"OK Computer": Classic Or Dud?

lol

I haven't listened to this album for what feels like a very long time - in fact, I can't remember exactly when I last listened to it, but nevertheless I've always rated the album quite highly. So, I put the album on tonight and... christ, this sounds far more "stadium rock" than I remember it being. It's essentially U2 and Pink Floyd in a blender with (in the case of 'Paranoid Android') a pinch of Yes thrown in. I remember I loved this record and thought it was so deep when I was 15... tonight I found the album more funny than anything else. I definitely rate Kid A and In Rainbows higher these days, it seems.

I still ride or die for The Bends, but I care very little about any of the other ones. Especially anything from Kid A to present.

the dark and impenetrable amnesiac is the one to keep. there they reached a solitary peak. i never understood why ok computer was hyped as hell. i always found it derivative and unoriginal.

Agreed. I need to relisten to OK though, it has been years and years.

I remember liking the slow songs aka 'no surprises'. They are reminiscent of my favorite tracks on Obscured By The Clouds. Maybe there is more to Pink Floyd/Radiohead comparisons. I wonder if we could pair up all the most similar tracks and make some sort of RadioFloyd Rulez mixtape.

I've never really understood what it is about Amnesiac that makes some people rate it and none of the others.

OKC is far and away the best thing they ever did. I'm hoping they will go back one day to that kind of music and drop the tedious electro stuff, but I fear it's a lost cause.

I like "Cars" way more than anything Radiohead has done.

the "what a wonderful world" biting always distracted me from "no surprises." for some reason the equally obvious "sexy sadie" biting doesn't really compromise "karma police" for me, though

"no surprises" and "let down" are great songs, also they are a twang and a lap steel away from being contempo country hits

I feel like at the time there wasn't much in the way of a relevant act doing this kind of maximalist rock music (save for maybe Smashing Pumpkins), so it did feel very futuristic and very 'deep'/proggy compared to the Britpop stuff that was starting to slow down at the time. If it's aged, it's because OKC spawned a hell of a lot of 2000s art-rock music that came to take up its mantel, not to mention later stuff by Radiohead themselves.

Karma Police is their second best song. Still don't like Let Down, other than the Easy Star Allstars version.

the youth orchestra in my city covered the whole album with different local bands providing vocals/guitars etc for each track. the kids were great, the orchestration was dope, some of the vocalists were ehhhhhhhhhhh but some were p fab, it was cool

my fav moments from this show was one of the cellist kids rocking the fuck out when "paranoid android" started. and another when one of the violinists shot daggers at the vocalist missing a cue on "let down." and "lucky" got turned into a soul song a little?

"I'm hoping they will go back one day to that kind of music and drop the tedious electro stuff,"

Hail to the Chief is at least half like this.

In Rainbows too.

The Bends is my favorite. I love electronic music, just not the type made by irritating rock dudes.

Sick to death of this band, tbh.

i like this: http://pitchfork.com/thepitch/1504-why-radiohead-finally-releasing-lift-matters/

"Lift" never really stuck out to me, but i'm hearing this 2002 version for the first time and it sounds like would've fit perfectly on A Moon Shaped Pool. maybe too optimistic?

not sure i hear it, but the original "lift" is mad pretty. once again proof in my eyes that radiohead is a pretty bad judge of their best material

Bottom line is that these guys got well upside their heads post 'O.K. Computer' and have never really been able to allow themselves to have a straight forward rock song again. This is probably a controversial sentiment but I think some of their best songs have been, as Ed said in a interview, ruined in the studio. That's a little strong but in these three cases I prefer the live versions.

"Lift" clearly had potential to be a huge alt rock when it was being played out in the mid 90's

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y3-4fK8h8ig

This one apparently we'll never hear the studio outputs of... but I suspect if we did, "Lift" would end up like two other classics in the catalog.

First up, "Videotape". If you heard that song during the 2006 tour you were treated to a big anthemic thing that sounded like the big standout from the upcoming album:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DTZt6Dzkq6w

The final studio version is weird out of sync tempo thing. Still beautiful but I would have loved to hear a studio take of the version they were playing out live.

Also, "True Love Waits". I really enjoy what they did in the studio with it and it was probably best to go somewhere totally different with it given how familiar everyone was with live version. But, I still prefer the original.

In Rainbows was the first Radiohead album that came out after I had become a superfan, and yeah listening to the 2006 shows threw me for a loop. the album sounded so thin and dry, almost like a radio session.

Ed O'Brien on "Lift" and why they left it off the album:

We played that live with Alanis Morissette. It was a really interesting song. The audience, suddenly you’d see them get up and start grooving. It had this infectiousness. It was a big anthemic song. If that song had been on that album, it would've taken us to a different place, and probably we’d have sold a lot more records—if we’d done it right. And everyone was saying this. And I think we subconsciously killed it. If OK Computer had been like a Jagged Little Pill, it would’ve killed us. But “Lift” had this magic about it. But when we got to the studio and did it, it felt like having a gun to your head. There was so much pressure. But saying that, I’ve got a monitor mix, and it is pretty good.

http://pitchfork.com/news/73241-radioheads-ed-obrien-says-they-subconsciously-killed-lift-because-it-wouldve-made-them-too-popular/

seems like the prevailing take on this album is no more enthusiastic or nuanced than "lol 90s"

I think OKC holds up pretty well, doesn't sound very badly dated to me.

The stuff they did before is definitely too lol 90s for me though, I wasn't really old enough to be aware of them at the time so I don't have much in the way of nostalgia for The Bends, which I've always found pretty dull.

the prevailing take on it outside of this forum is quite a lot more positive than that - it's probably the most deeply 'canonized' record post-1970s

what, 'The Bends'? OKC is way more deeply canonized

was talking about OK Computer

ah ok nvm, my b

ok computer is THE GREATEST ALBUM OF ALL TIME according to rym, which makes it both difficult and pointless to say anything nice about it

OKC just sounds really sterile to me these days, I can't really listen to it after the first two tracks. It's kinda weird actually, since I still really enjoy listening to everything from Kid A onward.

In case you haven't been around New/Old song "I promise" was released today with a music video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0sFvFVkeGVg

So happy to hear Thom's 90's vocals again.

did they ever play this one live? don't remember it, unlike Lift/Big Boots/Manowar

This bootleg live version has been in my MP3 collection since 1999 or so:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nlWR8hCFg_o

It's kind of the same as the live version we've had. I'm thinking the studio version of lift and manowar will also be pretty much the same.

They're not amazing songs since they're not even b-side worthy by Radiohead standards and you can tell from what we have that they're some of the weakest songs from the bends/okc era, still I'm so happy to hear mid-90's Thom's voice. He was at the top of his game back then.

I think Ed once described 'I promise' as sort of a Roy Orbison inspired number, now I kind of wish there was a Roy Orbison cover of this one.

Personally I'm hearing an REM influence. Thom is a big REM fan... I know he sang 'Be Mine' with the rest of REM for the Tibetan Freedom Concert back in 1998 I think? .

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r2VAHF2o0TA

I thought of Orbison right away.

did they ever play this one live? don't remember it, unlike Lift/Big Boots/Manowar

― flappy bird

yeah, a documented part of their set during 12 shows in '96 (more often than big boots, which was almost exclusively played in november of '95):

http://58hours.com/58_performancehistory.php?external_song_id=pJjds3upgnAq

so . . . "i promise", "man of war", and "lift" studio versions are not that bad

Definitely a better fit with 'The Bends'-era b-sides, though not as strong as most of them. The songs might be almost as good as some, but the production is definitely very pedestrian--sound more like demos (were it not for the strings). Fun to hear them, though--definitely keen to hear the cassette, assuming it's not a C90 of 30-second snippets or re-re-re-re-re-recorded on a boombox so as to give it some sort of cassette authentic experience. . .

Yeah these are excellent considering they're C-Sides. Wouldn't fit in The Bends or OKC (mayhaps I Promise could in Bends) but many britrocks bands from the era wishes they had something half as good as these and they're practically fodder for Radiohead.

Ah, Radiohead fan hyperbole, how much I've missed thee.

I haven't heard the new edition, but the hype around it somehow got my 12-year-old son interested in Radiohead (what he latches onto and why is always unpredictable). So we're listening to OKC and Moon Shaped Pool a lot in the car these days, and even though it's been years since I thought or cared much about these guys, I've been enjoying it. Good band!

considering how much i connected with radiohead as a depressed person, i kinda hope my son doesnt get into them that much when he gets older. (current favs: kraftwerk, daft punk, yellow magic orchestra, zapp, the monkees).

Ah, Radiohead fan hyperbole, how much I've missed thee.

― The Anti-Climax Blues Band (Turrican), miércoles 21 de junio de 2017 3:11 (five hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I'm not necessarily saying they are great songs, I'm saying the britrock movement from the 90's kinda sucked.

I disagree, there was a lot of very good guitar music from the UK in the '90s.

m bison yr son sounds really cool

He is! 😄

http://recordcollectormag.com/reviews/ok-computer-oknotok-1997-2017

this review details the cassette which sounds very very promising

it's very understandable that lift and man of war were never released until now, neither really feels like a definitive take unfortunately, though lift is still really nice. it's sort of a shame they've finally given up on songs like that though

I wish I could just buy that cassette. On CD.