OK Computer

Untitled

OK Computer is the third album by the English rock band Radiohead, released in 1997. A commercial success, the album greatly expanded the band's popularity worldwide, marking Radiohead's highest entry in the American market at the time, where it debuted at #21. Because of its unexpected popularity, OK Computer became the last Radiohead album with a delayed release outside of the United Kingdom. As of January 2007, OK Computer has been certified double platinum in the US and triple platinum in the UK.

OK Computer's popularity stemmed from its themes of alienation from the modern world and an expansive, anthemic sound. Critically acclaimed, the album is often cited as Radiohead's best work and a landmark record of the 1990s. In 1998, it was nominated for a Grammy award as Album of the Year, winning for Best Alternative Music Album. Although OK Computer was seen to put the group at the forefront of modern rock music, it departed from the Britpop and alternative rock styles popular at the time, laying the groundwork for the band's later, more abstract albums.

According to singer Thom Yorke, OK Computer also represented a change in his style of writing lyrics, away from the personal concerns of Pablo Honey and The Bends: "On this album, the outside world became all there was, and the most irrelevant material took on stunning beauty and breathlessness. This is because I had sorted the internal stuff out. I wrote down what was around always and my singing 'identity' felt very loose... I'm just taking Polaroids of things around me, moving too fast."

Background

After recording their previous album, The Bends, with veteran Abbey Road Studios producer John Leckie, Radiohead decided to strike out on their own. According to bassist Colin Greenwood, "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." The Bends had been a hit, so the band's record label Parlophone was willing to oblige, allowing them the freedom to work with engineer Nigel Godrich. Although Godrich was younger than any member of the band, and virtually unknown, he had assisted Leckie on The Bends and had already produced several Radiohead B-sides, as well as the 1995 charity single "Lucky".

Recording and production

In early 1996, "Canned Applause", a converted apple shed near Didcot, Oxfordshire, had been set up for rehearsal and recording. It was the first time Radiohead had attempted to record outside of a conventional studio environment. Greenwood said, "we bought $140,000 worth of studio gear to record the album with. We had this mobile studio type of thing going where we could take it all into studios to capture those environments. We recorded about 35 percent of the album in our rehearsal space." Four songs from Canned Applause found their way onto the album: "Subterranean Homesick Alien", "Electioneering", "No Surprises" and "The Tourist".

In late July and August 1996, the band took a brief break from recording to tour, immediately playing several European festivals, where they debuted new songs, including "Airbag". Then, opening for Alanis Morissette in large North American venues, the band performed early versions of songs such as "Paranoid Android", "Let Down", "Climbing Up the Walls" and "Karma Police". During summer 1996, "Paranoid Android" reportedly evolved from a "14-minute" song featuring long organ solos, to a version closer to the one heard on the album. Yorke said, "I think that [because] we were standing in front of 10,000 people in a shed (industry parlance for "indoor amphitheatre") who really weren't that interested in what we were [playing] forced us to do a lot of tidying up of the songs really, really fast... there was something about playing in... huge, sterile concrete structures that was really important to the songs. Because a lot of the songs needed to sound quite big and messy and like they were bouncing off walls."

In September, the band resumed recording, but according to Colin, "in a reaction to that stark, dreary place [Canned Applause] we recorded the other two-thirds of the record in this opulent country house." Along with Godrich, the band moved to St. Catherine's Court — a historic mansion near Bath, owned by actress Jane Seymour — where OK Computer was completed without record label pressure. However, there was another sort of deadline. One of the first songs completed was "Exit Music (For a Film)", which had been commissioned by director Baz Luhrmann for his Romeo + Juliet adaptation arriving in cinemas later that year.

Guitarist and multi-instrumentalist Jonny Greenwood said, "the main difference in the atmosphere [from past albums] was in... the studio experience. We were all of the same age, mid- to late-twenties, and doing a record in the middle of nowhere. And there were no established professionals there. It wasn't a real recording studio, and we had our friend [Stanley Donwood] doing the artwork in the studio at the same time. We were all at the same stage of our life and all working together for something, it was quite a buzz".

The band made much use of the various different rooms and atmospheres throughout the house, and the isolation from the outside world encouraged time to run at a different pace, making working hours more flexible and spontaneous. Guitarist Ed O'Brien, commenting on the process, said he felt that "the biggest pressure was actually completing it. 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". However, the band decided they wanted a new record out by summer, and work was therefore finished by January 1997, and by March 1997, it was mixed at Abbey Road.

Marketing and release

According to Selway, "When we first delivered the album to Capitol, their first reaction was, more or less, `Commercial suicide'. They weren't really into it. At that point, we got The Fear. How is this going to be received?" Jonny Greenwood said, "they made a prediction of how many records they planned to sell of OK Computer, before they heard the record. And then they heard the record, and cut the prediction in a half or a quarter, I think."

Although the band's record label "didn't hear anything on OK Computer that sounded even remotely like a single, let alone like 'Creep'", Radiohead chose the six-and-a-half-minute "Paranoid Android" as their lead single anyway. The song charted at #3 in the UK, giving Radiohead their highest single chart position yet. However, due to its length and the lack of a radio edit, the song was not widely played on other radio stations around the world. Subsequent singles "Karma Police" and "No Surprises" did not chart quite as high, but both were within the UK top 10, and "Karma Police" became a hit on alternative and modern rock radio in the United States. It was the band's first American hit since "Creep", as US radio had largely ignored Radiohead's singles from The Bends.

As OK Computer was released during the waning days of Britpop and during sweeping political changes in the United Kingdom, it was seen by critics to encompass popular opinion in the UK, with its themes of hope, explaining its enthusiastic reaction in that country. The band also credited the album's success to their record label, for enthusiastic marketing. Parlophone undertook an unorthodox advertising campaign for the album, taking out full-page ads in high-profile British newspapers and tube stations, which featured the lyrics for "Fitter Happier" written in large black letters on a white background. In America, Capitol Records president Gary Gersh, when asked about the campaign after the album's release, said "We won't let up until they are the biggest band in the world".

"When we were cocooned in the studio making OK Computer, we were immensely proud of it," said Ed O'Brien. "But the longer the recording process went on, the less sure we became-it's very difficult to be objective, anyway. When the tapes went off to record company people alI over the world, the marketing people were not exactly optimistic about how it would sell, apart from the UK, which unanimously thought it was fantastic. So we were a little nervous, because we want people to hear our music. There's a lesson to be learned from the album's success. It underlines the fact that radio and record companies underestimate what the general public are capable of listening to. This is not above people's heads. We're people, and we're making it; other people can get it too."

Musical style

According to Thom Yorke, Radiohead "had a sound in our heads that we had to get on to tape... 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... and composers like Penderecki, which is sort of atmospheric, atonal weird stuff. We weren't listening to any pop music at all, but not because we hated pop music - because what we were doing was pop music... Bitches Brew by Miles Davis was the starting point of how things should sound; it's got this incredibly dense and terrifying sound to it. That's [the sound] I was trying to get - that was the sound in my head. The only other place I'd heard it was on a [Ennio] Morricone record. I'd never heard it in pop music...It wasn't like we were being snobs or anything, it was just like, 'This is saying the same stuff we want to say'."

Musical influences specifically cited by the band during this period included:

• DJ Shadow, Endtroducing... (1996) album, on the "cut up drums" of "Airbag".
• The Beatles, "Happiness Is a Warm Gun", on the three-part song structure of "Paranoid Android". The band also said they had played "I Am the Walrus" in the house for inspiration during the OK Computer recording sessions.
• Ennio Morricone, particularly on "Exit Music (For a Film)".
• Pixies, on "Paranoid Android".
• Queen's "Bohemian Rhapsody", on "Paranoid Android". The press often compared the two songs, as well. Jonny Greenwood said, "It's not actually complex enough to be 'Bohemian Rhapsody'."
• Johnny Cash inspired the acoustic guitar part of "Exit Music." According to Yorke, "If you listen to the rhythm at the beginning... it starts off like a... song from prison tapes [most likely At Folsom Prison or At San Quentin]... I get spine tingles every time I play that. You can hear the audience willing him on."
• Krzysztof Penderecki was an influence on Greenwood's string arrangement for "Climbing Up the Walls".
• Nick Drake was praised by Thom Yorke during this time.
• Pink Floyd's Meddle (1971) album was highly praised by guitarist Jonny Greenwood during this time. However, Greenwood criticized other Pink Floyd albums, and the genre of "progressive rock". OK Computer received heavy comparison by the press to Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon (1973).
• Miles Davis's Bitches Brew was cited by Jonny as influencing much of his playing style.
• Phil Spector's "wall of sound" production style, as an influence on "Let Down".
• The Beach Boys' Pet Sounds, on the guitar sound of "No Surprises"
• Titles of songs by Indeep and Bob Dylan were referenced in songs on the album.

Artwork and concept

The album's cover design is a collage of images and text by Stanley Donwood, who is credited with design on several Radiohead covers, along with Yorke. Some of the art is computer-made collages, created by Yorke; other art is hand-drawn work by Donwood. Some of the text is hidden, including several phrases in Esperanto. Yorke explained the artwork's theme, saying, "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. It's quite sad, and quite funny as well. All the artwork and so on...we chose to pursue it after we [finished the album]...It was all the things that I hadn't said in the songs."

OK Computer is often thought to depict a dystopia, and its artwork contains references to George Orwell's novels, especially Nineteen Eighty-Four. The band have cited Orwell several times throughout their career. However, Yorke said, "Loads of the music on OK Computer is extremely uplifting. It's only when you read the words that you'd think otherwise." A notable aspect of the album is an apparently circular narrative. In the opening song "Airbag", someone survives a horrific car crash, while the final song "The Tourist" contains the line "they ask me where the hell I'm going / at a thousand feet per second" and ends with a chorus of "hey man, slow down". However, the band said this had not been intentional, but they had noticed it after finalising the track listing.

Yorke explained the title's meaning: "We did this promo trip recently to Japan, and on the last day, we were in a record shop and this one kid shouted at the top of his voice, 'OK COMPUTER!', really, really loud. Then he had 500 people chant it all at once...I got it on tape. It sounds amazing. It reminds me of when Coca-Cola did 'I'd Like to Teach the World to Sing', that amazing advert in '70...The idea of every race and every nation drinking this soft drink...it's actually a really resigned, terrified phrase..." "OK Computer" was originally the title of a song recorded for the album, which did not make the cut, but was later renamed "Palo Alto" and released as a B-side and on the EP Airbag/How Am I Driving?.

Radiohead maintain that although the songs have themes in common—speed, technology, the global economy, and modern life in the UK—any clear "story" is unintentional and they do not deem OK Computer to be a concept album. Yorke also denied that OK Computer was a strictly personal album, saying that each song on the album was a "polaroid" from the viewpoint of a different person, even inspiring him to vary his vocal style in each song.

However, the band maintained that the album was meant to be heard as a whole. O'Brien said, "We spent two weeks track-listing the album. The context of each song is really important...It's not a concept album but there is a continuity there. We learned the importance of track-sequencing from Pablo Honey, because that's one of the most dreadfully sequenced records ever."

Acclaim

OK Computer has been one of the most widely acclaimed albums of the 1990s, appearing in many critics' lists and audience polls. Examples:

• It was nominated for the 1997 Mercury Music Prize.
• In 2006, it was chosen by TIME Magazine as one of the 100 best albums of all time.
• In 2001, the TV network VH1 placed it at number 94 in a list of greatest albums.
• In 2005, it was voted number 1 in a poll of 100 Greatest Albums conducted by the UK's Channel 4.
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• In 2003 New Musical Express named it the 16th greatest album of all time.
• In 2003, Pitchfork Media placed it at number 1 in a list of Top 100 Albums of the 1990s.
• In 2005, it was selected by Spin Magazine as the number one album of the past 20 years.

Cover versions and legacy

Main article: List of cover versions of Radiohead songs

OK Computer has been cited by a wide range of musicians as an influence. Songs from the album have been widely covered by other acts, and entire OK Computer cover albums in different styles have been released, such as 2006's reggae and dub tribute Radiodread.

Track listing

All tracks written by Thom Yorke, Jonny Greenwood, Phil 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" – 4:22
7. "Fitter Happier" – 1:57
8. "Electioneering" – 3:51
9. "Climbing Up the Walls" – 4:45
10. "No Surprises" – 3:49
11. "Lucky" – 4:20
12. "The Tourist" – 5:25

• "Paranoid Android", "Karma Police" and "No Surprises" were released as singles. Each single's UK release was in two parts (CDs), each containing different B-sides. "Airbag" was not a single, but was released as the lead track of the 1998 Airbag/How Am I Driving? EP, a compilation of many of these OK Computer B-sides.
• "Let Down", "Lucky", and "Climbing Up the Walls" were released either as limited edition singles or promos. The single release of "Lucky" came almost two years before the rest of the album, as it was originally recorded for War Child's 1995 charity compilation, The Help Album. "Let Down" was originally planned as a follow-up single to "Paranoid Android". It was replaced with "Karma Police" when a music video made for "Let Down" was deemed unsatisfactory; the song was, however, released to radio stations in some countries. The "Climbing Up the Walls" promo featured remixes of the song by Zero 7 and Fila Brasilia.

Track information

• "Airbag" was based on singer Thom Yorke's distrust in mechanised transport, brought on by a car accident that Yorke experienced in 1987 with his girlfriend at the time. Thom was unharmed but his girlfriend suffered whiplash; the song was originally titled "Last Night an Airbag Saved My Life", a play on "Last Night a DJ Saved My Life", a song by Indeep. The song contains sleigh bells, and the guitar riff is doubled on a cello.
• "Paranoid Android" is an amalgamation of three songs, inspired by the The Beatles song "Happiness Is a Warm Gun", where three songs are similarly blended together. In an earlier form the song ended with a long organ solo, and the final version makes use of mellotron, earning comparisons to 1970s progressive rock. Some of the lyrics were written after Yorke went to a Los Angeles bar and saw a high woman screaming after another patron accidentally spilled a drink on her, becoming the "kicking squealing gucci little piggy" of the song. The title may reference the depressed robot Marvin from Douglas Adams' Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, while the line, "When I am king you will be first against the wall" may pay tribute to the Hitchhiker's Guide description of the marketing division of the Sirius Cybernetics Corporation as "a bunch of mindless jerks who'll be the first against the wall when the revolution comes."
• "Subterranean Homesick Alien" is a play on the title of Bob Dylan's "Subterranean Homesick Blues". It was written by Thom after his car stalled in the middle of a dirt track. He also based some of the lyrics on an essay he wrote in school describing what would happen if an alien landed in your garden.
• "Exit Music (For a Film)" appeared in the end credits of Baz Luhrmann's 1996 Romeo + Juliet film, but Thom asked for it to be left off the film's soundtrack album because it was being saved for the band's own album. Yorke had originally tried to write lyrics using only Shakespeare's actual text from the play, before settling on allusive lyrics.
• "Let Down" was recorded early in the morning in a ballroom. The song contains several guitar parts playing at the same time in different time signatures. It was originally not on the track list of the album, but earned its place as it was felt to be perfect following Exit Music. A video made for the song, said to include collages similar to the album cover, and slow motion footage of the band performing, was deemed not suitable for release.
• The ending sound of "Karma Police" comes from a tape delay machine that distorted the sound when the repeat time is shortened and the feedback is placed at 100%. This effect, made by guitarist Ed O'Brien, achieves the "crashing" machine sound. The piano riff of the song has been noted for its similarities to the Beatles' song "Sexy Sadie".
• "Fitter Happier" is 'sung' by a computer voice similar to the voice Stephen Hawking's computer uses. However, it is in fact that of the default voice for MacinTalk Pro spoken text software on Apple Computer's Power Macintosh. Thom wrote the lyrics originally planning to sing them himself, but said the effect was strangely more emotional when he tried having them "read" by the computer. This song contains one of the first piano parts in a Radiohead song written by Thom Yorke, as Yorke was just beginning to play piano at the time.
• "Electioneering" has been suspected of being guitarist Jonny Greenwood's least favoured on the album. He said in 1998, "Seems like there's always a song or two on every album, which is kind of a dead end, and isn't going anywhere. I don't know about OK Computer, but I'm starting to think that 'Electioneering' is the end of something for us. It's alright, but there's nothing to come after it, that's it, maybe." The band have never played the song live since the tours supporting OK Computer. Thom Yorke says this song was written as if done by "a preacher in front of a set of microphones" and cited the writing of Noam Chomsky as the main inspiration. However, Ed O'Brien said that "Electioneering" was about how the band was required to go out and sell their albums like a politician has to sell himself.
• "Climbing Up the Walls" was the first track the band had recorded that they believed to be "scary". The lyrics and idea of the song originally came from Yorke's experience as an orderly in a mental hospital. The string arrangement on the song was by guitarist Jonny Greenwood, and was Greenwood's first such arrangement on a Radiohead album. The climax of the song includes sixteen violinists, each tuned half a step apart.
• An early form of "No Surprises" entitled "No Surprises, Please", featured completely different lyrics, except for the titular chorus, which spoke of a man waiting for his girlfriend. This is a stark contrast to the later lyrics which deal with wanting to lead a "quiet life". One of the main instruments in the song is a glockenspiel.
• "Lucky" evolved from Ed experimenting with his effects pedal line up at the sound check for a concert in Japan, where he was strumming the strings above the nut. This sound can be heard on the intro to "Lucky". The song was originally recorded for Help, a charity project released in 1995. It was one of the first songs the band had recorded with producer Nigel Godrich, and only an inability to improve on the song saw it released on the album in identical form.
• "The Tourist" was written by Jonny while sitting in a park in Paris watching tourists quickly moving and not acknowledging the beautiful place around them. It was a last minute addition as the album's final track.

Release history

OK Computer was released in various countries in 1997.

Country	Date	Label	Format	Catalogue numbers
United Kingdom	June 16, 1997	Parlophone	CD	7243 8 55229 2 5
United States	July 1, 1997	Capitol Records	CD	7243 8 55229 2 5

External links

• Making OK Computer – quotes by band members on the process
• The album, song by song – 1997 interview with the band
• OK Computer and 1984 Comparison Thesis (archived from defunct fan site Follow Me Around)