OK Computer
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The album's design is a collage of images and text by Stanley Donwood, who is credited with design on several Radiohead covers. Some of the text is hidden, including several phrases in Esperanto. Translations into English can be found in the unofficial Radiohead FAQ (see External links).
The album was recorded at St Catherine's Court, the country house of Jane Seymour near Bath, and mixed at Abbey Road Studios. Bassist Colin Greenwood said about the album: "I think the overall mood on the record is starker than The Bends. I think that there is a consistent sound to 80 percent of the new album. I think we made things a little bit more extreme on this record. The important thing for us on this record was that we produce it ourselves. We had to learn how to make decisions amongst the six of us. There was the five people in the band and the engineer/mixer Nigel Godrich. We learned a lot from doing it on our own and in retrospect, we are very proud of this record."
According to singer Thom Yorke, OK Computer also represented a change in his style of 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. l 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. Why? How can you indulge in self-analysis when all this amazing shit's going on?"
OK Computer was released on June 16, 1997 in the United Kingdom and on July 1 in the United States. Greatly expanding the band's US popularity, it became the last Radiohead album with a delayed release on one side of the Atlantic. Subsequent albums have been issued just one day later in North America, where Tuesday release dates are traditional in the music industry. It as sold over 2 million copies in the USA (double platinum)
The working title for the album was "Ones and Zeroes" [link].
Recording history and trivia
By July 1996, Canned Applause was set up for recording. It was the first time the band had attempted to cut album tracks outside of a conventional studio environment. Despite the experimental and unconventional setting, four songs from Canned Applause found their way onto the album. The songs were "Subterranean Homesick Alien", "Electioneering", "The Tourist" and "No Surprises".At late July and August, they returned briefly for touring to present and try the new songs. In September they moved to St. Catherine's Court – a mansion owned by actress Jane Seymour – where they recorded the rest of OK Computer, without pressure. They 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. A couple of songs – "Exit Music (For a Film)" and "Let Down" – were recorded live. By Christmas 1996, the album was finished, and in February and March was mixed. Guitarist Ed O'Brien said: "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."
- "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.
- "Paranoid Android", a reference to the depressed robot Marvin from Douglas Adams's The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, is an amalgamation of three songs, and in an earlier form ended with a long organ solo. The chord progression of the verses bears a strong similarity to the beginning of Mother Nature's Son, a song on The Beatles' White Album, which was one of the most listened-to albums during the recording session. Some of the lyrics were written after Yorke went to a Los Angeles bar and saw one particularly wild woman screaming after another patron accidentally spilled a drink on her, becoming the "kicking squeeling gucci little piggy [sic]" of the song. Yorke later discovered that the rest of the bar's patrons had been taking cocaine.
- "Subterranean Homesick Alien" is a play on the title of Bob Dylan's Subterranean Homesick Blues, while the lyrics may reference Neil Young's "After the Gold Rush". It was written by Thom after his car stalled in the middle of a dirt track, as noted in the line "I wish that they'd swoop down in a country lane, late at night when I'm driving". 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. The chord progression and vocal melody on the verses are lifted from Nick Drake's song "Parasite," from the album Pink Moon.
- "Exit Music (For a Film)" was recorded in the chilly stone entrance hall. Of this song Thom Yorke said, "It was the first performance that we recorded where every note of it makes me really happy." It was originally commissioned by Baz Luhrmann for Romeo + Juliet but Thom asked for it to be left off the soundtrack because it was too personal. The song plays during the film's closing credits. Drummer Phil Selway performed the drum track in a room filled with teddy bears.
- "Let Down" was recorded at 3am in a ballroom. It was originally not on the tracklist 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 achieves the "crashing" machine sound. 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.
- "Electioneering" has been suspected of being guitarist Jonny Greenwood's least favoured on the album, and the band have not often played the song live since the tours supporting "OK Computer". He once said that "it's just guitar noise." However, this is thrown into doubt by Jonny's statement that he enjoys playing the song, which includes an energetic lead guitar part. Thom Yorke says this song was written as if it done by "a preacher in front of a set of microphones." Also, the cowbell instrument is played on this song.
- "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 probably came from Yorke's experience as an orderly in a mental hospital. The climax of the song includes sixteen violinists playing a part influenced by the Polish composer Krzysztof Penderecki. Each of the violins were 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 the quiet life" and speaks out against the ever quickening pace of society.
- "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 the charity album Help, released in 1995, and only an inability to improve on the song saw it released on the album in identical form.
- "The Tourist" was written entirely by Jonny while sitting in a park in Paris watching tourists quickly moving and not acknowledging the beautiful place around them.
References to other works
OK Computer is often seen as depicting a world out of science fiction, and its artwork contains references to George Orwell's novels. It has been argued that the songs can be linked to characters and events in Nineteen Eighty-Four (see External links).The album also contains several references to The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams, chiefly in "Paranoid Android," whose title comes from the nickname of the depressed robot Marvin. The lyrics "when I am king, you will be first against the wall" also echo a similar line in the books, stating the marketing department of the Cyrius Cybernetics Corporation would "be the first against the wall when the revolution comes." Even the title of the album likely came from a line in the book where one of the characters says "OK computer" to Eddie the computer.
The band maintain that although the songs have a common theme centred around modern living, and they are fans of Orwell and Adams ("Lucky" was even seen by some as an homage to the theme music of a BBC radio version of Hitchhiker's), any "story" is unintentional and they do not deem OK Computer to be a concept album in the tradition of progressive rock. However, since each song appears to be from the viewpoint of a different person in the modern world (a fact admitted in interviews by Thom Yorke), a case has been made that it is, at least, a thematically cohesive album about the present, perhaps using futuristic technological imagery to make its sociopolitical points, rather than to create its own fictional sci-fi narrative.
Acclaim
OK Computer is consistently featured on 'best albums' lists, and has been seen by some critics as one of the most significant rock albums ever recorded. It received a number one placing in a 1998 Q magazine poll in which readers were asked to name the "greatest album of all time," and achieved top placement once again in 2005. In 1997 it was placed at number 7 in a 'Music of the Millennium' poll conducted by HMV, Channel 4, The Guardian and Classic FM; while in 2003 the TV network VH1 placed it at number 94. The album also came in at number one in the Top 100 Albums programme broadcast on Channel 4 on April 17, 2005 in the United Kingdom. In 2004 it placed number 5 on MuchMoreMusic's 40 Best Albums of the Past 25 Years. In 2003, Pitchfork Media placed it at number one in a list of 100 Best Albums of the 1990s. And in June 2005 it was named as Spin Magazine's number one album of the years 1985-2004 [link]. On the 4/5/2006 the album was certified 2 times Platinum by the RIAA> In 2003, the album was ranked number 162 on Rolling Stone magazine's list of the 500 greatest albums of all time.
Track listing
All tracks written by Thom Yorke, Jonny Greenwood, Phil Selway, Ed O'Brien, and Colin Greenwood.- "Airbag" – 4:44
- "Paranoid Android" – 6:23
- "Subterranean Homesick Alien" – 4:27
- "Exit Music (For a Film)" – 4:25
- "Let Down" – 4:59
- "Karma Police" – 4:22
- "Fitter Happier" – 1:57
- "Electioneering" – 3:51
- "Climbing Up the Walls" – 4:45
- "No Surprises" – 3:49
- "Lucky" – 4:20 [sample]
- "The Tourist" – 5:25
- "Paranoid Android", "Karma Police" and "No Surprises" were released as singles; "Airbag" was released as part of the Airbag/How Am I Driving? EP in 1998.
- "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, Help.
References
External links
- [Archive of OK Computer and 1984 Comparison Thesis], from defunct fan site "followmearound.com"
- [OK Computer: A Post-Apocalyptic, Dystopian Interpretation]
- [Unofficial Radiohead FAQ]
- [BBC Radio 2 Review.]
- [Album lyrics]
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