Review: OK Computer

OK Computer

Radiohead

Years ago, as I started to encounter OK Computer at the head of more and more "top album" lists, I developed a bit of contempt for Radiohead and its frothing fanbase. A few of the band's songs ("Creep", "Fake Plastic Trees") occasionally squirreled their way into my playlists, but I always saw their landmark album as an incomprehensible, musically unsound hipster magnet. To my great shame, this rather harsh impression was fueled by nothing more than a few quick listens to the first half of the CD, as well as a cursory glance at the album art. I never actually listened to the whole thing from start to finish!

A few days ago, I decided to finally remedy the situation, quietly looking forward to tearing it apart afterwards. My first listen went just as I expected: only a scattering of the songs sounded interesting, and the lyrics were as obscure as I had remembered them. Score!

But before working myself into a hateful frenzy, I decided to learn a bit more about the album on Wikipedia, which had a surprisingly comprehensive summary of its production history. Unexpectedly, Radiohead came off not as trite and pretentious, but as a serious group of musicians looking to experiment with a wide variety of musical material. Each track had a story and meaning behind it; some were serious ("Climbing Up the Walls"), some originated outside the album ("Exit Music"), and some were even based on jokes ("Paranoid Android"). Most importantly, it was clear that the work was a labor of love.

I gave the album another spin, and to my great surprise, it sounded okay. Good, even. I liked a few more of the songs, and some of the ones that had previously passed me by started to emerge from the din. The lyrics still annoyed me, but their literal importance slowly faded as sound and speech combined to create their own unique meaning. Suddenly, instead of a series of disconnected tracks, I heard alien words suspended in a translucent blue soundscape.

So I'm changing my mind. Maybe all those list-mongers were on to something. Maybe I just forgot how to listen to albums after spending years on nothing more than addictive earworm singles. Some art takes time and context to appreciate; it's a lesson I slowly learned with classical music, and one that I'm surprised to be learning all over again with popular music.

First, the praise. The one thing that OK Computer does perfectly is creating a musical atmosphere. There is such a richness and variety to the sound that every song on the album feels like an immersive, enveloping experience. Each instrument, from the dreamy guitar to the tinkling glockenspiel, sounds perfectly crisp, though the band isn't afraid to ramp up the distortion when needed. Thom Yorke's singing is very proficient with its passionate vibratos and dynamic changes, and all the instrumentalists clearly know what they're doing.

Thematically, the album covers a lot of ground, partly because of its lyrical ambiguity. I really appreciate the fact that Radiohead doesn't get fixated on specific social or political issues as so many contemporaneous albums do, and instead hovers in a more abstract, gestalt-like space. It feels more like a personal meditation than a statement, which makes it an easier album to invest emotionally in.

What's more, the space and ethereality of the music work completely in tandem with the lyrics. (Unabashedly subjective interpretation follows.) Despite the fact that the album focuses on isolation, it's not the usual neurotic kind, but instead one defined by vastness, limitlessness, and velocity. Just look at songs like "Let Down" (reportedly about the feeling you get when you're in transit) and "The Tourist" (with lines like "You ask me where the hell I'm going / At a thousand feet per second"), as well as all the references to vehicles in "Airbag" and "Lucky". It's an isolation that comes from making ourselves freer, a falling out as we zoom past our last remaining frontiers. (I'm reminded of the rocket scene in Act 2 of the anime 5 Centimeters Per Second.) Without the music, the impact (and quite possibly interpretation) of the poetry just wouldn't be the same.

Here are my favorite tracks:

• Paranoid Android – Love the guitar riff in the first part and the counterpoint at the end. Musically, this track is very pleasurable to listen to. I didn't like it much at first because it seemed so serious and grim, but that changed after I discovered it was actually sort of a joke based on a crazy night of drinking.
• Subterranean Homesick Alien – One of the few tracks with lyrics that I actually like. Great atmospheric guitar playing. I love the ramp in musical intensity when Yorke sings "They'd think that I'd finally / Lost it completely".
• Let Down — Beautiful chorus. One of the lighter songs on the album, along with "No Surprises". Used to be my favorite track, but now that I've acclimated to the rest of the album, it feels a bit too plain.
• Climbing Up the Walls – A wonderful trifecta of atmospheric distortion, excellent melody, and haunting lyrics. Love the chromatic neighbor note in the chorus.
• Lucky — The chorus makes this song.
• Tourist — Another brilliant chorus. I love the contrast between the lyrics ("a thousand feet per second") and the ethereal, bullet-time music. Yorke's voice really pulls you in. One of my favorite songs on the album.

With all that said, the album definitely has a few problems. First and foremost, despite their net positive effect, the lyrics and album art still very much reek of pretention to me. It's not just Radiohead's fault — most other modern rock groups write ambiguous lyrics too. (My friend described it as "a puzzle to be solved" for each album.) I don't agree with this approach. I think it's lazy poetry, and reading it by itself leaves me confused and wishing for something better.

In addition, a few of the songs, particularly "Exit Music" and "Karma Police" have fairly unpleasant chord progressions. I was almost completely unable to enjoy those tracks on first listen, and it made me question Radiohead's musical training. (I'll post my analysis a bit later.) Maybe it's just me and my special snowflake ears — everyone else seems to like them just fine.

Wikipedia mentions that the band was inspired by some contemporary classical composers, including Krzysztof Penderecki. Call me a snob, but I'm really glad that popular musicians like Radiohead and Miles Davis discovered contemporary classical music, because they made far better use of it than the original composers did! Penderecki sounds much better at the end of "Climbing Up the Walls" than in his famous Threnody, for sure. I commend Radiohead for daring to experiment with music outside their immediate experience.

One more note. A lot of critics pan bands like Muse, Coldplay, and Elbow for being cheap Radiohead imitators. Even though most of them were, in fact, inspired by OK Computer, they've all developed a sound very different from that of the original album. Indeed, I often enjoy listening to them more than Radiohead. Let's all be friends, eh?

In conclusion, I think OK Computer deserves a solid 4/5 stars (if not more!), despite my longstanding irrational ire. It's a truly marvelous technical and musical feat, with a subtle depth that lies beneath the misleadingly-pretentious surface. I don't think it deserves the rabid praise it's gotten, but it's certainly an album for the ages.