"OK Computer": Classic Or Dud?

singlehandedly redefines the genre of "dud"

that second disc might be better than OKC but then I am an Airbag EP stan

i have all these songs already and i'm not fussed about live shit.

There's a version with a DVD also.

The OKC DVD has six live on TV tracks, of which 2 are repeated songs.

The Bends one has loads.

I didn't play OKC much when I got it. It only became interesting to me after Kid A, which I love. So then I go back and see it as a stepping stone to a favorite album.

Here's some other interesting three album progressions.

Talking Heads - More Songs, Fear Of Music, Remain In Light
Wire - Pink Flag, Chairs Missing, 154
Magazine - Real Life, Secondhand Daylight, The Correct Use of Soap
Simple Minds - Real To Real Cacophony, Empires And Dance, Sons And Fascination
Orchestral Manoeuvres In The Dark - Organisation, Architecture & Morality, Dazzle Ships
Martha and the Muffins - Metro Music, This Is The Ice Age, Danseparc
Gary Numan/Tubeway Army - Replicas, The Pleasure Principle, Telekon

This is a brilliant thread.

Dud.

Satans favorite album.. I couldn't even get 10 seconds into this mess without pressing my hands into my ears. This album is a disgrace to America and all that we stand for. Tonight I will say a special prayer for this band.

uh

15 years old today. Happy birthday, you beautiful album.

still think this album sucks except for 2 songs. can't understand at all why this was considered so brilliant. some tuneless guy moaning about dehumanizing world while breaking into unappealing falsetto every 2 seconds, punctuated by unmemorable guitar noise, prog-rock chord structures, and ugly drumwork.

bravo nate.

did you have this thread on standby ?

(no sarc intended .. just genuinely amazed at how a thread like this appears out of nowhere on stroke of midnight .. )

xpost -- Never knew you hated Goyte that much.

news update :

ned makes me laff out loud in my kitchen.

They're on tv right now and I knew OKC came out in the summer of 97, looked on Wikipedia and what do you know.

pretty sure Poliopolice had fun. in mind

have never listened to this, what's it like?

a thousand angelic choirs singing thee to thy rest

i.e. average.

I always forget that moment in "Exit Music" when the drums pound in and it goes from being comfortably gloomy to satirical and dangerous.

I love this record.

This makes me feel old. But not as old as Pablo Honey turning 20 next year is gonna make me feel.

Poliopolice arrest this man.

Can't believe I never contributed to this thread. Was I away on tour when it was started, or something?

Happy Bloomsday everyone!

bloomsday comparer

I still love this album. People talk about Kid A being their big leap forward into experimental realms but as far as I'm concerned OKC is an experimental rock record, a huge advance on The Bends.

Denying this is one of the best albums ever made is pure challops IMO.

surely if someone were implicitly to deny that by saying

'OK Computer is a good album....it is one of the best popular rock albums of the late 1990s'

it would be one of the least challenging opinions ever?

I really like about four tracks. The rest I can leave.

Challops

Seriously though, this blew my mind on first hearing it (had just finished my gcse's). I'd been a fan since creep and bought it the day it came out. I just remember how satisfying it all felt.

its alright i guess but i dont really go back to it like i would 'kid a' or 'in rainbows' tbh

"Challops" meaning "it's so obvious it doesn't need to be stated" ?

I guess it was on the Sandbox I stated my opinions on OKC. Not even the best RH release they put out that year. Talented group of people in a lucky time and place that caught a zeitgeist (they didn't invent) but nowhere near as ground-breaking as ppl like to make out. And yeah, I say that as an obsessive RH fan so you can't say it's just hateration.

This strikes me more and more as the best Radiohead album with every passing year. Not exactly groundbreaking but not really like anything else either, including other Radiohead albums.

There is no "best" with Radiohead. There is only "favourite."

I v. much loved and love the album and I would be happy to never hear anything from it again, live or studio recording.

Now...had we heard about this yet?

http://www.discogs.com/Various-Musikexpress-April-2012-Nr-0412/release/3671605

Do keep up, the fangirl thread was way ahead of you on that.

I only learned from DJP the other night, my brain being otherwise pickled in brine.

Yeah he found out about it from the fangirl thread!

(and he only barely made it out alive without mascara and Pablo Honey style blond hair extensions)

For me, Radiohead albums come out and are eagerly and deeply consumed but for some reason don't call to me over the years.

Agreed that "The Bends" is a bit played out, albiet excellent. OK-Kid A-Amnesiac is a fantastic, compelling set of sounds but lately I've been way into the Live From The Basement versions of the last two albums. The studio does them no favors it seems.

have never really been a fan, though i did go hot & heavy w kid A for a while there. feel sort of lucky because i'm not yet tired of radiohead and still get to "discover" great new songs every now and then.

I think the US release for this was two weeks later, because I remember driving to the record store the day it came out (on July 1) and hearing about Britian transferring sovereignty back to Hong Kong that day on the radio.

The track that first grabbed me, and still does, is Let Down, the way the beat shifts about amid those sparkling guitars

Seems to be a micro-generational divide at play, perhaps, on who likes this album best?

If you distilled this album verbally--"LP rock in the grand tradition," I guess--it wouldn't seem to suit my tastes nearly as well as 'Kid A'. My sympathies generally lie with more unusual, less sweeping stuff. But I can't deny that I like the stuff Radiohead were listening to making 'Kid A' a lot better than 'Kid A'. Whereas for what it is, nothing tops 'OK Computer' for me. I feel bad for Thom Yorke, because his real talents are in melody-based rock music, but his interests are clearly more eclectic. 'OK Computer' was the best work they did, then succumbing to thinking what they are really good at just wasn't cool. After 'OK Computer,' they want to be Can or Kraftwerk, but they're just not able to pull it off.

I adore Airbag and Paranoid Android but most of the rest leaves me cold. Let Down and Climbing Up The Walls are really good. Karma Police is a nice single, if clearly Sexy Sadie at one point. It's a very... well done... album. As evidenced by the way people go gaga for it.

Radiohead were supposed to play tonight in Toronto but the stage just collapsed and killed a tech. Cancelled, obviously. How very sad. :(

:(

So glad Melissa is okay. This is so fucked up.