OK Computer is considered by many (in the UK at least) the greatest rock album ever.
The follow-up dual album Kid A/Amnesiac was a far turn, going experimental and heavily electronic.
I think the sheer creative genius of Kid A and Amnesiac outweighs the coherency and song-writing perfection of OK Computer. What say ye?
OK Computer makes me want to die. Like, in an amazing way.
I never made it through the entire Kid A. One might say that I personally lack complexity.
I LOVED OKComputer, after I got that I went out and fell in love with The Bends and Pablo Honey, but OKComputer will always hold a special place in my heart, it was part of the soundtrack of my college experience. When Kid A came out I ran to the store and bought that. I tried, I really did, but I might as well have just tossed it. I’m sure it’s around here somewhere, but I never listened to it again after those first few runs. I think my OKComputer CD is actually in my car right now. I give them credit for doing what they did, but I’m am 100% a pre-Kid A Radiohead fan.
I saw them on their Kid A tour, which was good because they played plenty of their ‘old stuff’. I’m sure if you went and saw them now you wouldn’t get to hear My Iron Lung or Fake Plastic Trees or Paranoid Android (etc). I’m guessing Creep is a mainstay, it probably gets the whole audience going.
It’s unfortunate, but for a band I loved so much from late 90’s to the mid 00’s, I’ll probably never pay much attention to what they do again.
I personally wouldn’t lop Kid A and Amnesiac together. I know they were recorded at the same time, but they are distinct albums to me. Amnesiac is clearly nowhere on the level of either OK Computer or Kid A.
Between OK Computer and Kid A, I’m an OK Computer kind of person, but I can’t deny the brilliance of Kid A (or the Bends, for that matter). It’s just that OK Computer speaks to me more, and ties in sonic experimentation with pop songwriting. That said, none of these are the greatest rock album for me (although they’ll make my Top 20 or 30).
Yes! All this, minus the tour part.
It’s funny, if you reverse “Kid A” and “Amnesiac” in all that text, you’ll get my thoughts exactly.
During my 4 years of college (98-02), I’ll bet I listened to OKComputer, in full or in part, 500-1000 times.
Yeah I don’t think I had any other CDs in my dorm CD player in '97. Consequently, in my car CD player when I became a commuter.
I wrote my freshman honors English final paper about how “Paranoid Android” was an abbreviated interpretation of Moby Dick. I got an A, it was awesome. And somehow I lost the paper completely. I think the professor wanted a copy and I never got the original back.
I have a visceral reaction to hearing any song on the album. Melty-like.
Yeah, um, me too, but there might have been some chemical influences. I mean, we all know The Dead and Phish and Pink Floyd etc is perfect for the green stuff, but a friend and I found out when it comes to the white stuff, OKComputer just…it’s just perfect. OkComputer and some blow is like Pink Floyd and some grass. It’s like cookies and milk, it just…works. That substance isn’t typically known for going along with music, but a few lines and that CD and we were in heaven for the next hour or so.
Except for Fitter Happier, I always skipped that track, but I think that’s understandable.
Don’t get me wrong, I still love the album though. But the CD that made me get all melty-like was Mellon-Collie and the Infinite Sadness (specifically Disc 1). I think I wore that one out during my high school years. oooh, and the first two Tori Amos CDs, but I went back and listened to them a few years back and, not being in that same high school state of mind, they really didn’t hold up, for me, as the lyrics didn’t speak to me like they did back then. I wonder if Antichrist Superstar still holds up, I listened to that one quite a bit as well. He was the only person of that genre I listened to, but I did listen to him quite a bit. I probably should have listened to NIN way more than I did.
Kid A / Amnesiac contain lots of very good and subtle music.
OK Computer is one of the very few albums that managed to combine high artistic ambition, originality and memorable tunes. It’s the one of a very select few 90s album that I’d still happily listen to from start to finish nowadays, along with Björk’s Debut and Portishead’s Dummy.
So, I noticed that “Kid A” was like “A Dick” reversed, and then I spent too long trying to figure out what Amnesiac could be backwards before I realised what you meant.
Carry on everyone.
OK Computer for me (or even better: The Bends). No matter how much I tried, I can’t get into KidA or later albums.
OK Computer for me. It’s still in regular rotation in my car, where the 90s never ended.
Count me in with this. I avoided OKC for a few years - too much hype as the Big Statement, coming from folks I wouldn’t expect it from. Kinda like blockbuster movie fans telling me how great Citizen Kane is - they may be correct but it is hype based.
Finally really dug into it a few years later. Wow. Shared it with my kids who also love it, along withe the Bends and Pablo. I play Kid A on Sunday mornings like this - hmm, maybe I will give it a spin! - and I love it but my kids always prefer it if I switch music when they come down for breakfast…
Well, I think OK Computer is a little better than Kid A, but they’re pretty close in terms of greatness. I never got into Amnesiac.
I had all my cassettes stolen in Macedonia and bought a copy of OK Computer from a disreputable market in Skopje. It had just come out and I listened to it and only it for the following week, on my long journey back to the UK.
Liked it a lot, but never loved it. After that, they lost me, sounding like prog rockers on ecstasy.
Then a couple of years ago I heard this,
Easy Star All Stars - Radiodread (Album Full) - YouTube - Easy Star All Stars - Radiodread
and absolutely loved it, and still do.
MiM
Someone once described OK Computer as Radiohead’s Dark Side of the Moon – full of melodic, relatively “accessible” songs, but without sacrificing too much of the experimental creativity the band is capable of (but which, because this is done a tad excessively in parts of their other albums, making them frankly not quite as good, except maybe for a few hard-core fans).
ETA: I agree! OK is the one Radiohead album I could listen to start-to-finish any day of the year, and be a happier man for having done so (though not a fitter one, alas).
I just read how closely L’Espace’s post resembles mine. Cool.
Wow, that’s wonderful, thanks for the heads-up! Good for Jonny and the lads to give their hearty approval to this worthy effort.
