OK COMPUTER - RADIOHEAD

OK Computer is the third studio album from British band Radiohead and, while the majority of the music is still guitar dominated, it marks a progression to a more expansive sound drawing on a wider range of influences than their previous albums, setting it apart from the majority of Britpop and alternative rock sounds at the time.

The album not only indicates a progression of the band’s musical style, but lyrically as well. When writing the first two albums it seems the band were content on using introspective soul-searching as their main reference point, however on OK Computer the cryptic lyrics address much bigger, salient issues about life in the 1990s. Let Down with its soothing, arpeggiated guitar melody deals with transport and being in transit, but not in control, passing the world by ‘crushed like a bug in the ground’, with the electric piano at the end highlighting the band’s desire to experiment with other instruments, and succeeding. Subterranean Homesick Alien, which also makes use of the electric piano, tells the story of an isolated narrator who longs to be abducted by extraterrestrials to see ‘the world as I’d love to see it’ , showing the band identifying with the social disconnection of the common majority in the 1990s and the malaise they felt.

OK Computer is an ambitious album which sees the band tackle big ideas with a style that was very different from the majority of music being produced at the time and, while the first half of the album is a masterpiece of song-writing and composition, after Thom Yorke’s computerised voice stating what he saw as slogans of the 90s in Fitter Happier, the album does take a dip. Although, in typical Radiohead style all of the songs are well-formed and well-written, they just don’t live up to the first half of the album or indeed the band’s previous album The Bends. Electioneering, despite its catchy riff, would not be out of place on the band’s distinctly average debut Pablo Honey, and songs like No Surprises just seem too light and simple after listening to the astounding first half.

Despite some weak points there is no doubt in my mind that Radiohead’s third album while it maybe not their best, is definitely their most important. The band refused to retread successful formulas which the majority of bands in Britain were doing at the time. After showing signs of it on The Bends in the songs like Planet Telex, on OK Computer the band took up ground that no-one was claiming and made a record that was completely new and different to what was being made by their contemporaries. Their daring to try something new and their skill at their craft is most evident in their longest, most ambitious and impressive song to date in Paranoid Android, a song written in four parts, each part written by a different member of the band containing changes in key and tempo and time.

OK Computer, although it may not be best album ever recorded, must surely rank high as one of the most important recordings of all time. It showed bands it was OK to try new things with their music and go against what they are programmed to do to please their labels and you can bet that without this album the music industry would be a much duller place.

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THE BENDS - RADIOHEAD

The Bends, released in 1995, is the second studio album from English five-piece Radiohead. The album marks a notable shift in aesthetics and themes the band deals with and a move away from the introspective grunge style which primarily dominated their first studio album, Pablo Honey.



After the success of their first single Creep, a self-loathing elegy of lead singer Thom Yorke’s feelings as a young man, in not only the UK but also America, and the near-constant touring the band had to undertake, this album seems to be a reaction to the pressures of producing a superior follow up and being at the sharp end of a the sexy MTV lifestyle which was emerging at the time. These feelings manifest themselves most lucidly in lead single My Iron Lung which contain the lyrics ‘this is our new song / just like the last one / a total w.a.s.t.e of time’. After starting with an alluring guitar melody, the song begins to breakdown with thrashes of Jon Greenwood’s guitar seemingly expressing the band’s frustration at the Iron Lung which once gave them life as a band but is now leaves them suffocating after its success.

The album also seems to mark the beginning of a change in style immediately noticeable from the atmospheric keyboard sounds on the first track, Planet Telex. The subsequent piano chords instantly indicate this is something different from the band’s debut and Yorke’s cryptic lyrics and Greenwood’s psychedelic, broken guitar sounds leave the listener ravenous for more. However what follows is not a continuation of the euphoric, soaring electronic sounds of Telex, but a much more Pablo Honey-esque, guitar dominated track, in The Bends. This eponymous track continues the band’s exploration of the quiet / loud dynamic but marks a progression both lyrically and musically leaving the listener wondering whether this can be the same band that produced the largely bromidic collection of rock songs that is Pablo Honey.

Other highlights on the album include the simple but beautiful ballad High & Dry which again deals with the disillusionment after success, Just with its addictive, ascending riff and also sees Greenwood showcase all his (considerable) talents with an astounding guitar solo, and Bullet Proof…I Wish I Was, probably the most beautiful song on the album.

The Bends, then, seems to defy belief after the modesty of Pablo Honey. There is so much to say about each song not only about its composition, but also about the lyrics in each. While they all might not carry the weight of meaning of Fake Plastic Trees or in particular the album’s culmination Street Spirit (Fade Out), there is something about each song which will provoke thought and contemplation. This is what makes the album so special; not only is it the quality of music that makes you what to replay it, but also the tremendous meaning each song has, and this power continues to grow with every listen.

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PABLO HONEY - RADIOHEAD

Pablo Honey was released in 1993 and is the humble origin of a band that would go on to be one of the biggest and most important in modern music.

Listening to the album’s lyrics it is clear the main influence for songwriter Thom Yorke is the American grunge movement of the early 1990s with the majority of the Yorke’s lyrics portraying the default grunge mantra of teenage angst and isolation, similar to post-punk American bands such as Pixies and Sonic Youth.



Unlike future Radiohead works, the majority of the album was written using only guitars and drums; however the usage of these guitars varies throughout the album. Thinking About You sees Yorke sing an emotional lament over simple acoustic guitar while How You Do is an upbeat pop rock anthem which ends in a mesh of jerky piano and guitar screeches. The album bustles between beautiful, harmonizing guitar melodies and areas of chaotic euphony, never quite settling on a single style and this is perhaps most evident in standout track Creep.

It seems that Creep covers everything Yorke is trying to portray in the rest of the album. The song starts with a soft guitar refrain and quiet bass over which Yorke mocks himself and others like him with self loathing lyrics ‘I want a perfect body/ I want a perfect soul’. The song then explodes into a full-blown indie anthem with Jon Greenwood’s resonating guitar crunches and Yorke’s refrain ‘I’m a creep/I’m a weirdo’. The song reflects Yorke’s self-lacerating rage about not fitting in as a young man, presumably while at Exeter University, and has become an anthem and a rallying call to the disaffected youth of today.

Pablo Honey then, appears to be something of a mixed bag. While tracks like Stop Whispering and Prove Yourself are perfectly listenable and enjoyable, it is only really Creep which has any resonance after listening to the album. The album also has pitfalls in the form of the clichéd Anyone Can Play Guitar and tracks like Ripcord and Vegetable which would be at home on any below-par Britpop album. However the album ascends the bracket of standard Britpop due to the combination of mellifluous harmonies and melodies of bass and guitar and Thom Yorke’s soaring voice.

Therefore while the album may not live up to the tag some critics have given it as the British Nevermind, Pablo Honey is nonetheless a solid rock album. All the songs are well written and it is clear that all five members are talented musicians and, in Thom Yorke there is a very intelligent songwriter. Radiohead clearly have potential and in the album closer Blow Out we see the five-piece in all their glory – Yorke’s haunting voice floating above light guitar before morphing into a staggering mesh of bass, drums and Greenwood’s shrieking guitar – greater things to come, surely.

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