This is a mysterious record. In 1996 I'd heard 'The Bends' and thought 'very pretty ballads' and 'the lad's got a way with words' but euughhh they sound like a Boston tribute band when they plug the guitars in. 'Street Spirit' certainly seemed to point somewhere else - the song construction and atmosphere just seemed to float rather than jump up and down.
A year later, Radiohead were on tv doing 'Paranoid Android'. My head nearly fell off. 6 and a half minutes of yelling, screaming, pleading and whispering within a framework that was more like a beserk mini opera. Where had this come from? Where's his voice going? What's that guitar doing? Panic? Vomit? Crackling pigskin? As Thom Yorke, who was suddenly singing like a choirboy on the edge of a nervous breakdown wanted to know - 'WHAT'S THIS?'
Good question mate. What it - and the rest of the album - seemed to be was one of those creative leaps forward that popular culture can suddenly and inexplicably take. Maybe the band themselves didn't know where it had come from. Yorke in particular seemed totally dazed. Especially when this record overflowing with anger, resentment, disappointment, confrontation, not to mention alien abduction, car crashes, plane crashes, the growing of wings, unborn chicken voices, handshakes of carbon monoxide, girls with Hitler hairdo's and 7/8 time signatures became the pop sensation of the decade. 'WHAT'S THIS'? must have been the question joining the rest of the babble in his brain as he and his band of Oxford schoolpals shot off into the bedlamosphere.
In a way it was incredibly refreshing. Lumpen ladrock ruled. The fact that complex, highly emotional, thought provoking music could still get the tills ringing must have been a total justification. But how, how for gawd's sake? As Yorke would say - 'tune, tune, tune'. 'No Surprises' 'Karma Police' and 'Let Down' are 3 songs with an unmatched combination of lyrical balefulness and exquisite melody. And yes OK fair cop, there was a feel of stadium rock....the thought of 20,000 frat boys holding lighters and bellowing 'IT'S GONNA BE...A BEEEAAAAAAUUUUUTIFUL DAY' probably had Yorke thinking of doing a Cobain. But the songs and arrangements did go for that majestic landscape thing that has the world's youth closing their eyes, lifting their heads to the sky and forgetting, just for a minute, about their pustules.
What you hear now, 10 years later, is a group of people wriggling out of the strait jacket of expectation, refusing the cynical pills the record industry like even more than charlie and trusting themselves to do what they felt was.....necessary. If they felt a song needed 2,000 chords on it - 'Paranoid Android' has still not been properly nailed by any of the You Tube cover merchants - they put 2,000 chords on it. If they felt a track needed a vocoded spoken narrative about going to the gym and cats tied to sticks whilst a voice drones on about space launches, they jolly well went and did it.
That it was all lapped up by the public speaks volumes for the band - and the public. Pink Floyd? Oh come on. Did they ever do a decent tune or spit a lyric like 'kicking screaming gucci little piggy'? Nah. This is the sound of Radiohead.....though it's not a sound, rather an attitude. Hear it again on the opening of Kid A. Did you expect solo electric piano and cut up voices? No? Never mind here it is. Hear it again on 'National Anthem'. Did you expect jazz chaos over a banging bass riff? No? Never mind, here it is. Hear it again on 'Jigsaw...'. Did you expect a pop dynamic even the Sky Sports footie editors can use on their net bulging montages? No? Never mind here it is.
Whether or not this is 'the greatest album ever made' is irrelevant. It's simply OK Computer by Radiohead.. And that's OK by me.
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Top reviews from other countries
- lillyReviewed in the United States on 30 December 2024
I love Radiohead
If you’re just as sad and lonely as me, you’ll love this album.I love Radioheadlilly
Reviewed in the United States on 30 December 2024
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Alexis Romero MoralesReviewed in Mexico on 23 August 2024
El mejor de radiohead (en mi opinión)
La verdad se oye bastante bien, y me gusta el librito de arte, aparte las canciones son muy buenasEl mejor de radiohead (en mi opinión)Alexis Romero Morales
Reviewed in Mexico on 23 August 2024
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