OK Computer is a landmark album - everyone says so,so it is. It was feted when it first came out 20 years ago and is still consistently on album of the 90’s/20th Century/All Time lists.
So what is it that makes it so iconic?
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| Yesterday... |
To be honest I find it hard to tell listening to it again. I’ve not listened to it this century until this re-release and it’s been very nostalgic but less good than I remembered. This isn’t a fault of the album (it’s not you, it’s me), it’s Seinfeld not being funny. ‘Seinfeld Is Unfunny’ is a definition (courtesy of TV Tropes) that refers to something that was groundbreaking at the time but since then it's innovations have become so integrated into the mainstream they’re now clichés. It's hard to listen to the album 20 years and hear certain things afresh - ‘No Surprises’ for instance no longer sounds as lovely and warped (read the lyrics) to me as it maybe once did and instead just puts me in mind of Coldplay’s ‘Yellow’.
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| ...and today |
As Radiohead themselves seemed to have realised at the time, when they moved on to electronic pastures new on their next album. I remember when Kid A came out it was probably my generation’s equivalent of Dylan going electric - something new and exciting (although to my shame at the time I was the guy in the audience shouting “Judas” - I came round a few years later). The band never really looked back, and the majority of the music they did since has generally had greater musical experimentation and emotional depth. OK Computer is good, but to my mind at least 3 of their later albums (Kid A, In Rainbows and last year’s A Moon Shaped Pool) are better.
Anyway, whether an album is iconic or not is irrelevant really. I don’t imagine many bands set out to make an iconic album as their primary goal, and those who do probably fail. The main thing is the songs, which I find still have the ability to entertain and frustrate me in equal measure. The fact is that any album is a snapshot of a band’s work at a specific time and its iconic status is something we imbue on it after the fact.
There’s an article on Pitchfork about OK Computer's lyrics predicting the future (either not an entirely serious one or an appallingly written one) and I think this is entirely the wrong way to interpret the album’s lyrics. The Pitchfork article itself sets up its premise as “a song-by-song breakdown of the album’s most prescient lyrics” then fails to find any and settles for rubbish jokes. OK Computer is in no way prophetic - portentous maybe, but not prophetic. Its lyrics are instead opaque and (with the exception of ‘Electioneering’) uninterested in making a specific point.
If anything the album is ‘about’ alienation and the sense of being out of joint with the rest of the world, which are pretty universal and timeless themes. With this album Radiohead were being hailed as the ‘New Pink Floyd’ (NME journalists, bring unto us your lazy pigeonholes). This was an almost entirely superficial comparison, but there are thematic similarities with Roger Waters’ misanthropy and Thom Yorke’s; Dark Side Of The Moon, which dealt with similar themes of alienation and mental instability, works as a comparison (its famous opening line “I'm mad, I've been mad for fucking years” would fit in as a lyric in just about any Radiohead song).
But musically the styles are different and varied compared to Pink Floyd’s; although there are some Gilmour-esque solos Radiohead’s music is very much their own. The singles from the album are all great, but there is more filler than I remember (maybe that’s too harsh - possibly not filler but the Seinfeld trope kicking in again). Generally speaking ‘Paranoid Android’, ‘Karma Police’, ‘No Surprises’ are the highlights for me along with a few of the others (‘Climbing Up The Walls’ is creepy as hell and I love the crashalong ‘Electioneering’ if nothing else because it sounds like it’s just popped in to say hello from another album), with the rest of the album tracks feeling like a mixed bag to my jaded 21st century ears. I hadn’t remembered songs like ‘Subterranean Homesick Alien’ and ‘Lucky’ despite having heard them many times in the past. I’ve listened to the album 3 times in the last week - including whilst writing this - and can’t remember them now. And ‘Exit Music (For A Film)’ just feels like a parody of Radiohead’s reputation for being a miserable band (perhaps because of the Father Ted episode?).
The revelation for me was ‘Lift’, one of 3 unreleased tracks included on this set. It’s about someone trapped in a lift. Forever. And it sounds great, a gentle start building up to a Britpop-but-not-Britpop guitar crescendo. ‘I Promise’ isn’t as special and ‘Man Of War’ is interestingly more like a Bond theme than their rejected one for Spectre. The B-sides are generally strong and top quality. They’ve also been released on previous re-releases and have been possible to stream and torrent for those interested for years.
The best thing about listening to OK Computer again was frankly the nostalgia factor. The 90s were great, weren’t they? I suspect people who have not heard this album before and listened to it on the basis of its reputation might enjoy it but also feel let down. But then, those people aren’t going to be the target audience of a 20 year anniversary box set re-release, are they?
