OK Computer is the third studio album by the English rock band Radiohead, released on 21 May 1997. With their producer, Nigel Godrich, Radiohead recorded most of OK Computer in their rehearsal space in Oxfordshire and the historic mansion of St Catherine's Court in Bath in 1996 and early 1997. They distanced themselves from the guitar-centred, lyrically introspective style of their previous album, The Bends. OK Computers abstract lyrics, densely layered sound and eclectic influences laid the groundwork for Radiohead's later, more experimental work.
The lyrics depict a dystopian world fraught with rampant consumerism, social alienation, technological anxiety and political corruption, while also exploring themes of transport, conformity, paranoia, death, modern British life and globalisation. In this capacity, OK Computer is said to have prescient insight into the mood of 21st-century life. Radiohead used unconventional production techniques, including natural reverberation, and no audio separation. Strings were recorded at Abbey Road Studios in London. Most of the album was recorded live.
EMI had low expectations of OK Computer, deeming it uncommercial and difficult to market. However, it reached number one on the UK Albums Chart and debuted at number 21 on the Billboard 200, Radiohead's highest album entry on the US charts at the time, and was certified five times platinum in the UK and double platinum in the US. It expanded Radiohead's international popularity and sold at least 7.8 million copies worldwide. "Paranoid Android", "Karma Police", "Lucky" and "No Surprises" were released as singles.
OK Computer received widespread acclaim from critics and has been cited as one of the greatest albums of the 1990s and all time. It was nominated for Album of the Year and won Best Alternative Music Album at the 1998 Grammy Awards. It was also nominated for Best British Album at the 1998 Brit Awards. The album initiated a shift in British rock away from Britpop toward melancholic, atmospheric alternative rock and post-Britpop that became more prevalent in the next decade. In 2014, it was added by the US Library of Congress to the National Recording Registry as "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant". A remastered version with additional tracks, OKNOTOK 1997 2017, was released in 2017. In 2019, in response to an internet leak, Radiohead released MiniDiscs [Hacked], comprising hours of additional material.
Background
thumb|upright|[[Thom Yorke (pictured in 2001) and the band sought a less introspective direction than previous album The Bends. The singer, Thom Yorke, said "Lucky" shaped the nascent sound and mood of their upcoming record:
The critical and commercial success of The Bends gave Radiohead the confidence to self-produce their third album. The lead guitarist, Jonny Greenwood, said "the only concept that we had for this album was that we wanted to record it away from the city and that we wanted to record it ourselves". According to the guitarist Ed O'Brien, "Everyone said, 'You'll sell six or seven million if you bring out The Bends Pt 2,' and we're like, 'We'll kick against that and do the opposite'." A number of producers were suggested, including major figures such as Scott Litt, but Radiohead were encouraged by their sessions with Godrich. They consulted him for advice on equipment, and prepared for the sessions by buying their own, including a plate reverberator purchased from the songwriter Jona Lewie. Although Godrich had sought to focus on electronic dance music, he outgrew his role as advisor and became the album's co-producer.
Recording
In early 1996, Radiohead recorded demos at Chipping Norton Recording Studios, Oxfordshire. In July, they began rehearsing and recording in their Canned Applause studio, a converted shed near Didcot, Oxfordshire. Even without the deadline that contributed to the stress of The Bends, the band had difficulties, which Selway blamed on their choice to self-produce: "We're jumping from song to song, and when we started to run out of ideas, we'd move on to a new song ... The stupid thing was that we were nearly finished when we'd move on, because so much work had gone into them."
The members worked with nearly equal roles in the production and formation of the music, though Yorke was still firmly "the loudest voice", according to O'Brien. Selway said, "We give each other an awful lot of space to develop our parts, but at the same time we are all very critical about what the other person is doing." Godrich has produced every Radiohead album since, and has been characterised as Radiohead's "sixth member", an allusion to George Martin's nickname as the "fifth Beatle".
Radiohead decided that Canned Applause was an unsatisfactory recording location, which Yorke attributed to its proximity to the band members' homes, and Jonny Greenwood attributed to its lack of dining and bathroom facilities. They had nearly completed "Electioneering", "No Surprises", "Subterranean Homesick Alien" and "The Tourist". They took a break from recording to tour America in 1996, opening for Alanis Morissette, performing early versions of several new songs.
During the tour, Baz Luhrmann commissioned Radiohead to write a song for his upcoming film Romeo + Juliet and gave them the final 30 minutes of the film. Yorke said: "When we saw the scene in which Claire Danes holds the Colt .45 against her head, we started working on the song immediately."
Yorke was satisfied with the recordings made at the house, and enjoyed working without audio separation, meaning that instruments were not overdubbed separately. Many of Yorke's vocals were first takes; he felt that if he made other attempts he would "start to think about it and it would sound really lame". The strings were recorded at Abbey Road Studios in London in January 1997. Godrich mixed OK Computer at various London studios. He preferred a quick and "hands-off" approach to mixing, and said: "I feel like I get too into it. I start fiddling with things and I fuck it up ... I generally take about half a day to do a mix. If it's any longer than that, you lose it. The hardest thing is trying to stay fresh, to stay objective."
Music and lyrics
Style and influences
Yorke said Radiohead's starting point was the "incredibly dense and terrifying sound" of Bitches Brew, the 1970 avant-garde jazz fusion album by Miles Davis. Yorke identified "I'll Wear It Proudly" by Elvis Costello, "Fall on Me" by R.E.M., "Dress" by PJ Harvey and "A Day in the Life" by the Beatles as particularly influential. Spin said OK Computer sounded like "a DIY electronica album made with guitars".
Critics suggested a stylistic debt to 1970s progressive rock, an influence Radiohead disavowed. He told Q: "It was like there's a secret camera in a room and it's watching the character who walks in—a different character for each song. The camera's not quite me. It's neutral, emotionless. But not emotionless at all. In fact, the very opposite." Yorke also drew inspiration from books, including Noam Chomsky's political writing, Eric Hobsbawm's The Age of Extremes, Will Hutton's The State We're In, Jonathan Coe's What a Carve Up! and Philip K. Dick's VALIS.
The songs of OK Computer do not have a coherent narrative, and the lyrics are generally considered abstract or oblique. Nonetheless, many critics, journalists, and scholars consider it a concept album or song cycle, noting its strong thematic cohesion, aesthetic unity, and the structural logic of the sequencing. Although the songs share common themes, Radiohead said they did not intend to link them through a narrative and do not consider OK Computer a concept album. Jonny Greenwood said: "I think one album title and one computer voice do not make a concept album. That's a bit of a red herring." However, they intended the album to be heard as a whole, and spent two weeks ordering the track list. O'Brien said: "The context of each song is really important ... It's not a concept album but there is a continuity there." The bassline stops and starts unexpectedly, achieving an effect similar to 1970s dub. The references to automobile crashes and reincarnation were inspired by a magazine article titled "An Airbag Saved My Life" and The Tibetan Book of the Dead. Yorke wrote "Airbag" about the illusion of safety offered by modern transit, and "the idea that whenever you go out on the road you could be killed". Music journalist Tim Footman noted that the song's technical innovations and lyrical concerns demonstrated the "key paradox" of the album: "The musicians and producer are delighting in the sonic possibilities of modern technology; the singer, meanwhile, is railing against its social, moral, and psychological impact ... It's a contradiction mirrored in the culture clash of the music, with the 'real' guitars negotiating an uneasy stand-off with the hacked-up, processed drums."
Split into four sections with an overall running time of 6:23, "Paranoid Android" is among the band's longest songs. The unconventional structure was inspired by the Beatles' "Happiness Is a Warm Gun" and Queen's "Bohemian Rhapsody", which also eschew a traditional verse-chorus-verse structure. Its musical style was also inspired by the music of the Pixies. Its title references the Bob Dylan song "Subterranean Homesick Blues", and the lyrics describe an isolated narrator who fantasises about being abducted by extraterrestrials. The narrator speculates that, upon returning to Earth, his friends would not believe his story and he would remain a misfit. The lyrics were inspired by an assignment from Yorke's time at Abingdon School to write a piece of "Martian poetry", a British literary movement that humorously recontextualises mundane aspects of human life from an alien perspective.
William Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet inspired the lyrics for "Exit Music (For a Film)". Yorke compared the opening of the song, which mostly features his singing paired with acoustic guitar, to Johnny Cash's At Folsom Prison. Mellotron choir and other electronic voices are used throughout the track. The song climaxes with the entrance of drums and distorted bass run through a fuzz pedal. The climactic portion of the song is an attempt to emulate the sound of trip hop group Portishead, but in a style that the bassist, Colin Greenwood, called more "stilted and leaden and mechanical". The song concludes by fading back to Yorke's voice, acoustic guitar and Mellotron.
"Let Down" contains multilayered arpeggiated guitars and electric piano. Jonny Greenwood plays his guitar part in a different time signature to the other instruments. O'Brien said the song was influenced by Phil Spector, a producer and songwriter best known for his reverberating "Wall of Sound" recording techniques.
"Karma Police" has two main verses that alternate with a subdued break, followed by a different ending section. The verses centre around acoustic guitar and piano, and said it was "liberating" to give the words to a neutral-sounding computer voice.
"Electioneering", featuring a cowbell and a distorted guitar solo, is the album's most rock-oriented track and one of the heaviest songs Radiohead has recorded. is arranged with electric guitar (inspired by the Beach Boys' "Wouldn't It Be Nice"), acoustic guitar, glockenspiel and vocal harmonies. The band strove to replicate the mood of Louis Armstrong's 1968 recording of "What a Wonderful World" and the soul music of Marvin Gaye. or suburban imagery. The song's gentle mood contrasts sharply with its harsh lyrics; Steele said, "even when the subject is suicide ... O'Brien's guitar is as soothing as balm on a red-raw psyche, the song rendered like a bittersweet child's prayer." The lyrics were pared down from many pages of notes, and were originally more politically explicit. Critics likened its lead guitar to Pink Floyd and, more broadly, arena rock.
The album ends with "The Tourist", which Jonny Greenwood wrote as an unusually staid piece where something "doesn't have to happen ... every three seconds". He said, The Tourist' doesn't sound like Radiohead at all. It has become a song with space." The lyrics, written by Yorke, were inspired by his experience of watching American tourists in France frantically trying to see as many tourist attractions as possible. The "unexpectedly bluesy waltz" draws to a close as the guitars drop out, leaving only drums and bass, and concludes with the sound of a small bell. "OK Computer" was initially a working title for the B-side "Palo Alto". The title stuck with the band; according to Jonny Greenwood, it "started attaching itself and creating all these weird resonances with what we were trying to do". Other titles considered were Ones and Zeroes—a reference to the binary numeral system—and Your Home May Be at Risk If You Do Not Keep Up Payments.
Artwork
thumb|A page of the OK Computer booklet with logos, white scribbles and text in [[Esperanto and English. Yorke said the motif of two stick figures shaking hands symbolised exploitation. Yorke commissioned Donwood to work on a visual diary alongside the recording sessions. He said he did not feel confident in his music until he saw a visual representation to accompany it.
The image of two stick figures shaking hands appears in the liner notes and on the disc label in CD and LP releases. Yorke said the image symbolised exploitation: "Someone's being sold something they don't really want, and someone's being friendly because they're trying to sell something. That's what it means to me." The words "Lost Child" feature prominently, and the booklet artwork contains phrases in the constructed language Esperanto and health-related instructions in both English and Greek. The Uncut critic David Cavanagh said the use of non-sequiturs created an effect "akin to being lifestyle-coached by a lunatic". White scribbles, Donwood's method of correcting mistakes rather than using the computer function undo, and small annotations. The lyrics are also arranged and spaced in shapes that resemble hidden images. In keeping with Radiohead's emerging anti-corporate stance, the production credits contain the ironic copyright notice "Lyrics reproduced by kind permission even though we wrote them."
Release and promotion
Commercial expectations
According to Selway, Radiohead's American label Capitol saw the album as commercial suicide'. They weren't really into it. At that point, we got the fear. How is this going to be received?" Yorke recalled: "When we first gave it to Capitol, they were taken aback. I don't really know why it's so important now, but I'm excited about it." Capitol lowered its sales forecast from two million to half a million. In O'Brien's view, only Parlophone, the band's British label, remained optimistic, while global distributors dramatically reduced their sales estimates. Label representatives were reportedly disappointed with the lack of marketable songs, especially the absence of anything resembling Radiohead's 1992 hit "Creep". "OK Computer isn't the album we're going to rule the world with", Colin Greenwood predicted at the time. "It's not as hitting-everything-loudly-whilst-waggling-the-tongue-in-and-out, like The Bends. There's less of the Van Halen factor." In America, Capitol sent 1,000 cassette players to prominent members of the press and music industry, each with a copy of the album permanently glued inside. Gary Gersh, Capitol's president, said: "Our job is just to take them as a left-of-centre band and bring the centre to them. That's our focus, and we won't let up until they're the biggest band in the world."
Radiohead planned to produce a video for every song on the album, but the project was abandoned due to financial and time constraints. According to Grant Gee, the director of the "No Surprises" video, the plan was cancelled when the videos for "Paranoid Android" and "Karma Police" went over budget. Also cancelled were plans for the trip hop group Massive Attack to remix the album.
Radiohead's website was created to promote the album, which went live at the time of its release, making the band one of the first to manage an online presence. The first major Radiohead fansite, Atease, was created shortly following the album's release, with its title taken from "Fitter Happier".
Singles
Radiohead chose "Paranoid Android" as the lead single, despite its unusually long running time and lack of a catchy chorus. Colin Greenwood said the song was "hardly the radio-friendly, breakthrough, buzz bin unit shifter [radio stations] can have been expecting", but that Capitol supported the choice. On the strength of frequent radio play on Radio 1 "Paranoid Android" reached number three in the UK, giving Radiohead their highest chart position.
"Karma Police" was released in August 1997 and "No Surprises" in January 1998. Both singles charted in the UK top ten, and "Karma Police" peaked at number 14 on the Billboard Modern Rock Tracks chart. "Lucky" was released as a single in France, but did not chart. "Let Down", considered for release as the lead single, was issued as a promotional single in September 1997 and charted on the Modern Rock Tracks chart at number 29.
Tour
Radiohead embarked on the "Against Demons" world tour in promotion of OK Computer, commencing at the album launch in Barcelona on 22 May 1997. They toured the UK and Ireland, continental Europe, North America, Japan and Australasia, concluding on 18 April 1998 in New York. A documentary by Grant Gee following Radiohead on the tour, Meeting People Is Easy, premiered in November 1998.
The tour was taxing for the band, particularly Yorke, who said: "That tour was a year too long. I was the first person to tire of it, then six months later everyone in the band was saying it. Then six months after that, nobody was talking any more." In 2003, Colin Greenwood said the tour was the lowest point in Radiohead's career: "There is nothing worse than having to play in front of 20,000 people when someone—when Thom—absolutely does not want to be there, and you can see that hundred-yard stare in his eyes. You hate having to put your friend through that experience."
The tour included Radiohead's first headline performance at Glastonbury Festival on 28 June 1997. Despite technical problems that almost caused Yorke to abandon the stage, the performance was acclaimed and cemented Radiohead as a major live act. Rolling Stone described it as "an absolute triumph", and in 2004 Q named it the greatest concert of all time. In 2023, the Guardian named it the greatest Glastonbury headline set, writing that "frustration and tension led to the band playing out of their skins, adding a startling potency to a set that confirmed OK Computer as the defining sound of rock's post-Britpop shift".
Sales
OK Computer was released in Japan on 21 May, in the UK on 16 June, in Canada on 17 June and in the US on 1 July. It was released on CD, double-LP vinyl record, cassette and MiniDisc. It debuted at number one in the UK with sales of 136,000 copies in its first week. It held the number-one spot in the UK for two weeks and stayed in the top ten for several more, becoming the UK's eighth-bestselling record that year.
By February 1998, OK Computer had sold at least half a million copies in the UK and 2million worldwide. The Los Angeles Times reported that by June 2001 it had sold 1.4 million copies in the US, and in April 2006 the IFPI announced it had sold 3 million copies across Europe. In the UK, it was certified gold in June 1997, platinum in July, and five-times platinum in August 2013. It is certified double platinum in the US, in addition to certifications in other markets. By May 2016, Nielsen SoundScan figures showed OK Computer had sold 2.5million digital album units in the US, plus 900,000 sales measured in album-equivalent units. Twenty years to the week after its release, the Official Charts Company recorded total UK sales of 1.5million, including album-equivalent units.