great as it is, is still VERY mainstream and approachable despite being weird. The overzealousness of intellectual think pieces and the fawning over it in the music press (and by proxy all the most annoying white guys you know who felt the need to regurgitate all those opinions they read to you in a very pushy way) caused a bit of a backlash of people who I think would or could have been able to appreciate this as the modern Dark Side of the Moon, as it was often referred to ( a very popular and unpolarizingly accessible album also despite it's art rock pretensions), who reacted by rejecting the artsy-fartsiness of it all. I don't think it hurt sales in any way, but it still I think has that stink of unapproachability and prickliness about it that I don't think the band ever consciously engineered. They were making appealing music with an artistic bent, but it seems silly to think the were purposefully telling a whole segment of the population "this is not for the likes of you." They'd save that for the next few albums. THE TRACKS "Airbag" - The second this starts the words come right back to me and I'm 17 again. I specifically remember listening to this the whole way through the first time and being astounded that every track was banger. This one sets the tone nicely. It's spacey and full of sweeping, soaring moments but it never feels especially big. There's a lot of imagery about death and birth and war, but this won't be an apocalypse. If the world is dying it's by inches, and we'll feel every moment. But this also doesn't feel especially dark to me. It's more of a neutral, level setting. Great melodies will feature throughout so I'll try not to gush on every song, but this was great. "Paranoid Android" - Supposedly inspired by an bad experience Yorke had, trapped at an event surrounded by awful people, this one is much more of what people think of when they think of this album. At turns panicked, overwhelmed, and then angry and disgusted, Yorke's vocals do an amazing job of getting the idea of how inhuman and artificial some people can be. I'm reminded of some of the work by horror author Thomas Ligotti who seems to hold to the philosophy of Anti-natalism of which the tenets are that bringing a child into the world imposes a life—along, and inevitable suffering, pain, and death. All without the individual's prior consent. This song's got similar vibes to me in that it seems no matter what we do, what our accomplishments are, we'll always be represented by the worst of us, the ones who willingly and with glee violate the social contract ruin things for everyone else. And there's nothing left except to deny them with as much energy as we might have left. Fun, right? This is Eeyore-core, and I'm down for it because it's so goddamn catchy and good and full of interesting textures. and left turns and it feels... righteous somehow. I think the middle section is my favorite. Yorke's delivery gets pretty snotty and repulsed sounding, and the anger comes in with some grinding guitars and some cool ass post-punk flavored accents. I'm always struck by how tight the unit is as a whole and how they are a fully functional band, and not just Yorke and his backing session players, like so many other big acts feel. Everyone contributes something special here, and it's a complete cohesive statement. If the middle section is all anger and spite, then the last section with the moaning chorus that builds and builds is maybe the acceptance and you can easily draw a lone from this to the guy back from the "Just" video who chooses to just lay down on the street for no reason, and opt out. But with maybe a little bit more mopey drama. This one also has a pretty great animated video with a simple cartoon protagonist who doesn't mind all this drama that much, and who even takes time to enjoy a drink where the band themselves are hanging out. Not sure how anyone seeing that could think these blokes are a humorless lot, though without the visuals.... fair enough. "Subterranean Homesick Alien" - I think this is the key song on the album for anyone who really wants to dive in a do a little analysis on what this is really all about. It's all about feeling like an outsider and wanting to escape, and I think serves as the perfect counterpoint to "Creep", their most popular outsider song. Where that one is full of introverted, and self hating incel vibes, this one is much more peaceful, if just as sad and lonely. The focus of the first song is some unattainable beauty, who the narrator longs for a relationship with, but who feels he doesn't deserve. It's masochistic and ugly in it's content, even if the delivery system is supremely catchy and pretty. This song maintains the prettiness, but intellectualizes the what if scenario in a way that feels just as relatable, and a whole lot healthier. The narrator in this one even mentions some friends, which the "Creep" guy is hard to imagine having. Sonically, this one is just as much a treat as anything on the album, and chock full of more cool spacey electronic accents. There's some guitar work on here that's very pretty and bordering on the psychedelic, and which helps sell the wish fulfillment fantasy. It's hard for me to imagine anyone not finding the instrumentation to be pretty chill. "Exit Music (For a Film)" - Another downer, but this time it starts fully acoustic and we get a reverb heavy vocal that gives us what was originally meant as a the closing credits song for the Romeo + Juliet movie. If that's the case then it's even more depressive wish fulfillment as we know how happy things turn out in that story. There's a very cool electronic bit on here that simulates a chorus (looked it up and it was a Mellotron). When the HUGE fuzzed out bass and drums come in around 2:50 the song swells up into something that's more of an anxiety attack than it is any sort of downbeat escape story. But it does still end on an antiauthoritarian message, as passively aggressive as it is. There's a sense of hopelessness in the way the narrator hopes for the worst for their enemy but is utterly powerless to do anything other than pray that cold, pitiless fate takes care of the job for them. "Let Down" - This one always feels like waking up to me, and then not wanting to actually move your feet to get up. Being in a cycle of repetition of the boredom and emptiness of a depressed state and being completely self aware but unable to do anything but let it all pass over you. There's a line about how one day the narrator is "gonna grow wings" and you know it's a pipe dream. But at least it's a dream, and it's a the one smallish ray of brightness in the song. The soundscape borders on the psychedelic again, but it's a sci-fi version of that, with plenty of blips and bleeps and the warmth of the guitar underneath. By the end Yorke's voice has been multiplied by a funhouse mirror and he's in harmony and in discord with himself at the same time. It feels real and lived in and as achingly boring as wallowing in your own misery can be there is a sort of beauty in removing yourself from participation in the chaos. I've read theories that depressive episodes could be an evolved survival function triggered by complex problems that allows the mind to narrow and focus in an uninterrupted fashion. Wishful thinking maybe, but that's what this song feels like to me. "Karma Police" I think this was probably the biggest crossover hit, with it's very memorable first person video that puts the viewer in the literal driver's seat, chasing some terrified, seemingly guilty ( of what?) person down a dark road at a speed of a cat toying with it's food. By the end, the worm has turned and you're left in a burning car, your passenger ( Yorke) having abandoned you. I watched this thing the whole way through every time I caught it on MTV and have seen it many more times since Youtube became a thing. A great little short existential horror film, fitting the song itself like a glove with it's references to rage and retribution over what seem to be very minor slights. If the last track was about being in the throes of depression, then this one might just be about how self hatred and frustration and powerlessness gets turned outward instead of inward, with easy targets to be found everywhere for the a driver, if they are so inclined, to chase down and pick a fight with. And just like in the music video this is always ultimately a self destructive act. This is maybe the catchiest song on an album of catchy songs and it's easy to see why it was picked for the MTV treatment. It was directed by the guy who went on to direct Under the Skin and Zone of Interest. Both also horror movies of a sort in which people are turned into objects in order to satisfy the twisted needs of psychologically suspect individuals. "Fitter Happier" - Less a song than a coldly delivered poem of sorts where a robotic voice lists off a nausea inducing litany of what sounds like the features of some horrible dystopia. Which it is I guess as it's essentially modern life as viewed through the lens of an uncaring digital observer. I'm reminded a little bit of those early AI usages you used to see of the insane looking Escheresque cat faces all glitched out and repeating, fractalizing and melting into one another. They would called them machine learning hallucinations or some such thing, and looking back now from 2026 when we seem to be just ready to turn the page in the AI Apocalypse themed Choose Your Own Adventure novel in which we now live, this track seems pretty prophetic. If those cat faces were the visual representation of a bunch of code going mad, then this is what the inner monologue might have sounded like. It's no "Daisy" but it would be easy to imagine some terrifying red eye slowly having it's personality shaved away while repeating this. "Electioneering" - The only straight ahead rocker on the album, this one is also very nakedly political in its withering attack on teh way the world seemed to be going with the rich and powerful moving everyone else backwards on the chessboard while securing their own spot and trying to make the complex version of Three Card Monte they were pulling off on all of us seem like progress. It's derisive and scornful and full of contempt and even more relatable nowadays since we know how it all worked out for the Tony Blairs and Bill Clintons and George Bush's of the world ( I consider my self a progressive/ leftist but in the rearview these guys all look a lot mor similar than different). Musically I'm feeling a lot of Public Image Limited DNA in this one, with Yorke's vocal delivery even evoking John Lydon a bit in the audible sneer he adds to the end of some words. Although another song on the album has already claimed the title, this would be a perfect song to play over the closing credits of humanity. "Climbing Up the Walls" - The sound on this is full of menace, with it's hollow sounding drums and the Yorke's voice threatening to dissolve into white noise the whole time, which it very much does at the end. Depression seems to be a running theme on the album, but in this track it seems like Depression has been personified, and it's going to tell you exactly how it's going to crawl inside your head and dominate your life. Oh, and he's bringing his friends fear and anxiety along for the ride. Intrusive thoughts, obsessive fears, and a general, all encompassing paranoia fill up the room like a rolling fog as the song eats up its run time. "No Surprises" - Just when you thought this feast of an album couldn't possibly have any more tasty courses left we get this all-timer. And two more besides! One of the prettiest Radiohead songs and I think possibly my favorite track by them, period. Definitely my favorite off this album. It pulls off one of my favorite musical tricks where the artist manages to get that perfectly bittersweet juxtaposition of either happy/ pleasant sound with bleak as fuck lyrics or vice versa. This is the former, and we're treated to some beautiful glockenspiel playing by Johnny Greenwood that interlock with some equally pretty shimmery, ringing guitar from Ed O'Brian. Beautiful and dreary in equal measure, and boy does this one do a number on my black, black heart. Chef's kiss. I'll cap this at four listens, and move on. "Lucky" - The penultimate track gives the previous one a run for it's money as far as favorite tracks on the album go though. For all the Pink Floyd comparisons Radiohead have gotten they rarely have much in common sonically. Thematically I see a lot of overlap though. The guitar on the chorus of this one is one of the exceptions where I can truly see it. It's got a soulful, plaintiff feel to it that I could easily imagining David Gilmour having come up with. The narrator in this song feels like someone thumbing his nose at fate and somehow scraping by, with it's airplane crash imagery and self important proclamations. These Radiohead protagonists rarely seem to get happy endings though and the tone of the thing indicates that luck is a limited resource, even if it appears otherwise. "The Tourist" - The album ends on a sloooooooooow note. With Yorke seeming to control the pace of the song with the chorus being a literal command to drink things in and take a beat to consider. What that would be I have no idea, but I'll take it as one of the few positive sentiments on the album. The instrumentation and vocals are shuffling and lazy, and drained of energy, but it all feels positively aspirational compared to the desolation on display elsewhere, so I'll take it. It's another very pretty track and an excellent closer. HIGHLIGHTS - Every last drop. MIDLIGHTS - LOWLIGHTS - FINAL THOUGHTS I think this might be the last album released that I can safely say I know front to back, and could ( at one point) sing along with all the songs. We'll get to it when we get to it, but even though I prefer The Bends and think it was more influential on the SOUND of the bands that followed Radiohead, I think OK Computer had the more massive overall influence on the music industry in that mainstream bands felt sage to get weird, and the weirder more experimental lesser known bands felt safe to take a step into the mainstream. The mainstream entertainment industry has always had room for weirdos, but there was a cap. No more than a couple at any given time it seemed were allowed to straddle the avant-garde and the pop worlds. In the 70s you had your David Bowie, and Roxy Music, and Pink Floyd. The 80s your Talking Heads, Devos, Peter Gabriels and Kate Bushes, and later on your Becks and Bjorks, and Tools. By the mid to late 90s things were opening up for more of this stuff and I think after OK Computer the dam broke and we've been just been existing in the floodplain for almost 30 years. Pick any half dozen of the biggest names in pop music nowadays and imagine the bizarre looks they would get if you dropped them back anytime before '97 or so. Even Taylor Swift's stuff would sound strange I bet. OK Computer I think at least partly deserves credit for helping all the nerds come back out of their caves after the harsh light of grunge and Nu-Metal, and boy band music had temporarily scared them off. Bands like Coldplay, Muse and several others took and adapted the Radiohead sound and I think watered it down and made it a bit more bland, but pop was overall better for it, and I think there even more acts who owe a debt that have nothing in common sonically with Radiohead, but who were inspired, maybe even indirectly to put some more complex stuff out into the popular world instead of just assuming that masses people wouldn't like it, and it would have to exist on some boutique indie label. So maybe the real legacy of this album is that people are actually more than willing to listen to strange stuff so long as it's well produced and entertaining not subject to the kind of cliquey exclusivity that a lot of artists go in for. Radiohead have a lot more in common with U2 ( at least on this and The Bends) than people give them credit for. Sure they made personal idiosyncratic music, but it was for everyone. I love me some Tom Waits, for example, but he could probably give less than a flying fuck whether or not Joe Normal likes or buys his stuff. He's playing to his fans. These guys, at least for the time being, were aiming for the masses. But on the other hand I totally get why someone could very easily hate this. It's got scratchy processed guitar work that can as unpleasant for the sake of it, Yorke's voice is mopey, and there are very few bright spots. It's pretty relentlessly downbeat and depressive in a way that might not be your thing. Personally I revel in the stark and unapologetic gloominess. But then I love goth rock and the occasional bit of black metal, so... Speaking of which, I think this album has very brutal vibe that's up there with some of the darkest black metal I've heard. It's messaging just happens to be wrapped up in some very post-punk pop drag. It's also not anti-humanist like a lot of black metal I've heard, but instead focuses on how awful modern life is to humanity. It's hating the cages we've built for ourselves rather than the prisoners in the cages. Though, there is some hatred leftover for the architects as well. If there's a great modern trilogy of "Oh god, we're doomed" albums, I'd nominate Dark Side of the Moon by Pink Floyd ( "Isn't it funny how fucked we all are?"), Unknown Pleasures by Joy Division ( "Isn't it awful how fucked I am?"), and OK Computer ( "Isn't it interesting how fucked reality is?"). OK Computer has it's rage, and it's navel gazing depressive moments in equal parts, but it's all seething and passive aggressive, and intellectualized neuroses in comparison with Dark Side's almost communistic "We're all in this together, might as well share a pint before the end" sense of bitter comradeship and Unknown Pleasure's bleak and purely emotional self centeredness. This album plays right into my already very cynical ( I prefer disappointed optimist but ... tomato tomahto) doomer view of things and even if I didn't gel with it on a purely musical level, it would still speak volumes to my inner misanthropist. I do think it's entirely possible that the critical success of this went to their heads enough that going forward they do seem to start to really enjoy the smell of their own farts and kind of turn into the band that a lot of people accused them of being on this one. I like the next several albums quite a bit, but they are not ones I revisit mush at all, and I like them less and less I think as they go on. But we'll find out apparently as I'm pretty sure everything they've done after this is on the list. That might be overkill, but I'll take a lesser Radiohead album over another Dexys Midnight Runners album any day of the week, Possible turn-Offs might include: - paranoia - no chance of escape, like a cat tied to a stick that's driven into frozen winter shit - feeling a pig in a cage on antibiotics You Might enjoy this if you: - are no longer afraid of the dark or midday shadows - are an empowered and informed member of society - can still cry at a good film - have the ability to laugh at weakness PLAYLIST ALTERATIONS - No thanks FURTHER LISTENING Precursors: - Bitches Brew by Miles Davis - Threnody to the Victims of Hiroshima by Krzysztof Pendereck - Tago Mago by Can - The Dark Side of the Moon by Pink Floyd - Selling England by the Pound by Genesis - Unknown Pleasures by Joy Division - Spirit of Eden by Talk Talk - Dummy by Portishead - Endtroducing..... by DJ Shadow Contemporaries: - Urban Hymns by the Verve - Homogenic by Björk - Mogwai Young Team by Mogwai - Fucked Up Inside by Spiritualized - Zaireeka by The Flaming Lips - Soundtracks for the Blind by Swans Descendants: - Parachutes by Coldplay - Showbiz by Muse - The Sophtware Slump by Grandaddy - Lost Souls by Doves - The Man Who by Travis - Silent Alarm by Bloc Party - OK Calculator by TV on the Radio - Veckatimest by Grizzly Bear - Radiodread by Easy Star All-Stars

Me on my puter

I was fourteen years old when Radiohead released OK Computer. Before Q Magazine and all of the music press lost their collective minds over the album, I already knew Radiohead pretty well. A few years beforehand, like most of the rest of the world, I was pretty taken by the song “Creep”. I had recorded it from the radio, and played the tape back many, many times. You had to be like a ninja back then, waiting for your favourite song to be played, ready with a blank tape, finger hovering over the record button while a DJ prattled on. I wanted to upgrade my recording, as it had been interrupted by Ian Dempsey apologising for playing the wrong version on the air, the one with the cursing, so while on holidays in Dublin with my parents, I dragged them into Tower Records. I had intended to buy “Creep” on single. I used to buy a lot of singles back then, rather than albums. But being thrifty with the very little pocket-money I had, I spotted a bargain. “Pablo Honey” was on sale for £7, while the single “Creep” was £4. Upgrade from three songs to twelve, both containing “Creep” for just £3. What a deal! And so, I ended up owning my first Radiohead album, the revered “Pablo Honey”. I digress for a reason. Because I hunted out that bargain, I ended up listening to Radiohead’s full discography from the start. “The Bends” was a giant leap forward, and by chance Radiohead even played my hometown of Galway, in a venue quite close to my house. I was too young to go, so I stood on a table in my back garden - the logic being that I could hear them more clearly over the trees and houses when I was higher off the ground. So, when all the hype started coming out about OK Computer, I was already very familiar with them, and more than intrigued. The timing happened to coincide with a period when I’d just gotten a new sound system for my birthday, and had started collecting full albums rather than singles. I was listening to Oasis’ first two albums, and Ash’s 1977 pretty much on repeat those days. In school, there was a guy in my class that I didn’t know too well, but in computer class one day (yes, I’m old), I noticed that he had OK Computer on tape. We made a deal, where I taped a copy of Oasis for him in exchange for my own copy of OK Computer. Almost thirty years later and that guy is still one of my closest friends - I even went on to introduce him to his wife. We’ve seen Radiohead seven times, most recently travelling all the way to Copenhagen for that epic concert in the round. We often talk about how we’re only friends because of Radiohead. Or, because I was too broke to buy the album myself. I didn’t really know what to expect from OK Computer. At this point the only thing I’d heard was the hype. I still have a visceral memory of my first listen-through. I was lying on my bed, listening on my old yellow Sony Walkman. About halfway through opening track “Airbag”, I actually stopped the tape and took out my headphones, properly wide-eyed in shock. What was that?? The roar of Jonny Greenwood's guitar punches you in the face with that hardcore riff intro. Phil’s beat, somewhere between electronica and rock, is underpinned by Colin’s fragmented dub-style bass. Jonny’s phaser and space-echoed guitar solos sound like something from another planet, while Thom and Ed’s guitars create a trance-like drone in the background. And then Jonny's guitar breaks down. I'd never heard anything like it. I put my headphones back on. After Jonny’s guitar did the impossible several times over and left that last chord ringing, four beeps signalled in one of the greatest songs ever written. “Paranoid Android” is our generation’s “Bohemian Rhapsody” - a song with multiple personalities moving through an odyssey, while perfectly capturing the anxieties, vibes and ethos of the world we were living through in 1997. Yuppies, consumerism, insincerity and foppishness surrounded by political corruption, greed, technological anxiety and uncertainty. It’s a feverish panic attack of a reaction to the world around it in four cycles: apathy & dissociation, anger, despair… and anger again. The main acoustic guitar riff is complex, weird and somehow a proper groove. There are so many layers of complex sounds happening at once: Jonny's pitch shifted guitar in the chorus, Ed's textures in the background, a Macintosh robotic voice almost inaudible, buried in the mix. And then the song shifts gear for the first time. Thom’s iconic lyrics “aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaambition makes you look pretty ugly” (as it’s displayed in the album booklet) signals in one of the great guitar riffs of the modern age. The moment when Jonny’s guitar detonates is one of the great rock-out moments in music. Thom’s lyrics are a work of art: poetic, cryptic and oblique. Using the word “Gucci” as an insult is inspired. The “Rain down” section is a beautiful breather, before the panic, the screaming, and the yuppies networking bring us back to the reprise of the heavy section to go full tilt to the abrupt end of the song. Halfway through the album, a robot takes the mic. “Fitter Happier” is as tragic as it is gorgeous. Melancholic, jangly old pianos and strings play in the background, punctuated by frightening electronic noises, as a robotic voice (Macintosh’s Fred) describes how it will behave more in-line with societal expectations, while being reprogrammed. While the band have consistently said that OK Computer is NOT a concept album, there’s definitely a central, driving theme. One that’s just as relevant today as in 1997. Dealing with the anxieties of emerging technologies as they integrate into our everyday lives. “Fitter Happier” is a twisted joke, in that it makes us feel so sorry for a machine, as it willingly gives up its personality. Thom has said himself that it was “the most upsetting thing I’ve ever written”. I tend to agree. OK Computer sounds like music that was crafted by a machine, but played by humans trying to break out of the boundaries of technology, the rawness of the guitars battling against the hum of electronica. I couldn’t get enough of this album. It genuinely changed the way I thought about music as an artform. I learned to play every single song on guitar as quickly as I could. Over time I bought a Memory Man pedal because of “Karma Police”, I bought a Digitech Whammy because of “Subterranean Homesick Alien”, and I bought a “Space Echo” because of… well, because of pretty much every song on the album. I’d spend the next three decades appreciating this album for so many different reasons. When I was younger, I was more drawn to the sonic dissonance on the album. “Airbag”’s car crash anti-solo. The looping guitar textures creating unease behind “Exit Music (for a film)”. Ed’s Memory Man oscillating over and over to infinity, before everything collapses like a black hole at the end of “Karma Police”. Jonny’s bleak and unsettling solo and Thom’s blood-curdling scream in “Climbing Up the Walls”. The frenetic anger and aggression of “Electioneering”. Jonny had pushed the guitar to the limits of what was possible, while sixth member of Radiohead Nigel Godrich's production is dense, layered, yet fully coherent. As I got older, I appreciated other aspects of the record. The ingenuity of Thom’s lyrical poetry, along with some great literary references, like Douglas Adams’ “Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy”, which aligned with my reading habits nicely. “Karma Police”, forever associated with that amazing Grant Gee music video, sounding like The Beatles’ “Sexy Sadie” played by The Pixies. Stanley Donwood (the seventh member of Radiohead) creating a visual language that I would go on to emulate over and over: lowercase text sporadically pun_ctuated with underscores, surrounded by imposing corporate signage and infographics. As I got even older, I was drawn more and more to how Radiohead could create something beautiful among the sounds of electronic dissonance. The absolute devastation of the first half of “Exit Music”, transforming into one of the most triumphant moments in music when Colin’s glorious fuzz-soaked bass kicks in. The spacey soundscape that Jonny’s guitar makes as it flies off into eternity during “Subterranean Homesick Alien”. That beautiful moment at the very end of “Let Down” when the guitars are overcome by computerised blippity blips. “Lucky” has that amazingly triumphant chorus, and “The Tourist” is a beautiful exit. As a man now in my forties, “No Surprises” is the one I identify with the most these days. At this stage, all I want is a quiet life, no alarms and no surprises please. I could take or leave the handshake of carbon monoxide. Thom’s perfect lyrics are matched by the gorgeous glockenspiel and Ed’s beautiful guitar pieces. I’ve been worrying about the day that OK Computer came up in this project. Because I just don’t know how I could ever do it justice with words. I can’t articulate just what this album means to me. It changed my life, it opened my eyes and it is without a doubt my favourite album of all time. A complete masterpiece. There aren’t enough stars in the sky available to give this.

I saw Thom Yorke in a grocery store in Los Angeles yesterday. I told him how cool it was to meet him in person, but I didn’t want to be a douche and bother him and ask him for photos or anything. He said, “Oh, like you’re doing now?” I was taken aback, and all I could say was “Huh?” but he kept cutting me off and going “huh? huh? huh?” and closing his hand shut in front of my face. I walked away and continued with my shopping, and I heard him chuckle as I walked off. When I came to pay for my stuff up front I saw Thom Yorke trying to walk out the doors with like fifteen Milky Ways in his hands without paying. The girl at the counter was very nice about it and professional, and was like “Sir, you need to pay for those first.” At first he kept pretending to be tired and not hear her, but eventually turned back around and brought them to the counter. When she took one of the bars and started scanning it multiple times, he stopped her and told her to scan them each individually “to prevent any electrical infetterence,” and then turned around and winked at me. I don’t even think that’s a word. After she scanned each bar and put them in a bag and started to say the price, he kept interrupting her by yawning really loudly.

10/10 I mean, this is my favorite album ever made. It was the first album I ever sat down and listened to as a kid, respecting it as the whole as opposed to a bunch of songs. It made me think of albums as statements and got me into music as a whole. Thom Yorke is one of my favorite singers ever, and his voice is in tip top shape on this album. He puts so much energy and emotion into every song that it’s so easy to connect with. The rest of the band aren’t slouches either, with Jonny and Ed laying down fantastic guitar parts (and keyboard parts), but Colin and Phil are the real underrated MVPs of this album. This album rocks, but it also grooves at points and I think that’s from their air tight playing. The lyrics on this album really cement it as my favorite though, as I relate very deeply to almost every track. The anxiety towards the future and technology has only become more relevant and hits deeply to someone growing up in the digital age. I’ve always imagined a sort of story to this album, with the bell motif at the beginning and end to the album, suggesting that these stories may always remain relevant. The music behind the lyrics really sell the story as a whole, ranging from tragic and heartbreaking to angry and a little punky. This album cries, it freaks out, yet feels numb at points. It gets weird, yet remains accessible. I can’t ask for a better window into music as art than this one.

So I guess here’s where I tell my huge-Radiohead-fan origin story. I had a cassette of Pablo Honey back when it came out, but except for “Creep,” I didn’t think much of it. So I got rid of it and pretty much forgot about Radiohead until much later, when I was reading a humorous book* that mentioned "Radiohead dirges.” "Dirges" made the band sound interesting to me, and I started thinking that maybe something had changed since the days when I considered them a mid-tier 90s commercial alternative radio band. So I went and got a copy of OK Computer. And here we are. I love this record so much that I’m actually having some trouble writing about it objectively. I can say that every song is interesting and meaningful to me in a different way, and some have changed in meaning and become relevant in a different way as I’ve gotten older. And the musicianship — well you know, I don’t have to tell you. I mean these people not only have interesting musical ideas, they also express them in remarkably precise ways. The entire thing is solid; the least interesting track on here would be the one big song for any other band. *The book is ”Important Artifacts and Personal Property from the Collection of Lenore Doolan and Harold Morris, Including Books, Street Fashion, and Jewelry,” by Leann Shapton

Both musically groundbreaking in its production and stunning & complex arrangements, and thematically coherent with motifs that remain pertinent even today, there’s a reason that OK Computer is one of the greatest albums of all time. The ordering of the songs and the subsequent effect on pacing is something to be noted, ending on a run of 4 slow songs to leave us in a downbeat mood. It's a choice I respect immensely, and adds to the overall feeling of the album. The themes here are frighteningly relevant for an album written almost 30 years ago. Existentialism and reflections on the fragility of human life are well-tread topics, and the same can be said about rebellion against societal conformity and consumerism. However, we see that old becomes new with the other themes of this album: the acceleration of society in a newly digital world, and anxiety about overreliance on these new technologies. All of that is wrapped up in a bow of general malaise and claustrophobia that comes with simply existing modern society, and a want for a simpler life and a search for genuine human connection. I'm no poet, and I wish I could better express how much I appreciate the thematic thrust of this album, but I'll leave it at that. An incredibly well-written and performed album that has withstood the test of time beyond a shadow of a doubt. One of the albums of all time. 10/10 Song Notes: - Airbag is such a perfect opening to this album musically and thematically, that sharp driving drumbeat and the reverb of the guitar (recorded in a staircase!) set the stage nicely. Thom Yorke's whiney droning voice suits the album so well. The anecdote about surviving a car crash paints a succinct picture of our double-edged reliance on machines that can save our lives or kill us, plus a reminder of how fragile and random human life or death can be. Really optimistic stuff. - Paranoid Android is some high grade kush. The dynamic shifts are so well executed, the guitar explosion rips, and the way Yorke wails "rain down" gets me every time. - Huge fan of the Rhodey on Subterranean Homesick Alien. It helps create such a dreamy atmosphere in the song when paired with that arpeggiated guitar. - Let Down is another song that really helps depict the claustrophobia of living in a modern society. The imagery of a crushed bug, "shell smashed, juices flowing, wings twitch" is a darkly beautiful way to talk about the inhumanity of mass transport and living in the rat race, but the proclamation of "I'm gonna grow wings" gives us a sliver of defiant hope in the face of futility. - Fitter Happier is an upsetting listen, fully by design. The OG Macintosh's text to speech program using a synthesized and highly artificial voice reading out instructions for rigid conformity to society is creepy as hell. "Fitter, happier, more productive, no more microwave dinners and saturated fats". Be well! Cook your food without salt and spice! Be a good little cog! No thanks, I'll have my greasy burger and fries and get way too drunk with my friends. What's the point otherwise? - Electioneering gets rough and rowdy with the guitar work, and it's almost cathartic to listen to after Fitter Happier. Just a super well performed song instrumentally. - Climbing Up The Walls is so creepy, and that dissonance is incredibly immersive. Not exactly a pleasant listen, but one I ended up enjoying a lot on its artistic merits. - No Surprises gets a lot of run as a TikTok song nowadays (the irony in that is immeasurable), but the lyrics are poignant, and paired with that music-box guitar & glockenspiel combo, speaks to a fear I'm sure all of us share in ending up in a meaningless life we're too afraid to change. You can tell that social isolation is a topic that weighs heavy throughout this album. - The Tourist's messaging is fairly straightforward to me: it's a decisive call to action; in the world of 1997 -- where the Internet is new, technology is advancing at a rapid pace, and people grow further apart, even as the world becomes more digitally connected -- we need to slow down and look at what's happening to us, and strive for something better. Favorites: - Airbag - Paranoid Android - Let Down - Karma Police - No Surprises - Lucky

Karma Police is a 5 Star song. If this came out while I was in high school or college I would have been all over it. I think overall I give it 4.5, a 9/10. I feel like that means I have to round up.

4 1/2 stars as the last couple of songs lack the quality of the rest of the album.

I’m a latecomer to Radiohead. According to my last.fm stats, 2011 seems to be the year I jumped on board and decided I was a fan. And this is the album that did that, as far as I can tell. A very strong opening sequence of tracks, some anthemic crescendos, and Thom is only slightly whiny.

OBRA MAESTRA

sounds like giving up and accepting it

Thom Yorke stole my candy bar and then yawned in my face when confronted.

good, but by the end i was a little sick of his voice. Not my favorite

I don't like the way the lead singer sings as he sounds like he has a mouthful of mush, he slurs the words, and it is hard to understand him. What was up with "Fitter Happier"? Worst selection and I really don't think talking with music behind one is really what I call a song. The screaming near the end of "Climbing Up The Walls" was pretty awful too. Best song in an album of terrible songs "No Surprises". It surprised me that I could find a good song actually, but I did like, "No Surprises".

Simply a masterpiece. They’ve never made anything close to this good ever since

Great

God what an absolute triumph

Ok

Of course

my eyes water just by the thought of this album

You can’t listen to this once and begin to establish a baseline of understanding. There are depths to be plumbed. Musically the time changes, bridges and complexity of instrumental combinations. The lyrics, dark and sinister, like our darkest and most obscure internal spaces.

5/5. No notes. No notes?! No notes!

Radiohead? More like radioawesome!!!!!!!!!!!!

As a child, I was obsessed with UFOs (…and so was my son, actually) and I desperately wanted to be abducted by aliens. ET having come out in 1980 probably had a lot to do with it (…and X Files for my son 🤔). Anyway, “Subterranean Homesick Alien” reminds me of that. “Paranoid Android” has such a great riff; I love it! And that doesn’t even touch on “Karma Police” or “No Surprises”, both great songs in their own right. I like Kid A better but this is still a masterpiece

In a certain sense this album feels inevitable, like it could exist in any alternate timeline that you could look at. It is, without a doubt, the best album Radiohead or its members have been a part of. It's honestly not even that close for me, this is such a singular album for me. They've put out a lot of phenomenal albums, no doubt, but there's nothing that does everything, at least not to the level that this does. It's the most complete album experience they've ever come up with, and it has a handful of their best songs, both of the faster and more introspective variety. It's been hailed since it came out as a classic, and it's easy to see why when you actually sit and listen to it. Just a perfect album straight through, this is the best that the British have to offer. Favorites: Airbag, Exit Music (For A Film), Electioneering

This is as good as everyone thinks it is Playlist add: “No Surprises”

Pretty good!

Never listened to the whole album. I liked this one a lot more than Hail To the Thief (I know OK Computer is one of their most liked albums so its not a hot take). I feel like this one has had a good amount of experimentation and lands well.

I can appreciate this record pushing the genre boundaries, but I Thom's singing lacks energy at best and is grating at worst. While there were some hooks in the biggest songs, for me the album overstays its welcome.

Amazing music, you can almost forget that you are listening to Thom Yorke sing.

Some of the most beautiful melodies in the history of rock music.

One of the five best records of the 90s

I really liked the album and added some songs there!

Game changing album

Album qui se suit super bien. Pas trop long. Tounes un peu nostalgique/triste.

I don't like this band but to deny that it is a masterpiece would be lying to myself. Thoroughly enjoyable record with incredible songs in it. The production is great, it sounds very modern. I'm gonna give it 4,5 in reality.

The sound on this album is really unique, but it just didn't move me like it does for some people. I've listened to this several times before and each time I leave feeling it was good, but not great. Favorite Songs: Paranoid Android, Lucky

Allright music with an unbearable singers voice.

Tasteful background music.

Yeah man idk it's OK Computer

Basic overrated shit

Quite possibly one of the most influential modern alternative albums. This album is masterful and takes everything that Radiohead was known for to the next level. Never a dull track on this album.

I really wanted to be wowed and I just wasn't.

Look, alright, I'm gonna be stereotypical. I like this album. I already knew I liked this album. This was one of the first albums I ever got on CD and it was from my dad. I can only surmise this by saying I really, really like this album. I have nearly all Radiohead CDs, and this is by far my favorite of the collection. It's just moody and atmospheric, and it really just itches a part of your brain when you're listening to it. Fav Track: Exit Music (For A Film)

maybe I just find Thom Yorke's voice annoying

Great album

Top 2 androids of all time alongside The Arch.

Radiohead's best album. Paranoid Android is incredible

Heard before?:✔️ Will listen again?:✔️

favorited 6/12 tracks: Subterranean Homesick Alien, Exit Music (For a Film), Let Down, No Surprises, Lucky, and the Tourist. super vibey, beautiful and artful as a cohesive piece. dudes got a beautiful voice. i wouldnt listen to the tracks i didnt "heart" on their own, not my thing for everyday listening but i thought it was lovely all the same. nice, beautiful album 6.5/10

there was a point in time before i remembered that people have personal preferences where i was like, “how could anyone NOT think this is the best radiohead album?”… so yeah 5 stars. my favorite moments on here are probably the terrifying scream at the end of Climbing Up the Walls, the rambunctiousness of Electioneering and how it transitions into it from Fitter Happier, and all of the cool guitar effects they used that gives this album its signature atmosphere. i especially like the atmosphere on the song Subterranean Homesick Alien and how they lift the song off the ground for the chorus. an iconic album for sure. it feels like radiohead’s big blockbuster film

Top Album

Beautiful record. I sometimes tell myself that maybe in comparison to some of the later radiohead records or other records I love, this one is a bit lightweight, but it's not. There's so much there. It does disguise itself as a 90s guitar rock record at times, but it's deep and interesting and flows beautifully with artistry.

This isn’t really my thing, but the music itself was so evocative. I probably won’t listen to it again, but it was very good anyway.

Is this the best album ever. Possibly yes. Probably yes. It is certainly in my top two. Every time I listen to this album I still hear something new. It still sounds fantastic 29 years later and still gives me that buzz that I first got when I first heard it. Perfect in every way.

The best Radiohead album hands down…. Classic.

Thom Yorke’s vocals are something you either love or hate. There really is no middle ground. I like the idea of Radiohead better than I like actual Radiohead precisely because Thom, is frankly, whiny. I also recognize that this album is regarded as their finest work with one track having over 1 billion streams and it probably not the track you are thinking of. It is also the only track where Thom is not whiny. No surprises is a decent track with 1.4 billion streams and yet I’ve not heard it played in the real world- where I actually live. It is a slower version of Paranoid Android, which would be an enjoyable song if sung by someone else. So, putting aside my dislike of Thom’s vocal tone, the album is musically interesting and at points inspiring, such as the last minute of Airbag. But is it enough to make the album enjoyable. Unfortunately, no. It’s an average Rock record with its own sonic palate that keeps things interesting but there is not enough emotional connection that you would say to anyone WOW! This is fucking great! In truth, it is not a great record and people who will try to convince you that it is are truly just fucking sheep. It’s like a cult on par with all those morons who voted for Donald Trump for President a second fucking time. That’s the thing about cults, isn’t it? Those who are members of the cult spew the gospel of the cult leader. Radiohead fans are similar. Let’s say it out loud, together: This album is not special or amazing or anything of the sort. It is a rather interesting but average record with a largely annoying vocalist. 3/5

3.5

Fantastic album

That was a lot of wailing.

2nd Radiohead album that has come up. Nice listen.

After a fairly uninteresting first half, i was treated to one of the best half albums ive ever heard

Absolute 90s classic. This holds up really well. Still an excellent listen. 5/5

OK

Perfect 10/10 album. 'Climbing up the walls' is better than I remember. Great

This album sounds dystopian. I say that positively. It sounds freaky and wrong at times, but it doesn’t go overboard like some later Radiohead albums do. Every song contributes to this overall feeling of unease, and despite that, the album is so unbelievably enjoyable. Airbag is a great introduction. I love how the “chorus” meshes with the rest of the song, just coming about seemingly randomly and persisting. Everybody knows Let Down, and for good reason. It’s probably the poppiest song on this album, but it still manages to feel completely at home mixed with all these weirdo songs. Karma Police is really good, and that “For a minute there, I lost myself” part is amazing. Then comes fitter happier. This is the album saying, “hold on, we’ve been too poppy. We need to freak people out.” It’s great. Climbing up the walls might be my favorite song on the album because it sounds desperate. It sounds like Thom Yorke is completely overcome with anxiety and needs to get this message about through. It’s so amazing. Last song I’ll talk about is No Surprises, another song everyone knows. It’s a beautiful song about living in the modern world. Yeah this album is as good as everyone says. I don’t know for sure if it’s my favorite Radiohead album (I really really really love The Bends), but if it’s not my favorite it’s a very close second. This is about as good as albums get.

an album that has climbing up the walls must get 5 stars

Good album in pieces but didn’t love the whole thing. Some iconic songs. Overall enjoyed it

I'm a bit torn between a 4 and 5 for this. After "Kid A" I felt like this album was kinda pedestrian in comparison. But I really like the dense instrumentation, the shifting somewhat-progressivey flow of the songs, the emo vibes. Thom Yorke's voice is very evocative. I think I'm convincing myself to give it a 5.

Quite fun and moody, but I think a little overrated maybe?

Wow. This is actually a perfect album.

I think I will always put The Bends above this, but they are both masterpieces. This album really changed rock music in a similar way to Nevermind.

Kinda struggling to say much about this album other than it's probably my favorite Radiohead album, and one of the easiest 5/5 albums on this list. I'd list which songs are my favorite, but I'd basically just end up listing the whole tracklist. But what I like about this album more than other Radiohead albums (Although Kid A comes close) is that it retains the more alt rock leanings while excising the cowpunk, weird alt they had going on in The Bends (Honestly not a huge Bends fan). THIS sounds like Radiohead to me.

I thought this album was great. I was surprised by how many songs I knew. I understand why it’s a quintessential album. 8.5/10

Handwerklich super, schwer theatralische Vocals. Nicht meine Tasse Tee.

Buenisimo

I always held the unreasonable view that this album just wasn't that good. The Bends have a special place in my heart and tape deck and for some reason this just passed me by. I'd even been heard to say "it's just not guitary enough". I was a fool.

Gozzy good

As a certified oldster I am tempted to shake my stick at this release. Its opening track (Airbag) is jangley and unpleasant, but the second track is quite melodic and interesting (Paranoid Android). Still trying to find my footing here. This is quite good after the faltering start. Let down is very nice and Karma Police is sublime to the extreme. I may need to buy this. Um, after Karma Police it slips back into the jangley, but somewhat less unpleasant mode until No Surprises, which is dreamy and melodic, sad and introspective. A nice finish. Right on the edge between a five and a four, but I'm leaning towards a five.

oka radiohead

[boxing announcer voice] AND STILL...the greatest album of all time...!

Album : 36/1089 Songs known going in: 4/12 Favourite song : no surprises Cover Art : iconic Rating 3/5 i like the vibes and there are songs I absolutely love but it's a little hit or miss

OK

Misschien wat stom om te zeggen, maar dit album was beter dan ik herinnerde. OK Computer is nooit mijn favoriete Radiohead geweest, en wellicht is het doordat het wat meer overplayed vibes kan hebben had ik het in mijn hoofd als een goed album maar niet perfect. Dit is wel beter dan dat, en ondanks dat het alsnog niet mijn favo radiohead is wel beter dan de 4.5 die ik in gedachte had. Toch wel near perfect

GOAT

The différents level of intensity is a little discordant, but individually I like the songs

Masterpiece. Eeach song feels like an album on it's own. Ambitious as hell from start to end. Loved it and can't wait to listen to it over and over again.

Ok Computer, what some people deem as the greatest album ever made. There is so much that has been said about this project in the nearly 30 years since its' release, all of which has aged beautifully in that time being and still holds to be a very relevant piece of media that heavily influences nearly every Alternative act today. Despite all that being said, I don't think this album is as good as a lot of people make it out to be. I think it will surprise many people but I have never been huge on a few of the tracks here, mainly Electioneering and Climbing Up the Walls but also Airbag, Paranoid Android, and Subterranean Homesick Alien. I definitely still can not understand Electioneering and Climbing Up the Walls and I would call them misses for Radiohead. The tracks at the beginning just never grab me and it is usually when Exit Music comes on when I am finally locked into this album. Speaking of Exit Music, I recently just learned that Exit Music (For a Film) was originally recorded and made for the 1996 Romeo & Juliet movie and I think the way it was able to weave itself into the tracklist is nothing short of miraculous. The rest of the tracklist really needs to sort of commentary because how can I begin to explain the greatness of tracks like Let Down, Karma Police, No Surprises, or Lucky? You just can't man. I appreciate the subtext scattered all over this album about the overtaking of technology in our lives and just how those themes are weaved in both lyrically and through the production. Ok Computer is a great album, that is undeniable, but I just don't think it is one of the greatest albums ever made. I have never seen it as such even after years of listening to Radiohead and all the other music I have digested. There are better examples of this album in so many other places and Ok Computer is just a nice meeting ground of a lot of great ideas. Fight me.

How do I even begin to describe the production on this. The human mind baffles me everyday.

Is this what they call a Radiohead nowadays?

Another damn good album. The instrumentation was everything I expected from an album as hyped as this. Airbag and Paranoid Android are perhaps the best 1, 2 punch to open an album ever. You definitely are riding a roller coaster until about No Surprises when we start to pull back into the station. Lucky was really the only song I didn’t care for one way or the other. If I had any true knock on the album it would be enunciation - ya can’t hear the lyrics for shit, but I’m not even sure that applies because the voice as an instrument with that droning fuzziness to it was really good and fit in really well. I thought Tourist brought it back well after Lucky, but I don’t think I would’ve cared if Lucky wasn’t there. Favs Airbag (the bass is so juicy) Paranoid Android (so dynamic) Electioneering (just juicin’)

This may have been overhyped too much for me but I was just not blown away ok computer. Nothing stood in any particular way. Doesn’t matter what the message is, if the music is only ok it’s not getting more than a 3

A timeless classic that still sounds fresh every time I revisit. There are few albums that can give an experience close to this one. Thomas got into the thematic and musical details so I will not repeat. Man this never gets old and if you can't see the genius in an album like this then I feel bad because you truly have missed out on something special. Favorites - Paranoid Android - Subterranean Homesick Alien - Exit Music - Karma Police - No Suprises - Lucky - The Tourist Rating 10/10

This album is really amazing, the composition are really unique and experimental, I like the electronic computer sounds throughout the album, I liked it allot as an experience, I only felt bored of like 1 song, a few were good but not keepers, but the rest were amazing, let down is so good

Ещё один альбом нытья, хотя здесь хоть с каким-то намёком на рок.