OK Computer

The Radiohead deep dive, and the several 10s along the way. Part 4/14

And from the first chord on Airbag, I was a Radiohead fan.

This is where the reviews are gonna start to get a bit more in depth.

OK Computer was my introduction to Radiohead, the first album I listened to by them, and I still remember sitting in one of the guest rooms at my grandparent's house, late at night, I think I was the only one left in the house still awake, listening to this thing for the first time. I had heard of Radiohead of course, I knew they were this legendary band that everyone loves, but I just never cared to listen to any of their music for some reason. It was pretty dark, the only light in the room was light pouring in from the hallway, everything felt so still, somewhat cold and isolated, and then I heard the very start of Airbag, that noisy, dirty sounding guitar, as more and more layers got added to the song, and finally Thom Yorke's voice. The song fit perfectly, I can't describe it, but hopefully the description I've given you is good enough for you to understand, and if it isn't, listen to this album late at night in a dark room in your grandparents' house, it will not disappoint, believe me.

Taken straight from the Wikipedia page for OK Computer, "The lyrics depict a dystopian world fraught with rampant consumerism, capitalism, social alienation, and political malaise, with themes such as transport, technology, insanity, death, modern British life, globalization and anti-capitalism." which is something I think about a lot. In a way, OK Computer is a concept album about a dark future riddled with corruption, but it's hard to think of it as a concept album today. Looking back on it now, it can be hard to think of OK Computer as anything other than a message sent back from the future, warning 1997 of what was coming in the less than 30 years to come.

This album feels cold and isolated, and it warns of a future that has slowly become the present, I have no doubt that OK Computer was an effective piece of art in the 90s, but it feels like it was meant to be listened to today, it feels like music warning of the future, intended to be looked back on when that future is actively happening.

Maybe Thom Yorke could see the future, maybe it's a big coincidence, or maybe the writing had been on the wall. It's not like consumerism, capitalism, and political malaise only became a thing after the year 2000, the world wasn't as overrun with those things as it is now, but it didn't NOT have those things, so as much as it feels like Radiohead could see the future, maybe they had just understood the trajectory things were going, I feel like a lot of people probably understood where we were going, maybe not to the extend we're at now, but at least a little bit, it couldn't have been impossible to guess, this album just gives us that prediction in a way that feels different, feels prophetic.

Of course, I can talk about the writing and where I listened to the album, but I mean, it's a music review, gotta talk about the music. This album is such a trip, the production is so odd, unconventional, messy, but it fits everything so well, and Thom Yorke's singing adds to the strange vibe this album has, with his long drawn out words, and how at points his words can sort of melt together, everything feels a bit weird, but in a perfect way.

OK Computer is a strange, beautiful, dark, thought-provoking masterpiece of a record, and in my opinion, the greatest rock album of all time.