It transcends genres and hits the parts of us we’d rather not talk about, lest we find ourselves alone in the darkness, as we predicted all along. This reaches inside us, twists a handful of our guts and leaves us battered, bruised and bewildered. And that’s why the labels we apply to music are utterly nonsensical, for this is soul music, with more soul than a hundred wannabe lotharios with a slick dance move and a super-producer in tow. We are observers rather than participants. A sneaking feeling that you don’t belong anywhere and that you’re examining the world around you rather than actually being in it. Somewhere deep down in your gut, in places you don’t talk about at dinner parties, beneath your veneer of respectability and hidden from the world, lurks a kindred spirit to the alienated, overwhelmed and nihilistic figures of this album. Honestly though, it’s much more basic than that. In “Paranoid Android,” they encountered a song comprised of three movements littered with embittered, spewed lyrics, juxtaposed with jaggedly succinct guitar lines and a morosely angelic host. It was this change that meant EMI balked at what was offered, downgrading sales predictions and hopes for the album. But this time, there was a broader palette on offer as the band began their metamorphosis to a more electronic entity. Once again, like its precursors, OK Computer was fueled by the frenetic Johnny Greenwood’s angry, angular guitar work and Yorke’s witheringly pointed delivery and lyrics. Drawn to the inherent danger and ominous foreboding of Davis’ masterpiece, the band wanted to create their own shocking soundtrack to a modern world beset by globalization, ruthlessly efficient technology, and the creeping insinuation that it was all too much to bear. In an interview with Q magazine, Thom Yorke claimed Miles Davis’ epochal, monumental Bitches Brew (1970) as the primary influence. And it set up Radiohead for even more marvelous machine music on Kid A, both an extension and rewiring of OK Computer’s tangled schematic.Squirrelled away (after a couple of choked starts) in a rural mansion near Bath, the band set about reconciling a disparate set of references and influences to create a cohesive album of the very highest quality. But when a reporter asked one of the members whether Radiohead had. The musician praised them, saying that he was always impressed by their music: To me, Radiohead carried on the tradition of. The musician was asked in an interview with The Quietus back in 2012, to list his 13 favorite albums of all time and one of them was Radiohead’s Ok Computer (1997). Twenty years ago, Radiohead released OK Computer, a landmark album that was profoundly prog: grand and dystopian, with a lead single that was more than six minutes long. What is Geddy Lee’s opinion on Radiohead. The LP has gone on to sell more than two million copies - the group’s biggest seller. The genre’s bad reputation has been remarkably durable, even though its musical legacy keeps growing.
None of its singles fared well in the mainstream, though "Karma Police" made it to No. Songs like " Paranoid Android," " Exit Music (For a Film)," " Karma Police," " No Surprises" and " Lucky" turn technological advances upside down, revealing their scarred and scratched undersides.Įven though the band’s record company had zero commercial prospects for OK Computer, the album made it higher than its two predecessors, reaching No. It’s a retrospective view of the 21st century made three years before it even started. And for the next 50-plus minutes, Radiohead peer into the machines of modern times, stepping back out of fear, confusion and paranoia of things to come.
The opening " Airbag" is more than four and a half minutes of electronic haze, distorted guitars and a weary outlook on the future of mankind. And it pretty much sounded that way from the start.