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OK Computer 's epic centerpiece is a collage, combining a series of unrelated musical ideas and pulling inspiration from multiple sources. For example, the title is a nod to Marvin the Paranoid Android from Douglas Adams’ The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy and also a tongue-in-cheek twist on Yorke's public persona. The title “was chosen as a joke,” he told Jam! “It was like, ‘Oh, I’m so depressed.’ And I just thought, that’s great. That’s how people would like me to be.”
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MORE IDEAS ON THIS
Radiohead slowed down things for OK Computer 's atmospheric closer, which musically contrasts with the mad rush described in the lyrics. "Came from being in a beautiful square in France on a sunny day and watching all these American tourists being wheeled around, frantically trying to se...
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57 reads
Radiohead had dabbled in orchestration before OK Computer — the gentle strings on "Fake Plastic Trees" help elevate that ballad to classic status. But they leaped in that area with "Climbing Up the Walls," which uses darkness and dissonance to amplify the song's haunted-house atmosphere....
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52 reads
Yorke delivered the album's dystopian manifesto with "Fitter Happier" ... well, sort of. The ambient interlude features creepy text-to-speech lines ("Regular exercise at the gym, three days a week / Getting on better with your associate employee contemporaries / At ease ") partly ripped ...
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61 reads
OK Computer 's experimental opener, built around Phil Selway's chopped-up drums, draws on Yorke's uneasy relationship with automobiles. A decade earlier, he was involved in a car accident that left his girlfriend injured, though the singer walked away unharmed (at least physically). The ...
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For the record's spacey third track, Radiohead tried to emulate the electric keys and warm textures of Miles Davis' 1970 jazz-fusion classic Bitches Brew . Yorke also drew on an old-school essay about being an alien from another planet: "You’ve landed and you’re standing in the middle of...
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93 reads
“It was a band catchphrase for a while on tour – whenever someone was behaving in a particular shitty way, we’d say, 'The karma police will catch up with him sooner or later,'” Greenwood told Melody Maker ...
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The narcotic calm of "No Surprises" can't help but feel a bit eerie amid OK Computer 's paranoia. But it's a rare song here that doesn't mask its prettiness, utilizing a twinkling glockenspiel, Ed O’Brien’s chiming guitar and a rainbow of vocal harmonies. “It was meant to be like a nurse...
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61 reads
It took Radiohead a little less than four years to make one of rock's most thrilling leaps, evolving from the potent but familiar post-grunge of Pablo Honey ...
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227 reads
If it's one of Radiohead's most cinematic songs, there's a logical reason: The band did indeed write "Exit Music" for a film, Baz Luhrmann 's adaptation of William Shakespeare’s Romeo + Juliet . Yorke had a clear vision, having wat...
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86 reads
Perhaps the most divisive song on OK Computer , this snarling rocker is indeed a bit more straightforward, both musically and lyrically, than what surrounds it. The politically minded track, Yorke told Select...
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56 reads
CURATED FROM
IDEAS CURATED BY
I owe my originality to a technical clusterfuck of emotions driven by angst and my dad's radio.
When OK Computer was released in the spring of 1997, it was instantly greeted with ravenous acclaim. According to the music press, Radiohead’s third album was pushing the boundaries of rock, it was about modern life; it was Important. And so, the band’s fans poured over every lyric and every detail in the CD artwork to divine what sort of serious concept album this was, misunderstanding that sometimes Radiohead was just goofing around.
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