More than OK Computer

 

If we’re being completely honest, how many truly historical pieces of music did come our way since the 60’s/70’s heyday Michael Jackson’s Thriller, obviously. Half of what Nirvana put out. And, most likely, Kanye West’s 2010 My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy when all is said and done. Granted, there are a few others who deserve to be on that list, but not that many. Radiohead‘s 1997 conceptual rock masterpiece OK Computer does, though.

British rock band Radiohead’s 3rd studio effort, which turns 24 today, came as a bit of surprise. And by that we mean, as other British bands of the era (see Blur, Oasis, Pulp…) were largely content with performing straightforward stuff that would be likely to play on the radio and even potentially sell, who knows*, Thom Yorke and his colleagues decided that they would instead take more chances. They’d already put out “Creep“, which became a near-instant rock anthem, but now they wanted more… And that involved creating a concept album of sorts, full of rather melancholic and meandering sounds, featuring some guitar but equally prevalent and wonderfully distorted keyboard bits. In other words, stuff that does not sell. The guys at EMI thought exactly that, too.

Then, lo and behold, it sold… Not only that, but it became a veritable phenomenon: songs like “Karma Police” and “No surprises” joined the much enviable list of songs half the world recognizes in under 2 seconds, while “Paranoid Android” effectively gave us a 6+ minute mini-rock opera Freddie Mercury would have likely appreciated. Further than that and unbeknownst even to the band at the time, what was happening was the actual beginning of a new rock sub-genre that very much lasts till this day and takes experimental and/or electronic bits to create a new and improved (now) 21st century sound. One could even argue that this has become the leading trend within rock (and pop) music today, with the likes of Muse, Coldplay, U2, [fill in the blank] or Arctic Monkeys all jumping on the bandwagon…

Having done all that, what did Radiohead do? Continue in that route? Not exactly. While they did double down on the experimental aspect of their work with subsequent releases, they actually went so far that their music can no longer really be classified as rock music anymore… Which is fine by them: while the world was celebrating the culmination that is OK Computer, they were already busy writing a new chapter in their story, perhaps in music history too. Earlier this year, Weezer released OK Human as a nod to both the 1997 masterpiece and the Beatles’ Abbey Road production style. Thus proving that Radiohead already joined the absolute pantheon of rock, whatever they choose to do for the rest of their career…

 

* It should be noted that, following the release of OK Computer, Pulp came back with This Is Hardcore, an answer of sorts to the brilliance of Thom Yorke’s composition…