ÿ

It’s a pretty good left-of-mainstream (but not really all that far-out) epic-sounding guitar rock album, kind of like the Ocean Rain of the 90’s or something.

At the time it felt like the most incredible album to me. In retrospect, it’s a transitional record with some really great singles that bridged the gap between The Bends and Kid A.

Basically, it’s OK and some of the songs are about computers.

It even has a computer on one track... as the singer!

That song for me was like the moment when Deep Blue beat Gary Kasparov in 1996.

I do really really like Karma Police and Paranoid Android. Never keen on Electioneering or Let Down (although the Easy Star Allstars version is fab!)

it was the bridge between the bends and kid a, alright, so it’s half great half shite

a terrible album to discus, but rather nice to occasionally listen to.

Loved loved loved it at the time, but sold it ages ago. Horribly dated production sound, and and not as good The Bends or Kid A—which are much better at what they do, but I wouldn’t ever choose to listen to any of them now.

You lot KNOW I’m in a wee village in Cornwall and I p much have to climb to the elevation of St Michael’s Mount to get half a bar on my iPhone so you decide *now* is a good time to start 17 RH threads? BARSTRDSZ!

Ocean Rain of the 90s is a p p good description. Now sod you lot, I’m off to Lamorna, I can see the seals are gathering on the rocks there already.

:)

I love Ocean Rain fwiw

Seals are better dancers than Thom Yorke TBH.

singers too

’s ok

I also love Ocean Rain, I get it out far more frequently than ~better~ albums of the 80s.

I’m also looking at ocean rain right now and trying to decide if it’s gonna get to Lamorna before I do and I don’t even know if the Wink is open for a brandy.

Like I said on t’other thread I got this album out recently and was surprised how much of it was so forgettable. The highs are so amazing it leaves a lasting good impression but it’s patchy as hell. Ocean Rain is wall to wall amazing, yes even Thorn Of Crowns. I’d love to hear TY do a “c c cucumbers c c cauliflowers c c cabbages men on mars April showers!” it would suit him.

Great singer, terrible fishy breath xp

Iiiiin ICe Camp Fire, Im wolrldsmm doom, and worlds of Wirehhhhhhh

etcet.

“c c cucumbers c c cauliflowers c c cabbages men on mars April showers!”

certain aspects of pavement’s “killing moon” cover now make more sense to me. yeah i’ve never heard ocean rain. no plans to change that anytime soon.

it’s a good, but not great, record. I would take it over OK Computer, personally.

Radiohead stuck forever being Echo & the Bunnymen to Richard D James’ Julian Cope. It would explain the megalithic long barrow guitar solos.

Anyway I need my attention for crossing this v v swollen stream. I wish I could show you where I’m posting this from but I would probably need to reexamine my life priorities.

haha I know you’re using the comparisons loosely but Radiohead are nothing like RDJ beyond their appropriation of IDM-influenced bleepiness, whereas in the grand scheme of things the Teardrop Explodes and the Bunnymen might as well be the same band if you zoom out far enough

i r joeking

ocean rain is great

ok computer is great

hooray for records

well, Ian Mac was always the guy that ‘bought’ the long jacket, whereas JCope was born wearing the jacket.

(Ooh, I like that one, really pleeased I said that)

Ian’s the sort who gets out of the bath with a dirty face while Julian says “How was the gear? They don’t sell things to you over there”

I’m about to disappear round a crag of radioactive Cornish granite where my signal will disappear again. Anything else to add about Thom Yorke, Julian Cope or Ocean Rain or can I go back to hiking in the stone age again?

Anything else to add about Thom Yorke, Julian Cope or Ocean Rain or can I go back to hiking in the stone age again?

yes. ok computer is a very good album, which has held up almost as well as paris hilton’s debut disc.

ive never really listened to this but i like to read the title as thom yorke getting frustrated w/his computer

no no it is a deep (deep deep deep) examination of the growing threat of a technology-driven fascist state. set to music.

OKComputer was an early dating site set up to find a Victorian Porn loving girlfriend for Colin.

iiiiiiiiii’ve been kissed by a rose

OKC is not only a great concept rock album, it is going to represent the western-conference in this year’s NBA finals.

go clips

go clipse

It wasn’t even seals in the end! It was a frogman! He came out of the sea all wrapped in scuba gear at Lamorna Cove!

(nah, durant/harden/westbrook the actual deal)

w/pusha t

i look forward to this epic battle of the bends!

ive never really listened to this but i like to read the title as thom yorke getting frustrated w/his computer

I do this too! “OK computer, I’m tired of these error messages now”.

can’t believe we’re really debating this, c’mon guys I’m not even really a fan of Radiohead but this is a pretty good album all things considered

Never underestimate the internet’s capacity to both overrate and underrate this band’s legacy.

any band’s legacy.

the internet has even caused me — briefly — to question my belief that foghat is the greatest rock band of all times.

I kinda feel like Radiohead is a special case though, in terms of the extremity of the underrating and overrating.

well they are the worst band ever

Radiohead are a good solid band! I mean they’re not in my personal Top 10 (I have no idea how TY got in my all time Top 10 WS but there you go) but they are a kind of focus for loving or hating a certain millennial seam of music, pop culture, etc. Middlebrow always attracts more consternation than Hi or Lo brows put together.

like, who outside of “Q” or whatever would say okc’s anything other than “aiite” anymore? underrate/overrate zzz not actually happening on that one?

You don’t read many Radiohead threads on the internet do you shook?

Those who would file it next to “Definitely Maybe”?

it’s aight

let down could almost be a country single in 2012 think abt it

Actually, now that you say that I kind of want to hear Miranda Lambert cover that song.

like, who outside of “Q” or whatever would say okc’s anything other than “aiite” anymore?

It *was* Pitchfork’s best album of the 90s iirc, but that poll was some time ago, so yeah, maybe things have moved on?

I voted “fucking terrible,” because that best reflects my lack of any desire to listen to it. It’s obviously more ambitious and made by brighter guys than the average dross out there, but it’s also a pretentious bore, offered too little in the way of melody, rhythm (lol), or interesting ideas to command my attention once I figured out that I didn’t have to listen to something because people on my peer group regarded it as “important.” Also, they’re British.

paranoid android is the litmus test 4 me, bc I like the first section of the song, looks like it would lead to a jam, but then it goes into the oh no the android is really paranoid now time to rock part and then it’s the rain down I’m sad now part and I’m just like fuck this shit, skip to the Miranda lambert cover

I don’t understand who would rep for OKC as their best album. Hell it’s not even the best release RH put out in 1997! (How Am I Driving knocks it sideways) but I know with this band (or any band w a large fairly consistent output) ppl tend to rate highest the album they heard first and for most ppl it was this one.

I’m so repetitive at this point I’m boring myself. Need a pint of Proper Job waiting for me in Mousehole.

Need a pint of Proper Job waiting for me in Mousehole

^British

www.rateyourmusic.com

Bored now. Can we skip to the bit where Thom Yorke gets his tits out?

there are lots of pretty pop songs on this not sure how you could quantify that “too little in the way of melody”

but in rainbows is the only radiohead album I go back to

king of tits

xp

i remember when this came out everyone was all track 6 man youve got to hear track 6, i was like people refer to songs by their track number now

I think Ed won King of Tits.

Radio Ed, not “there’s another pub, right round this massive granite mountain I swear look at the OS map” Ed.

tbh I feel like everyone here would probably like this album if it weren’t, you know, Radiohead

prob not

I don’t about “everyone”, but “more people”, yeah.

eh, and was like what? wild beasts? prob not

Blimey just remembering what Internet album hype was like before there was an ILX.

I was trying to explain early Internet music fandom to someone on twitter and realised I thought of atease.web as “that new site” after I got thrown off the official forum. Wandering back into a fandom after you’ve been out of it for 10 years is Fucken weird, like in-jokes that stay the same and become canon and ones that wither away.

I mentioned “cheesecake” to someone and they knew what I was talking about but “the White chocolate Farm” drew a blank. What happens to the ancient strata of the Internet? (hiking is gonna make me start thinking of Thable Thom then I’ll laugh so hard beer comes out my nose)

Makes me wonder, what if real ILM is sunk forever what if yhe sandbox becomes all there is?

there are lots of pretty pop songs on this not sure how you could quantify that “too little in the way of melody”

When they have to point out the melody for you, there’s a problem. These guys started making listenable music when they acknowledged their “song”-writing limitations. Not that it’s any more my style.

When they have to point out the melody for you, there’s a problem.

what the hell are you talking about

Don’t you remember that part in “Karma Police” where Thom kicks off that verse with “ch-check out my melody”.

i like the album “OK Computer”

what the hell are you talking about

I suggest thinking about the phrase. Perhaps while listening to, say, “Kama Police.”

a starchy, coldly insensitive, often highly patronizing jerk, from and of a wealthy class seeking to preserve its privileges

Hey, I’m just upper middle class (and downwardly mobile). I also try to reserve my freezerburn for assholes.

I thought that was referring to Little Thommy Yorke

Me, too.

This is now the certified 1,000,000,000th internet thread dedicated to people fighting over Radiohead!!

man people have really confused ideas about the word ‘melody’

Should I mention on this thread too that they’re headlining (Saturday nights at) Coachella?

(And I think Bonnaroo?)

I don’t really think that TY can really refer to himself as “middle class” any more though lord knows he tries. That rlly wound me up on the OLSX video—and the Fucken narcissism of small difference of claiming with a smirk “I couldn’t be PM I didn’t go to the right school” as if there’s such a massive difference between Eton and Abingdon but this is where I calm down and remember I’d still lick his bald patch and there’s a pint with my name on it down in the next village. Night all.

Ha-ha, I put that on the wrong thread, didn’t I?

David Cameron has a bald patch? (xp)

I suggest thinking about the phrase. Perhaps while listening to, say, “Kama Police.”

...

Maybe YOU’RE the one who should relisten to this song since the only reasonable interpretation of that sentence (an instrument plays the melody before Thom sings it) doesn’t happen in it? Also, even if an instrument DID play the melody before the singer came in, that is a perfectly acceptable way to introduce the listener to the song and not actually a “problem”, unless you also have problems with all kinds of classical and baroque music too.

One last complaint about the prevalence of Thonny slash over the far superior and more canonical Thozzie slash and kids today they don’t know they’re born before I drop over the last granite Carn and lose reception forever!

To say nothin’ of the prevalence of Fozzie Slash...

Maybe YOU’RE the one who should relisten to this song since the only reasonable interpretation of that sentence (an instrument plays the melody before Thom sings it) doesn’t happen in it?

Ok, I’ll spell it out—I mean the way he has to really draw out the words/melody, in time. If the song were a little faster, it’s fairly limited melody would be more apparent. And I did just listen to the song. It isn’t quite as big a factor as I remembered, but it’s still there.

Oh no, I’m becoming Geir, aren’t I?

But doesn’t he love Radiohead?

haha yes and yes

Yeah, we’ll they’re the sort of pretentious faux-classical music he seeks. And, to be clear, what I want from them is more James Brown.

They must be melodic then

I shit you not, I just went in the pub and they were playing sodding Mogwai. Melody was really not that much of a priority in 1997.

My point is, Radiohead wasn’t offering much else, back then at least

It was just the style then!

That has just reminded me of the other reason to dislike this album + Karma Police especially because it made it officially Not OK to like fridge buzz any more. And for like 94–96 fridge buzz was a big thing in the Drone Community. Like after a big night of listening to Sonic Boom playing LaMonte Young Dream Music at Sound Lab we’d come back to my mate Anton’s house with a bunch of Illbient dudes and skin up—the first time it happened it was by accident, Anton had gone out to get more wine and we were all “Aw man he’s just left the most amazing music on for us” like some out take of SAW2. And about an hour later Anton came back and he was all “guise the record ended after 15 minutes you Fucken hippies have been listening to my fridge for 45 minutes!”

And Fucken Karma Police, man, that just ruined it for us ever after. I wanna reclaim fridge buzz for the droners and ambient heads (iPhone just corrected “droner” to “stoner” ha ha)

I mean, was OKC really tuneless compared to God! Speed! You! Fucken! Canadians or whatever? Not rlly no

I’d rather listen to Anton’s fridge buzzing than Fucken Penderecki any day I tell ya.

Fuck it just started pelting with rain I gotta get off the pier.

i like it

geir much prefers the bends iirc

I don’t about “everyone”, but “more people”, yeah.

would probably stop a lot of the real nitpicky complaints and such. like that thing about how it’s not “melodic enough” or whatever, like, how can you even claim that? after everything I’d heard about the group I thought I’d hate ’em, only to actually hear the album and realize that it’s just kind of normal high-quality alt-pop

i never liked this band why is the guy always whining abt things, i dont understand what hes talking abt

I’ve never listened to this album. I had the Bends on cassette, tho.

that thing about how it’s not “melodic enough” or whatever, like, how can you even claim that?

By listening to it and being honest? I suppose some familiarity with very basic musical theory might help, but it’s hardly necessary.

good point. i’m an idiot!

I don’t think being more like Tears For Fears would make OK Computer appear any less pretentious.

but for everyone else’s amusement, please elaborate on how “very basic musical theory” makes this album sound bad to you

“very basic musical theory” doesn’t “make[]” the album “sound bad” to me, it just helps describes why it doesn’t sound good.

care to elaborate even a little

I mean no offense but that is just the laziest argument. it’s like the 20-somethings who try to convince me why Dragonforce is the greatest band in the history of music, because “I took music classes and I understand what these guys are doing, if you don’t I guess you’ll never get it”

he’s just saying the melodic range isn’t wide enough to be interesting, which is kind of a silly thing to say about a 90s rock song

I’m saying, essentially, graph the notes (in your head). The melody isn’t very interesting, which is obscured by Yorke’s singing it in a whiny, drawn-out, pretentious Anglo drawl.

xp—Right, but it isn’t silly because melody is basically all it has going for it.

so what constitutes an “interesting” melody in your opinion? it’s not like you can play this stuff on a piano with one finger, like it’s Nickelback or something

actually you can play “Karma Police” with one finger, not that that is actually an indication of whether something is a “good melody” or not

Right, but it isn’t silly because melody is basically all it has going for it.

The idea that the melody is the only thing “Karma Police” has going for it is ridiculous. There are a bunch of things going on, between the piano/acoustic guitar interplay, the smooth bass groove, the background vocal interjections, and the distinct verse/chorus/coda sections, particularly the augmented orchestration in the coda.

It’s obviously not going to be to everyone’s taste because nothing is universally liked but come on; listen to what’s actually there (and interestingly, you yourself admitted that you were grossly overstating your argument based on your relisten).

No I didn’t. I admitted that the temp was slightly better than I remembered, which may add a hint of rhythm, but changes nothing in re: the weakness of the melody. If I have overstated anything, which I’m not sure I have, it’s been only mildly. The things you listed are there, yes, but none of them are “going on” imo. This is in part why they amped up the effects on Kid A.

tempO

damn Yorke putting on that pretentious Anglo drawl

he shd get back to his original Barry White voice

what would be a much better tempo? would 170 bpm be ideal?

what would be a stronger melody? one that avoided the middle half of a piano?

OK Computer changed my life and all you fuckers saying it is bad should suck my dick! You guys are supposedly “I love music”?

OK Computer changed my life and all you fuckers saying it is bad should suck my dick!

I decline. Many people, myself included, have strong personal attachments to bad music, especially that which they enjoyed in their youth/adolescence.

Fitter, happier, more productive

Getting on better with your fellow posters

Not reading too many Radiohead threads on ILX

Regular looking for the SB button (3 times a day)

You can’t just be like OH the tempo is wrong and the melody is wrong, you have to live inside the song and let it be part of you! It’s a song not a textbook! Try listening to Exit Music on a discman under a bridge in the middle of January and then tell me it doesn’ t have a melody and the tempo is wrong!

yeah!

tell us how it changed your life

it didn’t help with your posting

wait are you under a bridge b/c you’re a goat, or because you’re listening to Radiohead?

Try listening to Exit Music on a discman under a bridge in the middle of January

haha a bridge too far to be for real

come on guys this is a sock

It changed my life by giving me a whole philosophy about the beauty of life! I stopped doing stupid stuff and started working on myself. Could a “fucking terrible album” do that?

... Yes?

Hey I’m just telling you what worked for me!

are you still eating cans and boots

I mean, you are asking this in a world where people are listening to Drake and Taylor Swift

How can something be terrible if it makes you a better person?

Ha ha man hanging out under the bridge was dumb OK! but Kurt used to do it and it was a good place to think and get away

whoa, thread got ~deep~

only 100 people bought OK Computer at the time but every single one of them went out and lived under a bridge

so what constitutes an “interesting” melody in your opinion? it’s not like you can play this stuff on a piano with one finger, like it’s Nickelback or something

Isn’t a melody by definition something that you can play on the piano with one finger?

Not necessarily. in its strictest definition a melody is a series of sequential notes; the intervals between those notes may make playing the line with one finger challenging.

what if it’s a really long finger?

then you’re screwed with faster rhythms

So basically better melodies use legato?

long finger, screwed. got it.

only 100 people bought OK Computer at the time but every single one of them went out and lived under a bridge

lol

I’m not really sure what constitutes a better or worse melody. I’m trying to figure out how you can say “if you know the most basic music theory, Radiohead have bad melodies” and instantly thought of the song “Photograph” by Nickelback

“if you know the most basic music theory, Radiohead have bad melodies”

Again, this is not what I said.

makes me so happy frogbs and gabbneb have found each otherthat i’m dancing with tears in my eyes to lucky rite now

Again, this is not what I said.

then what exactly are you trying to say?

Do you even know what a hitler hairdo is?

FWIW my drone friends still like to listen to fridge buzz

This has to be one of the stupidest threads in ILX history.

I just can’t believe Geir hasn’t shown up yet.

idk if geir is on the sandbox.

“It would be interesting to see how the world would be different if Dick Cheney really listened to Radiohead’s OK Computer. I think the world would probably improve. That album is fucking brilliant. It changed my life, so why wouldn’t it change his?”—Chris Martin

That guy should not give interviews.

or make music

Or make anymore records IMO IIRC.

Cross-post, but Oh Noes beat me to it.

the easier the zing, the faster my fingers

the faster your treefingers

fitter happier

more reductive

Ha!

“It would be interesting to see how the world would be different if Dick Cheney really listened to Radiohead’s OK Computer. I think the world would probably improve. That album is fucking brilliant. It changed my life, so why wouldn’t it change his?”—Chris Martin

― that wiener from Emearlds (step hen faps), Wednesday, 21 December 2011 11:56

XD

if by “changing his life,” chris martin means ok computer inspired him to make music, i’m changing my vote to “fucking terrible album.”

I want a Chris & Gwyneth reality show so I can hear more shit just like that

Chris Martin is right! I don’t like his music but if listening to OK Computer got him that babe Gwyneth then you can’t say it’s that terrible!

Gwyneth was totally insufferable and intolerable until, like, 3 years ago?

and now she’s . . . ?

vegan!

lol

what *is* on dick cheney’s ipod

lil b.

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

This thread still makes me all like

man I miss Cornwall

dookay computer

aiite computer

I knew the computer in question and it was pretty overrated imo.

there’s no option for “i have never heard this album”!

cmon of course youve heard it its not the beatles

lol

hey, i heard the beatles almost 10 times in the last year!

jeez were you counting or something

Automatic thread bump. This poll’s results are now in.

Congratulations, Secondary Boyfriend and yr fabulous dancing belly!

yr mum is terrible album

what is the proper amount of whitespace

below a quote

hmmm

that was too much

really it has to

have

this much

space?

not

this much

sorry to ruin

this thread

everyone

this

is

quite

a quote

don’t you

agree

so now

bac

oops

i mean

awioefn

aowifen

aoiwnefiwefef

awioenfiewn

aoiweweinf

awoefinwen

no need

to get all welsh

Eat it