 |
Radiohead - OK Computer  In the retrospective glow of Kid A and Amnesiac, OK Computer seems a rather accessible, even radio-friendly album by Radiohead's standards. But back before Thom Yorke sucked lemons and Johnny Greenwood spent most of his time on stage flicking between radio stations, things were different. Debut album Pablo Honey only hinted at the promise that came to fruition in their sophomore effort, The Bends, but even the most forward thinking music critic would have struggled to predict the impact Radiohead's next record would have.
OK Computer arrived, like most significant records do, at a time when alternative music had lost its way. It is not often that a band collides so spectacularly with the zeitgeist. Riding the wave of fashion is an easy thing to do. Transcending the current cultural climate, however, is something few groups achieve. Before OK Computer, listeners had to cast their ears back to the moment Supersonic hit the airwaves to find such a marker. What Thom Yorke and his bandmates did was to reintroduce the notion of chart-worthy, original, adventurous music.
Indeed, after repeated listens it becomes all too easy to forget how intense and unsettling a listening experience OK Computer is. Unlike The Bends, which is at base a superlative collection of well-crafted rock songs, OK Computer functions more as a cohesive work. Whilst a song like Fitter Happier or Electioneering would seem weak in comparison to virtually any song off The Bends, when placed amongst the other tracks on OK Computer they take on a new, potent significance. It is a characteristic most great albums share: Sgt. Pepper, Dark Side Of The Moon and Graceland are a few that spring to mind. That is not to say that OK Computer is bereft of standalone brilliance. Karma Police was perhaps the finest alternative radio song released that year, a buzzing, piano driven pop masterpiece, whilst No Surprises was a delicate, urban lullaby that had no right to grace the top ten but still managed it somehow. Then, of course, there was lead single Paranoid Android. More epic than Bittersweet Symphony, almost as complex as Bohemian Rhapsody, and as out there as anything Pink Floyd dared to pen, no band has had the balls or chutzpah to attempt anything quite as bold since.
The reason OK Computer still continues to be considered Radiohead's greatest achievement though, and one of the best albums in the history of popular music, is because it works so superbly as an overall package. Take, for instance, the liner notes. Instantly bold, with a striking white and blue landscape, they are stuffed with fragments of sentences and clues fans continue to pore over to this day. A quick look at Wikipedia will lead you to the possibility that the entire album might have been constructed around George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty Four. Whilst such beard scratching may detract from the main focus – the music – it is a sign of the power the album wields over its listeners. Again, the accompanying music videos display a level of thought and ingenuity Michael Jackson would have applauded. The Beavis and Butthead-lite short for Paranoid Android tapped into the empty teenage ennui, whilst Karma Police and No Surprises are indisputable masterpieces of video making, burning images into your head that meld with the music until you are unsure where the pictures end and the songs begin. Thom Yorke experienced panic attacks during the making of No Surprises. Watch the smile of triumph on his face when he takes that huge gulp of air in, it is not acting.
OK Computer's own peculiar brand of tension comes from this kind of commitment. It is the sound of talented musicians pushing themselves to creative breaking point, constantly driving the songs until they are as full as they can go. Listen to the exulted climax of Let Down, a synchronized cacophony of voice and instrument. The brilliance comes from conflict, not symbiosis, exemplified in the twisted beauty of songs like Subterranean Homesick Alien and The Tourist. They sound simple because their complexity is so well judged. No wonder, then, that the band found themselves close to splitting after the record was released to massive critical and huge commercial acclaim. How do you go further when you know you have gone as far as you can go?
|
