OK Computer

Performer: Radiohead
Distributor: EMI Music Distribution

Notes: Radiohead: Thom Yorke, Jonny Greenwood, Ed O'Brien, Colin Greenwood, Phil Selway. Additional Personnel: Adam Cummings (guitar). Engineers include: Nigel Godrich. OK COMPUTER was nominated for the 1998 Grammy Award for Album Of The Year and won the 1998 Grammy for Best Alternative Music Performance. Photographer: Stanley Donwood. Unknown Contributor Roles: Colin Greenwood; Ed O'Brien ; Jonny Greenwood; Nigel Godrich; Phil Selway; Thom Yorke. OK COMPUTER, Radiohead's third album, is the bombastic follow-up to 1995's sleeper hit THE BENDS, which left critics and listeners as impressed with the band's ability as they were curious about their potential. In spite of its technological-sounding title and apocalyptic sci-fi themes, OK COMPUTER is firmly grounded in the rock verities. Waves of guitars rage beneath the haunting melodies and near-hysterical fits of singer Thom Yorke. This complex, intense swarm of guitars is held aloft by a solid, inventive rhythm section and an impressive array of piano and keyboard textures. "Paranoid Android" is a six-minute-plus epic with alternating time signatures, wild dynamic shifts, drama and adrenaline to spare. "Let Down," with its double-tracked vocals and rhythmic throb, may give a brief glimpse back at Radiohead's past, but at no point is OK COMPUTER anything but a hurtle forward.

Rolling Stone (p.64) - 5 stars out of 5 -- "[P]anicked, paranoid and product-coded; tranquilized, arena-size and indelible." Rolling Stone (5/13/99, p.65) - Included in Rolling Stone's "Essential Recordings of the 90's." Rolling Stone (7/10-24/97, pp.117-118) - 4 Stars (out of 5) - "...OK COMPUTER - a stunning art-rock tour de force - will have you reeling back to their debut, PABLO HONEY, for insight into the group's dramatic evolution..." Spin (9/99, p.122) - Ranked #9 in Spin Magazine's "90 Greatest Albums of the '90s." Spin (1/98, p.86) - Ranked #2 on Spin's list of the "Top 20 Albums Of The Year." Spin (8/97, pp.112-113) - 8 (out of 10) - "...Unlike their majestic models U2, Radiohead take on techno without switching instruments or employing trendy producers....As with post-rockers Tortoise, Laika, and Seefeel, Radiohead have a fuzzbox or two and obviously know how to use 'em..." Entertainment Weekly (Spring 2000, p.166) - Ranked #4 in EW's "Top 10 albums of the '90s" Entertainment Weekly (7/11/97, pp.65-66) - "...Shrouded in wafting guitars, swoony rhythms, and moody-blue strings, it shrugs off mosh-pit conventions for a poignant delicacy and breadth, with Yorke's cracked-throat voice the album's melancholy center....For all of Radiohead's growing pains...their aim--to take British pop to a heavenly new level--is true..." - Rating: B+ Q (6/00, p.91) - Ranked #2 in Q's "100 Greatest British Albums" Q (12/99, p.92) - Included in Q Magazine's "90 Best Albums Of The 1990s." Q (10/01, p.112) - Ranked #1 in Q's "Best 50 Albums of Q's Lifetime" Q (1/98, p.114) - Included in Q Magazine's "50 Best Albums of 1997." Melody Maker (12/20-27/97, pp.66-67) - Ranked #2 on Melody Maker's list of 1997's "Albums Of The Year." Melody Maker (6/14/97, p.49) - "...unlike anything I've ever heard....I definitley know it isn't good for me, and I'm certain it says more about my life than I'd like....in terms of composition and performance, it's very impressive. Radiohead have excelled themselves. They've seen the future." Village Voice (2/24/98) - Ranked #2 in the Village Voice's 1997 Pazz & Jop Critics' Poll. Mojo (Publisher) (p.67) - Ranked #3 in Mojo's "100 Modern Classics" -- "OK COMPUTER sought to disturb as much as delight. It's still succeeding." NME (Magazine) (12/20-27/97, pp.78-79) - Ranked #2 in NME's 1997 Critics' Poll. Pitchfork (Website) - "[R]eal songs and tunes, but ones that didn't shrink from the increasingly unlimited possibilities of modern music-making. In that sense, Radiohead were not only record-collectors but futurists..." Record Collector (magazine) (p.89) - 5 stars out of 5 -- "It's a brilliant album....[V]isual, visceral and complete..."

Radiohead burst onto the Britpop scene in the early 1990s with a clamorous, post-U2 take on guitar rock, buoyed by the hit "Creep." They subsequently developed their songwriting and production skills on THE BENDS and achieved iconic status with their breakthrough album OK COMPUTER, making art-rock cool again in the process. The mercurial band's long-awaited follow-up three years later was a sharp left turn full of ambient electronics and Can-like sonic deconstruction, and they've continued the trend with subsequent albums and solo projects. The connecting thread through all the band's phases has been Thom Yorke's intense vocal frenzy.

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