1/15/22
OK Computer - RADIOHEAD (1997)
I'm unsurprised to find out that this is the most popular album on RYM, the burst of electric guitar and insane synthesizers work here made me feel again the warm feeling of finding something new and having goosebumps in the first 10 listens.
This isn't a joke, I may have listened to this album non stop for three whole days before start writing this, itself consists of songs that are intricate, take multiple listens to fully grasp. It is not hard to tell i liked it. Rediscovering Radiohead and Yorke's lyrics composition years since my first listening to it gave me a lot of time alone to remember how much I like this band.
Every human being is hopeless alone. In The Idiot (1869), Myshkin is paralyzed by a terrible estrangement from others. He wishes to relief the suffering of others after being drive by the experience of beauty and harmony that precede his epileptic seizures. But others fail to guess Myshkin inner reality. What about OK Computer? Here wee see Thom Yorke dealing with different themes and metaphors, this allusion to Myshkin illuminates a perspective that seeks to recognize the intentions of the album.
Lost in the limbo between the conceptual and collection of songs, with themes of isolation, the increased need for technology in the modern age / aliens / romeo and juliet / and even karma. OK Computer brings so much more than this, the truth is that the album is much more than songs without connection, each track open a fracture into a central role in what is the final product. While it's difficult to say concretely that there is a logic sequence between each track we are induce straightforward to a sublime and predominant theme, with an organic feel and deeply personal touch. There is a unity between the songs that shows a state of mind rather than a linear narrative or an explicit form.
The state of mind mind here is living in the modern world with its emphasis on better living through science. And yet, the 19th century notion of letting science and technology advances the human race into a better utopia has resulted in devastating wars and others forms of misery... far from being idyllic & peaceful. Myshkin, brings the tension of the spirit world and everyday reality, between the non-racional realm and the alien domain, between the attempt to archieve good but instead bringing about a tragic end. * He demonstrates a desire from a sense of his own moral in a uncertain world. Yorke limited human vision circumscribes his friends in 'Subterranean Homesick Alien', his good intentions to embrace a new aspects of human existence, being presented to true meanings yet blinded by their uncleansed doors of perception and complacency.*
"I'd tell all my friends
But they'd never believe me
They'd think that I'd finally lost it completely
I'd show them the stars
And the meaning of life
They'd shut me away
But I'd be all right
All right"
“Sentimentality is being emotional for the sake of it. We’re bombarded with sentiment, people emoting. That’s the Let Down. Feeling every emotion is fake. Or rather every emotion is on the same plane whether it’s a car advert or a pop song.” — Thom Yorke
The tracks are all brilliant in their own right, but ones that really deserve mentioning would be 'Lucky', 'Subterranean Homesick Alien' and 'Climbing up the Walls' are pretty much the downhole to me sink into the emotional numbness, the harmonies at the end of ‘Lucky’ fill my chest with the urge to laugh and cry, I know I've found a comfort track for all the overwhelming uncertainty confusion i've ever experienced, just like millions of people. The album has something to give on every single track. One of the greatest albums of all time & what we all truly believe to be the best Radiohead album to date.
References from Dostoevsky's "Idiot": Defining Myshkin, Subterranean Homesick Alien Genius page.