25 years of 'OK Computer'

Fitter. Happier. A pig. In a cage. On antibiotics.

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I missed the Radio 4 programme but might catch up on it later.
Anyway how do we feel about this seminal album now? Where would you rank it in the Radiohead discography? Let's rate all the songs as well.
 
It's remarkable to think of the accelerated development of Radiohead from Pablo Honey to The Bends to OK Computer to Kid A in 7 years. Each album was a massive leap from its predecessor and set up a legacy with which they have struggled ever since. They fared best with "In Rainbows" which slots in for me just behind "Kid A".

OKC felt spectacular - they were simultaneously in-step and out-of-step; guitars were in but they were twisting them beyond recognition at some points and letting them sing at others ("Let Down" being the most glorious example of the latter). They used robotic voices and strings. They used synth bass but just the once. They straddled the tedious "real music" orthodoxy of 1997 and the more experimental heads who were unimpressed with the way Britpop had solidified into Dadrock and were finding little in the mainstream. They were, in essence, the acceptable face of Prog Rock and had several buckets of tunes as well as a desire to shake themselves up on each album. It's a cracking album, flows wonderfully from end to end but it was that one last quantum leap that secured their status. That's for another time, tho'.
 
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Climbing Up The Walls

In retrospect, this was the harbinger of what was to come. The voice is distorted and, at times, hard to understand. The overall atmosphere is eerie, occluded, threatening - this is the gloaming. The strings play in both traditional and untraditional modes (the quarter tones at the end which sound like a chorus of sirens). Ed O'Brien's guitar in the verses is for sound effects rather than melody or rhythm. The bass is a synth. Almost all the key building blocks of Kid A are here.

Besides which, Yorke's closing scream is one of the most wilfully disturbing moments of their catalogue. Goosebumps every time.
 
A rankette:

1. OK COMPUTER
2. The Bends
3. Amnesiac
4. Kid A
5. A Moon Shaped Pool
6. Hail to the Thief
7. In Rainbows
8. Pablo Honey
9.
The King of Limbs
 
I struggled a lot trying to force myself to like the entire album because of its legacy, but I have accepted it just isn’t for me. The singles + Exit Music are perfect 10s but the rest I rarely ever go back to.
 
This album was such a moment for a 15 years-old me, I remember I bought this on release day, together with "homework" by Daft Punk.

The highlights are "climbing up the walls", "exit music" and "paranoid android".
 
Overall rank
1. Amnesiac
2. Kid A
3. O.K. Computer
4. The Bends
5. In Rainbows
6. Hail to the Thief
7. A Moon Shaped Pool
8. The King of Limbs
9. Pablo Honey
 
I've forgotten much of it, but this and The Bends were 1998-me staples. I guess I put that to, like Adore by the Pumpkins, I think it's going to be too melancholic to bare.
 

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