1997 was the year the last nail was driven into the Britpop coffin amid a blizzard of coke and egos. Oasis released the bloated Be Here Now, and New Labour sounded the death knell by declaring Britannia cool like some kind of funky geography teacher trying too hard to get with ‘the kids.’
But at every party there’s always a shy bookish type who slinks away to look angst ridden and quote poetry. In that sense OK Computer was the perfect album for the times. While the Gallaghers were proudly parading their philistinism, Thom Yorke was getting cosy with Noam Chomsky. And that extra H! How arch…
The Bends had finally shaken off the one-hit wonder tag Radiohead had been saddled with after the success of Creep. But it was still a fairly conventional rock record, despite the occasional lapse into weirdness. With OK Computer the band were determined to rewrite their own rules.
The initial impetus came when they recorded a brace of songs, Talk Show Host and Lucky, with engineer Nigel Godrich. Lucky was recorded on the hoof for a charity record, and the experience was so enjoyable that the band asked Godrich to build them a portable studio which they could use whenever the inspiration took them. Freshly inspired, they wrote a clutch of new songs, many of which were premiered live on a support tour with Alanis Morissette.
Sessions eventually ended up in the country mansion of Jane Seymour, where recording was punctuated by midnight croquet sessions. However, the songs reflected darker vibes. The ominous opener, Airbag, built around a drum loop recalling DJ Shadow, was originally titled Last Night An Airbag Saved My Life. The epic Paranoid Android was stitched together from three separate songs, its obscure lyrical allusions filtered through storms of angular guitars and moaning choruses.
On the other hand, No Surprises was recorded live, with a minimum of overdubs. Fitter Happier did away with the guitars altogether and replaced Yorke’s voice with a synthesised catalogue of modern worries. Yorke’s lyrics dealt with alien abduction (Subterranean Homesick Alien), globalisation (Electioneering), fear of air travel (Lucky) and other such cheery topics. In fact, big selling rock albums hadn’t ploughed such resolutely despondent furrows since the heyday of Pink Floyd.
The buying public weren’t dissuaded, however. Greeted by a wave of critical admiration, OK Computer became the Radiohead’s breakthrough album in the US, making them the only British rock band apart from grunge wannabes Bush to beat America on their own terms. Within a couple of years it was also topping all time best album polls throughout the press, even as some commentators berated the band’s more prog rock tendencies. Still, we can’t hold that against them, can we?
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