Guardian
pop Cd of the week **** (excellent)
ACHING HEADS
There should be a health warning printed on the sleeve: Do Not Play
If You Are Feeling Fragile. Radiohead's attempt to capture
the so-called
"miserable human condition" in 12 songs is surprising and sometimes
inspiring but its intensity makes for a demanding listen.
its nerve
endings are wholly exposed ("fraying like badly-wired plugs"in singer
Thom Yorke's words) - even more so than on The Bends, the
1995 album that promoted them for indie one-hit-wonderville into
the
premier league of respected British rock bands.
Yorke claims to be much more optimistic this time around, the
neuroses that spawned bends numbers like Street Spirit ("cracked
eggs, dead birds / scream as they fight for life") a thing of the
past. Or so he says, but it's hard to credit. Listen to his
misanthropy on Fitter, Happier:"Regular exercise at the gym three
days a week/fitter, happier and more productive/a pig in a cage
on
antibiotics" You wouldn't want to spend many midnights with
OK
Computer.
The title is one of the few light-hearted elements, inspired by
the
Japanese prediliction for juxtaposing unrelated english words.
That
said, while recording the last LP, Yorke couldn't have been prodded
out of his self absorbtion long enough to notice said prediliction.
So OK Computer can be characterised as the outward-focused successor
to the introverted Bends.
The songs are arranged in a sort of cycle that insists on being
heard
as a whole. As such - and in the feeling that the music was
worked
out over a long period of leisurely experimentation - it is
reminisant of, oh-gawd-no, Pink floyd's Dark side of the moon.
If
that album had been made in the technologically advanced,
pre-millennial nineties it might have sounded a lot like OK Computer.
And OK... is probably destined to be similarly recognised
as one of
the definitive records of its time.
the sleighbells 'n' grimy guitar (courtesy of the versitile jonny
Greenwood) that open the first song, Airbag, can be taken as the
post-mod equivalent of the floyd's Mellotrons and Moogs, while the
three movements of the semi-acoustic and very lovely single Paranoid
Android recall Queen's Bohemian Rhapsody. So does Paranoid's
disturbing, disturbed lyrics - but from there they are in uncharted
territory.
Subterranian homesick Alein is one of several tunes whose prettiness-
chiming guitar, seagull cries - belies the desolation below.
This
is Yorke's paean to the space aleins he believes live among us
(you argue with him), and it leads to one of the album's
big
moments, Exit Music (for a film). It starts small and builds to
a
crescendo, advising a young couple to get out "before all hell breaks
loose". Stunning.
The album continues inextricably through Fitter, Happier - a
synthesised voice recites a list of modern imperitives ("get on
better with your associate employees") - and it's only rocker,
Electioneering. Just as it seems to be on the verge of collapsing
under its own denseness it winds down with another highlight, the
tinkly, fairytale-esque No Surprises. The tourist closes the
album
with wistful strummery from second guitarist Ed O'Brien, and you're
left overwhelmed and possibly needing an asprin. nothing else
this
year is likely to match OK Computer's ambitiousness, let alone it's
intensity.
Caroline Sullivan.