OK Computer - Radiohead
As previously noted, this is my first listen to the album, although I had heard (and hated)
Pablo Honey many years ago.
"Airbag" isn’t a great start – the drums sound heavily processed, Thom Yorke whines like any other British band of the time and the breakdown near the end with the record scratches doesn’t work in its favour.
"Paranoid Android" is a lot better. A pleasing bit of acoustic jangle at the start and throughout. Thom Yorke is still stretching his vocals into an elongated whine, but I like some of the different movements. Probably a song that will get better the more I hear it as I get used to the different changes. Could do without all the nonsense guitar at the end, though.
"Subterranean Homesick Alien" – There’s some nice atmospherics on this track which is further elevated by the use of the Fender Rhodes piano.
“Exit Music (For a Film)” – I like the melancholy acoustic chords here. Thom Yorke does starts off sounding a bit whiny, a trait that gets worse at the very end of the song.
“Let Down” – Didn’t like it. It drones on without any redeeming features.
“Karma Police” – This is not a bad melancholy pop song where Thom Yorke sounds right for the part. There are some nice minor key changes and even a bit of normal piano playing rather than droning echoes. This could even qualify as the 12th best track on a Crowded House album.
"Fitter Happier" – Why is this track on the album?
"Electioneering" – Some good rattling drums. It’s not great but at least it’s a little different.
"Climbing Up the Walls" – By the time I get to this track, I’m feeling that the production is too muddy for me. There’s a half-decent guitar solo that rises above the murk, but it’s generally an awful song lacking in anything that you’d want to listen to music for.
"No Surprises" – I definitely recognise the start of this song. I knew there would be one (assuming that they didn’t nick the start of this song off Handel or somebody?) There’s a clarity to the sound that’s missing from many of the other songs here. The vocals aren’t too bad either.
"Lucky" – The atmospherics and guitar are good on this. The keyboards in the background and the guitar on top. Finally, here is a track that is perhaps worthy to be called a 90s version of Pink Floyd.
"The Tourist" – A bit too dreary and doesn’t really go anywhere. Ironic for a song called “The Tourist”.
My three biggest takeaways from this album are:-
- Thom Yorke has a slightly annoying, whiny voice. @BlueHammer85 has often claimed that it shouldn’t matter what somebody’s voice sounds like, but I disagree: the voice is a big part of any song and if it gets on your nerves, it’s hard to enjoy the song. It’s not so bad that it ruins the bits I like, and he’s like a lot of indie singers who mumble into the mic with little thought for communication with his audience. Maybe what he’s singing isn’t that important, otherwise he’d try a little harder to get the words over, right?
- The album is missing standout instrumental pieces. Yes, I’m sure that like most bands, the guys in Radiohead are accomplished players, but that doesn’t come across on this recording. If it doesn’t bother you, then that’s fine, but it bothers me. There don’t have to be virtuoso solos every minute, but I need to hear the edge in the guitar, a well-placed riff or hook on the organ or guitar or even a cleverly atmospheric line regardless of its complexity or simplicity. I think the guitar part on “Lucky” and piano in “Subterranean Homesick Alien” were the only times on this album that I felt the instrumental parts were being taken seriously.
- The production. The busy “look-at-me” production. Maybe the production of OK Computer is something that its legion of fans love, but for me it’s too muddy. For the most part, any instruments are lost in the mix. Producer Nigel Goodrich would go on to produce far better sounds for Beck. In fact, comparing this album with Beck’s Sea Change is interesting: in that case, Goodrich helped create a brilliant album that covers a period of loneliness and heartbreak, yet is full of crafty little melodies, instruments placed nicely in the mix with room to breathe and performed by an artist who had actually lived the experience that he is singing about. For all the clever phases on “Paranoid Android”, there’s some downright awful processing of the guitar.
On
OK Computer, there’s nothing in the lyrics that seem to be about anything or anybody, but that’s not a negative or a positive. I like albums with thoughtful lyrics or those that tell stories, but I also like albums where the lyrics are whimsical or just run-of-the-mill words that rhyme.
@FogBlueInSanFran has taken a bit of a beating over his stance against this album, but he’s right about at least one thing (and probably a few more): this record suffers from an appalling lack of melody. It is there, but it’s spread thinner than the last spoonful of jam from the jar on the world’s largest slice of toast.
It's also interesting that he brought up
Dark Side of the Moon. That album is not in the list of my favourite 100 albums – it’s not even my favourite Pink Floyd album – but it’s several levels above
OK Computer. It’s a true concept album that covers themes of alienation and madness with a warmer sound, more humour, better guitar parts, sublime piano and keyboard and more melody. Even if it was only on this basis (and it isn’t) then
OK Computer would be overrated.
Everybody has their favourites, but can you honestly listen to this against
Pet Sounds,
Born to Run,
Revolver,
LZ IV,
Dark Side of the Moon,
Nevermind and say that it holds up? Didn’t think so. Only one of those albums is in my personal top 100, but the point is I can listen to them all and understand
why they regularly feature in lists of the greatest albums of all time. That’s not something I can say of
OK Computer. But I do understand that albums strike a chord in your formative years and stay with you and that clearly explains all the high scores.
In terms of scoring, it’s not an album I’d rush to listen to again. At the same time, I’ve heard a lot worse – some of them on this thread. So that puts it in the 5 – 7 range. I found positive things to say about half the tracks, but the others are poor to rubbish. I don’t think that there’s a song on here that I’d put on a playlist – maybe “Lucky”, but there are a handful that I could happily listen to. Instead, it’s an album where I enjoyed parts of songs such as the piano in "Subterranean Homesick Alien", the acoustics at the start of “Exit Music (For a Film)” and the guitar on “Lucky”, so I’ll go with
5.5/10.
