OK Computer

Background

In 1995, Radiohead toured in support of their second album, The Bends (1995). Midway through the tour, Brian Eno commissioned them to contribute a song to The Help Album, a charity compilation organised by War Child; the album was to be recorded over the course of a single day, 4 September 1995, and rush-released that week. Radiohead recorded "Lucky" in five hours with Nigel Godrich, who had engineered The Bends and produced several Radiohead B-sides. Godrich said of the session: "Those things are the most inspiring, when you do stuff really fast and there's nothing to lose. We left feeling fairly euphoric. So after establishing a bit of a rapport work-wise, I was sort of hoping I would be involved with the next album."{{citation

Radiohead found touring stressful and took a break in January 1996. They sought to move away from the introspective style of The Bends. The drummer, Philip Selway, said: "There was an awful lot of soul-searching [on The Bends]. To do that again on another album would be excruciatingly boring." Yorke said he did not want to do "another miserable, morbid and negative record", and was "writing down all the positive things that I hear or see. I'm not able to put them into music yet and I don't want to just force it."{{citation

The critical and commercial success of The Bends gave Radiohead the confidence to self-produce their third album. Their label, Parlophone, gave them a £100,000 budget for recording equipment.{{citation | author-link = Jim Irvin

Recording

In early 1996, Radiohead recorded demos at Chipping Norton Recording Studios, Oxfordshire. In July, they began rehearsing and recording in their Canned Applause studio, a converted shed near Didcot, Oxfordshire. Even without the deadline that contributed to the stress of The Bends, the band had difficulties, which Selway blamed on their choice to self-produce: "We're jumping from song to song, and when we started to run out of ideas, we'd move on to a new song ... The stupid thing was that we were nearly finished when we'd move on, because so much work had gone into them."{{citation

The members worked with nearly equal roles in the production and formation of the music, though Yorke was still firmly "the loudest voice", according to O'Brien. Selway said, "We give each other an awful lot of space to develop our parts, but at the same time we are all very critical about what the other person is doing." Godrich's role as co-producer was part collaborator and part managerial outsider. He said that Radiohead "need to have another person outside their unit, especially when they're all playing together, to say when the take goes well ... I take up slack when people aren't taking responsibility—the term 'producing a record' means taking responsibility for the record ... It's my job to ensure that they get the ideas across."{{citation

Radiohead decided that Canned Applause was an unsatisfactory recording location, which Yorke attributed to its proximity to the band members' homes, and Jonny Greenwood attributed to its lack of dining and bathroom facilities. They had nearly completed "Electioneering", "No Surprises", "Subterranean Homesick Alien" and "The Tourist". They took a break from recording to tour America in 1996, opening for Alanis Morissette, performing early versions of several new songs. Greenwood said his main memory of the tour was of "playing interminable Hammond organ solos to an audience full of quietly despairing teenage girls".

During the tour, Baz Luhrmann commissioned Radiohead to write a song for his upcoming film Romeo + Juliet and gave them the final 30 minutes of the film. Yorke said: "When we saw the scene in which Claire Danes holds the Colt .45 against her head, we started working on the song immediately." Soon afterwards, Radiohead wrote and recorded "Exit Music (For a Film)", which plays over the film's end credits but was excluded from the soundtrack album at their request. The song helped shape the direction of OK Computer. Yorke said it "was the first performance we'd ever recorded where every note of it made my head spin—something I was proud of, something I could turn up really, really loud and not wince at any moment".

Radiohead resumed recording in September 1996 at St Catherine's Court, a historic mansion near Bath owned by the actress Jane Seymour. It was unoccupied but sometimes used for corporate functions. The change of setting marked an important transition in the recording process. Greenwood said it "was less like a laboratory experiment, which is what being in a studio is usually like, and more about a group of people making their first record together".

The band made extensive use of the different rooms and acoustics in the house. The vocals on "Exit Music (For a Film)" feature natural reverberation achieved by recording on a stone staircase, and "Let Down" was recorded in a ballroom at 3 am. Isolation allowed the band to work at a different pace, with more flexible and spontaneous working hours. O'Brien said that "the biggest pressure was actually completing [the recording]. 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." | author-link = John Harris (critic)

Yorke was satisfied with the recordings made at the house, and enjoyed working without audio separation, meaning that instruments were not overdubbed separately. O'Brien estimated that 80 per cent of the album was recorded live, and said: "I hate doing overdubs, because it just doesn't feel natural. ... Something special happens when you're playing live; a lot of it is just looking at one another and knowing there are four other people making it happen."{{citation

Radiohead returned to Canned Applause in October for rehearsals, and completed most of OK Computer in further sessions at St. Catherine's Court. By Christmas, they had narrowed the track listing to 14 songs. Additional recording took place at the Church in Crouch End, London. The strings were recorded at Abbey Road Studios in London in January 1997. Godrich mixed OK Computer at various London studios. He preferred a quick and "hands-off" approach to mixing, and said: "I feel like I get too into it. I start fiddling with things and I fuck it up ... I generally take about half a day to do a mix. If it's any longer than that, you lose it. The hardest thing is trying to stay fresh, to stay objective." OK Computer was mastered by Chris Blair at Abbey Road and completed on 6 March 1997.

Music and lyrics

Style and influences

Yorke said Radiohead's starting point was the "incredibly dense and terrifying sound" of Bitches Brew, the 1970 avant-garde jazz fusion album by Miles Davis. He said: "It was building something up and watching it fall apart, that's the beauty of it. It was at the core of what we were trying to do with OK Computer."{{citation

According to Yorke, Radiohead hoped to achieve an "atmosphere that's perhaps a bit shocking when you first hear it, but only as shocking as the atmosphere on the Beach Boys' Pet Sounds". They extended their instrumentation to include electric piano, Mellotron and glockenspiel. Jonny Greenwood summarised the exploratory approach as "when we've got what we suspect to be an amazing song, but nobody knows what they're gonna play on it".{{citation | access-date = 6 April 2020

Critics suggested a stylistic debt to 1970s progressive rock, an influence Radiohead disavowed.{{citation | author-link = Kelefa Sanneh | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20170612062331/http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/06/19/the-persistence-of-prog-rock | archive-date = 12 June 2017 | url-status = live}} According to Andy Greene in Rolling Stone, Radiohead "were collectively hostile to seventies progressive rock ... but that didn't stop them from reinventing prog from scratch on OK Computer, particularly on the six-and-a-half-minute 'Paranoid Android'." Tom Hull believed the album was "still prog, but may just be because rock has so thoroughly enveloped musical storytelling that this sort of thing has become inevitable". Writing in 2017, The New Yorkers Kelefa Sanneh said OK Computer "was profoundly prog: grand and dystopian, with a lead single that was more than six minutes long".

Lyrics

The lyrics, written by Yorke, are more abstract compared to his personal, emotional lyrics for The Bends. Critic Alex Ross said the lyrics "seemed a mixture of overheard conversations, techno-speak, and fragments of a harsh diary" with "images of riot police at political rallies, anguished lives in tidy suburbs, yuppies freaking out, sympathetic aliens gliding overhead." Themes include transport, technology, insanity, death, modern British life, globalisation and anti-capitalism. Yorke said: "On this album, the outside world became all there was ... I'm just taking Polaroids of things around me moving too fast." | author-link = John Sakamoto

The songs of OK Computer do not have a coherent narrative, and the lyrics are generally considered abstract or oblique. Nonetheless, many critics, journalists, and scholars consider it a concept album or song cycle, noting its strong thematic cohesion, aesthetic unity, and the structural logic of the sequencing.Conversely, other critics have also argued that OK Computer is a concept album only in part, or in a nontraditional or qualified sense, or is not a concept album at all. See Letts 2010, pp. 28–32 Although the songs share common themes, Radiohead said they did not intend to link them through a narrative and do not consider OK Computer a concept album.{{citation

Composition

Tracks 1–6

The opening track, "Airbag", is underpinned by a beat built from a seconds-long recording of Selway's drumming. The band sampled the drum track with a sampler and edited it with a Macintosh computer, inspired by the music of DJ Shadow, but admitted to making approximations in emulating Shadow's style due to their programming inexperience.{{cite journal |archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20121003065151/http://www.guitarworld.com/radiohead_the_golden_age_of_radiohead?page=0,3 |archive-date = 3 October 2012 |url-status = dead

Split into four sections with an overall running time of 6:23, "Paranoid Android" is among the band's longest songs. The unconventional structure was inspired by the Beatles' "Happiness Is a Warm Gun" and Queen's "Bohemian Rhapsody", which also eschew a traditional verse-chorus-verse structure. Its musical style was also inspired by the music of the Pixies. The song was written by Yorke after an unpleasant night at a Los Angeles bar, where he saw a woman react violently after someone spilled a drink on her. Its title and lyrics are a reference to Marvin the Paranoid Android from Douglas Adams's The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy series.

The use of electric keyboards in "Subterranean Homesick Alien" is an example of Radiohead's attempts to emulate the atmosphere of Bitches Brew.{{citation | author-link = Caitlin Moran

William Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet inspired the lyrics for "Exit Music (For a Film)". Initially Yorke wanted to work lines from the play into the song, but the final draft of the lyrics became a broad summary of the narrative. He said: "I saw the Zeffirelli version when I was 13 and I cried my eyes out, because I couldn't understand why, the morning after they shagged, they didn't just run away. It's a song for two people who should run away before all the bad stuff starts." Yorke compared the opening of the song, which mostly features his singing paired with acoustic guitar, to Johnny Cash's At Folsom Prison. Mellotron choir and other electronic voices are used throughout the track. The song climaxes with the entrance of drums and distorted bass run through a fuzz pedal.{{citation

"Let Down" contains multilayered arpeggiated guitars and electric piano. Jonny Greenwood plays his guitar part in a different time signature to the other instruments. O'Brien said the song was influenced by Phil Spector, a producer and songwriter best known for his reverberating "Wall of Sound" recording techniques. The lyrics, Yorke said, are about a fear of being trapped, and "about that feeling that you get when you're in transit but you're not in control of it—you just go past thousands of places and thousands of people and you're completely removed from it". Of the line "Don't get sentimental / It always ends up drivel", Yorke said: "Sentimentality is being emotional for the sake of it. We're bombarded with sentiment, people emoting. That's the Let Down. Feeling every emotion is fake. Or rather every emotion is on the same plane whether it's a car advert or a pop song." Yorke felt that scepticism of emotion was characteristic of Generation X and that it had informed the band's approach to the album.{{citation

"Karma Police" has two main verses that alternate with a subdued break, followed by a different ending section.{{cite web | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20101210235903/http://allmusic.com/song/karma-police-t1416670 | archive-date = 10 December 2010 | url-status = live}} The verses centre around acoustic guitar and piano, with a chord progression indebted to the Beatles' "Sexy Sadie". Starting at 2:34, the song transitions into an orchestrated section with the repeated line "For a minute there, I lost myself". It ends with feedback generated with a delay effect. The title and lyrics to "Karma Police" originate from an in-joke during The Bends tour; Jonny Greenwood said "whenever someone was behaving in a particularly shitty way, we'd say 'The karma police will catch up with him sooner or later.

Tracks 7–12

"Fitter Happier" is a short musique concrète track that consists of sampled musical and background sound and spoken-word lyrics recited by "Fred", a synthesised voice from the Macintosh SimpleText application. Yorke wrote the lyrics "in ten minutes" after a period of writer's block while the rest of the band were playing. He described the words as a checklist of slogans for the 1990s; he considered it "the most upsetting thing I've ever written",{{citation

Steve Lowe called the song "penetrating surgery on pseudo-meaningful corporations' lifestyles" with "a repugnance for prevailing yuppified social values". Among the loosely connected imagery of the lyrics, Footman identified the song's subject as "the materially comfortable, morally empty embodiment of modern, Western humanity, half-salaryman, half-Stepford Wife, destined for the metaphorical farrowing crate, propped up on Prozac, Viagra and anything else his insurance plan can cover." Sam Steele called the lyrics "a stream of received imagery: scraps of media information, interspersed with lifestyle ad slogans and private prayers for a healthier existence. It is the hum of a world buzzing with words, one of the messages seeming to be that we live in such a synthetic universe we have grown unable to detect reality from artifice."{{citation

"Electioneering", featuring a cowbell and a distorted guitar solo, is the album's most rock-oriented track and one of the heaviest songs Radiohead has recorded. It has been compared to Radiohead's earlier style on Pablo Honey. The cynical "Electioneering" is the album's most directly political song, with lyrics inspired by the poll tax riots. The song was also inspired by Chomsky's Manufacturing Consent, a book analysing contemporary mass media under the propaganda model. Yorke likened its lyrics, which focus on political and artistic compromise, to "a preacher ranting in front of a bank of microphones". Regarding its oblique political references, Yorke said, "What can you say about the IMF, or politicians? Or people selling arms to African countries, employing slave labour or whatever. What can you say? You just write down 'Cattle prods and the IMF' and people who know, know." O'Brien said the song was about the promotional cycle of touring: "After a while you feel like a politician who has to kiss babies and shake hands all day long."

"Climbing Up the Walls" – described by Melody Maker as "monumental chaos" – is layered with a string section, ambient noise and repetitive, metallic percussion. The string section, composed by Jonny Greenwood and written for 16 instruments, was inspired by modern classical composer Krzysztof Penderecki's Threnody to the Victims of Hiroshima. Greenwood said, "I got very excited at the prospect of doing string parts that didn't sound like 'Eleanor Rigby', which is what all string parts have sounded like for the past 30 years." Select described Yorke's distraught vocals and the atonal strings as "Thom's voice dissolving into a fearful, blood-clotted scream as Jonny whips the sound of a million dying elephants into a crescendo". For the lyrics, Yorke drew from his time as an orderly in a mental hospital during the Care in the Community policy of deinstitutionalising mental health patients, and a New York Times article about serial killers. He said:

"No Surprises", recorded in a single take,{{citation | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20101210230041/http://allmusic.com/song/no-surprises-t1416673 | archive-date = 10 December 2010 | url-status = live}} The band strove to replicate the mood of Louis Armstrong's 1968 recording of "What a Wonderful World" and the soul music of Marvin Gaye. Yorke identified the subject of the song as "someone who's trying hard to keep it together but can't". The lyrics seem to portray a suicide or an unfulfilling life, and dissatisfaction with contemporary social and political order. Some lines refer to rural{{citation | archive-url = https://archive.today/20130101173137/http://www.music.yahoo.ca/read/interview/12052847 | archive-date = 1 January 2013 | url-status = dead

"Lucky" was inspired by the Bosnian War. Sam Taylor said it was "the one track on [The Help Album] to capture the sombre terror of the conflict", and that its serious subject matter and dark tone made the band "too 'real' to be allowed on the Britpop gravy train".{{citation

The album ends with "The Tourist", which Jonny Greenwood wrote as an unusually staid piece where something "doesn't have to happen ... every three seconds". He said, The Tourist' doesn't sound like Radiohead at all. It has become a song with space."{{citation | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20070814183856/http://music.yahoo.com/read/interview/12048024 | archive-date = 14 August 2007}} The "unexpectedly bluesy waltz" draws to a close as the guitars drop out, leaving only drums and bass, and concludes with the sound of a small bell.

Title

The title OK Computer is taken from the 1978 radio series Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, in which the character Zaphod Beeblebrox speaks the phrase "Okay, computer, I want full manual control now." The members of Radiohead listened to the series on the bus during their 1996 tour and Yorke made a note of the phrase. "OK Computer" was initially a working title for the B-side "Palo Alto". The title stuck with the band; according to Jonny Greenwood, it "started attaching itself and creating all these weird resonances with what we were trying to do".

Yorke said the title "refers to embracing the future, it refers to being terrified of the future, of our future, of everyone else's. It's to do with standing in a room where all these appliances are going off and all these machines and computers and so on ... and the sound it makes." He described the title as "a really resigned, terrified phrase", to him similar to the Coca-Cola advertisement "I'd Like to Teach the World to Sing". Wired writer Leander Kahney suggests that it is an homage to Macintosh computers, as the Mac's speech recognition software responds to the command "OK computer" as an alternative to clicking the "OK" button.{{citation |archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20120413184727/http://www.wired.com/gadgets/mac/commentary/cultofmac/2002/02/50161 |archive-date = 13 April 2012 |url-status = dead

Artwork

The OK Computer artwork is a collage of images and text created by Yorke (credited as the White Chocolate Farm) and Stanley Donwood.{{citation | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20110830190855/http://pitchfork.com/news/40032-take-cover-radiohead-artist-stanley-donwood/ | archive-date = 30 August 2011 | url-status = live

The image of two stick figures shaking hands appears in the liner notes and on the disc label in CD and LP releases. Yorke said the image symbolised exploitation: "Someone's being sold something they don't really want, and someone's being friendly because they're trying to sell something. That's what it means to me." The image was later used on the cover for Radiohead: The Best Of (2008). Explaining the artwork's themes, Yorke said, "It's quite sad, and quite funny as well. All the artwork and so on ... It was all the things that I hadn't said in the songs."

Motifs in the artwork include motorways, aeroplanes, families, corporate logos and cityscapes. The photograph of a motorway on the cover was likely taken in Hartford, Connecticut, where Radiohead performed in 1996. The words "Lost Child" feature prominently, and the booklet artwork contains phrases in the constructed language Esperanto and health-related instructions in both English and Greek. The Uncut critic David Cavanagh said the use of non-sequiturs created an effect "akin to being lifestyle-coached by a lunatic".{{citation | author-link = David Cavanagh

The liner notes contain the full lyrics, rendered with atypical syntax, alternate spelling{{citation |archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20121006181755/http://www.mentalfloss.com/blogs/archives/27053 |archive-date = 6 October 2012 |url-status = dead

Release and promotion

Commercial expectations

According to Selway, Radiohead's American label Capitol saw the album as commercial suicide'. They weren't really into it. At that point, we got the fear. How is this going to be received?"

Marketing

Parlophone launched an unorthodox advertising campaign, taking full-page advertisements in high-profile British newspapers and tube stations with lyrics for "Fitter Happier" in large black letters against white backgrounds. The same lyrics, and artwork adapted from the album, were repurposed for shirt designs. Yorke said they chose the "Fitter Happier" lyrics to link what a critic called "a coherent set of concerns" between the album artwork and its promotional material.

Other unconventional merchandise included a floppy disk containing Radiohead screensavers and an FM radio in the shape of a desktop computer.{{cite news | archive-date = 23 April 2012 | url-status = dead | access-date = 30 September 2011 }} In America, Capitol sent 1,000 cassette players to prominent members of the press and music industry, each with a copy of the album permanently glued inside. Gary Gersh, Capitol's president, said: "Our job is just to take them as a left-of-centre band and bring the centre to them. That's our focus, and we won't let up until they're the biggest band in the world."{{citation

Radiohead planned to produce a video for every song on the album, but the project was abandoned due to financial and time constraints. According to Grant Gee, the director of the "No Surprises" video, the plan was cancelled when the videos for "Paranoid Android" and "Karma Police" went over budget. Also cancelled were plans for the trip hop group Massive Attack to remix the album.

Radiohead's website was created to promote the album, which went live at the time of its release, making the band one of the first to manage an online presence. The first major Radiohead fansite, Atease, was created shortly following the album's release, with its title taken from "Fitter Happier". In 2017, for OK Computers 20th anniversary, Radiohead temporarily restored their website to its 1997 state.

Singles

Radiohead chose "Paranoid Android" as the lead single, despite its unusually long running time and lack of a catchy chorus.{{citation

"Karma Police" was released in August 1997 and "No Surprises" in January 1998. Both singles charted in the UK top ten, and "Karma Police" peaked at number 14 on the Billboard Modern Rock Tracks chart. "Lucky" was released as a single in France, but did not chart. "Let Down", considered for release as the lead single, was issued as a promotional single in September 1997 and charted on the Modern Rock Tracks chart at number 29. In 2025, after it became popular on the social media platform TikTok, "Let Down" became Radiohead's first entry on the Billboard Hot 100 since their 2008 single "Nude".

Tour

Radiohead embarked on the "Against Demons" world tour in promotion of OK Computer, commencing at the album launch in Barcelona on 22 May 1997. They toured the UK and Ireland, continental Europe, North America, Japan and Australasia, concluding on 18 April 1998 in New York. A documentary by Grant Gee following Radiohead on the tour, Meeting People Is Easy, premiered in November 1998.

The tour was taxing for the band, particularly Yorke, who said: "That tour was a year too long. I was the first person to tire of it, then six months later everyone in the band was saying it. Then six months after that, nobody was talking any more." In 2003, Colin Greenwood said the tour was the lowest point in Radiohead's career: "There is nothing worse than having to play in front of 20,000 people when someone—when Thom—absolutely does not want to be there, and you can see that hundred-yard stare in his eyes. You hate having to put your friend through that experience."

The tour included Radiohead's first headline performance at Glastonbury Festival on 28 June 1997. Despite technical problems that almost caused Yorke to abandon the stage, the performance was acclaimed and cemented Radiohead as a major live act. Rolling Stone described it as "an absolute triumph", and in 2004 Q named it the greatest concert of all time. In 2023, the Guardian named it the greatest Glastonbury headline set, writing that "frustration and tension led to the band playing out of their skins, adding a startling potency to a set that confirmed OK Computer as the defining sound of rock's post-Britpop shift".

Sales

OK Computer was released in Japan on 21 May, in the UK on 16 June, in Canada on 17 June and in the US on 1 July. It was released on CD, double-LP vinyl record, cassette and MiniDisc. It debuted at number one in the UK with sales of 136,000 copies in its first week. In the US, it debuted at number 21 on the Billboard 200. It held the number-one spot in the UK for two weeks and stayed in the top ten for several more, becoming the UK's eighth-bestselling record that year.

By February 1998, OK Computer had sold at least half a million copies in the UK and 2million worldwide. By September 2000, it had sold 4.5million copies worldwide.{{citation | archive-date = 18 January 2013 | url-status = live}}{{cite news | archive-date = 6 April 2012 | url-status = live}} In the UK, it was certified gold in June 1997, platinum in July, and five-times platinum in August 2013. It is certified double platinum in the US, in addition to certifications in other markets. By May 2016, Nielsen SoundScan figures showed OK Computer had sold 2.5million digital album units in the US, plus 900,000 sales measured in album-equivalent units. | archive-date = 22 February 2019 | url-status = live | access-date = 29 January 2018 | df = dmy-all Twenty years to the week after its release, the Official Charts Company recorded total UK sales of 1.5million, including album-equivalent units. Tallying American and European sales, OK Computer has sold at least 6.9 million copies worldwide (or 7.8 million with album-equivalent units).The LA Times reported US sales of 1.4 million in 2001, before Nielsen SoundScan had begun tracking digital sales in 2003—therefore, this amount only included non-digital sales on CD, cassette, and LP. Forbes reported 2.5 million in digital sales and 900,000 in album-equivalent units in 2016, bringing the US total to at least 3.9 million (or 4.8 million with album-equivalent units). BBC News reported 3 million in sales across Europe in 2006, bringing the worldwide total to at least 6.9 million (or 7.8 million with album-equivalent units). Music Week reported that the album had sold 1.5 million units in the UK by 2017; however, the 2006 European sales figure included UK sales up to that time and, as such, adding the 2017 UK sales figure to the total would result in erroneous double counting of UK units sold before 2006. Exact sales figures from other territories are not known. OK Computer has certainly sold more than 7.8 million units worldwide, but it is impossible to say how many more with any certainty.

Critical reception

OK Computer has been met with widespread acclaim. Critics described it as a landmark release of far-reaching impact and importance, but noted that its experimentalism made it a challenging listen. According to Tim Footman, "Not since 1967, with the release of Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, had so many major critics agreed immediately, not only on an album's merits, but on its long-term significance, and its ability to encapsulate a particular point in history." In the British press, the album garnered favourable reviews in NME, | access-date = 6 April 2020 | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20000817181703/http://www.nme.com/reviews/reviews/19980101000014reviews.html | archive-date = 17 August 2000 | url-status = dead | author-link = Taylor Parkes | author-link = David Cavanagh | access-date = 11 April 2019 | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20000423190213/http://www.qonline.co.uk/reviews/server.asp?id=18513 | archive-date = 23 April 2000}} Nick Kent wrote in Mojo that "Others may end up selling more, but in 20 years' time I'm betting OK Computer will be seen as the key record of 1997, the one to take rock forward instead of artfully revamping images and song-structures from an earlier era." | author-link = Nick Kent

The album was well received by critics in North America. Rolling Stone, Spin, the Los Angeles Times, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Pitchfork{{citation | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20010303103405/http://www.pitchforkmedia.com/record-reviews/r/radiohead/ok-computer.shtml | archive-date = 3 March 2001 | title = Radiohead: OK Computer: Pitchfork Review | access-date = 16 May 2009 | url-status = dead | author-link = Alex Ross (music critic) | access-date = 29 September 2008 | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20080718150746/http://www.newyorker.com/archive/1997/09/29/1997_09_29_088_TNY_CARDS_000378726 | archive-date = 18 July 2008 | url-status = live

Reviews for Entertainment Weekly,{{citation |author-link = David Browne (journalist) |archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20120930071153/http://www.ew.com/ew/article/0,,20202376,00.html |archive-date = 30 September 2012 |url-status = live | author-link = Greg Kot | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20130118110121/http://articles.chicagotribune.com/1997-07-04/entertainment/9707040186_1_ambition-ugly-star | archive-date = 18 January 2013 | url-status = live |author-link = Christopher John Farley |archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20111112233751/http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,986902,00.html |archive-date = 12 November 2011 |url-status = dead | author-link = Robert Christgau | archive-date = 26 August 2011 | url-status = live

Accolades

OK Computer was nominated for Grammy Awards as Album of the Year and Best Alternative Music Album at the 40th Annual Grammy Awards in 1998,{{cite news | url-status = live | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20160329151642/http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/45225.stm | archive-date = 29 March 2016}} winning the latter.{{cite news | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20160304232050/http://www.nytimes.com/1998/02/26/arts/the-1998-grammy-award-winners.html | archive-date = 4 March 2016}} It was also nominated for Best British Album at the 1998 Brit Awards.{{citation | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20160906163601/http://www.independent.co.uk/news/it-is-size-that-counts-as-roni-wins-mercury-prize-1247754.html | archive-date = 6 September 2016}}

OK Computer was named the best album of the year by Mojo, Vox, Entertainment Weekly, Hot Press, Muziekkrant OOR, HUMO, Eye Weekly and Inpress, and tied for first place with Daft Punk's Homework in The Face. It was named the second-best in NME, Melody Maker, Rolling Stone, Village Voice, Spin and Uncut. Q and Les Inrockuptibles listed the album in their year-end polls.

The praise overwhelmed the band. Jonny Greenwood felt it had been exaggerated because The Bends had been "under-reviewed possibly and under-received". Radiohead rejected links to progressive rock and art rock, despite comparisons to Pink Floyd's 1973 album The Dark Side of the Moon. | archive-date = 3 November 2012 | url-status = live

Legacy

Retrospective appraisal

OK Computer has frequently appeared in professional lists of the greatest albums of all time. A number of publications, including NME, Melody Maker, Alternative Press, Spin,{{citation | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20090622023306/http://pitchfork.com/features/staff-lists/5923-top-100-albums-of-the-1990s/10/ | archive-date = 22 June 2009 | url-status = live |author-link = Josh Tyrangiel |archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20110731085032/http://www.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,1955625_1955759_1956108,00.html |archive-date = 31 July 2011 |url-status = dead | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20160221085312/http://www.metroweekly.com/2014/04/50-best-alternative-albums-of-the-90s/ | archive-date = 21 February 2016}} and Slant Magazine{{cite journal | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20110809110046/http://www.slantmagazine.com/music/feature/best-albums-of-the-90s/251/page_10 | archive-date = 9 August 2011 | url-status = live |archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20110729151012/http://www.rollingstone.com/music/lists/500-greatest-albums-of-all-time-19691231/ok-computer-radiohead-19691231 |archive-date = 29 July 2011 |url-status = dead

Retrospective reviews from BBC Music,{{cite journal | archive-date = 18 August 2011 | url-status = live |author-link = Stephen Thompson (journalist) |archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20110629182946/http://www.avclub.com/articles/radiohead-ok-computer,21296/ |archive-date = 29 June 2011 |url-status = live | archive-date = 9 August 2011 | url-status = live

OK Computer has been cited by some as undeserving of its acclaim. In a poll surveying thousands conducted by BBC Radio 6 Music, OK Computer was named the sixth-most overrated album.{{cite web | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20120408035917/http://www.bbc.co.uk/6music/events/overrated/shortlist.shtml | archive-date = 8 April 2012 | url-status = live | archive-date = 15 October 2011 | url-status = live |archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20110711160441/http://www.nme.com/blog/index.php?blog=140&title=sacred_cows_radiohead_ok_computer&more=1&c=1&tb=1&pb=1 |archive-date = 11 July 2011 |url-status = dead | archive-date = 6 March 2016 | url-status = live

Commentary, interpretation and analysis

OK Computer was recorded in the lead up to the 1997 general election and released a month after the victory of Tony Blair's New Labour government. The album was perceived by critics as an expression of dissent and scepticism toward the new government and a reaction against the national mood of optimism. wrote, "On May 1, 1997, Labour supporters toasted their landslide victory to the sound of 'Things Can Only Get Better.' A few weeks later, OK Computer appeared like Banquo's ghost to warn: No, things can only get worse." According to Amy Britton, the album "showed not everyone was ready to join the party, instead tapping into another feeling felt throughout the UK—pre-millennial angst. ... huge corporations were impossible to fight against—this was the world OK Computer soundtracked, not the wave of British optimism."

In an interview, Yorke doubted that Blair's policies would differ from the preceding two decades of Conservative government. He said the public reaction to the death of Princess Diana was more significant, as a moment when the British public realised "the royals had had us by the balls for the last hundred years, as had the media and the state." The band's distaste with the commercialised promotion of OK Computer reinforced their anti-capitalist politics, which would be further explored on their subsequent releases.

Critics have compared Radiohead's statements of political dissatisfaction to those of earlier rock bands. David Stubbs said that, where punk rock had been a rebellion against a time of deficit and poverty, OK Computer protested the "mechanistic convenience" of contemporary surplus and excess.{{Cite AV media | author-link = Jon Pareles | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20090801142435/http://www.nytimes.com/1997/08/28/arts/miserable-and-loving-it-it-s-just-so-very-good-to-feel-so-very-very-bad.html | archive-date = 1 August 2009 | url-status = live}}

The album's tone has been described as millennial{{citation | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20110724124036/http://www.uncut.co.uk/music/radiohead/special_features/9209 | archive-date = 24 July 2011 | url-status = dead |archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20110801232704/http://www.avclub.com/articles/part-8-1997-the-ballad-of-oasis-and-radiohead,50557/ |archive-date = 1 August 2011 |url-status = live | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20110927075558/http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2005/may/28/popandrock.coldplay | archive-date = 27 September 2011 | url-status = live

The album inspired a radio play, also titled OK Computer, which was first broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 2007. The play, written by Joel Horwood, Chris Perkins, Al Smith and Chris Thorpe, interprets the album into a story about a man who awakens in a Berlin hospital with memory loss and returns to England with doubts that the life he's returned to is his own.{{cite web | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20160304114432/http://drownedinsound.com/news/2494978 | archive-date = 4 March 2016}}

Influence

The release of OK Computer coincided with the decline of Britpop.Britpop, which reached its peak popularity in the mid-1990s and was led by bands such as Oasis, Blur and Pulp, was typified by nostalgic homage to British rock of the 1960s and 1970s. The genre was a key element of the broader cultural movement Cool Britannia. Starting in 1997, a number of events marked the end of the genre's heyday; these included Blur spurning the conventional Britpop sound on Blur and Oasis' Be Here Now failing to live up to the expectations of critics and the public. See Footman 2007, pp. 177–178 Alexis Petridis of The Guardian called the album "the defining sound of rock's post-Britpop shift". Through OK Computers influence, the dominant UK guitar pop shifted toward an approximation of "Radiohead's paranoid but confessional, slurry but catchy" approach.{{citation

OK Computer influenced the next generation of British alternative rock bands,Specifically, critics have cited the album's influence on Muse, Coldplay, Snow Patrol, Keane, Travis, Doves, Badly Drawn Boy, Editors and Elbow. See:

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• {{citation | access-date = 11 May 2017 | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20170331030644/http://ink19.com/1999/02/magazine/interviews/jim-orourke-2 | archive-date = 31 March 2017 | url-status = live
• {{citation | author-link = David Cavanagh
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• {{citation | access-date = 6 September 2011 | archive-url = https://www.webcitation.org/61VQGlUlk | archive-date = 6 September 2011 | url-status = live | access-date = 29 July 2011 | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20110806055102/http://drownedinsound.com/in_depth/8568-introducing-bloc-party | archive-date = 6 August 2011 | url-status = live | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20121102102404/http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/12/AR2007041200693.html | archive-date = 2 November 2012 | url-status = live | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20111209174537/http://www.spin.com/articles/tough-questions-tvotrs-tunde-adebimpe | archive-date = 9 December 2011 | url-status = live | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20110525145608/http://www.hotpress.com/archive/1607168.html | archive-date = 25 May 2011 | url-status = live

Although OK Computers influence on rock is widely acknowledged, several critics believe that its experimental inclination was not authentically embraced on a wide scale. Footman said the "Radiohead Lite" bands that followed were "missing [OK Computer] sonic inventiveness, not to mention the lyrical substance". David Cavanagh said that most of OK Computers purported mainstream influence more likely stemmed from the ballads on The Bends. According to Cavanagh, "The populist albums of the post-OK Computer era—the Verve's Urban Hymns, Travis's Good Feeling, Stereophonics' Word Gets Around, Robbie Williams' Life thru a Lens—effectively closed the door that OK Computers boffin-esque inventiveness had opened." John Harris believed that OK Computer was one of the "fleeting signs that British rock music might [have been] returning to its inventive traditions" in the wake of Britpop's demise. While Harris concludes that British rock ultimately developed an "altogether more conservative tendency", he said that with OK Computer and their subsequent material, Radiohead provided a "clarion call" to fill the void left by Britpop. The Pitchfork journalist Marc Hogan argued that OK Computer marked an "ending point" for the rock-oriented album era, as its mainstream and critical success remained unmatched by any rock album since.

OK Computer triggered a minor revival of progressive rock and ambitious concept albums, with a new wave of prog-influenced bands crediting OK Computer for enabling their scene to thrive. Brandon Curtis of Secret Machines said, "Songs like 'Paranoid Android' made it OK to write music differently, to be more experimental ... OK Computer was important because it reintroduced unconventional writing and song structures." | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20100404071217/http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2006/aug/11/popandrock | archive-date = 4 April 2010 | url-status = live

In 2006, the American reggae band the Easy Star All-Stars released Radiodread, a reggae interpretation of OK Computer. In 2007, the music blog Stereogum released OKX: A Tribute to OK Computer, with covers by artists including Vampire Weekend.

Later releases

Radiohead's record contract with EMI, the parent company of Parlophone, ended in 2003. EMI retained the rights to Radiohead's material recorded under their contract, including OK Computer.{{citation | access-date = 4 February 2015 | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20150204235954/http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/arts/music/article2414653.ece | archive-date = 4 February 2015 | url-status = live | archive-date = 24 September 2010 | url-status = live | archive-date = 31 July 2011 | url-status = live | url-status = dead | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20101101063232/http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/music/features/the-7in-revival--fans-get-back-in-the-groove-870493.html | archive-date = 1 November 2010}} In 2016, Yorke auctioned off a copy of William Blake's Songs of Innocence and of Experience, containing a draft of the "Airbag" lyrics and his own annotations, with proceeds going to Oxfam.

2009 "Collector's Edition" reissue

| archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20090317215443/http://pitchfork.com/news/34391-radioheads-first-three-albums-reissued-and-expanded/ | archive-date = 17 March 2009 | url-status = live}}

AllMusic,{{citation | author-link = Stephen Thomas Erlewine | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20120512104033/https://www.allmusic.com/album/ok-computer-collectors-edition-2cd1dvd-r1503993/review | archive-date = 12 May 2012 | url-status = live}} Uncut,{{citation | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20101206061947/http://www.uncut.co.uk/music/radiohead/reviews/13013 | url-status = dead | archive-date = 6 December 2010}} Q, Rolling Stone,{{citation | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20130122002857/http://www.rollingstone.com/music/albumreviews/ok-computer-collectors-edition-20090430 | archive-date = 22 January 2013 | url-status = live}} Paste{{citation | author-link = Mark Kemp | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20090330005140/http://www.pastemagazine.com/articles/2009/03/radiohead-pablo-honey-the-bends-ok-computer-reissu.html | archive-date = 30 March 2009 | url-status = live | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20090417043256/http://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/12938-pablo-honey-collectors-edition-the-bends-collectors-edition-ok-computer-collectors-edition/ | archive-date = 17 April 2009 | url-status = live}} The A.V. Club writer Josh Modell praised the bonus disc and DVD, and said OK Computer was "the perfect synthesis of Radiohead's seemingly conflicted impulses".{{citation |archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20111015041153/http://www.avclub.com/articles/radiohead,26177/ |archive-date = 15 October 2011 |url-status = live

XL reissues

In April 2016, XL Recordings acquired Radiohead's back catalogue. The EMI reissues, released without Radiohead's approval, were removed from streaming services. In May 2016, XL reissued Radiohead's back catalogue on vinyl, including OK Computer. On 23 June 2017, XL released a remastered 20th-anniversary OK Computer reissue, OKNOTOK 1997 2017. It includes eight B-sides and three previously unreleased tracks: "I Promise", "Man of War" and "Lift". The special edition includes books of artwork and notes and an audio cassette of demos and session recordings, including previously unreleased songs. OKNOTOK debuted at number two on the UK Album Chart, boosted by Radiohead's third headline performance at Glastonbury Festival. It was the best-selling album in independent UK record shops for a year.

''MiniDiscs [Hacked]''

Main article: MiniDiscs (Hacked)

In June 2019, nearly 18 hours of demos, outtakes and other material recorded during the OK Computer period leaked online. On 11 June, Radiohead made the archive available to stream or purchase from the music sharing site Bandcamp for 18 days, with proceeds going to the environmental advocacy group Extinction Rebellion.

Track listing

All tracks are written by Thom Yorke, Jonny Greenwood, Philip Selway, Ed O'Brien and Colin Greenwood.

1. "Airbag" – 4:44
2. "Paranoid Android" – 6:23
3. "Subterranean Homesick Alien" – 4:27
4. "Exit Music (For a Film)" – 4:24
5. "Let Down" – 4:59
6. "Karma Police" – 4:21
7. "Fitter Happier" – 1:57
8. "Electioneering" – 3:50
9. "Climbing Up the Walls" – 4:45
10. "No Surprises" – 3:48
11. "Lucky" – 4:19
12. "The Tourist" – 5:24

Personnel

Personnel adapted from OK Computer liner notes

• Nigel Godrich – committing to tape, audio level balancing
• Radiohead – committing to tape, music, string arrangements
  • Thom Yorke
  • Jonny Greenwood
  • Philip Selway
  • Ed O'Brien
  • Colin Greenwood
• Stanley Donwood – pictures
• The White Chocolate Farm – pictures
• Gerard Navarro – studio assistance
• Jon Bailey – studio assistance
• Chris Scard – studio assistance
• Chris "King Fader" Blair – mastering
• Nick Ingman – string conducting
• Matt Bale – additional artwork

Charts

Weekly charts

Year-end charts

Certifications and sales

• }}

Notes

Footnotes

Citations

Bibliography

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