OK Computer - Radiohead
 

note: I posted this before but I don't think it got the exposure it deserved, namely because I tried to start a thread where I posted all my reviews but it bombed, so I'm reposting this and will work on more reviews I will post in a while, anyway, enjoy and discuss.

Radiohead - OK Computer

1. Airbag: YouTube - Airbag - Radiohead
2. Paranoid Android: YouTube - radiohead - paranoid android
3. Subterranean Homesick Alien: YouTube - Radiohead Music Video - Subterranean Homesick Alien
4. Exit Music (For a Film): YouTube - Radiohead ~ Exit Music (For a Film)
5. Let Down: YouTube - Radiohead Let Down
6. Karma Police: YouTube - KARMA POLICE-RADIOHEAD
7. Fitter Happier: YouTube - fitter happier
8. Electioneering: YouTube - Electioneering
9. Climbing Up the Walls: YouTube - Radiohead - Climbing Up The Walls
10. No Surprises: YouTube - Radiohead - No Surprises
11. Lucky: YouTube - Radiohead - Lucky
12. The Tourist: YouTube - The Tourist - Radiohead (this is actually a really cool video)

Man, it took me a LONG time to fall in love with this album. I first heard it months ago in full, and over the last week I’ve been listening to it over and over again. There was a point where I realized I pretty much liked all the. Radiohead is a band that took me a while to get into, but now that I know this album inside and out, it’s worth it. The first track, Airbag has a really nice guitar part that slides up and down. This albums has a real industrial feel to it, yet still it sounds like it could have been made hundreds of years ago. It’s like a gospel for the MP3 age, with all the excess, noise and confusion that accompanies our modern age.

Paranoid Android may be the best track on the album. Its as if he’s screaming up towards the heavens “What’s thiiiiiiis?, surveying a modern desert landscape, with broken computers and obsolete technology littering the land. At least, that’s what I picture. Subterranean Homesick Alien and Exit Music (For a Film) are nice tracks that start off mellow and increase tension throughout the song. This sort of song structure seems to be a motif of the album.

Let Down is such a 90s song. It’s a weird thing to say, but it fits in perfectly with the decade and the style of music that really was predominant then. It makes sense then, that Radiohead was one of the main influences of this sort of sound.

Karma Police is my favorite song on the album. It reminds me of the Pixies and how they structured their songs. The chorus is one of my favorites of all time, “This is what you get…This is what you get…when you mess with us.” It sounds wistfully bitter.

Fitter Happier was a song that really impressed me when I first heard it. It seemed to be channeling the mood of Revolution #9 except with a more concise message. That’s not to say that it is a rip off of Revolution #9, because when I first heard it I stopped what I was doing and just listened, I really hadn’t heard anything quite like it before. Electioneering paints a really fun, yet desolate landscape. It’s like they’re saying “Hey, we’re all living in a wasteland but lets dance!”

Climbing Up The Walls is an interesting song. Listen to the first 30 seconds or so of it; it seems to be channeling a bit of “Welcome To The Machine” by Pink Floyd. It’s a nice song, which builds on the earlier motif of the album by slowly building tension through the song.

No Surprises could easily be my favorite song on the album(a tie between Karma Police, Paranoid Android and this one? PERHAPS!!!!!), but I guess it all depends on mood. It opens like a lullaby and the chorus is simply beautiful. You know what, the whole damn song is beautiful. Lucky is also another really good song. The opening lyrics and melody are especially good. This may be the only song on the album where I don’t like the tension build up, but I like when it gets quiet and he sings “And we’re standing on the edge”

The Tourist is a really nice close to the album. It has a mellow feel to it, and a sad, wistful tone to it. This album is not so much an indictment of a modern, computerized, robotic wasteland, it’s more of a mirror that’s held up to your face. In the end, it gives a big shrug, because it’s not like an album can tear down this giant machine.

So let’s just dance!

9/10

Im really no a Radiohead fan but I enjoyed the review. Very good job with linking up songs and descriptions.

Nice review!

I agree with you, I think this album is strangely underappreciated on MusicBanter, a sad fate shared by many other popular artists and albums. I guess it might be a mix between wanting to remove oneself from the mainstream and perhaps the hive mind. I bought this album when it was new and that's quite a while ago now and so even if I don't really listen to it anymore, I know it like the back of my hand. My current favourite track may well be Subterranean Homesick Alien, although before that, I've had several other favourite tracks on the album that eventually got overplayed ..

I see you're missing the release year (1997) which should always be included somewhere ..

Thanks for another good review. :)

Thank you for the great review! I love Radiohead

Airbag is my favorite song on this album. Great way to start an album.

I can honestly say that I barely listen to this album and it is hugely overated. I find the production very mechanical sounding (with the albums title it was probably intentional) but since re-buying it on CD a couple of years ago, I have played it once!

One of my favorite albums of all time. There isn't a single thing that I don't love about it.

I've never been able to get into Radiohead. As a matter of fact, I just got through giving them one last chance. I listened to OK Computer, In Rainbows, Kid A, Hail To The Thief, and Pablo Honey in their entirety in the last 3 days and I have to say, I am still not impressed. I'm not sure why; I just can not get into Radiohead. In fact, the only song I'm keeping on my computer is Worry Wort because it's part of a compilation I really like. Don't hate me for this!

Hmmm...not sure if I can agree with that. However I understand how Thom Yorke's voice can turn off some listeners...and Radiohead seems to polarize people as indicative by this thread.

Personally, I think Thom Yorke is a genius, and you could put me on a deserted island with nothing to listen to but OK Computer, Kid A, and Amnesiac...and I would be happy.

I am surprised that given your enthusiasm for Pink Floyd you are not into Radiohead in the fact that both bands 'march to the beat of their own drummers' when it comes to making great art and concept albums.

There are many many bands out there who are experimenting with sounds and textures and making great albums other than Radiohead. 'Concept' albums don't particulary do much for me personally. I would much rather listen to bands like Archive, Porcupine Tree and Kayo Dot who experiment within a traditional format.

This is the problem I have with Radiohead. I don't dislike them but the fact that there is so much good music out there that goes out relatively un noticed starts to build up a resistance to Radioheads music.

OK understood. You make a good point that I can not argue with.

BUT you still should try to see them live...you wont be disappointed.

I think that Muse has a lot of Radiohead influences yet Muse still sounds fresh to me...not directly emulative, which is always a good thing IMHO

Not keen on Muse either apart from a few tracks on their debut. I think you should give the band Archive a listen. They are British too yet hardly known which is a damn shame. If you need any music by them just PM.

Archive is cool they remind me of Portishead or like an urban Portishead vibe...but I am not so much into trip-hop as I am more rock-indie rock-grunge or oldies...

hey I see you're a buddy now at my LFM ... Hi bud! :-)

Before I came to MusicBanter, Radiohead was just another band. A very popular one - of course, but still just a band. However, when I came to MusicBanter, the popularity they have here almost turned me off them .. :p

Just almost, though. OK Computer is still awesome.

There seems to be three albums that teenagers rate very highly in their life, and usually, after reading their accounts, it turns out that before they listened to either of them they listened to chart crap. And then they discovered 'this' album and it changed their perception of music forever, what an album could achieve etc etc. They hold this album dear to them for the rest of their lives, never quite liking any other album above it.

'this' album is always one of the following:

OK Computer
In The Aeroplane Over The Sea
Yankee Hotel Foxtrot

^I think that's a bit of a generalization. I know it does not go for any of the people I know, save for myself getting OK Computer when I was a teenager (not that it had the impact you describe) ..

But yeah, it's a classic. It tends to pop up on "best albums ever" lists. Maybe it's overrated, but album's don't get that sort of acclaim if they're all ****. Maybe listening to OK Computer is a bit mainstream and won't add inches to your e-peen, but neither does the "everyone likes it so I'm gonna hate it" attitude. Well, maybe sometimes.

I dont know anyone who rates either of the three albums as their favourite who:

a) Has a reasonable collection of music
b) Isn't a teenager or early 20's

I'm talking about people I know in real life as opposed to people online btw. All the people I know who like any of them acknowledge that they are good, but there is much better out there.

I don't think it's the case of people disliking it to be different. I think it's more the fact that you would think that it was the only progressive album made in the 90's. Perhaps we are trying to nudge people away a little into exploring other albums within that time period.

I said I hadn't heard it in nearly two years. I personally didn't say it to be blase. I was pertaing to the fact that within that time I have heard many albums that are just as good as OK Computer even if they don't explore similar musical territory.

Err... what? I listened to all chart **** more or less until a couple years ago, I always enjoyed music but when I was 15 and started smoking I really started looking into new bands, and found punk and alternative (indie? I don't like using that as a genre...). I don't like Radiohead; my mom got really into them when I was 9 or 10 and I heard OK Computer many, many times, and never really enjoyed it. I do enjoy the other two, but certainly didn't feel that either of them changed my perception of music. That happened when I started reading music blogs and magazines like the Big Takeover :love:

My goodness, two of those (Aeroplane and Yankee Hotel) are two of my favourite albums of all time. :laughing:

I've listened to A LOT of music, from all kinds of genres, and I find those two albums stand out not because they were the first albums I listened to in my transition from MTV/MuchMusic to, say, Pitchfork, but because they are actually dense enough to stand the test of time.

Aeroplane, for example, will still sound as surreal decades from now as it did in 98, and Yankee Hotel is graced by timeless production.

I think that the older gents that you know are just turned off by the overwhelming hype caused by mags like Pitchfork, which in turn created the ridiculous hipster fanbase, and so when they listen to the album they think of the kids that love those albums, and the last thing they want is to be associated with these kids.

The Bends is probably the most genuine record Radiohead made. For those who hate the perceived contrivance of OK should at least be able see the honesty in songs like "Planet Telex", "High and Dry" and "Fake Plastic Trees" not to mention "Black Star" . The Asian release of the CD had "Killer Cars" on it as well. I think In Rainbows makes an attempt to get back to this honesty.

Did you ever stop to think that maybe those albums reach out to our generation the way that albums like Unknown Pleasures or Sgt. Peppers did for their respective generations. I am not comparing the aforementioned albums to these, but to insinuate that people who rate OK Computer and such highly are not as knowledgeable and worthy as yourself is just plain stupid.

'Lucky' is my favourite tune on there- the last verse where Thom sings the head of state/ has come for me/ but I don't have time for him/it's gonna be a glorious day is one of my favourite segments of any song every. The tension built up throughout the album (especially following something like 'Climbing Up The Walls') is quite palpable, and it just drops after this as we realise that Radiohead CAN do happy. It puts shivers down my back every time I hear it

Ok Computer is my favourite Radiohead album. It borrows heavily from 70's art3prog rock like Floyd and some Genesis but was/is still thoroughly modern. There was no way for them to follow-up this album so they totally shifted gears with Kid A which at first kinda bugged me, but now I respect it and think Kid A is their next best album.

If you only give a few albums of theirs a chance, these 2 would be it. If you are open to a 3rd, try ',The Bends'' Cheers!

Nice review, Davey Moore. I agree with dac that this is a seminal album for a younger generation much the same way that Sgt. Pepper's or Unknown Pleasures [or, arguably, The Velvet Underground and Nico, Horses (Patti Smith), What's Going On (Marvin ***e), Trans-Europe Express (Kraftwerk), Straight Outta Compton (NWA), Nevermind (Nirvana), or Ramones, for that matter) was for earlier generations. There are few albums that "change everything" for a significant group of listeners and musicians; OK Computer is one of those, no matter how popular or unpopular it is to put Radiohead down. I would place Wilco's Yankee Hotel Foxtrot in the same category, and would say that both it and OK Computer "change everything" for many younger listeners, BUT can be highly influentual and even favorites for older listeners (and artists) as well, as Roygbiv says. (Btw, see his post on Wilco, and especially latest review of Yankee Hotel.) In short, OK Computer is pivitol for many, whether any single person can stand to listen to it or not.

I really loved the video for Paranoid Android too.

What do you mean by honesty?

That would have worked better... The Bends is good guitar-pop, but the album seems a bit lacking at times. Songs like The Bends and Nice Dream really just make me want to skip to the next song. I'm not sure what you're getting at with "genuine" and "honest" but in no way do those describe The Bends any more than they describe any of the other post-Pablo Honey works. Maybe the term you're looking for is "stripped down" because it's not nearly as intricate of a record as OK Computer or even In Rainbows.

OK that works for me too...then Pablo would be "ultra stripped down"

-NN

This is such a beautiful album filled with beautiful songs.
I am becoming a huge fan of your reviews.

Thanks. I really try my best to do non-typical album reviews. Though one criticism someone gave me is I only review albums I think are fantastic. I sort of agree with them, because I only have to passion to write about things I really like or really hate. There aren't a lot of albums I've encountered recently that I hate, just boring or mediocre.

Plus I wouldn't get an album that you rated a 2/10 or something.
I would only get something that you said was "fantastic".

nice review, not crazy bout the band tho

Tbh I'm not a fan of track-by-track reviews; I prefer reviews that focus on the album that whole, using specific examples to illustrate general points. But that said, I thought it was a good review of one of my favorite albums. There are some bits I don't really understand though ("Airbag" sounding industrial and "Karma Police" resembling Pixies songs mainly).

For me that album was Amputechture.

I don't think anything has suprised and delighted me as much as hearing paranoid android the first time. I'm an older music fan so I did not hear this albun in the context of youthful angst, but it still challenged, and changed me more than any other album in the last 10 years.

Hearing Paranoid Android convinced me that Radiohead would be a band worth listening to.

I haven't listened album in forever but I grabbed this one out the used bin for 10 bucks when I was 12 because I dug Karma Police and you're damn right I was the coolest kid on the block. This was back in the day before I started downloading an infinite amounts of music and would steal my mom's change to fee my addiction. Maybe if this album didn't mean something to me I'd think it was overrated and all hype.

Airbag and Climbing up the Walls are the best imo.

Exit Music and Climbing up the Walls for me. A bit burned out of Paranoid Android.