You know, you whippersnappers out there really amaze me sometimes.
Here I go into the local used CD shop yesterday to get the new No Doubt CD for my daughter, and the pierced-tongue kid at the register says, "You need anything else?"
I tell him that I'm sorta interested in Radiohead 'cause I've been hearing a lot about them somewhere. He says, "That's my favorite band! What song did you like?" I say, Creep, 'cause that was the only thing I'd ever heard, but I really liked it a lot. He says, "Who else do you listen to?" I tell him that Better Than Ezra is currently my favorite band. He leads me over to the stacks and says, "I think you'd like this one the best."
He was right. The funny thing was, he said, "They are sort of like the new Pink Floyd, if you can see them live." I see why he would compare them to Pink Floyd now that I've heard them, even though I never cared much for Pink Floyd. He was trying to find a way to put it in my frame of reference.
God bless you kids who don't hate all your elders.
Many would argue that Ok Computer is a concept album. Far fewer people, however, would actually say what concept the album is built around.
One theory, which seems likely, suggests that the album is based on the George Orwell novel, Nineteen Eighty-four. The album not only carries a similar theme and atmosphere to those in the novel, but also contains many little hints that point towards it:
In Karma Police : The song could have been a transcript of a conversation describing a turning-in of a outlaw citizen to the thought police. Major examples - The citizan is being tortured, he's 'Giving all i can, it's not enough'. The police replies - 'this is what you get when you mess with us'. In the end of the song, the citizen is brainwashed and cured. He says - 'Phew, for a minute there I lost myself'.
In Paranoid Android : In Oceania, there was a ceremony that was called 'Two Minutes Hate' in which the citizens were forced to hate the enemies of the state. The distrotion filled parts of the song could simulate this ceremony.
In Fitter Happier : The way that the text is spoken is more or less how you'd imagine the telescreens speaking to the citizens. The content of the text itself also suggests a very conformative way of living, much like the one described in the novel.
In No Surprises : The atmosphere in the song is similar to the one in the end of the book, in which the main character, Winston, is under the control of the party and is willingly accepting his life. There are many similarties between lyrics in the song and terms used in the book : "The worst thing was the pain in his belly" - "my final belly ache". The coughing fits Winston suffered from - "this is my final fit", etc.
In Climbing Up The Walls : "Whichever way you turned, the telescreen faced you" - "Either way you turn, I'll be there, Open up your skull, I'll be there".
In Lucky :There's a line in the song that says "The head of state has called for me by name". This could refer to when Winston is invited to the house of a party executive.
In the album sleeve :
- The writing '1=2' is similar to the book quote '2+2=5' which refers to the principle of doublethink. - Below the album credits there's a row of drawings. The 2nd and 6th drawings from the left look like what you would imagine telescreens look like. - In the album credits, Ed O'brien's name is the only one in uppercase. There's a character in the book named O'brien. - Britian is referred to in the novel as 'Airstrip One' and the sleeve clearly shows pictures of planes and an airstrip landing pattern drawing. - There's a writing in the sleeve that says 'AUTHORITIES HERE ARE ALERT'. This is clearly an idea similar to the ones in the book.
All of this (compiled from various internet sources, mostly followmearound.com and greenplastic.com) seems like a bit more than random coincidence.
As for the name of the album, it was conceived by Thom Yorke, when he was sitting in front of his Apple Mac, trying to use an early generation voice recognition software. The replacement for clicking the 'ok' button in dialog boxes was saying 'Ok Computer'.
There are a lot of bits in this node about the album's significance and theme, but nobody has said much about the music! Musically, this album marked the point where Radiohead reached artistic maturity. They completely deconstruct the sound established on The Bends, while at the same time managing to produce an album of songs that are both complete in themselves and fit into a larger scheme encompassing the album.
OK Computer was Radiohead's third studio album in four years, released after Pablo Honey and The Bends, the latter of which garnered a significant amount of critical praise, although it has to be said, not nearly as much as OK Computer.
When it was released, OK Computer was almost universally lauded (although some, as noted above, heralded it as "More music to slit your wrists to", completely missing the point to the whole frickin' album), and has come first in various "Best Album Ever" polls ever since, most recently on the British TV channel Channel Four (full results). Many called it the defining album of the 90s.
Five places below OK Computer in the C4 list is Pink Floyd's Dark Side Of The Moon, an equally defining album, and an easily recognisable one (it has been estimated that one in every 14 people below the age of 50 in the USA owns a copy of DSotM), if not for the music then for its (now famous) cover art. The two albums have similar concepts at their root; both OK Computer and Dark Side have as concepts the little things that drive you insane, the triggers of a slow descent into madness. On DSotM these triggers are rather basic; Money, Time and war (Us and Them). On OK Computer they are something which, relatively speaking, a modern audience would be more acquainted with, the generic pitfalls of modern life; the corporate world of endless servitude and eventual redundancy (Karma Police), the monotony of everything and the desire to escape (Subterranean Homesick Alien), the feeling of entrapment (No Surprises), the constant fear of the world outside your door (Climbing Up The Walls). Both albums chronicle, in exceptional detail, exactly what makes life in a contemporary world so utterly unbearable.
However, OK Computer talks about one angle DSotM fails to cover. That angle is that it is impossible to escape. DSotM suggests that insanity is the eventual result of all of this unhappiness; the album follows a linear path, from start to finish, the way in of life to the way out of insanity-even if you don't have any marbles, at least that will be your release from it all. OK Computer however loops; it starts with a car crash survivor, and ends with the same car crash. It is cyclical, suggesting that modern life as showcased on the album is immutable. There is no insanity, there is no way out; the album is basically the sign above your desk saying "Don't forget, you're here forever". In this sense, OK Computer is less positive than Dark Side...this is your life, there is no escape, try if you might but you can't.
The things that drive you mad - Dark Side Of The Moon
The things that drive you mad - OK Computer
Note: this is just my interpretation, as with everything about song meanings your mileage may vary.
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