"OK Computer": Classic Or Dud?

Absolute classic. This is one of those records that has always and consistently been an undercurrent in whatever musical identity I've had at a given time. Not embarrassed to say.

It's got very pretty songs.

Tails off a bit towards the end. Maybe it's a sequencing problem 'cause the songs aren't actually bad - ok Electioneering is a bit weak and I've never liked The Tourist. 1-6 is unbeatable though. I find myself returning to Let Down more than any of the others.

Remains (so far) the only album I've ever defenestrated.

dud

PARANOID ANDROID WILL DEAL WITH ALL OF YOU

I own this but forget what it sounds like.

I'm totally happy when one of these songs comes on shuffle, except "Electioneering" which is lame.

Funny this should be revived today, I heard Lucky/The Tourist (I think) playing out of the window of an apartment I walked by today and was amazed at how, well, uninteresting and big-whooshy-melodramatic mega rock song it was. While the 14 year old in me died a little, nevertheless it's still classic.

I KNOW THE GODDMAN THING OF TONGUE-ISH Killng Joke or whatever

But seriously, I have got your back now.

Got your back.

Karma Police.

pfft. The Tourist is gorgeous.

I lost myself I lost myself

Can I also state for the record for those who remember old Radiohead threads here that I have just talked to the Reverend on the phone and we get along fine. And I told him to say hi to Timi Yuro & Brian in Seattle. And Matos too. I told him to say hi.

For a minute there
I lost myself

You lost yourseee-eeee-eeeelf

Classic, but overhyped and overrated. I prefer warm, luxurious Radiohead to cold, paranoid Radiohead, so I'll take In Rainbows over OKC almost anytime.

"Lucky"

Does OKC - Kentucky Fried Chicken?

Look, I've got some mother fucking Pat Beneatar with reggae shit man.
Oh yeah., bob marley go to hell

Yeah, though "Lucky" never mind. That was the first track on my live CD that would knock your fucking socks off.

Radiohead, baby.

LOOK I REALLY DON'T CARE ABOUT RADIOHEAD IF ONLY THE GODDAMN
SONGS
ABOUT THE RADIOHEAD SONGS
ABOUT ALL MY LOVERS WERE THERE WITH ME ALL MY PAST AND FUTURE
THERE WAS NOTHING TO FEAR NOTHING TO DOUBT
IT'S THE GODDAMN RADIOHEAD I HATE YOU ALL

WHEN THEY PLAY HERE IN SEATTLE I WILL CRUSH YOU ALL WITH MY LITTLE FINGER

I'LL EXPLAIN IT TO YOU THEN

DAMN YOU ALL TO HELL
AUG 20TH

I DIDN'T MEAN THIS IN A BAD WAY FOR ILXORS BUT SHIT...
rECkoner mother fuckers

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Yes, I know, I'm drunk as hell. but please tell John D. I salute him. Thanks.

loooool

Look I don't give a fuk about this shit.

who wants to take me to Airbag? Because your little sister is a pansy.

I'm back to save the universe.

Fast german car

INTERSTELLAR BURST
BACK TO SAVE THE UNIVERSE

I don't care you all are pussies!!!
Oh yes you are fuck off@!!!
Pussies!

paranoid android

shhhhhhh

First two tracks = great, rest = oh well, whatever, nevermind.

Interestingly I know this because I've just been loading the iPod for our Zeppelin, and only Airbag and Paranoid Aandroid made it on there from this.

You really should give "Let Down" another go.

most of this album is crap, and the lyrics are just annoying and pretentious. the only standout track is "let down." Dud for the most part.

Ultraclassic, always will be. I love it as much now as I did 11 years ago. If I could only listen to one album for the rest of my life, it would be this one.

Answers like that scare me.

I can't listen to one album for an hour, let alone a lifetime.

very scary.

I'm not necessarily saying that I want to listen to this one album for the rest of my life, but if I had to choose, in a Desert Island Discs-type situation, I'd pick this. I'm sure there's people here who feel the same way about, say, Loveless or Laughing Stock.

If I could listen to only one album the rest of my life, it would definitely be anything by Tone-Loc.

I ruined both OK Computer and Kid A by playing them to death in the years following their releases. I haven't gone back to OKC in quite a while. When I was listening to it obsessively, I was 14-16 years old and messages of alienated cold detachment sort of struck a chord with me. Now that I'm an old wise man of 25 (lol), I'm not sure I'd hear it in the same way or like it nearly as much as I once did.

pfft. The Tourist is gorgeous.

-- Turangalila, Sunday, 10 August 2008 03:20 (12 hours ago) Link

Oh, I still very much think it is as well.

this and Kid A seem so big and important (and I do like them) but for some reason I listen to Hail to the Theif and In Rainbows a lot more.

Answers like that scare me.

Nick, what would you pick?

or since I'm sure you're resistant... what does your first instinct tell you to pick?

I'm not necessarily saying that I want to listen to this one album for the rest of my life, but if I had to choose, in a Desert Island Discs-type situation, I'd pick this.

Guys, has there been a thread on this? I'm sure there must've been but i can't find it in search...

Neither. I didn't like it for a few years after it came out. Too bombastic for my tastes at the time, too damn overrated. Then I shared workspace with a guy who only likes Beethoven, The Beatles and Radiohead. Oh god, I thought. But I could kind of see how their obvious styles meshed with his extremely limited scope of what constitutes greatness. In my desperate efforts to expand his tastes, I grew to appreciate Radiohead, in that I couldn't necessarily find anything else that did Radiohead better than Radiohead (at the moment though I kind of prefer Radiodread!). So neither classic nor dud, just a pretty good album.

I had this to say about it last year, in part:

I hate OK Computer. Not the album. I love the album. I hate what it has become. I hate what it stands for. I hate everything that has been heaped on it. I hate it as much as I suspect the band hates it. Ten years on from creating ‘the greatest album ever‘ would get a little frustrating after a while, especially when you’re doing better work.

....

I want to just hear this album again without thinking about how it’s been nailed up there now, crucified, used by everyone, those anthropophagi blood-drunk on their own idiot communion. FOR FUCK’S SAKE. How many bands stopped here, cloned it and made it awful precisely because they made it so dully tasteful? How many fans? How many writers? How many polls? How many of them listened to this album, had their breakdowns, thought rock and roll had come to save them again, then decided that when the later albums came out that all that could be done was to play this album again instead?

I can’t even hear “Let Down” again and my god do I adore that song. But it’s swathed in part of the whole mystique, its crystalline tones and pitch-perfect slow slide wrapped up in the gossamer of the salvation of the Entertainment Weekly/Q/Mojo/NPR nation. It’s the most beautiful mummy around.

It’s drained drier than everything from the sixties I was trying to escape from being forced down my throat at a certain point in the late eighties.

“Why can’t they sound like their old stuff?” the cry has continually gone up since then.

Yes precisely, dip the band in aspic as well as your copy of the album. Well done. THANKS.

(Now I know how people think about me going on about Loveless forever.)

Reading that was like looking at an optical illusion.

Hmm, now I'm singing the Chameleons.

Stephen; my first instinct tells me I can't pick! Right now I might, if forced, choose ///Codename:Dustsucker but only because The Black Meat came on the Zeppelin earlier and I loved it.

good choice Nick. if i had to pick a Bark Psychosis though, i'd go with Game Over -- you get a bit of Hex, a bit of Independency, a few other nice tracks... seems like a good career summary up til that point.

i understand you have a special connection with that later album though. :)

Sick Mouthy has been loading his iPod with Zeppelin. This is a wonderful development, this is wonderful.

Allowing context to spoil great albums is a shame.

Indeed.