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Wikipedia

OK Computer

March 09, 2023

This article is about the studio album by Radiohead. For the television series, see OK Computer (TV series).

OK Computer is the third studio album by the English rock band Radiohead, released in Japan on 21 May 1997 and in the UK on 16 June 1997. Radiohead self-produced the album with Nigel Godrich, an arrangement they have used for their subsequent albums. Radiohead recorded most of OK Computer in their rehearsal space in Oxfordshire and the historic mansion of St Catherine's Court in Bath in 1996 and early 1997. The band distanced themselves from the guitar-centred, lyrically introspective style of their previous album, The Bends. OK Computer's abstract lyrics, densely layered sound and eclectic influences laid the groundwork for Radiohead's later, more experimental work.

OK Computer
Studio album by
Radiohead
Released21 May 1997 (1997-05-21)
Recorded
  • 4 September 1995 ("Lucky")
  • July 1996 – March 1997
Studio
Genre
Length53:21
Label
Producer
Radiohead chronology
The Bends
(1995) 		OK Computer
(1997) 		No Surprises/Running from Demons
(1997)
Singles from OK Computer
  1. "Paranoid Android"
    Released: 26 May 1997
  2. "Karma Police"
    Released: 25 August 1997
  3. "Lucky"
    Released: December 1997 (FR)
  4. "No Surprises"
    Released: 12 January 1998

The album's lyrics depict a world fraught with rampant consumerism, social alienation, emotional isolation and political malaise; in this capacity, OK Computer has been said to have prescient insight into the mood of 21st-century life. The band used unconventional production techniques, including natural reverberation through recording on a staircase, and no audio separation. Strings were recorded at Abbey Road Studios in London. Guitarist Ed O'Brien estimated that 80 per cent of the album was recorded live.

Despite lowered sales estimates by EMI, who deemed the record uncommercial and difficult to market, OK Computer reached number one on the UK Albums Chart and debuted at number 21 on the Billboard 200, Radiohead's highest album entry on the US charts at the time, and was soon certified 5× platinum in the UK and double platinum in the US. The songs "Paranoid Android", "Karma Police", "Lucky" and "No Surprises" were released as singles. The album expanded Radiohead's international popularity and has sold at least 7.8 million units worldwide. A remastered version with additional tracks, OKNOTOK 1997 2017, was released in 2017, marking the album's twentieth anniversary. In 2019, in response to an internet leak, Radiohead released MiniDiscs [Hacked], comprising hours of demos, rehearsals, live performances and other material.

OK Computer received critical acclaim and has been cited by listeners, critics and musicians as one of the greatest albums of all time. It was nominated for the Album of the Year and won Best Alternative Music Album at the 1998 Grammy Awards. It was also nominated for Best British Album at the 1998 Brit Awards. The album initiated a stylistic shift in British rock away from Britpop toward melancholic, atmospheric alternative rock that became more prevalent in the next decade. In 2014, it was included by the United States Library of Congress in the National Recording Registry as "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".

Background

 
Thom Yorke (pictured in 2001) and the band sought a less introspective direction than previous album The Bends.[4][5]

In 1995, Radiohead toured in support of their second album, The Bends (1995). Midway through the tour, Brian Eno commissioned them to contribute a song to The Help Album, a charity compilation organised by War Child; the album was to be recorded over the course of a single day, 4 September 1995, and rush-released that week.[6] Radiohead recorded "Lucky" in five hours with engineer Nigel Godrich, who had engineered on The Bends and produced several Radiohead B-sides.[7] Godrich said of the session: "Those things are the most inspiring, when you do stuff really fast and there's nothing to lose. We left feeling fairly euphoric. So after establishing a bit of a rapport work-wise, I was sort of hoping I would be involved with the next album."[8] Singer Thom Yorke said "Lucky" shaped the nascent sound and mood of their upcoming record:[7] "'Lucky' was indicative of what we wanted to do. It was like the first mark on the wall."[9]

Radiohead found touring stressful and took a break in January 1996.[10] They sought to distance their new material from the introspective style of The Bends. Drummer Philip Selway said: "There was an awful lot of soul-searching [on The Bends]. To do that again on another album would be excruciatingly boring."[4] Yorke said he did not want to do "another miserable, morbid and negative record", and was "writing down all the positive things that I hear or see. I'm not able to put them into music yet and I don't want to just force it."[5]

The critical and commercial success of The Bends gave Radiohead the confidence to self-produce their third album.[7] Their label Parlophone gave them a £100,000 budget for recording equipment.[11][12] Guitarist Jonny Greenwood said "the only concept that we had for this album was that we wanted to record it away from the city and that we wanted to record it ourselves".[13] According to guitarist Ed O'Brien, "Everyone said, 'You'll sell six or seven million if you bring out The Bends Pt 2,' and we're like, 'We'll kick against that and do the opposite'."[14] A number of producers, including major figures such as R.E.M. producer Scott Litt, were suggested,[15] but the band were encouraged by their sessions with Godrich.[16] They consulted him for advice on what equipment to use,[17] and prepared for the sessions by buying their own equipment, including a plate reverberator purchased from songwriter Jona Lewie.[7] Although Godrich had sought to focus his work on electronic dance music,[18] he outgrew his role as advisor and became the album's co-producer.[17]

Recording

In early 1996, Radiohead recorded demos for their third album at Chipping Norton Recording Studios, Oxford.[19] In July, they began rehearsing and recording in their Canned Applause studio, a converted shed near Didcot, Oxfordshire.[20] Even without the deadline that contributed to the stress of The Bends,[21] the band had difficulties, which Selway blamed on their choice to self-produce: "We're jumping from song to song, and when we started to run out of ideas, we'd move on to a new song ... The stupid thing was that we were nearly finished when we'd move on, because so much work had gone into them."[22]

The members worked with nearly equal roles in the production and formation of the music, though Yorke was still firmly "the loudest voice", according to O'Brien.[23] Selway said "we give each other an awful lot of space to develop our parts, but at the same time we are all very critical about what the other person is doing."[22] Godrich's role as co-producer was part collaborator, part managerial outsider. He said that Radiohead "need to have another person outside their unit, especially when they're all playing together, to say when the take goes well ... I take up slack when people aren't taking responsibility—the term producing a record means taking responsibility for the record ... It's my job to ensure that they get the ideas across."[24] Godrich has produced every Radiohead album since, and has been characterised as Radiohead's "sixth member", an allusion to George Martin's nickname as the "fifth Beatle".[25][26][27]

Radiohead decided that Canned Applause was an unsatisfactory recording location, which Yorke attributed to its proximity to the band members' homes, and Jonny Greenwood attributed to its lack of dining and bathroom facilities.[23] The group had nearly completed four songs: "Electioneering", "No Surprises", "Subterranean Homesick Alien" and "The Tourist".[28] They took a break from recording to embark on an American tour in 1996, opening for Alanis Morissette, performing early versions of several new songs.[29]

During the tour, filmmaker Baz Luhrmann commissioned Radiohead to write a song for his upcoming film Romeo + Juliet and gave them the final 30 minutes of the film. Yorke said: "When we saw the scene in which Claire Danes holds the Colt .45 against her head, we started working on the song immediately."[30] Soon afterwards, the band wrote and recorded "Exit Music (For a Film)"; the track plays over the film's end credits but was excluded from the soundtrack album at the band's request.[31] The song helped shape the direction of the rest of the album; Yorke said it "was the first performance we'd ever recorded where every note of it made my head spin—something I was proud of, something I could turn up really, really loud and not wince at any moment."[7]

 
Most of OK Computer was recorded between September and October 1996 at St Catherine's Court, a rural mansion near Bath, Somerset.

Radiohead resumed recording in September 1996 at St Catherine's Court, a historic mansion near Bath owned by the actress Jane Seymour.[32] It was unoccupied but sometimes used for corporate functions.[33] The change of setting marked an important transition in the recording process. Greenwood, comparing the mansion to previous studio settings, said it "was less like a laboratory experiment, which is what being in a studio is usually like, and more about a group of people making their first record together".[33]

The band made extensive use of the different rooms and acoustics in the house. The vocals on "Exit Music (For a Film)" feature natural reverberation achieved by recording on a stone staircase, and "Let Down" was recorded in a ballroom at 3 a.m.[34] Isolation allowed the band to work at a different pace, with more flexible and spontaneous working hours. O'Brien said that "the biggest pressure was actually completing [the recording]. We weren't given any deadlines and we had complete freedom to do what we wanted. We were delaying it because we were a bit frightened of actually finishing stuff."[35] Yorke was satisfied with the recordings made at the location, and enjoyed working without audio separation, meaning that instruments were not overdubbed separately.[36] O'Brien estimated that 80 per cent of the album was recorded live,[33][36] and said: "I hate doing overdubs, because it just doesn't feel natural. ... Something special happens when you're playing live; a lot of it is just looking at one another and knowing there are four other people making it happen."[36][37] Many of Yorke's vocals were first takes; he felt that if he made other attempts he would "start to think about it and it would sound really lame".[38]

Radiohead returned to Canned Applause in October for rehearsals,[39] and completed most of OK Computer in further sessions at St. Catherine's Court. By Christmas, they had narrowed the track listing to 14 songs.[40] The strings were recorded at Abbey Road Studios in London in January 1997. The album was mixed over the next two months at various London studios, then mastered by Chris Blair at Abbey Road.[41] Godrich preferred a quick and "hands-off" approach to mixing, and said: "I feel like I get too into it. I start fiddling with things and I fuck it up ... I generally take about half a day to do a mix. If it's any longer than that, you lose it. The hardest thing is trying to stay fresh, to stay objective."[8]

Music and lyrics

Style and influences

 
 
The jazz fusion of Miles Davis (top, 1986) and political writings of Noam Chomsky (bottom, in 2005) influenced OK Computer.

Yorke said that the starting point for the record was the "incredibly dense and terrifying sound" of Bitches Brew, the 1970 avant-garde jazz fusion album by Miles Davis.[42] He described the sound of Bitches Brew to Q: "It was building something up and watching it fall apart, that's the beauty of it. It was at the core of what we were trying to do with OK Computer."[38] Yorke identified "I'll Wear It Proudly" by Elvis Costello, "Fall on Me" by R.E.M., "Dress" by PJ Harvey and "A Day in the Life" by the Beatles as particularly influential on his songwriting.[7] Radiohead drew further inspiration from the recording style of film soundtrack composer Ennio Morricone and the krautrock band Can, musicians Yorke described as "abusing the recording process".[7] Jonny Greenwood described OK Computer as a product of being "in love with all these brilliant records ... trying to recreate them, and missing".[43]

According to Yorke, Radiohead hoped to achieve an "atmosphere that's perhaps a bit shocking when you first hear it, but only as shocking as the atmosphere on the Beach Boys' Pet Sounds".[42] They expanded their instrumentation to include electric piano, Mellotron, cello and other strings, glockenspiel and electronic effects. Jonny Greenwood summarised the exploratory approach as "when we've got what we suspect to be an amazing song, but nobody knows what they're gonna play on it."[44] Spin characterised OK Computer as sounding like "a DIY electronica album made with guitars".[45]

Critics suggested a stylistic debt to 1970s progressive rock, an influence that Radiohead have disavowed.[46][47] According to Andy Greene in Rolling Stone, Radiohead "were collectively hostile to seventies progressive rock ... but that didn't stop them from reinventing prog from scratch on OK Computer, particularly on the six-and-a-half-minute 'Paranoid Android'."[29] Tom Hull believed the album was "still prog, but may just be because rock has so thoroughly enveloped musical storytelling that this sort of thing has become inevitable."[48] Writing in 2017, The New Yorker's Kelefa Sanneh said OK Computer "was profoundly prog: grand and dystopian, with a lead single that was more than six minutes long".[46]

Lyrics

The album's lyrics, written by Yorke, are more abstract compared to his personal, emotional lyrics for The Bends. Critic Alex Ross said the lyrics "seemed a mixture of overheard conversations, techno-speak, and fragments of a harsh diary" with "images of riot police at political rallies, anguished lives in tidy suburbs, yuppies freaking out, sympathetic aliens gliding overhead."[49] Recurring themes include transport, technology, insanity, death, modern British life, globalisation and anti-capitalism.[50] Yorke said: "On this album, the outside world became all there was ... I'm just taking Polaroids of things around me moving too fast."[51] He told Q: "It was like there's a secret camera in a room and it's watching the character who walks in—a different character for each song. The camera's not quite me. It's neutral, emotionless. But not emotionless at all. In fact, the very opposite."[52] Yorke also drew inspiration from books, including Noam Chomsky's political writing,[53] Eric Hobsbawm's The Age of Extremes, Will Hutton's The State We're In, Jonathan Coe's What a Carve Up! and Philip K. Dick's VALIS.[54]

The songs of OK Computer do not have a coherent narrative, and the album's lyrics are generally considered abstract or oblique. Nonetheless, many musical critics, journalists, and scholars consider the album to be a concept album or song cycle, or have analysed it as a concept album, noting its strong thematic cohesion, aesthetic unity, and the structural logic of the song sequencing.[nb 1] Although the songs share common themes, Radiohead have said they do not consider OK Computer a concept album and did not intend to link the songs through a narrative or unifying concept while it was being written.[33][55][56] Jonny Greenwood said: "I think one album title and one computer voice do not make a concept album. That's a bit of a red herring."[57] However, the band intended the album to be heard as a whole, and spent two weeks ordering the track list. O'Brien said: "The context of each song is really important ... It's not a concept album but there is a continuity there."[55]

Composition

Tracks 1–6

 
"Airbag"
"Airbag" features sparse bass and a programmed drum beat influenced by the music of DJ Shadow. This audio sample contains a portion of the song's first verse.
"Paranoid Android"
"Paranoid Android", Radiohead's second-longest song, has a multi-section structure and has been called one of the most ambitious songs of all time. This audio sample is from the middle of the second section to the beginning of the first guitar solo.
Problems playing these files? See media help.

The opening track, "Airbag", is underpinned by a beat built from a seconds-long recording of Selway's drumming. The band sampled the drum track with a sampler and edited it with a Macintosh computer, inspired by the music of DJ Shadow, but admitted to making approximations in emulating Shadow's style due to their programming inexperience.[58][59] The bassline stops and starts unexpectedly, achieving an effect similar to 1970s dub.[60] The original draft of the lyrics for "Airbag" were written inside a copy of William Blake's Songs of Innocence and of Experience that Yorke had also annotated with his own notes; this personal copy was later auctioned off by Yorke in 2016 with proceeds going to Oxfam.[61] The song's references to automobile crashes and reincarnation were inspired by a magazine article titled "An Airbag Saved My Life" and The Tibetan Book of the Dead. Yorke wrote "Airbag" about the illusion of safety offered by modern transit, and "the idea that whenever you go out on the road you could be killed".[52] The BBC wrote about the influence of J. G. Ballard, especially his 1973 novel Crash, on the lyrics.[62] Music journalist Tim Footman noted that the song's technical innovations and lyrical concerns demonstrated the "key paradox" of the album: "The musicians and producer are delighting in the sonic possibilities of modern technology; the singer, meanwhile, is railing against its social, moral, and psychological impact ... It's a contradiction mirrored in the culture clash of the music, with the 'real' guitars negotiating an uneasy stand-off with the hacked-up, processed drums."[63]

Split into four sections with an overall running time of 6:23, "Paranoid Android" is among the band's longest songs. The unconventional structure was inspired by the Beatles' "Happiness Is a Warm Gun" and Queen's "Bohemian Rhapsody", which also eschew a traditional verse-chorus-verse structure.[64] Its musical style was also inspired by the music of the Pixies.[65] The song was written by Yorke after an unpleasant night at a Los Angeles bar, where he saw a woman react violently after someone spilled a drink on her.[52] Its title and lyrics are a reference to Marvin the Paranoid Android from Douglas Adams's The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy series.[65]

The use of electric keyboards in "Subterranean Homesick Alien" is an example of the band's attempts to emulate the atmosphere of Bitches Brew.[43][66] Its title references the Bob Dylan song "Subterranean Homesick Blues", and the lyrics describe an isolated narrator who fantasises about being abducted by extraterrestrials. The narrator speculates that, upon returning to Earth, his friends would not believe his story and he would remain a misfit.[67] The lyrics were inspired by an assignment from Yorke's time at Abingdon School to write a piece of "Martian poetry", a British literary movement that humorously recontextualises mundane aspects of human life from an alien perspective.[68]

William Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet inspired the lyrics for "Exit Music (For a Film)".[65] Initially Yorke wanted to work lines from the play into the song, but the final draft of the lyrics became a broad summary of the narrative.[31] He said: "I saw the Zeffirelli version when I was 13 and I cried my eyes out, because I couldn't understand why, the morning after they shagged, they didn't just run away. It's a song for two people who should run away before all the bad stuff starts."[69] Yorke compared the opening of the song, which mostly features his singing paired with acoustic guitar, to Johnny Cash's At Folsom Prison.[70] Mellotron choir and other electronic voices are used throughout the track.[71] The song climaxes with the entrance of drums[71] and distorted bass run through a fuzz pedal.[26] The climactic portion of the song is an attempt to emulate the sound of trip hop group Portishead, but in a style that bass player Colin Greenwood called more "stilted and leaden and mechanical".[72] The song concludes by fading back to Yorke's voice, acoustic guitar and Mellotron.[31]

"Let Down" contains multilayered arpeggiated guitars and electric piano. Jonny Greenwood plays his guitar part in a different time signature to the other instruments.[73] O'Brien said the song was influenced by Phil Spector, a producer and songwriter best known for his reverberating "Wall of Sound" recording techniques.[58] The lyrics, Yorke said, are about a fear of being trapped,[69] and "about that feeling that you get when you're in transit but you're not in control of it—you just go past thousands of places and thousands of people and you're completely removed from it".[65] Of the line "Don't get sentimental / It always ends up drivel", Yorke said: "Sentimentality is being emotional for the sake of it. We're bombarded with sentiment, people emoting. That's the Let Down. Feeling every emotion is fake. Or rather every emotion is on the same plane whether it's a car advert or a pop song."[38] Yorke felt that scepticism of emotion was characteristic of Generation X and that it had informed the band's approach to the album.[74]

"Karma Police" has two main verses that alternate with a subdued break, followed by a different ending section.[75] The verses centre around acoustic guitar and piano,[75] with a chord progression indebted to the Beatles' "Sexy Sadie".[76][77][78] Starting at 2:34, the song transitions into an orchestrated section with the repeated line "For a minute there, I lost myself".[75] It ends with guitarist Ed O'Brien generating feedback using a delay effect.[58][77] The title and lyrics to "Karma Police" originate from an in-joke during The Bends tour; Jonny Greenwood said "whenever someone was behaving in a particularly shitty way, we'd say 'The karma police will catch up with him sooner or later.'"[65]

Tracks 7–12

 
A 1990s Macintosh LC II system. Radiohead used the synthesised voice of "Fred", included with older Macintosh software, to recite the lyrics of "Fitter Happier".[20]

"Fitter Happier" is a short musique concrète track that consists of sampled musical and background sound and spoken-word lyrics recited by "Fred",[20] a synthesised voice from the Macintosh SimpleText application.[79] Yorke wrote the lyrics "in ten minutes" after a period of writer's block while the rest of the band were playing.[69] He described the words as a checklist of slogans for the 1990s; he considered it "the most upsetting thing I've ever written",[65] and said it was "liberating" to give the words to a neutral-sounding computer voice.[69] Among the samples in the background is a loop from the 1975 film Three Days of the Condor.[79] The band considered using "Fitter Happier" as the album's opening track, but decided the effect was off-putting.[35]

Steve Lowe called the song "penetrating surgery on pseudo-meaningful corporations' lifestyles" with "a repugnance for prevailing yuppified social values".[76] Among the loosely connected imagery of the lyrics, Footman identified the song's subject as "the materially comfortable, morally empty embodiment of modern, Western humanity, half-salaryman, half-Stepford Wife, destined for the metaphorical farrowing crate, propped up on Prozac, Viagra and anything else his insurance plan can cover."[80] Sam Steele called the lyrics "a stream of received imagery: scraps of media information, interspersed with lifestyle ad slogans and private prayers for a healthier existence. It is the hum of a world buzzing with words, one of the messages seeming to be that we live in such a synthetic universe we have grown unable to detect reality from artifice."[81]

"Electioneering", featuring a cowbell and a distorted guitar solo, is the album's most rock-oriented track and one of the heaviest songs Radiohead has recorded.[82] It has been compared to Radiohead's earlier style on Pablo Honey.[79][83] The cynical "Electioneering" is the album's most directly political song,[84][85] with lyrics inspired by the Poll Tax Riots.[69] The song was also inspired by Chomsky's Manufacturing Consent, a book analysing contemporary mass media under the propaganda model.[53] Yorke likened its lyrics, which focus on political and artistic compromise, to "a preacher ranting in front of a bank of microphones".[55][86] Regarding its oblique political references, Yorke said, "What can you say about the IMF, or politicians? Or people selling arms to African countries, employing slave labour or whatever. What can you say? You just write down 'Cattle prods and the IMF' and people who know, know."[7] O'Brien said the song was about the promotional cycle of touring: "After a while you feel like a politician who has to kiss babies and shake hands all day long."[30]

 
"Climbing Up the Walls"
"Climbing Up the Walls" contains sampled ambient sounds, distorted drums and Jonny Greenwood's Krzysztof Penderecki-influenced string section. This audio sample is from the beginning of the second chorus to the guitar solo.
Problems playing this file? See media help.
 
Threnody to the Victims of Hiroshima by Krzysztof Penderecki (pictured) inspired the string arrangement on "Climbing Up the Walls".

"Climbing Up the Walls" – described by Melody Maker as "monumental chaos"[87] – is layered with a string section, ambient noise and repetitive, metallic percussion. The string section, composed by Jonny Greenwood and written for 16 instruments, was inspired by modern classical composer Krzysztof Penderecki's Threnody to the Victims of Hiroshima. Greenwood said, "I got very excited at the prospect of doing string parts that didn't sound like 'Eleanor Rigby', which is what all string parts have sounded like for the past 30 years."[55] Select described Yorke's distraught vocals and the atonal strings as "Thom's voice dissolving into a fearful, blood-clotted scream as Jonny whips the sound of a million dying elephants into a crescendo".[43] For the lyrics, Yorke drew from his time as an orderly in a mental hospital during the Care in the Community policy of deinstitutionalising mental health patients, and a New York Times article about serial killers.[30] He said:

This is about the unspeakable. Literally skull-crushing. I used to work in a mental hospital around the time that Care in the Community started, and we all just knew what was going to happen. And it's one of the scariest things to happen in this country, because a lot of them weren't just harmless ... It was hailing violently when we recorded this. It seemed to add to the mood.[69]

"No Surprises", recorded in a single take,[88] is arranged with electric guitar (inspired by the Beach Boys' "Wouldn't It Be Nice"),[89] acoustic guitar, glockenspiel and vocal harmonies.[90] The band strove to replicate the mood of Louis Armstrong's 1968 recording of "What a Wonderful World" and the soul music of Marvin Gaye.[30] Yorke identified the subject of the song as "someone who's trying hard to keep it together but can't".[7] The lyrics seem to portray a suicide[81] or an unfulfilling life, and dissatisfaction with contemporary social and political order.[91] Some lines refer to rural[92] or suburban imagery.[54] One of the key metaphors in the song is the opening line, "a heart that's full up like a landfill"; according to Yorke, the song is a "fucked-up nursery rhyme" that "stems from my unhealthy obsession of what to do with plastic boxes and plastic bottles ... All this stuff is getting buried, the debris of our lives. It doesn't rot, it just stays there. That's how we deal, that's how I deal with stuff, I bury it."[93] The song's gentle mood contrasts sharply with its harsh lyrics;[94][95] Steele said, "even when the subject is suicide ... O'Brien's guitar is as soothing as balm on a red-raw psyche, the song rendered like a bittersweet child's prayer."[81]

"Lucky" was inspired by the Bosnian War. Sam Taylor said it was "the one track on [The Help Album] to capture the sombre terror of the conflict", and that its serious subject matter and dark tone made the band "too 'real' to be allowed on the Britpop gravy train".[96] The lyrics were pared down from many pages of notes, and were originally more politically explicit.[35] The lyrics depict a man surviving an aeroplane crash[84] and are drawn from Yorke's anxiety about transportation.[85] The musical centerpiece of "Lucky" is its three-piece guitar arrangement,[11] which grew out of the high-pitched chiming sound played by O'Brien in the song's introduction,[52] achieved by strumming above the guitar nut.[97] Critics likened its lead guitar to Pink Floyd and, more broadly, arena rock.[98][9][99][100]

The album ends with "The Tourist", which Jonny Greenwood wrote as an unusually staid piece where something "doesn't have to happen ... every three seconds". He said, "'The Tourist' doesn't sound like Radiohead at all. It has become a song with space."[30] The lyrics, written by Yorke, were inspired by his experience of watching American tourists in France frantically trying to see as many tourist attractions as possible.[69] He said it was chosen as the closing track because "a lot of the album was about background noise and everything moving too fast and not being able to keep up. It was really obvious to have 'Tourist' as the last song. That song was written to me from me, saying, 'Idiot, slow down.' Because at that point, I needed to. So that was the only resolution there could be: to slow down."[42] The "unexpectedly bluesy waltz" draws to a close as the guitars drop out, leaving only drums and bass, and concludes with the sound of a small bell.[11]

Title

The title OK Computer is taken from the 1978 Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy radio series, in which the character Zaphod Beeblebrox speaks the phrase "Okay, computer, I want full manual control now." The members of Radiohead listened to the series on the bus during their 1996 tour and Yorke made a note of the phrase.[29] "OK Computer" became a working title for the B-side "Palo Alto", which had been considered for inclusion on the album.[101] The title stuck with the band; according to Jonny Greenwood, it "started attaching itself and creating all these weird resonances with what we were trying to do".[53]

Yorke said 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."[57] He described the title as "a really resigned, terrified phrase", to him similar to the Coca-Cola advertisement "I'd Like to Teach the World to Sing".[53] Wired writer Leander Kahney suggests that it is an homage to Macintosh computers, as the Mac's speech recognition software responds to the command "OK computer" as an alternative to clicking the "OK" button.[102] Other titles considered were Ones and Zeroes—a reference to the binary numeral system—and Your Home May Be at Risk If You Do Not Keep Up Payments.[101]

Artwork

 
A page of the OK Computer booklet with logos, white scribbles and text in Esperanto and English. The motif of two stick figures shaking hands, repeated on the disc label on CD and LP releases, was described by Yorke as symbolising exploitation.[35]

The OK Computer artwork is a computer-generated collage of images and text created by Yorke, credited under the pseudonym the White Chocolate Farm, and Stanley Donwood.[103] Yorke commissioned Donwood to work on a visual diary alongside the recording sessions. Yorke explained, "If I'm shown some kind of visual representation of the music, only then do I feel confident. Up until that point, I'm a bit of a whirlwind."[54] The blue-and-white palette was,[104] according to Donwood, the result of "trying to make something the colour of bleached bone".[105] The image of two stick figures shaking hands appears in the liner notes and on the disc label in CD and LP releases. Yorke explained the image as emblematic of exploitation: "Someone's being sold something they don't really want, and someone's being friendly because they're trying to sell something. That's what it means to me."[35] The image would later be used as the artwork for Radiohead's first compilation album, Radiohead: The Best Of.[35] Explaining the artwork's themes, Yorke said, "It's quite sad, and quite funny as well. All the artwork and so on ... It was all the things that I hadn't said in the songs."[35]

Motifs in the artwork include motorways, aeroplanes, families with children, corporate logos and cityscapes.[106] The photograph of a motorway on the cover was likely taken in Hartford, Connecticut, where Radiohead performed in 1996.[107] The words "Lost Child" feature prominently on the cover, and the booklet artwork contains phrases in the constructed language Esperanto and health-related instructions in both English and Greek. The Uncut critic David Cavanagh said the use of non-sequiturs created an effect "akin to being lifestyle-coached by a lunatic".[11] White scribbles, Donwood's method of correcting mistakes rather than using the computer function undo,[105] are present everywhere in the collages.[108] The liner notes contain the full lyrics, rendered with atypical syntax, alternate spelling[85] and small annotations.[nb 2] The lyrics are also arranged and spaced in shapes that resemble hidden images.[109] In keeping with the band's then-emerging anti-corporate stance, the production credits contain the ironic copyright notice "Lyrics reproduced by kind permission even though we wrote them."[110]

Release and promotion

Commercial expectations

According to Selway, Radiohead's American label Capitol saw the album as "'commercial suicide'. They weren't really into it. At that point, we got the fear. How is this going to be received?"[4] Yorke recalled: "When we first gave it to Capitol, they were taken aback. I don't really know why it's so important now, but I'm excited about it."[111] Capitol lowered its sales forecast from two million to half a million.[112] In O'Brien's view, only Parlophone, the band's British label, remained optimistic, while global distributors dramatically reduced their sales estimates.[113] Label representatives were reportedly disappointed with the lack of marketable singles, especially the absence of anything resembling Radiohead's 1992 hit "Creep".[114] "OK Computer isn't the album we're going to rule the world with", Colin Greenwood predicted at the time. "It's not as hitting-everything-loudly-whilst-waggling-the-tongue-in-and-out, like The Bends. There's less of the Van Halen factor."[43]

Marketing

 
The lyrics to "Fitter Happier" and images adapted from the album artwork were used on advertisements in music magazines, signs in the London Underground and shirts (shirt design pictured).

Parlophone launched an unorthodox advertising campaign, taking full-page advertisements in high-profile British newspapers and tube stations with lyrics for "Fitter Happier" in large black letters against white backgrounds.[4] The same lyrics, and artwork adapted from the album, were repurposed for shirt designs.[35] Yorke said they chose the "Fitter Happier" lyrics to link what a critic called "a coherent set of concerns" between the album artwork and its promotional material.[35]

Other unconventional merchandise included a floppy disk containing Radiohead screensavers and an FM radio in the shape of a desktop computer.[115] In America, Capitol sent 1,000 cassette players to prominent members of the press and music industry, each with a copy of the album permanently glued inside.[116] Capitol president Gary Gersh said, "Our job is just to take them as a left-of-centre band and bring the centre to them. That's our focus, and we won't let up until they're the biggest band in the world."[117]

Radiohead planned to produce a video for every song on the album, but the project was abandoned due to financial and time constraints.[118] According to "No Surprises" video director Grant Gee, the plan was scrapped when the videos for "Paranoid Android" and "Karma Police" went over budget.[119] Also scrapped were plans for trip hop group Massive Attack to remix the album.[120]

Radiohead's website was created to promote the album, which went live at the time of its release, making the band the first to manage an online presence.[121] Their first fansite, "atease", was made shortly following the album's release, with its title taken from "Fitter Happier".[121] In 2017, during OK Computer's 20th anniversary, Radiohead's website was temporarily restored to its 1997 state.[122]

Singles

Radiohead chose "Paranoid Android" as the lead single, despite its unusually long running time and lack of a catchy chorus.[78][87] Colin Greenwood said the song was "hardly the radio-friendly, breakthrough, buzz bin unit shifter [radio stations] can have been expecting", but that Capitol supported the choice.[87] The song premiered on the Radio 1 programme The Evening Session in April 1997[123] and was released as a single in May 1997.[124] On the strength of frequent radio play on Radio 1[87] and rotation of the song's music video on MTV,[125] "Paranoid Android" reached number three in the UK, giving Radiohead their highest chart position.[126]

"Karma Police" was released in August 1997 and "No Surprises" in January 1998.[127] Both singles charted in the UK top ten, and "Karma Police" peaked at number 14 on the Billboard Modern Rock Tracks chart.[128][129] "Lucky" was released as a single in France, but did not chart.[130] "Let Down", considered for release as the lead single,[131] was issued as a promotional single in September 1997 and charted on the Modern Rock Tracks chart at number 29.[129] Meeting People Is Easy, Grant Gee's rockumentary following the band on their OK Computer world tour, premiered in November 1998.[132]

Tour

Radiohead embarked on a world tour in promotion of OK Computer, the "Against Demons" tour, commencing at the album launch in Barcelona on 22 May 1997.[133] The tour took the band across the UK and Ireland, continental Europe, North America, Japan and Australasia,[134] concluding on 18 April 1998 in New York.[135] It was taxing for the band, particularly Yorke, who said: "That tour was a year too long. I was the first person to tire of it, then six months later everyone in the band was saying it. Then six months after that, nobody was talking any more."[136] The tour included Radiohead's first headline Glastonbury Festival performance on 28 June 1997; despite technical problems that almost caused Yorke to abandon the stage, the performance was acclaimed and cemented Radiohead as a major live act.[137] Rolling Stone described it as "an absolute triumph", and in 2004 Q called it the greatest concert of all time.[138]

Sales

OK Computer was released in Japan on 21 May, in the UK on 16 June, in Canada on 17 June and in the US on 1 July.[139] It was released on CD, double-LP vinyl record, cassette and MiniDisc.[140] It debuted at number one in the UK with sales of 136,000 copies in its first week.[141] In the US, it debuted at number 21 on the Billboard 200.[142] It held the number-one spot in the UK for two weeks and stayed in the top ten for several more, becoming the UK's eighth-bestselling record that year.[143]

By February 1998, OK Computer had sold at least half a million copies in the UK and 2 million worldwide.[84] By September 2000, it had sold 4.5 million copies worldwide.[144] The Los Angeles Times reported that by June 2001 it had sold 1.4 million copies in the US, and in April 2006 the IFPI announced it had sold 3 million copies across Europe.[145][146] It has been certified triple platinum in the UK[147] and double platinum in the US,[148] in addition to certifications in other markets. By May 2016, Nielsen SoundScan figures showed OK Computer had sold 2.5 million digital album units in the US, plus 900,000 sales measured in album-equivalent units.[149] Twenty years to the week after its release, the Official Charts Company recorded total UK sales of 1.5 million, including album-equivalent units.[141] Tallying American and European sales, OK Computer has sold at least 6.9 million copies worldwide (or 7.8 million with album-equivalent units).[nb 3]

Critical reception

Professional ratings
Contemporaneous reviews (in 1997)
Review scores
SourceRating
Chicago Tribune    [150]
Entertainment WeeklyB+[151]
The Guardian     [82]
Los Angeles Times    [152]
NME10/10[98]
Pitchfork10/10[153]
Q     [94]
Rolling Stone     [154]
Select5/5[155]
Spin8/10[45]

OK Computer was almost uniformly praised. Critics described it as a landmark release of far-reaching impact and importance,[156][157] but noted that its experimentalism made it a challenging listen. According to Tim Footman, "Not since 1967, with the release of Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, had so many major critics agreed immediately, not only on an album's merits, but on its long-term significance, and its ability to encapsulate a particular point in history."[158] In the British press, the album garnered favourable reviews in NME,[98] Melody Maker,[159] The Guardian[82] and Q.[94] Nick Kent wrote in Mojo that "Others may end up selling more, but in 20 years' time I'm betting OK Computer will be seen as the key record of 1997, the one to take rock forward instead of artfully revamping images and song-structures from an earlier era."[78] John Harris wrote in Select: "Every word sounds achingly sincere, every note spewed from the heart, and yet it roots itself firmly in a world of steel, glass, random-access memory and prickly-skinned paranoia."[155]

The album was well received by critics in North America. Rolling Stone,[154] Spin,[45] the Los Angeles Times,[152] the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette,[160] Pitchfork[153] and the Daily Herald[161] published positive reviews. In The New Yorker, Alex Ross praised its progressiveness, and contrasted Radiohead's risk-taking with the musically conservative "dadrock" of their contemporaries Oasis. Ross wrote: "Throughout the album, contrasts of mood and style are extreme ... This band has pulled off one of the great art-pop balancing acts in the history of rock."[162] Ryan Schreiber of Pitchfork lauded the record's emotional appeal, writing that it "is brimming with genuine emotion, beautiful and complex imagery and music, and lyrics that are at once passive and fire-breathing".[163]

Reviews for Entertainment Weekly,[151] the Chicago Tribune,[150] and Time[164] were mixed. Robert Christgau from The Village Voice said Radiohead immersed Yorke's vocals in "enough electronic marginal distinction to feed a coal town for a month" to compensate for the "soulless" songs, resulting in "arid" art rock.[165] In an otherwise positive review, Andy Gill wrote for The Independent: "For all its ambition and determination to break new ground, OK Computer is not, finally, as impressive as The Bends, which covered much the same sort of emotional knots, but with better tunes. It is easy to be impressed by, but ultimately hard to love, an album that luxuriates so readily in its own despondency."[166]

Accolades

OK Computer was nominated for Grammy Awards as Album of the Year and Best Alternative Music Album at the 40th Annual Grammy Awards in 1998,[167] winning the latter.[168] It was also nominated for Best British Album at the 1998 Brit Awards.[169] The album was shortlisted for the 1997 Mercury Prize, a prestigious award recognising the best British or Irish album of the year. The day before the winner was announced, oddsmakers had given OK Computer the best chance to win among ten nominees, but it lost to New Forms by Roni Size/Reprazent.[170]

The album appeared in many 1997 critics' lists and listener polls for best album of the year. It topped the year-end polls of Mojo, Vox, Entertainment Weekly, Hot Press, Muziekkrant OOR, HUMO, Eye Weekly and Inpress, and tied for first place with Daft Punk's Homework in The Face. The album came second in NME, Melody Maker, Rolling Stone, Village Voice, Spin and Uncut. Q and Les Inrockuptibles both listed the album in their unranked year-end polls.[171]

Praise for the album overwhelmed the band; Greenwood felt the praise had been exaggerated because The Bends had been "under-reviewed possibly and under-received."[42] They rejected links to progressive rock and art rock, despite comparisons to Pink Floyd's 1973 album The Dark Side of the Moon.[172] Yorke responded: "We write pop songs ... There was no intention of it being 'art'. It's a reflection of all the disparate things we were listening to when we recorded it."[57] He was nevertheless pleased that listeners identified their influences: "What really blew my head off was the fact that people got all the things, all the textures and the sounds and the atmospheres we were trying to create."[173]

Legacy

Retrospective appraisal

Professional ratings
Retrospective reviews (after 1997)
Review scores
SourceRating
AllMusic     [174]
The A.V. ClubA[175]
Blender     [176]
Christgau's Consumer GuideB−[177]
Encyclopedia of Popular Music     [178]
MusicHound Rock5/5[179]
Q     [180]
The Rolling Stone Album Guide     [181]
Slant Magazine     [182]
Tom Hull – on the WebB+[48]

OK Computer has appeared frequently in professional lists of the greatest albums of all time. A number of publications, including NME, Melody Maker, Alternative Press,[183] Spin,[184] Pitchfork,[185] Time,[186] Metro Weekly[187] and Slant Magazine[188] placed OK Computer prominently in lists of best albums of the 1990s or of all time. It was voted number 4 in Colin Larkin's All Time Top 1000 Albums 3rd Edition (2000). Rolling Stone ranked it 42 on its list of The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time in 2020.[189] It was previously ranked at 162 in 2003[190] and 2012.[191] Retrospective reviews from BBC Music,[192] The A.V. Club[175] and Slant[182] received the album favourably. Rolling Stone gave the album five stars in the 2004 edition of The Rolling Stone Album Guide, with critic Rob Sheffield saying, "Radiohead was claiming the high ground abandoned by Nirvana, Pearl Jam, U2, R.E.M., everybody; and fans around the world loved them for trying too hard at a time when nobody else was even bothering."[181] "Most would rate OK Computer the apogee of pomo texture", Christgau said in retrospect.[193] According to Acclaimed Music, a site which uses statistics to numerically represent reception among critics, OK Computer is the 8th most celebrated album of all time.[194] In 2014, the United States National Recording Preservation Board selected the album for preservation in the National Recording Registry of the Library of Congress, which designates it as a sound recording that has had significant cultural, historical or aesthetic impact in American life.[195]

The album has been cited by some as undeserving of its acclaim. In a poll surveying thousands conducted by BBC Radio 6 Music, OK Computer was named the sixth-most overrated album.[196] David H. Green of The Daily Telegraph called the album "self-indulgent whingeing" and maintains that the positive critical consensus towards OK Computer is an indication of "a 20th-century delusion that rock is the bastion of serious commentary on popular music" to the detriment of electronic and dance music.[197] The album was selected as an entry in "Sacred Cows", an NME column questioning the critical status of "revered albums", in which Henry Yates said "there's no defiance, gallows humour or chink of light beneath the curtain, just a sense of meek, resigned despondency" and criticised the record as "the moment when Radiohead stopped being 'good' [compared to The Bends] and started being 'important'".[198] In a Spin article on the "myth" that "Radiohead Can Do No Wrong", Chris Norris argues that the acclaim for OK Computer inflated expectations for subsequent Radiohead releases.[199] Christgau felt "the reason the readers of the British magazine Q absurdly voted OK Computer the greatest album of the 20th century is that it integrated what was briefly called electronica into rock". Having deemed it "self-regarding" and overrated, he later warmed to the record and found it indicative of Radiohead's cerebral sensibility and "rife with discrete pleasures and surprises".[200]

Commentary, interpretation and analysis

 
In interviews after the album's release, Thom Yorke criticised Tony Blair (pictured in 1998) and his New Labour government – echoing the album's pervasive theme of political disillusionment.

OK Computer was recorded in the lead up to the 1997 general election and released a month after the victory of Tony Blair's New Labour government. The album was perceived by critics as an expression of dissent and scepticism toward the new government and a reaction against the national mood of optimism. Dorian Lynskey wrote, "On May 1, 1997, Labour supporters toasted their landslide victory to the sound of 'Things Can Only Get Better.' A few weeks later, OK Computer appeared like Banquo's ghost to warn: No, things can only get worse."[201] According to Amy Britton, the album "showed not everyone was ready to join the party, instead tapping into another feeling felt throughout the UK—pre-millennial angst. ... huge corporations were impossible to fight against—this was the world OK Computer soundtracked, not the wave of British optimism."[202]

In an interview, Yorke doubted that Blair's policies would differ from the preceding two decades of Conservative government. He said the public reaction to the death of Princess Diana was more significant, as a moment when the British public realised "the royals had had us by the balls for the last hundred years, as had the media and the state."[35] The band's distaste with the commercialised promotion of OK Computer reinforced their anti-capitalist politics, which would be further explored on their subsequent releases.[203]

Critics have compared Radiohead's statements of political dissatisfaction to those of earlier rock bands. David Stubbs said that, where punk rock had been a rebellion against a time of deficit and poverty, OK Computer protested the "mechanistic convenience" of contemporary surplus and excess.[204] Alex Ross said the album "pictured the onslaught of the Information Age and a young person's panicky embrace of it" and made the band into "the poster boys for a certain kind of knowing alienation—as Talking Heads and R.E.M. had been before."[49] Jon Pareles of The New York Times found precedents in the work of Pink Floyd and Madness for Radiohead's concerns "about a culture of numbness, building docile workers and enforced by self-help regimes and anti-depressants".[205]

The album's tone has been described as millennial[33][206] or futuristic,[207] anticipating cultural and political trends. According to The A.V. Club writer Steven Hyden in the feature "Whatever Happened to Alternative Nation", "Radiohead appeared to be ahead of the curve, forecasting the paranoia, media-driven insanity, and omnipresent sense of impending doom that's subsequently come to characterise everyday life in the 21st century."[208] In 1000 Recordings to Hear Before You Die, Tom Moon described OK Computer as a "prescient ... dystopian essay on the darker implications of technology ... oozing [with] a vague sense of dread, and a touch of Big Brother foreboding that bears strong resemblance to the constant disquiet of life on Security Level Orange, post-9/11."[209] Chris Martin of Coldplay remarked that, "It would be interesting to see how the world would be different if Dick Cheney really listened to Radiohead's OK Computer. I think the world would probably improve. That album is fucking brilliant. It changed my life, so why wouldn't it change his?"[210]

The album inspired a radio play, also titled OK Computer, which was first broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 2007. The play, written by Joel Horwood, Chris Perkins, Al Smith and Chris Thorpe, interprets the album's 12 tracks into a story about a man who awakens in a Berlin hospital with memory loss and returns to England with doubts that the life he's returned to is his own.[211]

Influence

A lot of people have taken OK Computer and said, 'This is the yardstick. If I can attain something half as good, I'm doing pretty well.' But I've never heard anything really derivative of OK Computer—which is interesting, as it shows that what Radiohead were doing was probably even more complicated than it seemed.

—Josh Davis (DJ Shadow)[212]

The whole sound of it and the emotional experience crossed a lot of boundaries. It tapped into a lot of buried emotions that people hadn't wanted to explore or talk about.

—James Lavelle[213]

The release of OK Computer coincided with the decline of Britpop.[nb 4] Through OK Computer's influence, the dominant UK guitar pop shifted toward an approximation of "Radiohead's paranoid but confessional, slurry but catchy" approach.[214] Many newer British acts adopted similarly complex, atmospheric arrangements; for example, the post-Britpop band Travis worked with Godrich to create the languid pop texture of The Man Who, which became the fourth best-selling album of 1999 in the UK.[215] Some in the British press accused Travis of appropriating Radiohead's sound.[216] Steven Hyden of AV Club said that by 1999, starting with The Man Who, "what Radiohead had created in OK Computer had already grown much bigger than the band," and that the album went on to influence "a wave of British-rock balladeers that reached its zenith in the '00s".[208]

OK Computer's popularity influenced the next generation of British alternative rock bands,[nb 5] and established musicians in a variety of genres have praised it.[nb 6] Bloc Party[217] and TV on the Radio[218] listened to or were influenced by OK Computer; TV on the Radio's debut album was titled OK Calculator as a lighthearted tribute.[219] Radiohead described the pervasiveness of bands that "sound like us" as one reason to break with the style of OK Computer for their next album, Kid A.[220]

Although OK Computer's influence on rock musicians is widely acknowledged, several critics believe that its experimental inclination was not authentically embraced on a wide scale. Footman said the "Radiohead Lite" bands that followed were "missing [OK Computer's] sonic inventiveness, not to mention the lyrical substance."[221] David Cavanagh said that most of OK Computer's purported mainstream influence more likely stemmed from the ballads on The Bends. According to Cavanagh, "The populist albums of the post-OK Computer era—the Verve's Urban Hymns, Travis's Good Feeling, Stereophonics' Word Gets Around, Robbie Williams' Life thru a Lens—effectively closed the door that OK Computer's boffin-esque inventiveness had opened."[11] John Harris believed that OK Computer was one of the "fleeting signs that British rock music might [have been] returning to its inventive traditions" in the wake of Britpop's demise.[222] While Harris concludes that British rock ultimately developed an "altogether more conservative tendency", he said that with OK Computer and their subsequent material, Radiohead provided a "clarion call" to fill the void left by Britpop.[222] The Pitchfork journalist Marc Hogan argued that OK Computer marked an "ending point" for the rock-oriented album era, as its mainstream and critical success remained unmatched by any rock album since.[223]

OK Computer triggered a minor revival of progressive rock and ambitious concept albums, with a new wave of prog-influenced bands crediting OK Computer for enabling their scene to thrive. Brandon Curtis of Secret Machines said, "Songs like 'Paranoid Android' made it OK to write music differently, to be more experimental ... OK Computer was important because it reintroduced unconventional writing and song structures."[47] Steven Wilson of Porcupine Tree said, "I don't think ambition is a dirty word any more. Radiohead were the Trojan Horse in that respect. Here's a band that came from the indie rock tradition that snuck in under the radar when the journalists weren't looking and started making these absurdly ambitious and pretentious—and all the better for it—records."[224] In 2005, Q named OK Computer the tenth-best progressive rock album.[225]

Reissues and compilations

Radiohead left EMI, the parent company of Parlophone, in 2007 after failed contract negotiations. EMI retained the copyright to Radiohead's back catalogue of material recorded while signed to the label.[226] After a period of being out of print on vinyl, OK Computer was reissued as a double LP EMI on 19 August 2008 as part of the "From the Capitol Vaults" series, along with other Radiohead albums.[227] OK Computer became the tenth-bestselling vinyl record of 2008, selling almost 10,000 copies.[228] The reissue was connected in the press to a general climb in vinyl sales and cultural appreciation of records as a format.[229][230]

2009 "Collector's Edition" reissue

Professional ratings
"Collector's Edition" (2009)
Review scores
SourceRating
AllMusic     [231]
The A.V. ClubA[232]
Paste100/100[233]
Pitchfork10/10[234]
Rolling Stone     [235]
Q     [236]
Uncut     [237]

EMI reissued OK Computer again on 24 March 2009, alongside Pablo Honey and The Bends, without Radiohead's involvement. The reissue came in two editions: a 2-CD "Collector's Edition" and a 2-CD, 1-DVD "Special Collector's Edition". The first disc contains the original studio album, the second disc contains B-sides collected from OK Computer singles and live recording sessions, and the DVD contains a collection of music videos and a live television performance.[238] All the material on the reissue had been previously released and the music was not remastered.[239][240]

Press reaction to the reissue expressed concern that EMI was exploiting Radiohead's back catalogue. Larry Fitzmaurice of Spin accused EMI of planning to "issue and reissue [Radiohead's] discography until the cash stops rolling in".[238] Pitchfork's Ryan Dombal said it was "hard to look at these reissues as anything other than a cash-grab for EMI/Capitol—an old media company that got dumped by their most forward-thinking band."[239] Daniel Kreps of Rolling Stone defended the release, saying: "While it's easy to accuse Capitol of milking the cash cow once again, these sets are pretty comprehensive."[241]

The reissue was critically well received, although reception was mixed about the supplemental material. Reviews in AllMusic,[231] Uncut,[237] Q,[236] Rolling Stone,[235] Paste[233] and PopMatters[242] praised the supplemental material, but with reservations. A review written by Scott Plagenhoef for Pitchfork awarded the reissue a perfect score, arguing that it was worth buying for fans who did not already own the rare material. Plagenhoef said, "That the band had nothing to do with these is beside the point: this is the final word on these records, if for no other reason that the Beatles' September 9 remaster campaign is, arguably, the end of the CD era."[234] The A.V. Club writer Josh Modell praised the bonus disc and DVD, and said the album was "the perfect synthesis of Radiohead's seemingly conflicted impulses".[232]

Radiohead Box Set and XL reissues

In 2007, EMI released Radiohead Box Set, a compilation of albums recorded while Radiohead were signed to EMI, including The Bends.[243] In April 2016, XL Recordings acquired Radiohead's back catalogue. The EMI reissues, released without Radiohead's approval, were removed from streaming services.[244] In May 2016, XL reissued Radiohead's back catalogue on vinyl, including OK Computer.[245]

OKNOTOK 1997 2017

Main article: OK Computer OKNOTOK 1997 2017

On 23 June 2017, Radiohead released a 20th-anniversary OK Computer reissue, OKNOTOK 1997 2017, on XL. The reissue includes a remastered version of the album, plus eight B-sides and three previously unreleased tracks: "I Promise", "Man of War" and "Lift". The special edition includes books of artwork and notes and an audio cassette of demos and session recordings, including previously unreleased songs.[246] OKNOTOK debuted at number two on the UK Album Chart,[247] boosted by Radiohead's third headline performance at Glastonbury Festival.[248] It was the best-selling album in independent UK record shops for a year.[249]

MiniDiscs [Hacked]

Main article: MiniDiscs (Hacked)

In early June 2019, nearly 18 hours of demos, outtakes and other material recorded during the OK Computer period leaked online. On 11 June, Radiohead made the archive available to stream or purchase from the music sharing site Bandcamp for 18 days, with proceeds going to the environmental advocacy group Extinction Rebellion.[250]

Track listing

All tracks are written by Thom Yorke, Jonny Greenwood, Philip Selway, Ed O'Brien and Colin Greenwood.

  1. "Airbag" – 4:44
  2. "Paranoid Android" – 6:23
  3. "Subterranean Homesick Alien" – 4:27
  4. "Exit Music (For a Film)" – 4:24
  5. "Let Down" – 4:59
  6. "Karma Police" – 4:21
  7. "Fitter Happier" – 1:57
  8. "Electioneering" – 3:50
  9. "Climbing Up the Walls" – 4:45
  10. "No Surprises" – 3:48
  11. "Lucky" – 4:19
  12. "The Tourist" – 5:24

Personnel

Charts

Certifications and sales

Sales certifications for OK Computer
Region Certification Certified units/sales
Argentina (CAPIF)[289] Platinum 60,000^
Australia (ARIA)[290] Platinum 70,000^
Belgium (BEA)[291] 2× Platinum 100,000*
Canada (Music Canada)[292] 5× Platinum 500,000 
France (SNEP)[293] 2× Gold 200,000*
Italy (FIMI)[294]
sales since 2009 		Platinum 50,000*
Japan (RIAJ)[295] Gold 100,000^
Netherlands (NVPI)[296] Platinum 100,000^
New Zealand (RMNZ)[297] Platinum 15,000^
Norway (IFPI Norway)[298] Gold 25,000*
Spain (PROMUSICAE)[299] Gold 50,000^
Sweden (GLF)[300] Gold 40,000^
Switzerland (IFPI Switzerland)[301] Gold 25,000^
United Kingdom (BPI)[302] 5× Platinum 1,579,415[141]
United States (RIAA)[303] 2× Platinum 2,000,000^
Summaries
Europe (IFPI)[304] 3× Platinum 3,000,000*

* Sales figures based on certification alone.
^ Shipments figures based on certification alone.
  Sales+streaming figures based on certification alone.

Notes

Footnotes

  1. ^ Conversely, other critics have also argued that OK Computer is a concept album only in part, or in a nontraditional or qualified sense, or is not a concept album at all. See Letts 2010, pp. 28–32
  2. ^ For example, the line "in a deep deep sleep of the innocent" from "Airbag" is rendered as ">in a deep deep sssleep of tHe inno$ent/completely terrified". See Footman 2007, p. 45
  3. ^ The LA Times reported US sales of 1.4 million in 2001, before Nielsen SoundScan had begun tracking digital sales in 2003—therefore, this amount only included non-digital sales on CD, cassette, and LP. Forbes reported 2.5 million in digital sales and 900,000 in album-equivalent units in 2016, bringing the US total to at least 3.9 million (or 4.8 million with album-equivalent units). BBC News reported 3 million in sales across Europe in 2006, bringing the worldwide total to at least 6.9 million (or 7.8 million with album-equivalent units). Music Week reported that the album had sold 1.5 million units in the UK by 2017; however, the 2006 European sales figure included UK sales up to that time and, as such, adding the 2017 UK sales figure to the total would result in erroneous double counting of UK units sold before 2006. Exact sales figures from other territories are not known. OK Computer has certainly sold more than 7.8 million units worldwide, but it is impossible to say how many more with any certainty.
  4. ^ Britpop, which reached its peak popularity in the mid-1990s and was led by bands such as Oasis, Blur and Pulp, was typified by nostalgic homage to British rock of the 1960s and 1970s. The genre was a key element of the broader cultural movement Cool Britannia. Starting in 1997, a number of events marked the end of the genre's heyday; these included Blur spurning the conventional Britpop sound on Blur and Oasis' Be Here Now failing to live up to the expectations of critics and the public. See Footman 2007, pp. 177–178
  5. ^ Specifically, critics have cited the album's influence on Muse, Coldplay, Snow Patrol, Keane, Travis, Doves, Badly Drawn Boy, Editors and Elbow. See:
    • Aza, Bharat (15 June 2007), "Ten years of OK Computer and what have we got?", The Guardian, archived from the original on 6 August 2011
    • Eisenbeis, Hans (July 2001), "The Empire Strikes Back", Spin
    • Richards, Sam (8 April 2009), "Album review: Radiohead Reissues – Collectors Editions", Uncut, from the original on 6 December 2010, retrieved 29 August 2011
  6. ^ Musicians who have praised the album include R.E.M. frontman Michael Stipe, former Smiths guitarist Johnny Marr, DJ Shadow, Guns N' Roses guitarist Slash, Manic Street Preachers member Nicky Wire, The Divine Comedy frontman Neil Hannon, Mo' Wax label owner James Lavelle, Sonic Youth and Gastr del Sol member and experimental musician Jim O'Rourke, former Depeche Mode member Alan Wilder and contemporary composer Esa-Pekka Salonen. See:
    • Bidwell, Chad (25 February 1999), "Jim O'Rourke", Ink 19, from the original on 31 March 2017, retrieved 11 May 2017
    • Cavanagh, David (February 2007), "Communication Breakdown", Uncut
    • Smith, RJ (September 1999), "09: Radiohead: OK Computer", Spin
    • Timberg, Scott (28 January 2003), "The maestro rocks", Los Angeles Times, archived from the original on 6 August 2011, retrieved 5 August 2011
    • Turner, Luke (9 May 2011), "Alan Wilder of Recoil & Depeche Mode's 13 Favourite LPs – Page 8", The Quietus, archived from the original on 6 September 2011, retrieved 6 September 2011

Citations

  1. ^ "OK Computer - Rolling Stone". Rolling Stone. 10 July 1997. Retrieved 29 April 2022.
  2. ^ Christgau, Robert (2000). "R". Christgau's Consumer Guide: Albums of the '90s. St. Martin's Griffin. ISBN 0312245602. Retrieved 11 June 2020 – via robertchristgau.com.
  3. ^ "10 Essential '90s Alt-Rock Albums". Treble. 25 July 2013. Retrieved 3 May 2021.
  4. ^ a b c d Cantin, Paul (19 October 1997), "Radiohead's OK Computer confounds expectations", Ottawa Sun
  5. ^ a b Richardson, Andy (9 December 1995), "Boom! Shake the Gloom!", NME
  6. ^ Footman 2007, p. 113.
  7. ^ a b c d e f g h i Irvin, Jim (July 1997), "Thom Yorke tells Jim Irvin how OK Computer was done", Mojo
  8. ^ a b Robinson, Andrea (August 1997), "Nigel Godrich", The Mix
  9. ^ a b Randall 2000, p. 161.
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Bibliography

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  • Sheffield, Rob (2004). "Radiohead". In Brackett, Nathan; Hoard, Christian (eds.). The New Rolling Stone Album Guide. New York: Fireside. ISBN 0-7432-0169-8.

External links

  • OK Computer at Discogs (list of releases)

March 09, 2023
computer, this, article, about, studio, album, radiohead, television, series, series, third, studio, album, english, rock, band, radiohead, released, japan, 1997, june, 1997, radiohead, self, produced, album, with, nigel, godrich, arrangement, they, have, used. This article is about the studio album by Radiohead For the television series see OK Computer TV series OK Computer is the third studio album by the English rock band Radiohead released in Japan on 21 May 1997 and in the UK on 16 June 1997 Radiohead self produced the album with Nigel Godrich an arrangement they have used for their subsequent albums Radiohead recorded most of OK Computer in their rehearsal space in Oxfordshire and the historic mansion of St Catherine s Court in Bath in 1996 and early 1997 The band distanced themselves from the guitar centred lyrically introspective style of their previous album The Bends OK Computer s abstract lyrics densely layered sound and eclectic influences laid the groundwork for Radiohead s later more experimental work OK ComputerStudio album by RadioheadReleased21 May 1997 1997 05 21 Recorded4 September 1995 Lucky July 1996 March 1997StudioCanned Applause Didcot EnglandSt Catherine s Court Bath EnglandGenreArt rock 1 2 alternative rock 3 Length53 21LabelParlophoneCapitolProducerNigel GodrichRadioheadRadiohead chronologyThe Bends 1995 OK Computer 1997 No Surprises Running from Demons 1997 Singles from OK Computer Paranoid Android Released 26 May 1997 Karma Police Released 25 August 1997 Lucky Released December 1997 FR No Surprises Released 12 January 1998The album s lyrics depict a world fraught with rampant consumerism social alienation emotional isolation and political malaise in this capacity OK Computer has been said to have prescient insight into the mood of 21st century life The band used unconventional production techniques including natural reverberation through recording on a staircase and no audio separation Strings were recorded at Abbey Road Studios in London Guitarist Ed O Brien estimated that 80 per cent of the album was recorded live Despite lowered sales estimates by EMI who deemed the record uncommercial and difficult to market OK Computer reached number one on the UK Albums Chart and debuted at number 21 on the Billboard 200 Radiohead s highest album entry on the US charts at the time and was soon certified 5 platinum in the UK and double platinum in the US The songs Paranoid Android Karma Police Lucky and No Surprises were released as singles The album expanded Radiohead s international popularity and has sold at least 7 8 million units worldwide A remastered version with additional tracks OKNOTOK 1997 2017 was released in 2017 marking the album s twentieth anniversary In 2019 in response to an internet leak Radiohead released MiniDiscs Hacked comprising hours of demos rehearsals live performances and other material OK Computer received critical acclaim and has been cited by listeners critics and musicians as one of the greatest albums of all time It was nominated for the Album of the Year and won Best Alternative Music Album at the 1998 Grammy Awards It was also nominated for Best British Album at the 1998 Brit Awards The album initiated a stylistic shift in British rock away from Britpop toward melancholic atmospheric alternative rock that became more prevalent in the next decade In 2014 it was included by the United States Library of Congress in the National Recording Registry as culturally historically or aesthetically significant Contents 1 Background 2 Recording 3 Music and lyrics 3 1 Style and influences 3 2 Lyrics 3 3 Composition 3 3 1 Tracks 1 6 3 3 2 Tracks 7 12 4 Title 5 Artwork 6 Release and promotion 6 1 Commercial expectations 6 2 Marketing 6 3 Singles 6 4 Tour 6 5 Sales 7 Critical reception 7 1 Accolades 8 Legacy 8 1 Retrospective appraisal 8 2 Commentary interpretation and analysis 8 3 Influence 9 Reissues and compilations 9 1 2009 Collector s Edition reissue 9 2 Radiohead Box Set and XL reissues 9 3 OKNOTOK 1997 2017 9 4 MiniDiscs Hacked 10 Track listing 11 Personnel 12 Charts 12 1 Weekly charts 12 2 Year end charts 13 Certifications and sales 14 Notes 14 1 Footnotes 14 2 Citations 14 3 Bibliography 15 External linksBackground Edit Thom Yorke pictured in 2001 and the band sought a less introspective direction than previous album The Bends 4 5 In 1995 Radiohead toured in support of their second album The Bends 1995 Midway through the tour Brian Eno commissioned them to contribute a song to The Help Album a charity compilation organised by War Child the album was to be recorded over the course of a single day 4 September 1995 and rush released that week 6 Radiohead recorded Lucky in five hours with engineer Nigel Godrich who had engineered on The Bends and produced several Radiohead B sides 7 Godrich said of the session Those things are the most inspiring when you do stuff really fast and there s nothing to lose We left feeling fairly euphoric So after establishing a bit of a rapport work wise I was sort of hoping I would be involved with the next album 8 Singer Thom Yorke said Lucky shaped the nascent sound and mood of their upcoming record 7 Lucky was indicative of what we wanted to do It was like the first mark on the wall 9 Radiohead found touring stressful and took a break in January 1996 10 They sought to distance their new material from the introspective style of The Bends Drummer Philip Selway said There was an awful lot of soul searching on The Bends To do that again on another album would be excruciatingly boring 4 Yorke said he did not want to do another miserable morbid and negative record and was writing down all the positive things that I hear or see I m not able to put them into music yet and I don t want to just force it 5 The critical and commercial success of The Bends gave Radiohead the confidence to self produce their third album 7 Their label Parlophone gave them a 100 000 budget for recording equipment 11 12 Guitarist Jonny Greenwood said the only concept that we had for this album was that we wanted to record it away from the city and that we wanted to record it ourselves 13 According to guitarist Ed O Brien Everyone said You ll sell six or seven million if you bring out The Bends Pt 2 and we re like We ll kick against that and do the opposite 14 A number of producers including major figures such as R E M producer Scott Litt were suggested 15 but the band were encouraged by their sessions with Godrich 16 They consulted him for advice on what equipment to use 17 and prepared for the sessions by buying their own equipment including a plate reverberator purchased from songwriter Jona Lewie 7 Although Godrich had sought to focus his work on electronic dance music 18 he outgrew his role as advisor and became the album s co producer 17 Recording EditIn early 1996 Radiohead recorded demos for their third album at Chipping Norton Recording Studios Oxford 19 In July they began rehearsing and recording in their Canned Applause studio a converted shed near Didcot Oxfordshire 20 Even without the deadline that contributed to the stress of The Bends 21 the band had difficulties which Selway blamed on their choice to self produce We re jumping from song to song and when we started to run out of ideas we d move on to a new song The stupid thing was that we were nearly finished when we d move on because so much work had gone into them 22 The members worked with nearly equal roles in the production and formation of the music though Yorke was still firmly the loudest voice according to O Brien 23 Selway said we give each other an awful lot of space to develop our parts but at the same time we are all very critical about what the other person is doing 22 Godrich s role as co producer was part collaborator part managerial outsider He said that Radiohead need to have another person outside their unit especially when they re all playing together to say when the take goes well I take up slack when people aren t taking responsibility the term producing a record means taking responsibility for the record It s my job to ensure that they get the ideas across 24 Godrich has produced every Radiohead album since and has been characterised as Radiohead s sixth member an allusion to George Martin s nickname as the fifth Beatle 25 26 27 Radiohead decided that Canned Applause was an unsatisfactory recording location which Yorke attributed to its proximity to the band members homes and Jonny Greenwood attributed to its lack of dining and bathroom facilities 23 The group had nearly completed four songs Electioneering No Surprises Subterranean Homesick Alien and The Tourist 28 They took a break from recording to embark on an American tour in 1996 opening for Alanis Morissette performing early versions of several new songs 29 During the tour filmmaker Baz Luhrmann commissioned Radiohead to write a song for his upcoming film Romeo Juliet and gave them the final 30 minutes of the film Yorke said When we saw the scene in which Claire Danes holds the Colt 45 against her head we started working on the song immediately 30 Soon afterwards the band wrote and recorded Exit Music For a Film the track plays over the film s end credits but was excluded from the soundtrack album at the band s request 31 The song helped shape the direction of the rest of the album Yorke said it was the first performance we d ever recorded where every note of it made my head spin something I was proud of something I could turn up really really loud and not wince at any moment 7 Most of OK Computer was recorded between September and October 1996 at St Catherine s Court a rural mansion near Bath Somerset Radiohead resumed recording in September 1996 at St Catherine s Court a historic mansion near Bath owned by the actress Jane Seymour 32 It was unoccupied but sometimes used for corporate functions 33 The change of setting marked an important transition in the recording process Greenwood comparing the mansion to previous studio settings said it was less like a laboratory experiment which is what being in a studio is usually like and more about a group of people making their first record together 33 The band made extensive use of the different rooms and acoustics in the house The vocals on Exit Music For a Film feature natural reverberation achieved by recording on a stone staircase and Let Down was recorded in a ballroom at 3 a m 34 Isolation allowed the band to work at a different pace with more flexible and spontaneous working hours O Brien said that the biggest pressure was actually completing the recording We weren t given any deadlines and we had complete freedom to do what we wanted We were delaying it because we were a bit frightened of actually finishing stuff 35 Yorke was satisfied with the recordings made at the location and enjoyed working without audio separation meaning that instruments were not overdubbed separately 36 O Brien estimated that 80 per cent of the album was recorded live 33 36 and said I hate doing overdubs because it just doesn t feel natural Something special happens when you re playing live a lot of it is just looking at one another and knowing there are four other people making it happen 36 37 Many of Yorke s vocals were first takes he felt that if he made other attempts he would start to think about it and it would sound really lame 38 Radiohead returned to Canned Applause in October for rehearsals 39 and completed most of OK Computer in further sessions at St Catherine s Court By Christmas they had narrowed the track listing to 14 songs 40 The strings were recorded at Abbey Road Studios in London in January 1997 The album was mixed over the next two months at various London studios then mastered by Chris Blair at Abbey Road 41 Godrich preferred a quick and hands off approach to mixing and said I feel like I get too into it I start fiddling with things and I fuck it up I generally take about half a day to do a mix If it s any longer than that you lose it The hardest thing is trying to stay fresh to stay objective 8 Music and lyrics EditStyle and influences Edit The jazz fusion of Miles Davis top 1986 and political writings of Noam Chomsky bottom in 2005 influenced OK Computer Yorke said that the starting point for the record was the incredibly dense and terrifying sound of Bitches Brew the 1970 avant garde jazz fusion album by Miles Davis 42 He described the sound of Bitches Brew to Q It was building something up and watching it fall apart that s the beauty of it It was at the core of what we were trying to do with OK Computer 38 Yorke identified I ll Wear It Proudly by Elvis Costello Fall on Me by R E M Dress by PJ Harvey and A Day in the Life by the Beatles as particularly influential on his songwriting 7 Radiohead drew further inspiration from the recording style of film soundtrack composer Ennio Morricone and the krautrock band Can musicians Yorke described as abusing the recording process 7 Jonny Greenwood described OK Computer as a product of being in love with all these brilliant records trying to recreate them and missing 43 According to Yorke Radiohead hoped to achieve an atmosphere that s perhaps a bit shocking when you first hear it but only as shocking as the atmosphere on the Beach Boys Pet Sounds 42 They expanded their instrumentation to include electric piano Mellotron cello and other strings glockenspiel and electronic effects Jonny Greenwood summarised the exploratory approach as when we ve got what we suspect to be an amazing song but nobody knows what they re gonna play on it 44 Spin characterised OK Computer as sounding like a DIY electronica album made with guitars 45 Critics suggested a stylistic debt to 1970s progressive rock an influence that Radiohead have disavowed 46 47 According to Andy Greene in Rolling Stone Radiohead were collectively hostile to seventies progressive rock but that didn t stop them from reinventing prog from scratch on OK Computer particularly on the six and a half minute Paranoid Android 29 Tom Hull believed the album was still prog but may just be because rock has so thoroughly enveloped musical storytelling that this sort of thing has become inevitable 48 Writing in 2017 The New Yorker s Kelefa Sanneh said OK Computer was profoundly prog grand and dystopian with a lead single that was more than six minutes long 46 Lyrics Edit The album s lyrics written by Yorke are more abstract compared to his personal emotional lyrics for The Bends Critic Alex Ross said the lyrics seemed a mixture of overheard conversations techno speak and fragments of a harsh diary with images of riot police at political rallies anguished lives in tidy suburbs yuppies freaking out sympathetic aliens gliding overhead 49 Recurring themes include transport technology insanity death modern British life globalisation and anti capitalism 50 Yorke said On this album the outside world became all there was I m just taking Polaroids of things around me moving too fast 51 He told Q It was like there s a secret camera in a room and it s watching the character who walks in a different character for each song The camera s not quite me It s neutral emotionless But not emotionless at all In fact the very opposite 52 Yorke also drew inspiration from books including Noam Chomsky s political writing 53 Eric Hobsbawm s The Age of Extremes Will Hutton s The State We re In Jonathan Coe s What a Carve Up and Philip K Dick s VALIS 54 The songs of OK Computer do not have a coherent narrative and the album s lyrics are generally considered abstract or oblique Nonetheless many musical critics journalists and scholars consider the album to be a concept album or song cycle or have analysed it as a concept album noting its strong thematic cohesion aesthetic unity and the structural logic of the song sequencing nb 1 Although the songs share common themes Radiohead have said they do not consider OK Computer a concept album and did not intend to link the songs through a narrative or unifying concept while it was being written 33 55 56 Jonny Greenwood said I think one album title and one computer voice do not make a concept album That s a bit of a red herring 57 However the band intended the album to be heard as a whole and spent two weeks ordering the track list O Brien said The context of each song is really important It s not a concept album but there is a continuity there 55 Composition Edit Tracks 1 6 Edit Airbag source source Airbag features sparse bass and a programmed drum beat influenced by the music of DJ Shadow This audio sample contains a portion of the song s first verse Paranoid Android source source track Paranoid Android Radiohead s second longest song has a multi section structure and has been called one of the most ambitious songs of all time This audio sample is from the middle of the second section to the beginning of the first guitar solo Problems playing these files See media help The opening track Airbag is underpinned by a beat built from a seconds long recording of Selway s drumming The band sampled the drum track with a sampler and edited it with a Macintosh computer inspired by the music of DJ Shadow but admitted to making approximations in emulating Shadow s style due to their programming inexperience 58 59 The bassline stops and starts unexpectedly achieving an effect similar to 1970s dub 60 The original draft of the lyrics for Airbag were written inside a copy of William Blake s Songs of Innocence and of Experience that Yorke had also annotated with his own notes this personal copy was later auctioned off by Yorke in 2016 with proceeds going to Oxfam 61 The song s references to automobile crashes and reincarnation were inspired by a magazine article titled An Airbag Saved My Life and The Tibetan Book of the Dead Yorke wrote Airbag about the illusion of safety offered by modern transit and the idea that whenever you go out on the road you could be killed 52 The BBC wrote about the influence of J G Ballard especially his 1973 novel Crash on the lyrics 62 Music journalist Tim Footman noted that the song s technical innovations and lyrical concerns demonstrated the key paradox of the album The musicians and producer are delighting in the sonic possibilities of modern technology the singer meanwhile is railing against its social moral and psychological impact It s a contradiction mirrored in the culture clash of the music with the real guitars negotiating an uneasy stand off with the hacked up processed drums 63 Split into four sections with an overall running time of 6 23 Paranoid Android is among the band s longest songs The unconventional structure was inspired by the Beatles Happiness Is a Warm Gun and Queen s Bohemian Rhapsody which also eschew a traditional verse chorus verse structure 64 Its musical style was also inspired by the music of the Pixies 65 The song was written by Yorke after an unpleasant night at a Los Angeles bar where he saw a woman react violently after someone spilled a drink on her 52 Its title and lyrics are a reference to Marvin the Paranoid Android from Douglas Adams s The Hitchhiker s Guide to the Galaxy series 65 The use of electric keyboards in Subterranean Homesick Alien is an example of the band s attempts to emulate the atmosphere of Bitches Brew 43 66 Its title references the Bob Dylan song Subterranean Homesick Blues and the lyrics describe an isolated narrator who fantasises about being abducted by extraterrestrials The narrator speculates that upon returning to Earth his friends would not believe his story and he would remain a misfit 67 The lyrics were inspired by an assignment from Yorke s time at Abingdon School to write a piece of Martian poetry a British literary movement that humorously recontextualises mundane aspects of human life from an alien perspective 68 William Shakespeare s Romeo and Juliet inspired the lyrics for Exit Music For a Film 65 Initially Yorke wanted to work lines from the play into the song but the final draft of the lyrics became a broad summary of the narrative 31 He said I saw the Zeffirelli version when I was 13 and I cried my eyes out because I couldn t understand why the morning after they shagged they didn t just run away It s a song for two people who should run away before all the bad stuff starts 69 Yorke compared the opening of the song which mostly features his singing paired with acoustic guitar to Johnny Cash s At Folsom Prison 70 Mellotron choir and other electronic voices are used throughout the track 71 The song climaxes with the entrance of drums 71 and distorted bass run through a fuzz pedal 26 The climactic portion of the song is an attempt to emulate the sound of trip hop group Portishead but in a style that bass player Colin Greenwood called more stilted and leaden and mechanical 72 The song concludes by fading back to Yorke s voice acoustic guitar and Mellotron 31 Let Down contains multilayered arpeggiated guitars and electric piano Jonny Greenwood plays his guitar part in a different time signature to the other instruments 73 O Brien said the song was influenced by Phil Spector a producer and songwriter best known for his reverberating Wall of Sound recording techniques 58 The lyrics Yorke said are about a fear of being trapped 69 and about that feeling that you get when you re in transit but you re not in control of it you just go past thousands of places and thousands of people and you re completely removed from it 65 Of the line Don t get sentimental It always ends up drivel Yorke said Sentimentality is being emotional for the sake of it We re bombarded with sentiment people emoting That s the Let Down Feeling every emotion is fake Or rather every emotion is on the same plane whether it s a car advert or a pop song 38 Yorke felt that scepticism of emotion was characteristic of Generation X and that it had informed the band s approach to the album 74 Karma Police has two main verses that alternate with a subdued break followed by a different ending section 75 The verses centre around acoustic guitar and piano 75 with a chord progression indebted to the Beatles Sexy Sadie 76 77 78 Starting at 2 34 the song transitions into an orchestrated section with the repeated line For a minute there I lost myself 75 It ends with guitarist Ed O Brien generating feedback using a delay effect 58 77 The title and lyrics to Karma Police originate from an in joke during The Bends tour Jonny Greenwood said whenever someone was behaving in a particularly shitty way we d say The karma police will catch up with him sooner or later 65 Tracks 7 12 Edit A 1990s Macintosh LC II system Radiohead used the synthesised voice of Fred included with older Macintosh software to recite the lyrics of Fitter Happier 20 Fitter Happier is a short musique concrete track that consists of sampled musical and background sound and spoken word lyrics recited by Fred 20 a synthesised voice from the Macintosh SimpleText application 79 Yorke wrote the lyrics in ten minutes after a period of writer s block while the rest of the band were playing 69 He described the words as a checklist of slogans for the 1990s he considered it the most upsetting thing I ve ever written 65 and said it was liberating to give the words to a neutral sounding computer voice 69 Among the samples in the background is a loop from the 1975 film Three Days of the Condor 79 The band considered using Fitter Happier as the album s opening track but decided the effect was off putting 35 Steve Lowe called the song penetrating surgery on pseudo meaningful corporations lifestyles with a repugnance for prevailing yuppified social values 76 Among the loosely connected imagery of the lyrics Footman identified the song s subject as the materially comfortable morally empty embodiment of modern Western humanity half salaryman half Stepford Wife destined for the metaphorical farrowing crate propped up on Prozac Viagra and anything else his insurance plan can cover 80 Sam Steele called the lyrics a stream of received imagery scraps of media information interspersed with lifestyle ad slogans and private prayers for a healthier existence It is the hum of a world buzzing with words one of the messages seeming to be that we live in such a synthetic universe we have grown unable to detect reality from artifice 81 Electioneering featuring a cowbell and a distorted guitar solo is the album s most rock oriented track and one of the heaviest songs Radiohead has recorded 82 It has been compared to Radiohead s earlier style on Pablo Honey 79 83 The cynical Electioneering is the album s most directly political song 84 85 with lyrics inspired by the Poll Tax Riots 69 The song was also inspired by Chomsky s Manufacturing Consent a book analysing contemporary mass media under the propaganda model 53 Yorke likened its lyrics which focus on political and artistic compromise to a preacher ranting in front of a bank of microphones 55 86 Regarding its oblique political references Yorke said What can you say about the IMF or politicians Or people selling arms to African countries employing slave labour or whatever What can you say You just write down Cattle prods and the IMF and people who know know 7 O Brien said the song was about the promotional cycle of touring After a while you feel like a politician who has to kiss babies and shake hands all day long 30 Climbing Up the Walls source source Climbing Up the Walls contains sampled ambient sounds distorted drums and Jonny Greenwood s Krzysztof Penderecki influenced string section This audio sample is from the beginning of the second chorus to the guitar solo Problems playing this file See media help Threnody to the Victims of Hiroshima by Krzysztof Penderecki pictured inspired the string arrangement on Climbing Up the Walls Climbing Up the Walls described by Melody Maker as monumental chaos 87 is layered with a string section ambient noise and repetitive metallic percussion The string section composed by Jonny Greenwood and written for 16 instruments was inspired by modern classical composer Krzysztof Penderecki s Threnody to the Victims of Hiroshima Greenwood said I got very excited at the prospect of doing string parts that didn t sound like Eleanor Rigby which is what all string parts have sounded like for the past 30 years 55 Select described Yorke s distraught vocals and the atonal strings as Thom s voice dissolving into a fearful blood clotted scream as Jonny whips the sound of a million dying elephants into a crescendo 43 For the lyrics Yorke drew from his time as an orderly in a mental hospital during the Care in the Community policy of deinstitutionalising mental health patients and a New York Times article about serial killers 30 He said This is about the unspeakable Literally skull crushing I used to work in a mental hospital around the time that Care in the Community started and we all just knew what was going to happen And it s one of the scariest things to happen in this country because a lot of them weren t just harmless It was hailing violently when we recorded this It seemed to add to the mood 69 No Surprises recorded in a single take 88 is arranged with electric guitar inspired by the Beach Boys Wouldn t It Be Nice 89 acoustic guitar glockenspiel and vocal harmonies 90 The band strove to replicate the mood of Louis Armstrong s 1968 recording of What a Wonderful World and the soul music of Marvin Gaye 30 Yorke identified the subject of the song as someone who s trying hard to keep it together but can t 7 The lyrics seem to portray a suicide 81 or an unfulfilling life and dissatisfaction with contemporary social and political order 91 Some lines refer to rural 92 or suburban imagery 54 One of the key metaphors in the song is the opening line a heart that s full up like a landfill according to Yorke the song is a fucked up nursery rhyme that stems from my unhealthy obsession of what to do with plastic boxes and plastic bottles All this stuff is getting buried the debris of our lives It doesn t rot it just stays there That s how we deal that s how I deal with stuff I bury it 93 The song s gentle mood contrasts sharply with its harsh lyrics 94 95 Steele said even when the subject is suicide O Brien s guitar is as soothing as balm on a red raw psyche the song rendered like a bittersweet child s prayer 81 Lucky was inspired by the Bosnian War Sam Taylor said it was the one track on The Help Album to capture the sombre terror of the conflict and that its serious subject matter and dark tone made the band too real to be allowed on the Britpop gravy train 96 The lyrics were pared down from many pages of notes and were originally more politically explicit 35 The lyrics depict a man surviving an aeroplane crash 84 and are drawn from Yorke s anxiety about transportation 85 The musical centerpiece of Lucky is its three piece guitar arrangement 11 which grew out of the high pitched chiming sound played by O Brien in the song s introduction 52 achieved by strumming above the guitar nut 97 Critics likened its lead guitar to Pink Floyd and more broadly arena rock 98 9 99 100 The album ends with The Tourist which Jonny Greenwood wrote as an unusually staid piece where something doesn t have to happen every three seconds He said The Tourist doesn t sound like Radiohead at all It has become a song with space 30 The lyrics written by Yorke were inspired by his experience of watching American tourists in France frantically trying to see as many tourist attractions as possible 69 He said it was chosen as the closing track because a lot of the album was about background noise and everything moving too fast and not being able to keep up It was really obvious to have Tourist as the last song That song was written to me from me saying Idiot slow down Because at that point I needed to So that was the only resolution there could be to slow down 42 The unexpectedly bluesy waltz draws to a close as the guitars drop out leaving only drums and bass and concludes with the sound of a small bell 11 Title EditThe title OK Computer is taken from the 1978 Hitchhiker s Guide to the Galaxy radio series in which the character Zaphod Beeblebrox speaks the phrase Okay computer I want full manual control now The members of Radiohead listened to the series on the bus during their 1996 tour and Yorke made a note of the phrase 29 OK Computer became a working title for the B side Palo Alto which had been considered for inclusion on the album 101 The title stuck with the band according to Jonny Greenwood it started attaching itself and creating all these weird resonances with what we were trying to do 53 Yorke said 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 57 He described the title as a really resigned terrified phrase to him similar to the Coca Cola advertisement I d Like to Teach the World to Sing 53 Wired writer Leander Kahney suggests that it is an homage to Macintosh computers as the Mac s speech recognition software responds to the command OK computer as an alternative to clicking the OK button 102 Other titles considered were Ones and Zeroes a reference to the binary numeral system and Your Home May Be at Risk If You Do Not Keep Up Payments 101 Artwork Edit A page of the OK Computer booklet with logos white scribbles and text in Esperanto and English The motif of two stick figures shaking hands repeated on the disc label on CD and LP releases was described by Yorke as symbolising exploitation 35 The OK Computer artwork is a computer generated collage of images and text created by Yorke credited under the pseudonym the White Chocolate Farm and Stanley Donwood 103 Yorke commissioned Donwood to work on a visual diary alongside the recording sessions Yorke explained If I m shown some kind of visual representation of the music only then do I feel confident Up until that point I m a bit of a whirlwind 54 The blue and white palette was 104 according to Donwood the result of trying to make something the colour of bleached bone 105 The image of two stick figures shaking hands appears in the liner notes and on the disc label in CD and LP releases Yorke explained the image as emblematic of exploitation Someone s being sold something they don t really want and someone s being friendly because they re trying to sell something That s what it means to me 35 The image would later be used as the artwork for Radiohead s first compilation album Radiohead The Best Of 35 Explaining the artwork s themes Yorke said It s quite sad and quite funny as well All the artwork and so on It was all the things that I hadn t said in the songs 35 Motifs in the artwork include motorways aeroplanes families with children corporate logos and cityscapes 106 The photograph of a motorway on the cover was likely taken in Hartford Connecticut where Radiohead performed in 1996 107 The words Lost Child feature prominently on the cover and the booklet artwork contains phrases in the constructed language Esperanto and health related instructions in both English and Greek The Uncut critic David Cavanagh said the use of non sequiturs created an effect akin to being lifestyle coached by a lunatic 11 White scribbles Donwood s method of correcting mistakes rather than using the computer function undo 105 are present everywhere in the collages 108 The liner notes contain the full lyrics rendered with atypical syntax alternate spelling 85 and small annotations nb 2 The lyrics are also arranged and spaced in shapes that resemble hidden images 109 In keeping with the band s then emerging anti corporate stance the production credits contain the ironic copyright notice Lyrics reproduced by kind permission even though we wrote them 110 Release and promotion EditCommercial expectations Edit According to Selway Radiohead s American label Capitol saw the album as commercial suicide They weren t really into it At that point we got the fear How is this going to be received 4 Yorke recalled When we first gave it to Capitol they were taken aback I don t really know why it s so important now but I m excited about it 111 Capitol lowered its sales forecast from two million to half a million 112 In O Brien s view only Parlophone the band s British label remained optimistic while global distributors dramatically reduced their sales estimates 113 Label representatives were reportedly disappointed with the lack of marketable singles especially the absence of anything resembling Radiohead s 1992 hit Creep 114 OK Computer isn t the album we re going to rule the world with Colin Greenwood predicted at the time It s not as hitting everything loudly whilst waggling the tongue in and out like The Bends There s less of the Van Halen factor 43 Marketing Edit The lyrics to Fitter Happier and images adapted from the album artwork were used on advertisements in music magazines signs in the London Underground and shirts shirt design pictured Parlophone launched an unorthodox advertising campaign taking full page advertisements in high profile British newspapers and tube stations with lyrics for Fitter Happier in large black letters against white backgrounds 4 The same lyrics and artwork adapted from the album were repurposed for shirt designs 35 Yorke said they chose the Fitter Happier lyrics to link what a critic called a coherent set of concerns between the album artwork and its promotional material 35 Other unconventional merchandise included a floppy disk containing Radiohead screensavers and an FM radio in the shape of a desktop computer 115 In America Capitol sent 1 000 cassette players to prominent members of the press and music industry each with a copy of the album permanently glued inside 116 Capitol president Gary Gersh said Our job is just to take them as a left of centre band and bring the centre to them That s our focus and we won t let up until they re the biggest band in the world 117 Radiohead planned to produce a video for every song on the album but the project was abandoned due to financial and time constraints 118 According to No Surprises video director Grant Gee the plan was scrapped when the videos for Paranoid Android and Karma Police went over budget 119 Also scrapped were plans for trip hop group Massive Attack to remix the album 120 Radiohead s website was created to promote the album which went live at the time of its release making the band the first to manage an online presence 121 Their first fansite atease was made shortly following the album s release with its title taken from Fitter Happier 121 In 2017 during OK Computer s 20th anniversary Radiohead s website was temporarily restored to its 1997 state 122 Singles Edit Radiohead chose Paranoid Android as the lead single despite its unusually long running time and lack of a catchy chorus 78 87 Colin Greenwood said the song was hardly the radio friendly breakthrough buzz bin unit shifter radio stations can have been expecting but that Capitol supported the choice 87 The song premiered on the Radio 1 programme The Evening Session in April 1997 123 and was released as a single in May 1997 124 On the strength of frequent radio play on Radio 1 87 and rotation of the song s music video on MTV 125 Paranoid Android reached number three in the UK giving Radiohead their highest chart position 126 Karma Police was released in August 1997 and No Surprises in January 1998 127 Both singles charted in the UK top ten and Karma Police peaked at number 14 on the Billboard Modern Rock Tracks chart 128 129 Lucky was released as a single in France but did not chart 130 Let Down considered for release as the lead single 131 was issued as a promotional single in September 1997 and charted on the Modern Rock Tracks chart at number 29 129 Meeting People Is Easy Grant Gee s rockumentary following the band on their OK Computer world tour premiered in November 1998 132 Tour Edit Radiohead embarked on a world tour in promotion of OK Computer the Against Demons tour commencing at the album launch in Barcelona on 22 May 1997 133 The tour took the band across the UK and Ireland continental Europe North America Japan and Australasia 134 concluding on 18 April 1998 in New York 135 It was taxing for the band particularly Yorke who said That tour was a year too long I was the first person to tire of it then six months later everyone in the band was saying it Then six months after that nobody was talking any more 136 The tour included Radiohead s first headline Glastonbury Festival performance on 28 June 1997 despite technical problems that almost caused Yorke to abandon the stage the performance was acclaimed and cemented Radiohead as a major live act 137 Rolling Stone described it as an absolute triumph and in 2004 Q called it the greatest concert of all time 138 Sales Edit OK Computer was released in Japan on 21 May in the UK on 16 June in Canada on 17 June and in the US on 1 July 139 It was released on CD double LP vinyl record cassette and MiniDisc 140 It debuted at number one in the UK with sales of 136 000 copies in its first week 141 In the US it debuted at number 21 on the Billboard 200 142 It held the number one spot in the UK for two weeks and stayed in the top ten for several more becoming the UK s eighth bestselling record that year 143 By February 1998 OK Computer had sold at least half a million copies in the UK and 2 million worldwide 84 By September 2000 it had sold 4 5 million copies worldwide 144 The Los Angeles Times reported that by June 2001 it had sold 1 4 million copies in the US and in April 2006 the IFPI announced it had sold 3 million copies across Europe 145 146 It has been certified triple platinum in the UK 147 and double platinum in the US 148 in addition to certifications in other markets By May 2016 Nielsen SoundScan figures showed OK Computer had sold 2 5 million digital album units in the US plus 900 000 sales measured in album equivalent units 149 Twenty years to the week after its release the Official Charts Company recorded total UK sales of 1 5 million including album equivalent units 141 Tallying American and European sales OK Computer has sold at least 6 9 million copies worldwide or 7 8 million with album equivalent units nb 3 Critical reception EditProfessional ratingsContemporaneous reviews in 1997 Review scoresSourceRatingChicago Tribune 150 Entertainment WeeklyB 151 The Guardian 82 Los Angeles Times 152 NME10 10 98 Pitchfork10 10 153 Q 94 Rolling Stone 154 Select5 5 155 Spin8 10 45 OK Computer was almost uniformly praised Critics described it as a landmark release of far reaching impact and importance 156 157 but noted that its experimentalism made it a challenging listen According to Tim Footman Not since 1967 with the release of Sgt Pepper s Lonely Hearts Club Band had so many major critics agreed immediately not only on an album s merits but on its long term significance and its ability to encapsulate a particular point in history 158 In the British press the album garnered favourable reviews in NME 98 Melody Maker 159 The Guardian 82 and Q 94 Nick Kent wrote in Mojo that Others may end up selling more but in 20 years time I m betting OK Computer will be seen as the key record of 1997 the one to take rock forward instead of artfully revamping images and song structures from an earlier era 78 John Harris wrote in Select Every word sounds achingly sincere every note spewed from the heart and yet it roots itself firmly in a world of steel glass random access memory and prickly skinned paranoia 155 The album was well received by critics in North America Rolling Stone 154 Spin 45 the Los Angeles Times 152 the Pittsburgh Post Gazette 160 Pitchfork 153 and the Daily Herald 161 published positive reviews In The New Yorker Alex Ross praised its progressiveness and contrasted Radiohead s risk taking with the musically conservative dadrock of their contemporaries Oasis Ross wrote Throughout the album contrasts of mood and style are extreme This band has pulled off one of the great art pop balancing acts in the history of rock 162 Ryan Schreiber of Pitchfork lauded the record s emotional appeal writing that it is brimming with genuine emotion beautiful and complex imagery and music and lyrics that are at once passive and fire breathing 163 Reviews for Entertainment Weekly 151 the Chicago Tribune 150 and Time 164 were mixed Robert Christgau from The Village Voice said Radiohead immersed Yorke s vocals in enough electronic marginal distinction to feed a coal town for a month to compensate for the soulless songs resulting in arid art rock 165 In an otherwise positive review Andy Gill wrote for The Independent For all its ambition and determination to break new ground OK Computer is not finally as impressive as The Bends which covered much the same sort of emotional knots but with better tunes It is easy to be impressed by but ultimately hard to love an album that luxuriates so readily in its own despondency 166 Accolades Edit OK Computer was nominated for Grammy Awards as Album of the Year and Best Alternative Music Album at the 40th Annual Grammy Awards in 1998 167 winning the latter 168 It was also nominated for Best British Album at the 1998 Brit Awards 169 The album was shortlisted for the 1997 Mercury Prize a prestigious award recognising the best British or Irish album of the year The day before the winner was announced oddsmakers had given OK Computer the best chance to win among ten nominees but it lost to New Forms by Roni Size Reprazent 170 The album appeared in many 1997 critics lists and listener polls for best album of the year It topped the year end polls of Mojo Vox Entertainment Weekly Hot Press Muziekkrant OOR HUMO Eye Weekly and Inpress and tied for first place with Daft Punk s Homework in The Face The album came second in NME Melody Maker Rolling Stone Village Voice Spin and Uncut Q and Les Inrockuptibles both listed the album in their unranked year end polls 171 Praise for the album overwhelmed the band Greenwood felt the praise had been exaggerated because The Bends had been under reviewed possibly and under received 42 They rejected links to progressive rock and art rock despite comparisons to Pink Floyd s 1973 album The Dark Side of the Moon 172 Yorke responded We write pop songs There was no intention of it being art It s a reflection of all the disparate things we were listening to when we recorded it 57 He was nevertheless pleased that listeners identified their influences What really blew my head off was the fact that people got all the things all the textures and the sounds and the atmospheres we were trying to create 173 Legacy EditRetrospective appraisal Edit Professional ratingsRetrospective reviews after 1997 Review scoresSourceRatingAllMusic 174 The A V ClubA 175 Blender 176 Christgau s Consumer GuideB 177 Encyclopedia of Popular Music 178 MusicHound Rock5 5 179 Q 180 The Rolling Stone Album Guide 181 Slant Magazine 182 Tom Hull on the WebB 48 OK Computer has appeared frequently in professional lists of the greatest albums of all time A number of publications including NME Melody Maker Alternative Press 183 Spin 184 Pitchfork 185 Time 186 Metro Weekly 187 and Slant Magazine 188 placed OK Computer prominently in lists of best albums of the 1990s or of all time It was voted number 4 in Colin Larkin s All Time Top 1000 Albums 3rd Edition 2000 Rolling Stone ranked it 42 on its list of The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time in 2020 189 It was previously ranked at 162 in 2003 190 and 2012 191 Retrospective reviews from BBC Music 192 The A V Club 175 and Slant 182 received the album favourably Rolling Stone gave the album five stars in the 2004 edition of The Rolling Stone Album Guide with critic Rob Sheffield saying Radiohead was claiming the high ground abandoned by Nirvana Pearl Jam U2 R E M everybody and fans around the world loved them for trying too hard at a time when nobody else was even bothering 181 Most would rate OK Computer the apogee of pomo texture Christgau said in retrospect 193 According to Acclaimed Music a site which uses statistics to numerically represent reception among critics OK Computer is the 8th most celebrated album of all time 194 In 2014 the United States National Recording Preservation Board selected the album for preservation in the National Recording Registry of the Library of Congress which designates it as a sound recording that has had significant cultural historical or aesthetic impact in American life 195 The album has been cited by some as undeserving of its acclaim In a poll surveying thousands conducted by BBC Radio 6 Music OK Computer was named the sixth most overrated album 196 David H Green of The Daily Telegraph called the album self indulgent whingeing and maintains that the positive critical consensus towards OK Computer is an indication of a 20th century delusion that rock is the bastion of serious commentary on popular music to the detriment of electronic and dance music 197 The album was selected as an entry in Sacred Cows an NME column questioning the critical status of revered albums in which Henry Yates said there s no defiance gallows humour or chink of light beneath the curtain just a sense of meek resigned despondency and criticised the record as the moment when Radiohead stopped being good compared to The Bends and started being important 198 In a Spin article on the myth that Radiohead Can Do No Wrong Chris Norris argues that the acclaim for OK Computer inflated expectations for subsequent Radiohead releases 199 Christgau felt the reason the readers of the British magazine Q absurdly voted OK Computer the greatest album of the 20th century is that it integrated what was briefly called electronica into rock Having deemed it self regarding and overrated he later warmed to the record and found it indicative of Radiohead s cerebral sensibility and rife with discrete pleasures and surprises 200 Commentary interpretation and analysis Edit In interviews after the album s release Thom Yorke criticised Tony Blair pictured in 1998 and his New Labour government echoing the album s pervasive theme of political disillusionment OK Computer was recorded in the lead up to the 1997 general election and released a month after the victory of Tony Blair s New Labour government The album was perceived by critics as an expression of dissent and scepticism toward the new government and a reaction against the national mood of optimism Dorian Lynskey wrote On May 1 1997 Labour supporters toasted their landslide victory to the sound of Things Can Only Get Better A few weeks later OK Computer appeared like Banquo s ghost to warn No things can only get worse 201 According to Amy Britton the album showed not everyone was ready to join the party instead tapping into another feeling felt throughout the UK pre millennial angst huge corporations were impossible to fight against this was the world OK Computer soundtracked not the wave of British optimism 202 In an interview Yorke doubted that Blair s policies would differ from the preceding two decades of Conservative government He said the public reaction to the death of Princess Diana was more significant as a moment when the British public realised the royals had had us by the balls for the last hundred years as had the media and the state 35 The band s distaste with the commercialised promotion of OK Computer reinforced their anti capitalist politics which would be further explored on their subsequent releases 203 Critics have compared Radiohead s statements of political dissatisfaction to those of earlier rock bands David Stubbs said that where punk rock had been a rebellion against a time of deficit and poverty OK Computer protested the mechanistic convenience of contemporary surplus and excess 204 Alex Ross said the album pictured the onslaught of the Information Age and a young person s panicky embrace of it and made the band into the poster boys for a certain kind of knowing alienation as Talking Heads and R E M had been before 49 Jon Pareles of The New York Times found precedents in the work of Pink Floyd and Madness for Radiohead s concerns about a culture of numbness building docile workers and enforced by self help regimes and anti depressants 205 The album s tone has been described as millennial 33 206 or futuristic 207 anticipating cultural and political trends According to The A V Club writer Steven Hyden in the feature Whatever Happened to Alternative Nation Radiohead appeared to be ahead of the curve forecasting the paranoia media driven insanity and omnipresent sense of impending doom that s subsequently come to characterise everyday life in the 21st century 208 In 1000 Recordings to Hear Before You Die Tom Moon described OK Computer as a prescient dystopian essay on the darker implications of technology oozing with a vague sense of dread and a touch of Big Brother foreboding that bears strong resemblance to the constant disquiet of life on Security Level Orange post 9 11 209 Chris Martin of Coldplay remarked that It would be interesting to see how the world would be different if Dick Cheney really listened to Radiohead s OK Computer I think the world would probably improve That album is fucking brilliant It changed my life so why wouldn t it change his 210 The album inspired a radio play also titled OK Computer which was first broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 2007 The play written by Joel Horwood Chris Perkins Al Smith and Chris Thorpe interprets the album s 12 tracks into a story about a man who awakens in a Berlin hospital with memory loss and returns to England with doubts that the life he s returned to is his own 211 Influence Edit A lot of people have taken OK Computer and said This is the yardstick If I can attain something half as good I m doing pretty well But I ve never heard anything really derivative of OK Computer which is interesting as it shows that what Radiohead were doing was probably even more complicated than it seemed Josh Davis DJ Shadow 212 The whole sound of it and the emotional experience crossed a lot of boundaries It tapped into a lot of buried emotions that people hadn t wanted to explore or talk about James Lavelle 213 The release of OK Computer coincided with the decline of Britpop nb 4 Through OK Computer s influence the dominant UK guitar pop shifted toward an approximation of Radiohead s paranoid but confessional slurry but catchy approach 214 Many newer British acts adopted similarly complex atmospheric arrangements for example the post Britpop band Travis worked with Godrich to create the languid pop texture of The Man Who which became the fourth best selling album of 1999 in the UK 215 Some in the British press accused Travis of appropriating Radiohead s sound 216 Steven Hyden of AV Club said that by 1999 starting with The Man Who what Radiohead had created in OK Computer had already grown much bigger than the band and that the album went on to influence a wave of British rock balladeers that reached its zenith in the 00s 208 OK Computer s popularity influenced the next generation of British alternative rock bands nb 5 and established musicians in a variety of genres have praised it nb 6 Bloc Party 217 and TV on the Radio 218 listened to or were influenced by OK Computer TV on the Radio s debut album was titled OK Calculator as a lighthearted tribute 219 Radiohead described the pervasiveness of bands that sound like us as one reason to break with the style of OK Computer for their next album Kid A 220 Although OK Computer s influence on rock musicians is widely acknowledged several critics believe that its experimental inclination was not authentically embraced on a wide scale Footman said the Radiohead Lite bands that followed were missing OK Computer s sonic inventiveness not to mention the lyrical substance 221 David Cavanagh said that most of OK Computer s purported mainstream influence more likely stemmed from the ballads on The Bends According to Cavanagh The populist albums of the post OK Computer era the Verve s Urban Hymns Travis s Good Feeling Stereophonics Word Gets Around Robbie Williams Life thru a Lens effectively closed the door that OK Computer s boffin esque inventiveness had opened 11 John Harris believed that OK Computer was one of the fleeting signs that British rock music might have been returning to its inventive traditions in the wake of Britpop s demise 222 While Harris concludes that British rock ultimately developed an altogether more conservative tendency he said that with OK Computer and their subsequent material Radiohead provided a clarion call to fill the void left by Britpop 222 The Pitchfork journalist Marc Hogan argued that OK Computer marked an ending point for the rock oriented album era as its mainstream and critical success remained unmatched by any rock album since 223 OK Computer triggered a minor revival of progressive rock and ambitious concept albums with a new wave of prog influenced bands crediting OK Computer for enabling their scene to thrive Brandon Curtis of Secret Machines said Songs like Paranoid Android made it OK to write music differently to be more experimental OK Computer was important because it reintroduced unconventional writing and song structures 47 Steven Wilson of Porcupine Tree said I don t think ambition is a dirty word any more Radiohead were the Trojan Horse in that respect Here s a band that came from the indie rock tradition that snuck in under the radar when the journalists weren t looking and started making these absurdly ambitious and pretentious and all the better for it records 224 In 2005 Q named OK Computer the tenth best progressive rock album 225 Reissues and compilations EditRadiohead left EMI the parent company of Parlophone in 2007 after failed contract negotiations EMI retained the copyright to Radiohead s back catalogue of material recorded while signed to the label 226 After a period of being out of print on vinyl OK Computer was reissued as a double LP EMI on 19 August 2008 as part of the From the Capitol Vaults series along with other Radiohead albums 227 OK Computer became the tenth bestselling vinyl record of 2008 selling almost 10 000 copies 228 The reissue was connected in the press to a general climb in vinyl sales and cultural appreciation of records as a format 229 230 2009 Collector s Edition reissue Edit Professional ratings Collector s Edition 2009 Review scoresSourceRatingAllMusic 231 The A V ClubA 232 Paste100 100 233 Pitchfork10 10 234 Rolling Stone 235 Q 236 Uncut 237 EMI reissued OK Computer again on 24 March 2009 alongside Pablo Honey and The Bends without Radiohead s involvement The reissue came in two editions a 2 CD Collector s Edition and a 2 CD 1 DVD Special Collector s Edition The first disc contains the original studio album the second disc contains B sides collected from OK Computer singles and live recording sessions and the DVD contains a collection of music videos and a live television performance 238 All the material on the reissue had been previously released and the music was not remastered 239 240 Press reaction to the reissue expressed concern that EMI was exploiting Radiohead s back catalogue Larry Fitzmaurice of Spin accused EMI of planning to issue and reissue Radiohead s discography until the cash stops rolling in 238 Pitchfork s Ryan Dombal said it was hard to look at these reissues as anything other than a cash grab for EMI Capitol an old media company that got dumped by their most forward thinking band 239 Daniel Kreps of Rolling Stone defended the release saying While it s easy to accuse Capitol of milking the cash cow once again these sets are pretty comprehensive 241 The reissue was critically well received although reception was mixed about the supplemental material Reviews in AllMusic 231 Uncut 237 Q 236 Rolling Stone 235 Paste 233 and PopMatters 242 praised the supplemental material but with reservations A review written by Scott Plagenhoef for Pitchfork awarded the reissue a perfect score arguing that it was worth buying for fans who did not already own the rare material Plagenhoef said That the band had nothing to do with these is beside the point this is the final word on these records if for no other reason that the Beatles September 9 remaster campaign is arguably the end of the CD era 234 The A V Club writer Josh Modell praised the bonus disc and DVD and said the album was the perfect synthesis of Radiohead s seemingly conflicted impulses 232 Radiohead Box Set and XL reissues Edit In 2007 EMI released Radiohead Box Set a compilation of albums recorded while Radiohead were signed to EMI including The Bends 243 In April 2016 XL Recordings acquired Radiohead s back catalogue The EMI reissues released without Radiohead s approval were removed from streaming services 244 In May 2016 XL reissued Radiohead s back catalogue on vinyl including OK Computer 245 OKNOTOK 1997 2017 Edit Main article OK Computer OKNOTOK 1997 2017 On 23 June 2017 Radiohead released a 20th anniversary OK Computer reissue OKNOTOK 1997 2017 on XL The reissue includes a remastered version of the album plus eight B sides and three previously unreleased tracks I Promise Man of War and Lift The special edition includes books of artwork and notes and an audio cassette of demos and session recordings including previously unreleased songs 246 OKNOTOK debuted at number two on the UK Album Chart 247 boosted by Radiohead s third headline performance at Glastonbury Festival 248 It was the best selling album in independent UK record shops for a year 249 MiniDiscs Hacked Edit Main article MiniDiscs Hacked In early June 2019 nearly 18 hours of demos outtakes and other material recorded during the OK Computer period leaked online On 11 June Radiohead made the archive available to stream or purchase from the music sharing site Bandcamp for 18 days with proceeds going to the environmental advocacy group Extinction Rebellion 250 Track listing EditAll tracks are written by Thom Yorke Jonny Greenwood Philip Selway Ed O Brien and Colin Greenwood Airbag 4 44 Paranoid Android 6 23 Subterranean Homesick Alien 4 27 Exit Music For a Film 4 24 Let Down 4 59 Karma Police 4 21 Fitter Happier 1 57 Electioneering 3 50 Climbing Up the Walls 4 45 No Surprises 3 48 Lucky 4 19 The Tourist 5 24Personnel EditNigel Godrich committing to tape audio level balancing Radiohead committing to tape music Thom Yorke Jonny Greenwood Philip Selway Ed O Brien Colin Greenwood Stanley Donwood pictures The White Chocolate Farm pictures Gerard Navarro studio assistance Jon Bailey studio assistance Chris Scard studio assistance Chris King Fader Blair mastering Nick Ingman string conducting Matt Bale additional artworkCharts EditWeekly charts Edit Weekly chart performance for OK Computer Chart 1997 2017 PeakpositionAustralian Albums Chart 251 7Austrian Albums Chart 252 17Belgian Albums Chart Flanders 253 1Belgian Albums Chart Wallonia 253 3Canadian RPM Albums Chart 254 2Dutch Albums Chart 255 2Finnish Albums Chart 256 10French Albums Chart 257 3German Albums Chart 258 13Hungarian Albums Chart 259 39Irish Albums Chart 260 2Italian Albums Chart 261 9New Zealand Albums Chart 262 1Norwegian Albums Chart 263 4Spanish Albums Chart 264 42Scottish Albums OCC 265 1Swedish Albums Chart 266 3Swiss Albums Chart 267 40UK Albums OCC 268 1US Billboard 200 269 21 Year end charts Edit 1997 year end chart performance for OK Computer Chart 1997 PositionAustralian Albums Chart 270 72Belgian Albums Chart Flanders 271 23Belgian Albums Chart Wallonia 272 23Dutch Albums Chart 273 40European Albums Chart 274 16French Albums Chart 275 28New Zealand Albums Chart 276 10Swedish Albums Chart 277 68UK Albums Chart 278 8US Billboard 200 279 1871998 year end chart performance for OK Computer Chart 1998 PositionAustralian Albums Chart 280 86Canadian RPM Albums Chart 281 69European Albums Chart 282 19New Zealand Albums Chart 283 19UK Albums Chart 284 41US Billboard 200 285 1421999 year end chart performance for OK Computer Chart 1999 PositionUK Albums OCC 286 1822002 year end chart performance for OK Computer Chart 2002 PositionCanadian Alternative Albums Nielsen SoundScan 287 1802007 year end chart performance for OK Computer Chart 2007 PositionBelgian Midprice Albums Ultratop Flanders 288 39Certifications and sales EditSales certifications for OK Computer Region Certification Certified units salesArgentina CAPIF 289 Platinum 60 000 Australia ARIA 290 Platinum 70 000 Belgium BEA 291 2 Platinum 100 000 Canada Music Canada 292 5 Platinum 500 000 France SNEP 293 2 Gold 200 000 Italy FIMI 294 sales since 2009 Platinum 50 000 Japan RIAJ 295 Gold 100 000 Netherlands NVPI 296 Platinum 100 000 New Zealand RMNZ 297 Platinum 15 000 Norway IFPI Norway 298 Gold 25 000 Spain PROMUSICAE 299 Gold 50 000 Sweden GLF 300 Gold 40 000 Switzerland IFPI Switzerland 301 Gold 25 000 United Kingdom BPI 302 5 Platinum 1 579 415 141 United States RIAA 303 2 Platinum 2 000 000 SummariesEurope IFPI 304 3 Platinum 3 000 000 Sales figures based on certification alone Shipments figures based on certification alone Sales streaming figures based on certification alone Notes EditFootnotes Edit Conversely other critics have also argued that OK Computer is a concept album only in part or in a nontraditional or qualified sense or is not a concept album at all See Letts 2010 pp 28 32 For example the line in a deep deep sleep of the innocent from Airbag is rendered as gt in a deep deep sssleep of tHe inno ent completely terrified See Footman 2007 p 45 The LA Times reported US sales of 1 4 million in 2001 before Nielsen SoundScan had begun tracking digital sales in 2003 therefore this amount only included non digital sales on CD cassette and LP Forbes reported 2 5 million in digital sales and 900 000 in album equivalent units in 2016 bringing the US total to at least 3 9 million or 4 8 million with album equivalent units BBC News reported 3 million in sales across Europe in 2006 bringing the worldwide total to at least 6 9 million or 7 8 million with album equivalent units Music Week reported that the album had sold 1 5 million units in the UK by 2017 however the 2006 European sales figure included UK sales up to that time and as such adding the 2017 UK sales figure to the total would result in erroneous double counting of UK units sold before 2006 Exact sales figures from other territories are not known OK Computer has certainly sold more than 7 8 million units worldwide but it is impossible to say how many more with any certainty Britpop which reached its peak popularity in the mid 1990s and was led by bands such as Oasis Blur and Pulp was typified by nostalgic homage to British rock of the 1960s and 1970s The genre was a key element of the broader cultural movement Cool Britannia Starting in 1997 a number of events marked the end of the genre s heyday these included Blur spurning the conventional Britpop sound on Blur and Oasis Be Here Now failing to live up to the expectations of critics and the public See Footman 2007 pp 177 178 Specifically critics have cited the album s influence on Muse Coldplay Snow Patrol Keane Travis Doves Badly Drawn Boy Editors and Elbow See Aza Bharat 15 June 2007 Ten years of OK Computer and what have we got The Guardian archived from the original on 6 August 2011 Eisenbeis Hans July 2001 The Empire Strikes Back Spin Richards Sam 8 April 2009 Album review Radiohead Reissues Collectors Editions Uncut archived from the original on 6 December 2010 retrieved 29 August 2011 Musicians who have praised the album include R E M frontman Michael Stipe former Smiths guitarist Johnny Marr DJ Shadow Guns N Roses guitarist Slash Manic Street Preachers member Nicky Wire The Divine Comedy frontman Neil Hannon Mo Wax label owner James Lavelle Sonic Youth and Gastr del Sol member and experimental musician Jim O Rourke former Depeche Mode member Alan Wilder and contemporary composer Esa Pekka Salonen See Bidwell Chad 25 February 1999 Jim O Rourke Ink 19 archived from the original on 31 March 2017 retrieved 11 May 2017 Cavanagh David February 2007 Communication Breakdown Uncut Smith RJ September 1999 09 Radiohead OK Computer Spin Timberg Scott 28 January 2003 The maestro rocks Los Angeles Times archived from the original on 6 August 2011 retrieved 5 August 2011 Turner Luke 9 May 2011 Alan Wilder of Recoil amp Depeche Mode s 13 Favourite LPs Page 8 The Quietus archived from the original on 6 September 2011 retrieved 6 September 2011 Citations Edit OK Computer Rolling Stone Rolling Stone 10 July 1997 Retrieved 29 April 2022 Christgau Robert 2000 R Christgau s Consumer Guide Albums of the 90s St Martin s Griffin ISBN 0312245602 Retrieved 11 June 2020 via robertchristgau com 10 Essential 90s Alt Rock Albums Treble 25 July 2013 Retrieved 3 May 2021 a b c d Cantin Paul 19 October 1997 Radiohead s OK Computer confounds expectations Ottawa Sun a b Richardson Andy 9 December 1995 Boom Shake the Gloom NME Footman 2007 p 113 a b c d e f g h i Irvin Jim July 1997 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certifications Radiohead OK Computer Recording Industry Association of America Retrieved 25 September 2012 IFPI Platinum Europe Awards 2006 International Federation of the Phonographic Industry Retrieved 25 September 2012 Bibliography Edit Britton Amy 2011 Revolution Rock The Albums Which Defined Two Ages AuthorHouse ISBN 978 1 4678 8710 6 Clarke Martin 2010 Radiohead Hysterical and Useless London Plexus ISBN 978 0 85965 439 5 Footman Tim 2007 Welcome to the Machine OK Computer and the Death of the Classic Album New Malden Chrome Dreams ISBN 978 1 84240 388 4 Griffiths Dai 2004 OK Computer 33 series New York Continuum International Publishing Group ISBN 0 8264 1663 2 Harris John 2004 Britpop Cool Britannia and the Spectacular Demise of English Rock Cambridge Da Capo Press ISBN 0 306 81367 X Letts Marianne Tatom 2010 Radiohead and the Resistant Concept Album How to Disappear Completely Profiles in Popular Music Bloomington Indiana Indiana University Press ISBN 978 0 253 35570 6 Lynskey Dorian 2011 33 Revolutions per Minute A History of Protest Songs from Billie Holiday to Green Day HarperCollins ISBN 978 0 06 167015 2 Moon Tom 2008 OK Computer 1 000 Recordings to Hear Before You Die New York Workman pp 627 628 ISBN 978 0 85965 439 5 Archived from the original on 6 August 2011 Randall Mac 2000 Exit Music The Radiohead Story New York Delta Trade Paperbacks ISBN 0 385 33393 5 Ross Alex 2010 Listen to This New York Farrar Straus and Giroux ISBN 978 0 374 18774 3 Sheffield Rob 2004 Radiohead In Brackett Nathan Hoard Christian eds The New Rolling Stone Album Guide New York Fireside ISBN 0 7432 0169 8 External links EditOK Computer at Discogs list of releases Retrieved from https en wikipedia org w index php title OK Computer amp oldid 1143110920, wikipedia, wiki, book, books, library,

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