**OK Computer** Appreciation Thread

[OldLion]

Being a BOF, I had considered Radiohead too arty and depressing. My 10 yo got into Karma Police from the video and pestered me to at least get the casette in Bali. I'd heard bits of Paranoid Android ( presumably from a video ) but I wasn't prepared for the album at all. A consistant body of original work with enough hooks to keep me totally engaged .. and some thrilling original moments. The whole family got right into it - high rotation in the car - and fortuitously, there was a live concert on MTV (?) which was extraordinary. Their subsequent work hasn't grabbed me as much ( I need hooks ! ) but that album is in my all time top 10 .. which comes as a surprise to my greying contemporaries. Does anyone know if there are any good live concert DVDs , esp. around that time ?

 

[rick James]

OK Computer is not even my favourite radiohead album.

The Bends is better imo, but by and large I'm not a masive radiohead fan. the following albums are better than OK Computer:

Revolver - the beatles
Paid In Full - Eric B. and Rakim
Hard to Earn - Gangstarr
Elliot Smith - self titled
The Bends - Radiohead

and many more... but karma police is a GREAT song and paranoid android is fantastic too

 

[UNIT]

Thom : "I was ********ed in a club, and I suddenly had the funniest thought I'd had for ages - what if all the people who were drinking were hanging from the bottles... if the bottles were hung from the ceiling with string, and the floor caved in, and the only thing that kept everyone up was the bottles? It's also about an enormous fear of being trapped."

God Thom Yorke is full of sxxx.

 

[Silent Alarm]

Good thread. Reading a lot about Radiohead at 16-18 I still hadn't heard some of the facts in here, so that was cool. Always good to hear other opinions and some enlightenment on albums like this, too. Phenomenal album and along with Kid A and TOTBL, something too special to ever really listen to too often. I got into this band and album through my parents – who liked Karma Police, No Surprises, Paranoid Android, all those obvious numbers. I remember being about 14 and downloading it and not thinking it was any good at all. When it hit, it hit.

I think it's pretty underrated in the spectrum of emotions it goes through. It's always so compared to being about alienation and de-sensitivity but it's a great album for young people – as much as Is This It or Silent Alarm. It's so angry at yourself, your friends, your society, your government, just normal young shit most young men have to come to terms with and grit their teeth over. It's also incredibly romantic in places (but of course completely depressing in its romance) and obviously just hollow and gutted in other places...

The call about CUTW is pretty spot-on as well. I remember turning the lights off as well one night, listening to this, and having to sit back upright and turn on the lamp – it was scary. I have never felt anything like that from a song again. It sounds like there's something else in there... it's amazing.

I always liked this video as well. I remember watching this show when it aired about 10 years ago and it still resonates with me... it was the first time I'd ever thought about music in a way like that.


While I think the subject matter ended up looking a bit blunt as we all got over technology, it is an amazing zeitgeist. It sounds like saturated TV and the time between a VCR and a DVD player, between buying Kodak and having a Olympus that charged at the wall. Thom's best lyrics on here too... and their best non-album songs... pretty unadventurous when you look at the rest of the stuff they've made but bloody hell, they nailed what they were going for. We should have sent this album into space with capsule that showed what humans look like...