(Interestingly, Chuck Palahniuk portrayed analogous concerns of day-to-day isolation and futility in Fight Club, so there was a common air of generational unease in the mid-’90s.) Plus, he was pondering the “pervading sense of loneliness had since the day was born,” as well as the notion that “people get up too early to leave houses where they don’t want to live, to drive to jobs where they don’t want to be.” That detachment also led him to reflect on his childhood paranoia regarding car accidents (how “anything could happen at any moment and you’re not in control of it”). The claustrophobia - just having no sense of reality at all,” Yorke admitted to Rolling Stone in 2017. For instance, the exhaustive concert runs and consumeristic promotional cycles for The Bends made them feel somewhat disengaged and inauthentic. Intending to look outwardly for their next project, the band sought inspiration from what they’d been experiencing and what they saw happening around them. Likewise, vocalist/wordsmith Thom Yorke told NME in December 1995: “You know, the big thing for me is that we could really fall back on just doing another moribund, miserable, morbid and negative record, like lyrically, but I really don’t want to, at all.” To do that again on another album would be excruciatingly boring.” As reprinted in Radiohead: The Complete Guide, drummer Phil Selway felt that “ The Bends was an introspective album… there was an awful lot of soul searching. Naturally, OK Computer was written in response to numerous things, including its precursor’s focus on inner gloominess. Today, it endures as a sonic and thematic marvel. Released on May 21st, 1997, it was a riskier yet even more remarkable artistic leap that - while still feeling at home next to its predecessor - proved to be a game-changer in several respects.īy leaning on a broader array of compositional techniques, highlighting external concerns over internal confessions, and experimenting with song structures, the LP simultaneously altered the boundaries of rock music and anticipated forthcoming political, technological, and social malaise. Instead, they crafted their prophetic art-rock opus: OK Computer. So, why not just repeat the formula? Because Radiohead were never ones to rest on their laurels or sacrifice veracity, meaningfulness, or innovation for easily acquired fame and fortune. After all, that sophomore collection surpassed predecessor Pablo Honey in nearly every way, with enough creative dynamism, commercial success, and critical praise to become one of the most significant alternative/indie rock records of all time. Radiohead could’ve proudly followed 1995’s The Bends with something markedly similar. On its twentieth anniversary in 2017, the band released a deluxe set including B-sides and never-before-released studio versions of songs, titled OK COMPUTER OKNOTOK 1997 2017.The post OK Computer at 25: How Radiohead Foresaw the Future of Rock Music and Humanity appeared first on Consequence. OK Computer was released to universal acclaim upon its release, and is often considered to be one of the greatest albums of all time. That’s what I had to write about because that’s what was going on, which in itself instilled a kind of loneliness and disconnection. Everything I was writing was actually a way of trying to reconnect with other human beings when you’re always in transit. But I was using the terminology of technology to express it. The paranoia I felt at the time was much more related to how people related to each other. Yorke, however, explained that it stemmed mostly from his personal experiences travelling non-stop in a touring band. The album’s lyrical themes and composition has it hailed as way ahead of its time, predictive of society’s obsession with technology, and the isolation and paranoia that comes with it. Lots of people, lots of ideas, and we all could pull in the same direction. It was very high-level thinking, conceptual, moving forwards in terms of sonics, and beautiful songs. Then new-ish engineer and future Radiohead mainstay Nigel Godrich told Rolling Stone of the recording sessions: The result was 1997’s OK Computer, which was designed as a deliberate reaction against the grunge movement of the 1990s. Despite not having a hit anywhere near the size of “Creep”, Radiohead’s previous album The Bends (1995) was successful enough for their record company EMI to give them complete creative control.