OK Computer deep dive

english_bob

Anybody else listened to this? Nigel Godrich doing a track-by-track breakdown of the album with some nerdy production nuggets sprinkled in. Fascinating stuff, including all the tracks in full so you can listen out for all the stuff he tells you is there.


https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m0017rhn

stickyfiddle

Ooh, nice. Will have to have a listen

drofluf

Listening now by coincidence. Some amazing insights; I'd always thought Exit Music should have been used for Luhrman's (sp?) Romeo and Juliet but never realised that it was actually written for it.

english_bob

drofluf said:

Listening now by coincidence. Some amazing insights; I'd always thought Exit Music should have been used for Luhrman's (sp?) Romeo and Juliet but never realised that it was actually written for it.

I remember going to see Romeo + Juliet with a group of friends and refusing to leave the cinema when it started playing over the end titles. It being 1997 there was barely any such thing as the Internet so I had no idea the song was going to be in the film, and OK Computer was still a month or so from release. 

darthed1981

Thanks - will need to listen to this.

Amazing album, to this day.

english_bob

My favourite insight was that the electric piano track on "Subterranean Homesick Alien" is actually two performances spliced together - Thom plays the first couple of verses, but the descending arpeggios later in the song are Jonny. 

The whole show has ruined my pet "Thom Yorke's Head" theory of Radiohead mixing- you can often hear instruments panned left, right and centre in a way that can often plausibly sound like Jonny (left), Thom (centre) and Ed (right), then drums and bass centre (or maybe just a tiny bit to the left...), just as they'd sound if you were able to hear a Radiohead gig from inside Thom Yorke's head. 

Only that's not really how it works. Of course it isn't. 

PolarityMan

oh i love that album...will def give that a listen!

roberty

english_bob said:

My favourite insight was that the electric piano track on "Subterranean Homesick Alien" is actually two performances spliced together - Thom plays the first couple of verses, but the descending arpeggios later in the song are Jonny. 

The whole show has ruined my pet "Thom Yorke's Head" theory of Radiohead mixing- you can often hear instruments panned left, right and centre in a way that can often plausibly sound like Jonny (left), Thom (centre) and Ed (right), then drums and bass centre (or maybe just a tiny bit to the left...), just as they'd sound if you were able to hear a Radiohead gig from inside Thom Yorke's head. 

Only that's not really how it works. Of course it isn't. 

The panning is all over the place on OKC. Such a weird mix (in the best possible way)

Bridgehouse

I really enjoy listening to R6's deep dives. That was a particularly good one. 

Controversially though, I think The Bends is a better album than OK Computer. 

Hattigol

The.
Finest. 
Album.
Ever.

monquixote

Thanks for the tip I'll give it a listen.

PolarityMan

Bridgehouse said:

I really enjoy listening to R6's deep dives. That was a particularly good one. 

Controversially though, I think The Bends is a better album than OK Computer. 

The bends is also good...shame about everything after those too though.

euan

I prefer Kid A more than the previous two and it opened me up to far more music than either of those other albums did.

english_bob

PolarityMan said:

Bridgehouse said:

I really enjoy listening to R6's deep dives. That was a particularly good one. 

Controversially though, I think The Bends is a better album than OK Computer. 

The bends is also good...shame about everything after those too though.

I think those two albums are Radiohead at their most zeitgeist-y . They wanted to be liked, or at least the music they wanted to make was still pop music, or by sheer cultural momentum they managed to force the mainstream to intersect with their music. Or something. They've never managed to be quite so anthemic or so "now" since.

roberty

This was out the other week, it's as good as anything else Thom Yorke has been involved in imo. Not era defining like OKC, but that's not really anything to do with the music

https://thesmile.ffm.to/alfaa

monquixote

euan said:

I prefer Kid A more than the previous two and it opened me up to far more music than either of those other albums did.

I listen to in Rainbows more than any of the other albums.

I think they've just got better and better.

axisus

That was an album I really wanted to love but I just didn't get at all. I'll have to revisit, not heard it for many years now.

english_bob

roberty said:

This was out the other week, it's as good as anything else Thom Yorke has been involved in imo. Not era defining like OKC, but that's not really anything to do with the music

https://thesmile.ffm.to/alfaa

I'm going to pick it up on CD in a couple of weeks. Incorporeal release was several weeks ahead of physical for some reason.

stickyfiddle

I listened to about 40% of the OKC thing last night - REALLY good bit of radio/pod and I'm looking forward to hearing the rest. 

I kinda knew Godrich was roughly the same age as the band but hadn't really crystalised that it means he was also about 24 when they started making the record. 

As for Radiohead's catalogue overall, The Bends is utterly brilliant, but is also only about their 5th best record. OKC, KidA, In Rainbows are unquestionably better, but I'd argue HTTT, Amnesiac, TKOL and AMSP are all similarly good, albeit all very different records. 

darthed1981

Bridgehouse said:

I really enjoy listening to R6's deep dives. That was a particularly good one. 

Controversially though, I think The Bends is a better album than OK Computer. 

I'd say these days that's at least a 50% view, I'm opposite, I vastly prefer OK Computer.  There is a sort of journey you go on with that album that is something else.  Ironically while I have it on vinyl like a lot of 90s records it changes a lot in that format at 4 sides - my enduring memory is the whole 55 minutes without getting up...

However, if you stack them up track-by-track, there really isn't much in it.

I consider The Bends/OK Computer/Kid A as the sort of "Radiohead Trilogy" - there is a huge part of the musical jigsaw of 90s British indie rock in those three albums.

The Bends - "this is how we do rock chaps, with our influences on our sleeves" - a bit like Definitely Maybe, or Generation Terrorists, or Modern Life is Rubbish or Suede, or I Should Coco, or A Northern Soul

OK Computer - "what if we double down on the us, and make our definitive statement".. like the Holy Bible, or Parklife, WTSMG or Dog Man Star, or In it for the Money, or Urban Hymns, ironically the Stone Roses did this with their debut, helps to have a whole unreleased record.

Kid A - "Back again but with DIFFERENT influences"... The Manics coming back with their huge stadium rock influence, Blur's self-titled 1997 album, Supergrass' self titled under-rated third album....

You get my meaning anyhow.

roberty

As an impressionable teenager OK Computer changed the way I looked at the world, much like Nevermind did when I was younger than that. I would sooner listen to new Radiohead now but I'm past the age where music can have such a profound impact on me

english_bob said:

roberty said:

This was out the other week, it's as good as anything else Thom Yorke has been involved in imo. Not era defining like OKC, but that's not really anything to do with the music

https://thesmile.ffm.to/alfaa

I'm going to pick it up on CD in a couple of weeks. Incorporeal release was several weeks ahead of physical for some reason.

Got the vinyl on pre-order. Their approach seems very DIY, ie direct to consumer, which must be a nightmare at that scale