OK Computer is a 1997 alternative indie album by the English rock band Radiohead. With this being their third studio album, they welcomed a new sound with abstract lyrics and electric notes, taking a different approach to their music than what was shown in their previous work. Now, you might be wondering why is this girl bringing up some quirky album that’s pushing 30 years old instead of talking about something more relevant; and that is because Radiohead basically predicted the future. Well no, they really didn’t. However, what’s cool about OK Computer is that the themes present in the lyrics can be seen ever presently today, decades later. The album provides commentary on a dystopian world filled with dissociation, consumerism, and political corruption (basically the state we live in now), evidently warning the world about what the future could be holding for humankind.
Despite having computers in the title, the lyrics don´t specifically bring them up, but rather discuss how humans have succumbed to technology. Erasing the beauty of imperfection and aspiration while replacing it with conformity and disconnection. Now we see this happen daily, with the spread of AI and other technological advancement that may seem pretty cool to scientists, but in the great scheme of things, just drag us further away from humanity. The album perfectly encapsulates the dystopian (almost ¨Blade Runner”) energy, allowing the listener to feel like they are staring at a bright, artificially-lit computer in the middle of the night, the blue light seeping through the room leaving no trace of warmth behind.
The album cover is another reason why I believe that this album is perfectly constructed. The cover shows an unfinished image of what seems to be a street with a vague figure of a person walking across. It’s messy, disorganized, and honestly hard to interpret. I mean c’mon Thom did the printer run out of ink? Artist Stanley Donwood said that he ¨wanted to create a kind of fog world,¨ when asked about the inspiration behind the image, and it worked (good job, Stanley).
Even though our world isn’t filled with walking robots and dystopian flying vehicles or whatever Ryan Gosling was doing, the album still hits a little too close to home. The irony of this is that despite the generations of warnings about the consequences of our progression, the world remains blind. So, who knows? Perhaps one day we´ll finally find ourselves embedded in the cover of OK Computer, a world overcast.
OK now to the important stuff, my personal album ranking (because I´m a professional connoisseur)(?):
1: Exit Music (For A Film)
2: Climbing Up the Walls
3: Let Down
4: The Tourist
5: No Surprises
6: Paranoid Android
7: Electioneering
8: Subterranean Homesick Alien
9: Airbag
10: Lucky
11: Karma Police
12: Fitter Happier
