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Radiohead News posted by Adriaan Pels 100 Comments

‘OK Computer’ – 10 years later

How time flies… Tomorrow (June 16th) is officially the 10th anniversary of Radiohead’s third album ‘OK Computer‘. After its release on June 16th 1997, the album received rave reviews and quite soon after it was labelled as a masterpiece.Over the past 10 years ‘OK Computer’ topped many and most ‘Best Album of All Time’-lists, selling over 2 million copies worldwide. ‘OK Computer’ was the first record produced by – now longtime producer – Nigel Godrich. To the surprise of the band themselves Radiohead were (and probably still are) considered the best ‘alternative’ band instantly, influencing many new bands and receiving a lot of appreciation from established artists. The impact on the band, fans and media was quite well documented in Grant Gee’s film ‘Meeting People Is Easy’.Anyway, back to celebrating OK Computer; BBC 6 Music are having a ‘Death Of Britpop day’ today. Steve Lamacq this evening will be focussing on OK Computer and playing old interviews and sessions from 1997. Show starts at 1600 hrs. ‘OK Computer’ also played a big role for this site. Radiohead At Ease was founded a while before the release of the album and I can remember picking up a copy on a Friday (!) before the release date. It completely blew me away and played it over and over again, which was the perfect preperation for Radiohead’s show at the relatively small Vredenburg in Utrecht only 11 days later. [Listen to 'The Tourist' from that show (June 24th 1997) over at FineFineMusic.com]. ‘OK Computer’, Stanley Donwood’s artwork and Radiohead’s online community has been a big inspiration and motivation to keep this site going for 10 years now. Ten years later, ateaseweb.com is the biggest Radiohead site (according to alexa.com) and one of the bigger music websites. So , a big thanks to you all!But I’d like to know what ‘OK Computer’ meant to you back then. When did you get the record? What were your first thoughts? Has it influenced you in any way? Is it really the best album of all time or even the best Radiohead album? The comments are open ;)


Radiohead news on this day..


  • http://www.fotolog.com/felipepac Felipe Curado

    I knew Radiohead too late. The first CD I bought was Kid A in 2003, I liked it so much, that one month later, I bought all the other LPs, including Ok Computer. At the start it wasn’t my favourite, but the time passed and I realized that I don’t stop listening to it since 2003. Let Down is my favourite song in the world. I’ve heard it a milion times and I think it’s a masterpiece. It’s the most played song in my iPod, my OK C Cd is dizzy of spinning so much. I bought a used “Airbag – How am I driving” with some songs that aren’t in Ok C that are great too, I do recomend everyone. Today RH is my favourite band, I’ve never been to their concert, I dream to see one in Rio de Janeiro and I’m very exited about the LP7, the songs that I’ve heard are very good too.
    Bye

  • Janusz

    I bought my copy on Friday, three days before the release date (it is possible in Poland), it was a cassette, so I put it in my walkman immediately after purchase and on this sole day I listened to it I think seven times. I was, and still am completely stunned. OK Computer is the soundtrack of my life, definitely my favourite album of them all. Unsurprisingly I’m not listening to it as often as I did back in 1997, but from time to time I play it, and its always a giant pleasure. Now I’m hoping that the guys will visit Poland again, we’ve been waiting for 13 years now. Come on you guys:)

  • Raymond Elma

    My Brother bought me this album for my christmas in 1997. I was a massive Metallica fan infact they where my favourite band at the time. The First time I heard was an epiphany for me. I listened to it constantly and realised that I had grown from the angry teenager I was to an adult with a more mature taste in music. At that point I knew who my new favourite band was. I basically went out and bought every Radiohead CD I could get my hands on.

  • Patjoller

    That was the first Radiohead album I bought, I wasn’t into Radiohead before that. I knew Creep but back then the band was given the label “grunge” so that wasn’t my type of music back then (although I really love the bends now… which is not at all grunge of course). I saw the video for paranoid android on tv and the slow part instantly struck me and that decided me to purchase the album. Of course it was something I really loved ffrom the first listen until today. I saw them in Belfort right after that and I became addicted. Since then I bought every single album, got all the b-sides and a lot of bootlegs and this band is a personnal favourite since that day, their music is incredibly moving and seeing them live is always such a magic experience.

  • Anais

    I bought OK computer in cassette. I listende to it EVERYDAY!!! So the cassette was “dead”. I bought another cassette..Dead again by too much playing. Then I bought a CD (and a CD player).
    This album IS the best ever;.

  • Fred

    OK Computer was brought to me by a friend around October 1997. I certainly blew my mind. At the moment I was playing drums in a band. The record was powerfull and very influential in our music. It’s the only CD I can listen over and over and never get bored. I’ve been feeling like this since the very first moment I listened to it. A masterpiece.

  • Keith Phillips

    I bought OK computer at, the now sadly missed, Tower Records in Glasgow on the day of release. Having been introduced to The Bends about a year before by my friend Gavin, i was excited to hear more of the same. The feeling I got will always stay with me. I remember listening to Airbag and thinking this is my new favorite song, then Paranoid Android came on and I had a new favorite. And so on through the Album, until the final chord of the Tourist.
    Still to this day “For a minute, I lost myself” and “Rain down” are my musical high points invoking emotions and personal feelings that as a 19yo you think are yours alone and as a 29yo I can appreciate are one of lifes enduring pleasures.

  • yan

    I didn’t know much about radiohead at that time, but I remembre 2 things that made me fall in love with this album.
    1) I first heard Karma Police on the radio while I was nearly asleep, ans I still see me wondering “who is it? That’s what I was searching for!!!”
    2) Looking at eh TV, I saw the paranoid android clip, but didn’t know who it was, and that it was the same band as the one playing KP. Once more, I could believe what I was hearing and said to myself:”That’s what I was searching for, once more!” then I realized it was the same band playing both songs, and it was called radiohead (you know? They sang Creep a few years sooner?).
    I was 14, I bought it, and learnt every guitar chords from the first one to the last!
    I can’t wait for the next one to come!
    Yannick from Belgium

  • cris_

    my first discovery of ok computer happened… by phone ! a rock magazine offered at these times the possibility to listen to the different tracks of albums by calling a phone number. i listened to karma police first, but was horrified by the bad quality of sound… i was disappointed and thought it was not as good as the bends, that was my first radiohead experience. then in october, i received ok computer for my birthday, listened to it… and… i haven’t get back to the earth for these ten years…

  • Ethan

    I remember buying ok computer a week before it came out…..I bought it at some local music store and they had a promo copy for sale. Ok computer was being streamed online for a few weeks before the release date; I don’t remember where???? Anyway, I was obsessed with Radiohead when I got the bends cd. I seen them on their bends tour with about 900 people in attendance, that was then….now I wait every 4 years or so for a new album……..

  • Dan K.

    Karma Police.
    My first meeting with Radiohead, fascinating video.

    Few years I knew, they are, but I didn´t look for their albums. Then I saw this chart like “the best of all the galaxy or all times or the best of the best” and it was at the first position, right before Sgt. Peppers and it made me mad and I was wondering why. Couple of weeks later, I borrowed this album, listened to it, recorded it on the tape and now I listen to the album few times in month, in the time I want to feel or really enjoy something good. OK Computer, Kid A, Amnesiac and Hail to the Thief are my VIP albums and it turns me on, really.

    I can still find something exciting, something new or something untouchable in these tracks, the compositions and the concepts of albums. I really think, they are especiall and revolutionairy.

    On the other hand, Sgt. Pepper´s Band is still number one for me…:-)

  • Roberto

    I remember skipping school to go buy it. I was in High School at the time, the first time I put it in I thought it was really weird and was not at all what I expected. However I couldn’t stop listening to it, and the more and more I did , the more and more i heard. Radiohead was the 1st band I ever saw live when they toured for the Bends, I am still shocked at how much they have evolved and how much the fan base has grown as a result of this one album.

  • Daniele (Italy)

    Sorry for my English…

    At the time I was a big U2 fan, had all the CDs, was just starting to think something like “maybe they’re gettin old”… the Pop album confirmed the thought… I had heard High and dry and fell in love with that song… pardon me, I was ingenuos(but I’m still convinced it was a very good trap, that song)had recorded a cassette with the bends and I continued listening to it, alternating with Different Class from Pulp…
    began thinking these will be my new music passions; ’till Ok computer…
    It clearly changed my perspective towars music, helped me growing up in music listenings… I began listening electronics, progressive, 70s music, folk, jazz, Cohen, Drake and so on…
    I think it’s something like an arrive point for Pop-Rock music, and in this sense Yes, it can be described as the best album of all times…
    but to me its greatness stays in the fact that It (and the band in everything they say) refuse this definition…
    It’s an album that says: Hey! Wake up! There’s a lot of marvellous music out of that shiny Pop-Rock dimension… just take a look around…

    It weakened my defenses towards the so called difficult music… and Kid A was the K.O.

  • http://radioheadperu.com italo

    well I first saw the paranoid android video when I was 11, bored at home and browsing through UHF channels to see what was available. completely blew me away. bought the record a couple of months later with my first savings. amazing stuff. been a fan since then and can’t go back.

    “the tourist” is definitely the highest point of this amazing album and I was surprised (and somehow flattered hahaah) they closed my first radiohead show with that particular song.

    there’s an anniversary concert coming over in peru next saturday. :)

  • Matt

    I did not really get into Ok Computer or Radiohead for that matter until probably October of 1997. I remember that I had a friend who kept telling me that I needed to listen to this album and he made me a tape of it (yes, a tape) and I would listen to a song here or there. I mostly liked Karma Police and No Surprises, but then I went on vacation and had a 12 hour drive. It was like God came down and touched me on the shoulder and said, Ok now you are ready to hear this. From that moment on I was a different person, someone who saw the world for what it was and what it could be. I went through some really tough times in those next few years and sadly a lot of people I trusted betrayed me but never my friends from across the pond. And there is one line from this album that I try to lead my life by, “Pragmatism not Idealism” words that are a useful in this cold harsh world.

  • http://www.secretphaedon.com Phaedon

    A friend of mine bought this on it’s release and got some of us listening to it. Within a few months our entire house (of college students) was listening to this over and over. Though there was some good music in my catalog before OK Computer; this album made me the music lover and appreciator I am today. No matter what I listen to I always make my way back to this album. Not a day goes by where at least one track from this album makes it to my ears. This not only influenced my musical tastes but my life as well. By far this is my favorite album of all time!

  • http://www.boxsaints.com Josh

    When I was in the 8th grade (1998), I traded a copy of Beck’s Odelay for my first copy of OK COMPUTER. Being so young, after the first listen I felt like I’d seen a ghost…Id never heard anything like it..

    If it weren’t for electioneering being the straight-ahead rock track it was, I’d have sold the album…but then the rest of the tracks began to grow on me..airbag, lucky, let down…and the videos and the press for the album were huge, so I knew itd be in my best interest to hang onto OK COMPUTER

    5 copies later, I can say Radiohead have influenced my life in the same ways a good friend might. Godspeed album 7 :)

  • http://www.filmband.gr dB

    My first contact with the world of OK Computer came from the radio. And it was like a transimission from the next decade. That day i switched on the radio and i catched “Paranoid Android” in the middle, on the “rain down on me…” part with the choirs and Tom’s dramatic performance. I didn’t realize quickly it was radiohead. I was surprised when i heard Tom’s voice in that song. I thought it was somekind of a soundtrack song or something. But then the radio producer said “That was Paranoid Android from new Radiohead album”. I was breathless. That was a piece of real music and art.
    Next i bought the album and it stayed in my head and my life for years. It became a point of reference to how music could sound like in 10 years from then.
    I think it’s an album that doesn’t belong in any decade. It’s not 90′s not 80′s not anything. It’s OK COMPUTER Influencing the way of thinking and feeling and living. I think what makes this album important in the history of music is the fact that it represents a global hidden emotion. “Escapism” York says in so many interviews of that period.

  • Jed Bartlet

    I came to the party late – getting OK Computer on arriving at university (as I imagine many people did). Six years later I’m still listening to it. Endlessly resonant on a personal and global level, and so musically multi-layered that it truly captures what Arthur Miller would call the mind’s simultaneity. To me it’s about conflict, change, transition and that sense that we all have of standing on the edge. As such it’s actually part of the compass I use to navigate a complex world – more so after 9/11. This probably sounds utterly pretentious – but the album really did, and still does, influence me profoundly!

  • George D.

    I had fallen in love with the music after the bends and in no way was any other album going to top the bends, especially one by the same band. I remember being freshly graduated from highschool just the week before the release. The plan for that Tuesday was to get completely smashed, wander into my late night blockbuster and purchase OKC along with Fat of the Land by Prodigy. Everything went according to plan, except for the fact of passing out during Airbag. Thank god for repeat. I awoke to the crescendo of Exit Music and proceeded to vomit from last night’s exuberance. Since then I’ve purchased OKC about 7 times (6 from overuse, 1 because of a silly hurricance named Katrina) There will never be a time when I do not posses this album, I plan to buried with my walkman and a copy of OKC.

  • kid-a

    i heard radiohead for the first time in 1995. a friend of mine lended me the bends, I listened to it until fake plastic trees. after that i turned off my stereo and went to buy there 2 albuns and my iron lung ep. ok computer was then released in 1997 and it was a great hit. i was finishing highschool by then and i believed i heard the album continously for 8 months. although OK Computer is the most important album in RH career, i still think Kid A is radiohead’s masterpiece. but ok computer has also incredible videoclips, probably there best ones together with pyramid song and revolving doors/spinning plates. ok computer also includes a lto of favourite songs like paranoid, let down, karma police and no suprises. what i find most interesting in ok computer is its connection to the city environment by being an alienation to it: transportation and polution, the city sounds, machines and technology.

  • http://radiohode.org radiohode

    I bought it three weeks after it was released, but didn’t listen to it at first. Only the week after their 1997 Oslo-concert – which I missed! – I started listening. I must have played it several hundred times, and it started my personal Radioheadmaina.

    Best band in the world! Ever!

  • Dan Knibb

    I’d been a fan since ’94. I remember the buildup to the release – lots of stuff on the official website and a few fansites. I seem to recall there was a big thing about the cover artwork – there were three different covers displayed on a site and the story was they hadn’t decided which they’d pick. It might have been an Innocents Civilian-style hoax; I don’t know. All I know is that I rushed off to buy it on the release date, then brought it home and played it through twice over in my little box room in our student house in Cardiff.

    It completely changed the way I related to music. Everything about it was so instantly recognisable to me and the world around me. There was a truth to the music that stood out from the others around at the time; Thom’s fractured lyrics, the tortured guitar sounds, the deeply troubled feeling that pervades the entire record. As one music critic put it once, Radiohead’s entire oeuvre is summed up in the line, “And the feeling is that there’s something wrong,”; OK Computer was when they finally articulated what that feeling really was, and what it really meant to us.

    I still play it, maybe every three months or so. It still sends me to the stars, every time.

  • gregg

    I received the CD for New Year and I was 12 then. I didn’t listen much to music till then and so from OK Computer I only knew the single ‘Karma Police’. But I found it a great song and great clip and when my aunt asked wich I want for my new year I couldn’t think something better as ‘OK Computer’ (also because my sister found it a duty to make a cd-collection). But I didn’t listen very much to music and also not to that cd, till I Kid A was released. Then I really discovered Ok Computer and bought all the other albums, also EP’s

    and yeah OK Computer is there best album, but Kid A comes very very close and I hope/think LP 7 will be better

  • David

    It still has the power to take my breath away, to make me cry, to make me dream and believe in the impossible. Incredibly, it still sounds fresh and vibrant, age has so far been kind to it.

    It has had a monumental effect on my life. Musically, the bredth and scope of my CD collection would have been at least halved had I not heard it. As a wide eyed 15 year old kid discovering “proper” music, it spun me around and turned me onto so much great stuff.

    And as for the stamp of classicism…in terms of ticking every greatness box….

    massive fanbase – check.

    “It changed my life” factor – check.

    Influence – check.

    Perfect songs beautifully played and wonderfully recorded – check

    Screw it, I don’t care if it’s cliched. It is the best album ever recorded, and if I get the chance again in my life to listen to something quite so expansive, life altering and wonderful, I’ll be immensely grateful. I just feel honoured that such a wonderful piece of art was concieved and born in my lifetime.

    To the band that created this masterpiece…I drink to you. You probably have some idea how much this album means to people, but in truth, it’s more than you would ever know.

    Davidx

  • http://antipattern.net ChrK

    I got into Radiohead quite late, though it was actually kind of the first commercial music i really loved. I must have been in grad 7 or 8 too, and until then the only music i was listening too were two tapes of my oldest brother. Kind of weird mixture of electronic, d&b, classical and Jazz. I loved them so much, I heard one tape for about one month then switched to the other…

    Then, one day I my mother picked me up from school with her car. It happened that my other brother borrowed it over the holidays to go to spain and left a Mix-Tape with Radiohead and Nick Cave. Basically it included songs of Cave’s “no more shall we part” Radiohead’s My Iron Lung and OK Computer.

    I started to love this tape, which for me was a huge step, cos before that I had a huge distaste for any kind of music you could buy in a regular shop (yes, i was bloody idealistic these days!). I liked it so much, I went into the shop to get the whole thing on CD. Unfortunatly I didn’t know it’s propper title, cos the tape was only labelled “Radiohead and Nick Cave”. So I asked for – and now don’t laugh – a cooperation between Radiohead AND Nick Cave. Obviously the lady on the counter couldn’t help me and I went home without a CD.

    Instead I asked my brother and he gave me a copy of OK Computer, My Iron Lung and Amnesiac. From then on I listened to the first two albums almost every second day, the rest of the time i was still listening to the tapes of my other brother…

    From that point in time I was going on the nerves of every of my school mates, telling them how great Radiohead are…

    However, at the beginning I didn’t like Amnesiac at all. I don’t know why, but it took me some time to get into it. And the same happened to me when I was listening to Kid A at my brother’s place. I thought, wtf? I don’t like that… but a few months later I was craving for new Radiohead-stuff and geve it a second chance… And from then I loved it, too…

    As I said, I got My Iron Lung at about the same time and so the first edition of Creep I heard was the acoustic one… I then called a local Radio station and asked them to play it, not knowing that there is actually another one out there. Obviously they played the Pablo Honey version and I was just like “wtf?! again. Reason enough to get Pablo Honey and later The Bends…

    But from OKC and My Iron Lung I also got into many other bands and used the resources my brothers had to offer to explore more of this kind of music… eg. PJ Harvey, Portishead etc. which then lead me into other music like the one of Blackmail and Notwist…

    If it wasn’t for this very first tape, I don’t now what kind of music I would listen to now. Besides I still love Radiohead, especially the stuff in the OKC and post OKC era…

    Another positive side effect: THey made me translate the lyrics and this is how I learned most of my English, wich later on made me go to the UK to do the IB and now I’m going to Scotland… if it wasn’t for Radiohead, where would I be…?

    Hohoho!

  • Ramses Casalduc

    My first experience was the video for ?Paranoid Android?, which blew me away. I couldn?t take that song out of my head, so I bought OK Computer the day of its (American) release. The first time I played the album, by the time I was listening to the third track (?Subterranean Homesick Alien?) I knew it was something I haven?t heard in quite a long time. Song after song, I was so immersed into the music, I never wanted it to end. As soon as the album ended, I realized I haven?t heard anything quite like it since I discovered Pink Floyd and devoured their catalog back in 1983. I played OK Computer every day for months, discovering and experiencing something new with each spin, especially when heard through headphones. Soon it became one of my favorite albums ever. OK Computer is a perfect record in every way, including ?Fitter Happier? which I think has its own space and reason for being within the context of the album. It?s a masterpiece and definitely the best Radiohead record. ?The best album of all time?? Well, I?m not sure, but it lies comfortably within my top 5.

  • CL

    I came around to purchasing OKC two years after the initial media hysteria surrounding the album. I came to Radiohead and this album without any previous knowledge of the band or the band members themselves. I did not have this hanging clouds above my head where it says “You’re listening to one of the biggest band today” because they were relatively young back then and my impression of them were unfounded. So without all the baggages of online and media praises; I approached OKC from a perspective of a bored consumer who went out at random to picked up an album because he thought the album cover and the album titles were very cool looking/sounding. I’ve discovered this album and Radiohead by chance. OKC is a masterpiece indeed that was only upped by Kid A the following year after my discovery of them.

  • nemo

    It seemed to know what I felt. Even if I didn’t know myself. As a matter of fact, it still seems to. Even though I feel quite different now.

    I know it by heart, yet I feel I don’t really know it at all. Like a beloved person. Haphazardly amazing you even after you’ve known them for so long.

  • Lt. Zip

    OK Computer was released a couple of weeks after I graduated high school. I didn’t actually hear the album for the first time until a couple of years later, though, which is ironic, since I now associate the album with the kind of alienation and uncertainty I was feeling during that summer after graduation, more so than any record I was listening to at that time.

    I picked up the album on a recommendation from my older brother, and it was my first Radiohead purchase. I was immediately impressed by the sonic details and production on the first couple of songs, but it wasn’t until “Subterranean Homesick Alien” and “Exit Music” that I began to connect with the melancholy and underlying ironic humor of the lyrics. I was a fan before the first spin finished.

    Radiohead – and that album in particular – pretty much got me through college. The album got me into alternative rock, and opened up doorways to a lot of different types of music I hadn’t experienced before. More importantly, it was a touchstone in fostering the idea of not taking the world at face value. I think part of the reason for its longevity is that its keen, critical dissection of contemporary culture has, like “Fight Club” (the Fincher film and the Palahniuk novel), become more prescient as time goes on.

    Musically, I still think it’s their best synnergy of guitar heroics and electronic noodling. The songwriting is meatier and more satisfying than their more minimal later albums, but there’s still enough experimentation to where the songs are both accessible AND enigmatic. They’ve only pulled that trick sporadically since, and never as consistently as on “OK Computer.” It’s an album that I can pick up and listen to any time, and still get the same visceral and emotional kick I got on the first listen. Those albums are few and far in-between.

  • BoldRuler75

    OK Computer was the first GREAT album of an age that I could call my own. Growing up I had Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, Beatles, The Who albums that while tremendous, were released long before I was aware of music. OK Computer is to me, on par with many of the established GREAT albums, but the main difference to me, is that it’s release came at a time where I picked it up within weeks of its release and it is part of my coming of age.

  • Jay Wetton

    I heard Ok Computer in 1999. The artwork was very unusual karma police was nasty.

  • http://www.dominicvine.net/ dominicvine

    i came to New York City for my first time in early June of ’97
    i stood outside of the Astoria (i think it was)
    wherever they were playing
    and i’d loved them since Creep came out
    saw was quite shocked ot see them blowing up as they were…
    i remember Bono and Madonna… Michael Stype and Marylin Manson were at the show
    it was amazing

    and then i got the record
    and listened to it over and over and over

    it was the soundtrack to that summer
    and the next few years of my life
    inspiring me, as it were, to get off “the payroll”
    and i’ve lived my life to my own terms since then
    (traveling the world, making money as an artist and healer)
    Radiohead has always been a helpful inspiration

  • http://eep.webhop.net Juan

    Me lo regal

  • uptight

    I was a Radiohead fan already when OKC came out – it happened in 1996, when The Bends came into my life and, well, changed it. Ever since the first time I heard that album, I knew something about those guys was different. I spent half of ’96 getting all the info I could – didn’t have internet access yet, so I only got what I got through pricey UK and US magazines (I’m Greek).

    Somehow, I felt that the band weren’t appreciated enough, and that truly baffled me. So when I heard that there was a new album coming, I sort of knew this would be the one that would break them – all over the world. I always felt that The Bends, despite being an absolutely amazing album, was them playing to no more than a mere 50-60% of their capabilities, and that there was SO much more to come from them that the world would just HAVE to know – it was inevitable!

    So it came. In April I got my first internet connection and started following the hype-up from much closer (AtEase helped loads). One morning in May, “Paranoid Android” was played on greek radio for the first time and it was just this amazing song… other songs followed near the end of the month, and while at first they didn’t seem as catchy to me as the Bends songs, I found myself playing the lousy-sounding tapes I’d made of them on repeat.

    Release date was June 16, but it didn’t reach Greece until the 18th, and because I had exams, I only got it on the 20th – a Friday. I’d read all the raving reviews (the only negative one was on the Melody Maker) and when I actually heard it for the first time, it was like “Yes, they’ve done it!!!” It was the dense, intensely melodic and brimming with emotions, ideas and sheer beauty album that The Bends had shown they could make. And it was there.

    I listened to it really intensely for quite a few months, analysed every tidbit of the booklet to death (booklet’s corners ruined since then) and at the same time watched the world wake up to the band. And that felt great – you know, like when things are the way it should be just for once. :-)

  • jared

    I graduated from high school in may of ’97 and started college in june. I was kinda alone at the time and I bought ‘ok’ on the day of it’s release, and, quite frankly, I haven’t been the same since. Never have I heard such painful beauty. I listen to Let Down everyday of my life (without exception) and I still play the album in full on a regular basis. I think people are a bit dramatic when they say that an album changed their lives, but, make no mistake about it, OK COMPUTER changed my life…..I think i’ll go listen to it right now!!!

  • SidewaysDownSidewalks

    I bought OK Computer a few weeks after release. My best friend and I bought it at the same time. He loved it and I hated it. Every morning when we’d drive to school he’d play it and it just grated on my nerves.

    It was 2 years later, after going through a hellish period in my life, I was unpacking my belongings and saw the CD. I couldn’t remember how it sounded and I desperately wanted to listen to something – anything – to take my mind off of the problems I’d been having.

    It was only a few moments before I was laying on the floor listening, having abandoned unpacking altogether, fighting back tears. ‘Let down’ reached it’s peak and the emotions I’d been trying to stuff away inside myself came flooding out.

    To this day my eyes well with tears every time I hear that one part; “…floor collapsing – floating – bouncing back and one day I am going to grow wings, a chemical reaction, hysterical and useless, hysterical and let down…”

    Quite possibly one of the most depressing songs I’ve ever heard, played when I suffered my deepest depression… and it somehow gave me hope, made me realize everything would be better some day.

    Since that day I have never stopped being amazed with the direction that Radiohead takes and I have never stopped falling in love with OK Computer all over again each time I play it.

  • michael

    I dscovered Radiohead only back in 2004, and OK Computer became my most precious album on Presidents’ Day weekend of 2005 (I don’t remember the month, haha); it remains just as precious today. My family took a trip up to Napa Valley, but I was having a really hard time as my brother had been sent off to a boarding school somewhere in the middle of nowhere. My thoughts during that period didn’t really have anything to do with what Radiohead was telling, but somehow the place and the music stick together for me. During the ride there, I finally realized the absolute glory of Airbag, but even more, Climbing up the Walls and Karma Police.

    I hope that OK Computer will continue to give the same emotional response to me in coming years, dare I say, the rest of my life. I think it will ;-)

  • Dapp

    I was 20 in 1998 when I bought this album. I had heard Fake Plastic Trees and went out to get the album that had that song, but I didn’t find it and bought this instead, it must have some other good songs I thought. I was blown away. Obsessed, for months. My friends were sick of me talking about radiohead and listening them on my car. My mom, my boss, all tired of radiohead this and that. I’m sure you know how it is.

    After several attempts to learn guitar I had given up. Well I tried again, and this time I just didn’t give up. I wanted to play those songs so bad. It hurt a lot my fingers, I spent a lot of hard earned money, but finally I could play some songs with my own guitar. Years went on and in 2005 I was accepted in a Radiohead tribute band replacing a guitarist. Playing radiohead songs in front of radiohead fans is one of my little dreams come true.

    I’ve seen them live four times since 2001. Each one has been.. amazing. I just don’t have words to describe it. There are good rock shows, great shows, and the a Radiohead show.

  • Doublethink

    I’m 20 now, so that means when it was first released, i was 10 years old! Sad to say, but the only CDs I owned back then consisted of adult contemporary radio hits! However, I first got into music when I was 17, having bought Pablo Honey as a recomendation from a friend. I then bought each of Radiohead’s albums consecutively within the following year, and since then, I’ve been completely obsessed. It was 2003, that I got into Radiohead, and realised the power of OK Computer. It still brings tears to my eyes everytime I listen. I’ve been searching ever since for music that could do that the same way radiohead could. So far, there’s no one.

  • monty

    hey guys

    I think I must play airbag at least twice a day, if its a bad day then god knows.

    In 1997 I was 9, I got into radiohead in 2004, and have ever since been a fanatic, I just dont get bored of the songs.

    As for OKC, it means so much and so many things to everyone.

    For me its uplifting, I see their music in everyday life. The most inspiring noise I’ve ever heard and ever likely to hear are in those 10 tracks. Of course all their other albums in my opinion are just as essentail.

    I had to do an IT presentation as part of my degree, naturally I did radiohead and when it came to do the synopsis of ablums,OKC had me stumped. I could have written a essay on it. But its just “noise” as Thom said :D

    I read a post on here about being 19 and listneing to the album, I watched MPIE today and yeah, that “nasty nasty teenage bit” is most definatly what I’m going through :D

  • http://www.someangryindian.com FakePlasticGuava

    The last two things MTV was any good far was playing There There every hour on the hour before HTTT came out and playing the Karma Police video for a very bored 10 year old who soon discovered his favorite album of all time. Man…has it really been ten years?

  • nick

    Phew… for a minute there I lost myself! and ok computer found me exactly whe it needed to. I was almost out of high school when I heard it the first time and it took my breath away. I have been a musician since age 12 and ok computer was what I did not even know I was looking for when it found me. Untill that point no album had spoke to me that way! IT woke me up! its one of only a couple albums that truly changed me and my mind. So all I really have to say is thank you Radiohead! without you I would probably still be in that minute of loosing myself.

  • nick

    Phew… for a minute there I lost myself! and ok computer found me exactly whe it needed to. I was almost out of high school when I heard it the first time and it took my breath away. I have been a musician since age 12 and ok computer was what I did not even know I was looking for when it found me. Untill that point no album had spoke to me that way! IT woke me up! its one of only a couple albums that truly changed me and my mind. So all I really have to say is thank you Radiohead! without you I would probably still be in that minute of loosing myself.

  • Amy

    I was in college and worked in a record store when it came out. We played it in the store constantly. I never bought it though; I have that promo copy. Very few albums have stayed as fresh and wonderful to me as that one, especially after 10 years. I’m going to go listen to it now…

  • eric

    I picked up the album a day early from my favorite record shop just around the corner from my office – Secret Sounds in Fairfield, CT (no longer in business unfortunately). I remember the wait after The Bends – it seemed like a decade. When I saw the premier of Paranoid Android, I went on a rampage trying to find out when the album was going to be released (this was before I had internet access). I ran out on my lunch break the day before it was released and then sat in my car listening to the first five songs until my lunch break was over. I fell in love with Exit Music immediately. The best album in history? I’m sorry, I cannot give it that status. The best Radiohead album? Quite likely, in the grand scheme of things when all is said and done (though my favorite still is and always will be Kid A). I just remember the explosion in the States when OK Computer came out. I read a ton of reviews leading up to the album, and not a single one of them had anything negative to say. Can’t think of any other album I can say that about. They went from playing 500-capacity clubs to playing 10,000+ capacity theaters in what seemed like overnight. I saw them more times on the tours following the release than any other album, and those shows will always be some of the greatest nights of my life. Thanks. Now I know what I’ll be listening to the rest of the weekend….

  • http://sauerreviews.com/blogs/sauer_reviews/default.aspx Sauer

    Tomorrow, June 16th 2007 will mark the 10 year anniversary of one of the best records of all time. OK Computer not only changed music, it created a new standard in alternative rock. It made producer Nigel Godrich a household name (in cool houses,anyway) and eventually created the band Coldplay and many other sound-a-likes.

    Looking back, it’s hard to imagine how dull the alternative scene had become at that time. Countless grunge bands (Nirvana/Pearl Jam sound-a-likes) were running out of material while rap-rock and teen-pop was slowly taking over the air waves. While Radiohead’s OK Computer was never considered a HUGE commercial success, word of mouth and critical praise helped spread a mutual respect among several age groups. Eventually forming one of the biggest cult followings in music. In particular in the UK where OK Computer has been listed as the best record of all time on several critic’s list. OK Computer has inspired millions, and will continue to in art and music.

    The album came to me as a free promo at the music store I worked at. I grabbed it, but threw it in a stack of “who cares” CDs. A few months later I heard Paranoid Android for the first time, I was a freshman in college. I was instantly hooked, and have been ever since. It may sound cliche, but OK Computer changed my life, and the way I feel and listen to music in general. It has never traveled far from my CD player, and has resulted in too many memories to count. So Happy Birthday OK Computer! Thanks for the all the times you’ve been there for me.

  • matt

    When OK Computer came into my life, I had written Radiohead off with extreme prejudice. Pablo Honey came out as my little sister was hitting her stride as a member of the teenage music consumer culture. This was a guarantee that she would buy it and ultimately play it in a nonstop mix of other music which, as a drummer obsessed with Rush, I couldn’t stand. “Creep” being spun on midwest radio ad nauseam didn’t help matters.

    Years later, I had moved to a different city and had joined a band which couldn’t care less about Rush. I was fine with that, having moved on musically. But the first time I showed up at a writing/practice session with these guys they couldn’t stop talking about Radiohead, who were in the promotional portion of marketing OK Computer. It started really annoying me and finally the songwriter in the group stuck me in his car and drove me around Dallas with OK Computer until I “got it”. I took it home to my wife and we both spent weeks listening to it. It’s still a favorite.

  • John

    I bought this on cassette tape when it came out, it was the summer after my senior year of high school. I was an MTV junkie then and Paranoid Android was in pretty heavy rotation. That song just floored me, and it still does, but every song on the album is special to me in some way.

    The thing about this album is, sometimes I feel a certain way, like I dont know depressed or in some kind of funk, and the only thing that will reach me or bring me out of it is this album. I can’t say that about any other album, movie, book, etc. Its amazing to me.

  • tiina

    I first got into Radiohead in 2000 with Kid A. I bought it out of curiosity as I had read a really good review on it. Now, I don’t normally trust, or even follow much, music press but there was something about the review that really aroused my curiosity and coming from a Finnish journalist I have great respect for (mostly because I seem to have similiar taste for music and he always seems to put out to words exactly what I’ve been thinking) I knew I should try it. I was immediately hooked! From the first notes of the first song! This was what I had been looking for!

    I’ve had a lot of favourites that I’ve nearly obsessed about (The Cure, Nick Cave…) and if I had to name one single important thing in my life that would without a doubt be music, the thing I’m convinced is the single biggest reason I’m still alive, but lately I had been listening to a kind of a strange selection of music, ranging from “classical” contemporary composers, to early medieval jewish music, doom metal… (I know, I blame the access to the Finnish Broadcasting Company’s record library!) enjoying and learning from it but at the same time trying to find something I was convinced existed but just didn’t know where to look. And finally there it was!

    I was living in Brussels at the time and found in my landlords’ “trash” (books and cd’s they had tossed away) OKC with a little scratch on it. Strangely, that didn’t have quite the same effect on me as Kid A. Perhaps I was expecting it to as I had heard so much more about it but never before got interested enough to buy the album. (Looking back I remember hearing “No Surprises” a lot on a local radio channel (played by the journalist mentioned above ;) ), never caught the band’s name but remember distinctively thinking what a great song it was. And I’m sure the same happened with a few other songs as well.) OKC however grew on me slowly but certainly and I went and bought the rest of the albums in a few weeks time and have been a huge fan since. I was very fortunate to catch Radiohead in Belgium in 2003 HTTT tour just before moving to USA and seeing them again in Coachella 2004 (great memories with other atease-campers!). Having moved back to Finland, I convinced my husband to travel with me to Scotland for a fiew days to see them in Meadowbank last year and getting to hear some of their newer material and experiencing a once in a lifetime experience by climbing on to a nearby mountain and hearing their sound-check during the day (by coincidence!) I feel like a very lucky girl. :)

    To this day, since 2000, Kid A is still my favourite album but I could not say which one is more of a masterpiece, OK Computer or Kid A as they both certainly are, and the rest of their albums are not lagging much behind. And now we’re waiting for their 7th studio album. I’ve found a true treasure in their music and couldn’t be more exited!

  • http://www.myspace.com/audiotransparent Chris

    I was a fan since september ’95, when I discovered Pablo Honey and The Bends. I was 17 back then, my musical taste developing like mad. Back then, it was Radiohead, Green Day and Offspring. Before that, it was Beatles, UB40 or The Shadows. Nowadays, The Beatles and Shadows are still there, but on top of my list: Radiohead, still. I discovered many great artists and albums since 1997, but not one gives the shiver OKC gave my in that sunny week in june ’97, the week I first heard OK Computer. A week before the release, I received a tape from a friend, who had a classmate who in a record store (I live in Holland). It was OK Computer, and I was in heaven. I was ready for it! Ready to hear the new Just, the new (Nice Dream), and initially, I was a little let down. I loved Paranoid Android, which I already owned on cd-single, and I’d seen No Surprises and Airbag on Jools Holland. I liked No Surprises, Airbag didn’t do it for me…at first.
    But once I lost the ‘Bends paradigm’ it all opened up, the vocals in The Tourist, the reverb in Karma Police, Subterranean Homesick Alien’s intro. Man…did this influence me!
    I already was in a band back then, and although I ditched the obvious Radiohead-influence you can have as an aspiring muso, I still love to play OKC from start to end. OKC cost me money. A whammy, delays, echo’s…
    It got me into Can, and sometimes I think Ege Bamyasi is better than OKC, but it will never mould me the way OKC did. I’m 29 now, but I still feel 19 when I play OKC. But not in a sentimental way. OKC starts to re-initialize every time I play it. Yes, timeless music.

  • Martin

    Yes, Poland has been waiting for you as long as the Czech Republic. By the time OK Computer was released there were so much less people here who even knew Radiohead, but now you’ve got lots of real fans, I’m proud to say I was one of the first.

  • Martin

    Of course, I was reacting to felipe curados post.

  • Alex

    OKC was the hook that I as a fish became entrapped by Radiohead. I had heard Karma Police on the radio while spending the summer in the San Fran bay area in 1998. My only prior knowledge of the boys was Creep and had no interest in hearing more; especially since American radio played that song to death. So I went to the local Warehouse Records (do those places even exist anymore), picked up the cd, saw that it was nominated for an Grammy or two and threw it in the slot. BAM! Since that day, Radiohead has been my favorite band. The album blew me away from the opening track to the final note.

  • handoko

    I bought OKC album (cassette) in 1999 when i was in college. I know it’s pretty late. I bought it after hearding news that it won Grammy for the best alternative album. When i listened to OKC for the first time it completely blew my mind away. I have never listened to music like it before and it offered me new experience to be explored. Since then I’m a big fan of Radiohead and I tried to get all of their record eversince but it’s a bit hardwork for me to get those things in Indonesia. I visit ateaseweb.com and greenplastic.com on dayly basis, but still i can’t wait to read any new posts about Radiohead.
    Everytime i listen to to OKC, it never make me bored and i’m still amazed of how Radiohead could create such music. As if their music come from future-time which can only be measured in light-year.
    GOD Bless Radiohead…

  • ruairi

    So everybody loves ‘Fitter Happier’ then, yeah?? From the first time I heard it, I hated it. And I’ve pressed skip every time since. Its a momentary lapse in an otherwise classic record, and thus OK Computer is flawed. This automatically disqualifies the album from being even Radiohead’s best, let alone THE best ever. But Kid A on the other hand…..

  • Kevin Fingleton

    I got the album on the Friday before its release. It was one of those albums that you wait with deep impatience for. The b-sides to Paranoid Android (and of course the single itself) had whetted my appetite. Heavy rotation of the first two albums and My Iron Lung had probably made them my favourite band by May/June ’97. I wasn’t quite 16 yet and of course at that age music means absolutely everything to you. While the same can no longer be said, the albums you loved at that time will always have the most impact on you.

    Despite being blown away completely by the album, there was one disappointment for me. I really did feel cheated that the Help version of Lucky was included, but I’ve since come to realise that the original is impossible to improve. It’s not even my favourite Radiohead album anymore, but it is monumentally special.

  • Kaaasgaaf

    I used to be a very lonely boy 10 years ago. To get some kicks I stole some money from my mother, something I’m still very ashamed of. Because I didn’t know what to do with the money, I bought 2 cd’s in a recordshop: The Verve’s Urban Hymnes and OKC. At that point I only listened to classical music, The Beatles and Bob Dylan. I didn’t had any cd’s by myself, so the first 2 cd’s I bought in my life were immediately very good choices. Ten years later I’m very happy, have a great social life and more than a thousand cd’s and records. I still love UH and OKC is even my favorite album of all time. And my mother (who’s totally not into popmusic) loves is, No Surprises is her favorite song of the album (but she loves Motion Picture Soundtrack even more).

    But the funny thing is, 10 years ago I wasn’t so enthusiast about the album as I am now. I was totally obsessed by PA, Airbad and CUTW, but I found tracks as EM and KP a bit silly. I can’t understand now what I found so silly about them, but I can rememer saying it.

    I’m still intrigued why I’d chosen these 2 albums in that shop. I didn’t watch mtv at that time and I never listened to the radio and I didn’t had any friends who could recommend music to me and of course I didn’t read musicmagazines and there was no internet etc. This is still the most fascinating thing in my life. Because music is the most important thing to me and it started all there. Sometimes this mystery drives me mad. Sometimes I think it’s just wonderful.

  • http://www.dicebourbon.com Bryce

    I found this album in a used CD bin two weeks after it was released. I don’t know what idiot decided he didn’t like it, but I certainly appreciated it! The clerk was equally surprised at my find. I’ll always love this album.

  • PITA

    I’ve been listening OKcom for a long time, and find it every day more amazing. The change between The Bends and OK Computer was amazing, and I’m not saying that The Bends is not a good album, I think it’s really great but different from OKcom of course.

    OK Computer, definitely one of the best albums in music history, of course, for all Radiohead fans, and also for those who are not…

  • eric

    Okay Komputer was the first (1st) radiohed album I ever purchased during my freshman year of college in spring of two-thousand (2000). At first I didn’t understand it, I liked it, and I was a musician, which means you can’t not like it, but it took a little bit of time to sink in. I was the person who goes through the museum quickly looking at all of the art so that I can say I saw it and then move on to some other tourist attraction. But, as my musical tastes grew and my ability to comprehend how innovative it was, i began to REALLY hear it. It is a work of beautiful melancholy twisted around the idea that each passing moment in life may be my greatest or worst. Whether dark or light it is infused with passion and intensity.

    listening suggestion: go buy a big book of mark rothko’s art and sit and listen to ok computer while flipping through the pages.

    cheers to the band, stanley (www.slowlydownward.com), nigel and all of your families who keep your feet on the ground.

    01000101

  • poisoned dwarf

    I got into Radiohead in April of 1998, when I bought the first three albums and the Airbag EP, so I wasn’t there for the release of OK Computer. I wish I was! When I first heard it I don’t really remember what went through my head. I was a new fan back then, and this music didn’t sound like anything I’d ever heard before. I think my favorite tracks were Climbing Up the Walls and Karma Police. It took a few listens for the album to sink in and really blow me away. I remember a short time later (maybe a month after I bought it) sitting in a parking lot listening to Exit Music, not wanting to drive or do anything but concentrate on the music. This might sound melodramatic or lame, but I don’t care. I felt a connection to music that I’d never felt before. It felt like nirvana, like ecstasy. I was literally in tears. This music was so emotional and brilliant, I couldn’t believe that I hadn’t gotten into this awesome band earlier.

  • abbas

    wow 10 years how did that happen so quick. i was 18 years old preparing to go to THAT glastonbury i was already a fan after a friend told me i must listen to the bends a few years before. OK Computer is to me what Sgt Peppers, Dark Side of The Moon, The Queen is Dead etc etc is to people who were there at that time. OK Computer captures a moment in time so perfectly it is almost a picture for anyone who was there when radiohead became RADIOHEAD you will remember it i was lucky(sic) enough to be there and even more so at Glastonbury which when people say how amazing it was that night they are wrong it was more than amazing and having been to every glastonbury since 1994, that year is still the best. 1997 was the year that i found “my band”. I meet people who say they had the beatles or flyod or velvet underground or the pixies or the smiths well i can say i had radiohead that album is tatooed onto my heart and i dont care if they never reach those heights again after all michaelangelo only did the sisteen chapel once.

  • jojo

    I actually am addicted to OK COMPUTER. I have listened to the album practically every night ever since I bought it in 1997 on tape and then cd. I need to listen to it to suppress my urge to kill

  • Dave

    I had seen the Optimistic and Idioteque videos on MTV2 around the time of KID A, which peaked my interest in Radiohead. I was 12 or 13 and really just starting to get into serious music. They seemed really alien to me, and I equated them with other british ‘spacerock’ bands I was seeing on MTV at the time. The only band I recall from back then was Supergrass, and I remember going to the mall with the option of buying either the Supergrass album with the rainbow on the cover or Ok Computer, and I bought Ok Computer.

    A lot of other factors went into me picking that album over hte others, and picking Radiohead over Supergrass…

    I think it had somethings to do with

    *my first teenage crush loving radiohead and showing me some of their songs
    *downloading Karma Police on Aimster (an offshoot of Napster)
    *Seeing the ‘Paranoid Android’ Guy drawn on a friends brother’s band’s bass drum-head, equating that with the video sometime later.
    *downloading the paranoid Android (song and video) on Aimster
    *this particular winamp skin from back in the day that had a picture of thom yorke, and some of the little Ok COmptuer logos like the two men shaking hands and the hand falling through the ice. there were phrases like “i’m feeling very sleepeeee” and “someone call and ambulance” on there. I thought the artwork was the coolest-one of kind thing i’d ever seen and it blew me away even as a 13 year old. It made me feel things I’d never felt before.

    My first thoughts of the cd were an echo of my impression of the band. At first, it was a wierd, alien-like record, that I really couldn’t listen to without calling it ‘wierd.’ I never was cynical about it, I just respected it as something that was completely foreign to me.

    After a couple of listens I convinced myself I heard new sounds with every spin, like the percussion during the “Ambition makes you look pretty ugly” part of Paranoid Android and the tinkering in Climbing up the walls and Exit Music. Sounds like that on record were completely new to me.

    The most “out there” record I heard at that point would have been Dark Side of the Moon ANd with Dark Side of the Moon, all of my friends seemed to think it was the greatest album of all time, and really loved it. I loved it too, but as soon as I heard Ok Computer, I felt an emotional depth that completely warped my attitude towards music.

    THe record helped me think through my problems, and face overwhelming situations. It helped me get to the bottom of things in my life and really slow down and analyze what was truly going on with me. I adapted my life around it, and all of the other radiohead records soon afterwards.

    I never fell for any band like i fell for Radiohead and I never will, because they are the greatest band that ever existed. Ok Computer is the greatest album of all time and it makes me want to cry that 10 years ago some of you heard it on the day it came out. phew.

  • ran

    my uncle gave it too me when i was about 12 (i don’t know what he was thinking) so it was my first non-parent owned alternative album. it took me a while to realise how amazing it was, mostly because i had nothing prior to compare it to. although, after it remained my favourite album throughout the last years of primary and most of highschool i figured it can’t be too bad of a play. … …

  • Alex

    I was already pretty into Radiohead when OKC came out, but it was right at a time when I was transitioning from listening to a lot of ‘alternative’ rock towards more electronic music. One night I saw the clip of Paranoid Android and nearly had a mental meltdown; that’s how incredible that song felt listening to it and watching it at two in the morning while feeling just a tad bit loopy. I bought the album right away after it came out, and have basically listened to it obsessively for the past ten years. For me, the album marked the beginning of a certain cynicism, a certain awareness of the world and it’s problems that stays with me at this very moment. It marked a shift in style towards something deeply dark which I find incredibly beautiful and sad at the same time. It was like the walls of the world’s bul*s*it spin were slowly melting around me. If obsession is a sign of some kind of weakness or personal instability then my Radiohead obsession is the one that I am most proud of. Thanks guys for capturing that profoundness of existential angst which is so hard to put your finger on. Can’t wait for the next round. P.S. please don’t ever break up.

  • John

    I got OK Computer in October 1997, I think, after a friend said it was the best album he’d ever heard. Since that day it is also the best album I’ve ever heard, although I must admit it took me a few listens to really warm up to it (compared to The Bends, which was instant love). I was 13 at the time and Radiohead has topped my band list ever since.

  • http://www.google.com Stephen

    very cool site

  • ricardo (kid entropia)

    was about to graduate from high school, about to enter medical school, heard paranoid android and at first thought “what the fuck is this?!”, then a few days later i heard karma police and started to like it. but the big breakthrough was when a friend of mine bought the album and took it to my house. we heard the thing three or four times in a row, non-stop, trying to decipher what the hell was going on. of course, we had already fallen in love with it by the second time around. i copied the album on tape (lol) and took it to medical school and was the soundtrack to my life for the first six months of the career, listening to it everyday. beautiful days. well obviously became a radiohead addict and bought the bends. and, with the possible exception of kid a, there hasn´t been any other album in the history of earth that has hypnotized me the way okc did. thank you, guys. an essential piece of music.

  • Nathann

    OK Computer. I’m a more recent Radiohead fan, actually.

    Last year, about midway through August or so, I bought Hail to the Thief, because I really liked 2+2=5. I started eighth grade the next day. About a week or so in, I said to my orchestra director, “You should listen to this album, it’s really good.” His response was to say that he owned every Radiohead album and that he had a few I should listen to. So I borrowed OK Computer and Kid A. I listened to the latter first, and didn’t care for it much at first. At about eight at night or so, the OK Computer disc went into my stereo, the first couple chords played, the drums came in, and everything else was off of my mind for the next hour.

    Finally bought it in December. It’s opened up all sorts of things I never thought I’d be interested in, and I’ll still be listening to it years from now.

  • Emma

    OK Computer was released just before my birthday (must have been turning 16) and somehow I got a copy of it at a time that no-one i knew was getting as obsessively into music in the same way I was. I remember sitting at the computer late at night at my parents typing a email to radiohead (not sure where I sent it, but I found an email somewhere) trying to express what a monumental event that OK Computer was… something that got me – got my fear and paranioa about the world, was beautiful and scared and epic and all of that. And hell, what did I know, I was only turning 16, but it was like looking into a mirror.
    Radiohead have been a cornerstone of growing up, they would be right to be frightened by the groundswell that they’ve created, but they’re one of the most real bands out there. I don’t listen to radiohead every day, but I’m still rewarded whenever I visit anything by them. And OK Computer, man, that helped me become who I am and fueled an everlasting enthusiasm for music.

  • Rene

    I was 15 at the time and just as every dutch teenager in those years kneedeep in the happy hardcore/trance era. Guitars were a no-go……

    I’d remember seeing the video to paranoid android on TV a couple of times and it attracted me instantly. While on vacation in New York City with my parents, I asked permission to go out of the hotel and wander around Times Square alone and they let me. I walked in Virgins Media Store and saw that Radiohead was the nr 1 selling record and I started listening to it there and then in that shop. I put the headphones on and Airbag kicked in…….I have been a different person ever since. I’ve never let go and never will……it’s one of the best things that ever happened to me. I’ve listened to OK Computer so many times I bought the CD 4 times because it kept wearing out. THe themes, angst and atmosphere of the tunes blew me away and showed me what real music should be like…….it shaped the person I am to today and I can truly say it changed my life.

    They have never, ever disappointed me and they never will…..a safe haven that I can always rely on!

  • steve

    I remember picking a copy of Ok Computer up on the east coast right as it came out. I listened to it during the drive and never stopped. It was and is the most complete and flawless record I have ever heard and every time I play it I know why.

    A friend’s copy started skipping and died and we buried it with a proper ceremony.

  • Hakan S

    Trust me, this is the truth. In -97 I did my military service in sweden, and with my first paycheck I bought a CD-player (I actually didnt have one before that) and one CD. Guess which? OK computer, making it my very first CD (not a bad choice). I had heard Karma Police on the radio and it had stuck with me, so that’s why I bought it. I listened to it the whole year and the following, together with the the Bends, Airbag EP and My Iron Lung EP. Of course they became my favorite band. Unfortunately, Im listeneing less and less to Radiohead but I dont think I will get into another band like i did with RH. Best song? Let Down without a doubt.

  • Da

    OK COMPUTER is easily the best album of the 1990′s. But I find HAIL TO THE THIEF and it’s large doses of piano to be more preferable to me. It’s SO good. But so is OK. They are both easily on my top five album list, with TALES FROM TOPOGRAPHIC OCEANS and CLOSE TO THE EDGE by YES and ABBEY ROAD by well, you know.

  • http://www.myspace.com/elitebanda ImATumbler

    I love that album so goddamn much, it gives me goosebumps. It was this album that got me through high school when i was feeling down. It was this album that taught me what music really is.
    OK Computer will always stay close to my heart.

    Thank you Radiohead.

  • http://www.a-reminder.org/music Sean

    My thoughts are here Ade.

    http://www.a-reminder.org/music/?p=642

    And thanks for 10 great years with At Ease. I’ve been coming here since AT LEAST January 1998. Crazy.

  • Ben

    OK Computer was a complete life-changing epiphany for me, and continues to be one of my top 5 favourite albums of all time.
    It articulated the heady, paranoic, visionary, heart-wrenching alienation that I was engulfed in at the time so perfectly that I was blown away. It was on constant rotation, and became my soundtrack that was an inextricable part of my life, and showed me what a beautiful and exciting thing aliention can be.
    This album was my salvation, and I can honestly say that I wouldn’t be who I am today without it. For that I am eternally grateful.
    After 10 years it continues to be extremely important to me.

  • Ed

    OK Computer is the greatest album of all time. I don’t think an album has ever had such an impact in my life. I bought the album late (summer of 98) and I still love it. I bought it before a trip to England and listened to it whenever I could during that trip.

    The album introduced me to Radiohead and made me a huge fan.

  • Robert C Mackle

    I bought this album along with Kid A in the heady Autumn of 2000. I had just crawled back out of insect hell, had pwnd a few grannies and needed something good to listen to. Oh how I had found it! OK C is a modern masterpiece, Let Down still brings a tear of blood to my eye. I shall certainly be playing this album when I destroy atease and take over the universe.

  • James

    I hated it at first. It didn’t sound anything like The Bends or Pablo Honey, which I really loved. I entered it by way of Letdown, to this day, my favorite track. I kept listening to it and it finally revealed itself to me. And then I absorbed it and it become who I was. I know, sick, eh? So I have a lot of mixed feelings about this album, it was the soundtrack to a very dark period in my life. But it is a masterpiece, if you don’t get swallowed up in the depressing mood of it … but Radiohead were also part of the process of coming back to life after this period, so after 10 years, I can listen to it for what it is now, and not get caught up in lines like “crushed like a bug in the ground” or “a heart full up like a landfill, a job that slowly kills you and wounds that won’t heal”. Man, that’s heavy stuff.

  • Jonny M.

    The first thing I heard from OK Computer was Paranoid Android, on a compilation CD here in Canada called Big Shiny Tunes 2. It was a cassette, the first cassette I ever got. At first I found the song quite strange, but as time wore on it grew on me and still stood out on the compilation, but in a good way. Then I’d often listen to the Bends and OK Computer with some friends and I bought the album, but that was years later, probably in 2000.

    To this day I’ve listened to that album countless times. Every track is incredibly strong lyrically and musically (like so many of Radiohead’s song), and as a result it is a perfect album to me. Only a few albums meet that requirement for me, and OK Computer tops them all. I haven’t heard all the albums that are typically in the running for “Best of all time” but OKC deserves a place at the top. It’s just so relevant to me.

  • sam

    whether it’s the best radiohead album is for me way too hard a call. however, everytime i listen to it i enjoy it more, it’s stunning. And of course it has my favourite Rhead song, Subterrean homesick alien.

  • MER

    I can’t remember exactly when I got it but it’s a funny story.

    I saw Paranoid Android and was enthralled. I believe it was a premire on MTV during the daytime I knew of Radiohead beforehand (The Bends), but I haven’t gotten off my butt to get any of their albums until then (or when “Rain Down” was sung). I initially bought a tape of OKC. It was a lemon so I went through hell to switch it for a CD on my own. That didn’t sit right with my mom who bought it before, and really she shouldn’t b/c it would’ve been a total moneywaster either way. I was sitting in the kitchen when I thought, “Oh my god, I REALLY REALLY need to invest in them.” I still have it today and I must say, it’s the stratchiest playable CD I have :D

  • sylvie

    First, it is really touching to realize how everybody feels about OKC. I can also easily remember when I got it. We were looking for new good albums and a friend who was a bass player in a band told me that it surely was the best record of the decade. He had only listened to it once and was amazed because he had not listened to a whole album for a very long time ! Still my most emotional music even though their last three opus are even better in other restects !! I actually can’t tell which one would be my real favourite but would maybe choose Amnesiac if i had to, just the most incredible to me …Anyway, OKC is the best tribute to art for it democratized MUSIC

  • Jordi Busquets

    My story with OK Computer is funny. I listened to it for the first time around 1998, didn’t impress me. Guess I just wasn’t ready for it. Sometime in 2001 some guys talked to me about KID A by some Radiohead, they said it was good. Got it. Then I was ready. Kid A blew me away. Then I picked, OK Computer, The Bends… since then they are my favorite band BY FAR, and I still consider OK Computer my favorite all-time album. So it goes.

  • nanou

    I was offered ok computer for my 12′s birthday in june 1997…and i was just crazy about this album. Now i’m 22 since a week, and i’m just crazy about radiohead…still, and forever…

  • http://myspace.com/superfudge Summer

    OK COMPUTER changed the way that i hear an appreciate music. i have listened to it or parts of it daily for the last ten years, and i honestly cant imagine my life without it. its the background music for my adult life..

  • http://arnologo.blogspot.com/ ArnoLogo

    Ok, my computer is working! Actually I discovered Radiohead’s through “My Iron Lung” back in 1994 on a French TV show. I immediatly got caught by their powerfulness. I bought “The Bends” and had a serious crush on the whole album. Then I saw them Live in 1995, an amazing concert where they played LUCKY before it got released on “HELP!” and then I knew next album will be a great one.OK COMPUTER was released during revision for my exams, but I already had the 2 PARANOID ANDROID singles, and immediatly got under the spell of the 5 songs on it, then I became REALLY impatient about the whole album. I had already heard a few tracks such as EXIT MUSIC, PARANOID ANDROID, LUCKY and AIRBAG but the acoustic version. I took 4 buses to buy the album on the so expected release date. I was so ammazed by the marvellous artwork, put it in my CD player and then fell in something close to heaven. This album at the time was a perfect summarize of what was in the air back then. AIRBAG is such a great opener, loud guitars, buzzes and background sounds, “I’m back to save the universe”, what a line, specially when sung by a guy who a few years earlier confessed that he “wants to be part of the human race”. How did they get so confident or maybe so good to release such a piece of magistral Art? PARANOID ANDROID is a big shock for listeners, so much influences in it! what a wonderful track! SUBTERANEAN HOMESICK ALIEN is up to me one of the weirdest song I’ve heard back then.It seemed to me like recorded on a foggy winter day with that cool jazzy tone. EXIT MUSIC had a tremendous impact, as soon as you listen to it, you can see your own reflection into the track, even if it’s a really personal song. I like the fuzzy bass and Thom’s purest voice, with the atmospherical noises in the background. LET DOWN has wonderful lyrics, complex layers on music but it is my least favorite track on the record. KARMA POLICE is an instant beloved song, close to the perfection, a major track, a great theme, what else to say about it? Dunno !!!FITTER HAPPIER is a summarize of all the feelings that appear on the album. I go on thinking it isa key track on OK COMPUTER. ELECTIONEERING is rough, powerful and sounds like a tiger thrashing in the water ! CLIMBING UP THE WALLS is so frightening ! It always sounds to me like a killer’s confessions, just told on a piece of music. NO SURPRISES is just an amazing, catchy, dark lullaby, “GET ME OUT OF HERE” is a kind of announcement that the end is really near. LUCKY is one of my favorite track ever, so fluent and beautiful. THE TOURIST closes the trip in such a great way and I linked it to AIRBAG, be careful, you got to “slow down”, and the little bell at the end sort of wake you up. This album had such a great impact on my life, on the way I listen to music, I make music, I criticize music. It layed down new rules on music, rock, pop and it changes the way a lot of bands considers music. OK COMPUTER is just a symbol of the end of last century, with all the good and bad things. It has been released on the right time, in the right place and pushed the boundaries of all time formats. This is only my opinion. If you look at it back then and now, the album didn’t grew old, sound old, and if you take a little persective you can just say that it fits to your hears perfectly well.

  • olga

    it’s been many years since the first time i listened to Karma Police. It marked my highschool years and now i find myself playing the album over and over again, trying to study for my finals (college years come to an end, unfortunatelly). Whatever the day brings, no matter what the mood is, OK Computer sneaks into my playlist. Karma Police got me started, and every song found its’ way under my skin… Thank you Radiohead for your exceptional music and we hope to see you in Greece sometime.

  • http://www.myspace.com/krebadokandko Kristof

    First, i’m a french guy… and i don’t speak english very well… BUT:
    I can say that Radiohead has changed my life.
    I was a teenager, with all troubles it means, when i discovered their “world”. I was in 1997, with the famous Ok Computer. I exactly remember that i was in my room, sitting at desk, studying maths, when i heard Karma Police on the radio… a bomb in my mind, which still go on exploding today… i bought the album immediately. Then i discovered The Bends and Pablo Honey. I became a real addict to their music… It was unbelievable : all that i wanted to say – but that i couldn’t with my words – was in their music… all my feelings… my time was spendt listening their albums… again and again… i’ve cryied on many songs… i was so impressed by their songs… so filled in with them…
    And i started to play guitar… my first tab that i learned was Street Spirit…
    And since Ok Computer, i’ve never missed a news about Radiohead…
    I’ve seen them for the first time at Nimes (France), in 2003. A day that i could never forget. It was as if i’ve seen God in front of me…
    One day, i would like to speak to them (like a lot of people i guess !!), and just to thank them… to thank them to learn myself who i was… and for their help… to make life a little softer that it could be sometimes…

    CLAP CLAP CLAP Radiohead…

    « You are all i need »
    Thanks.

  • constantino

    i saw them in boston april ’97 and since then, my life changed and all concerts are rubbish compared to this. I cannot explain the experience in words; it is more of an orgasmic thing…incredible!!!
    when will they come to puerto rico? i hope soon; we are waiting…

  • brian

    radiohead is the lord

  • http://www.carloshernan.com Carlos Hernan Gonzalez

    OK Computer is the CD I can never leave behind. I always listen to it and I think I always will.

    I bought it in 2000 but didn’t get it. Radiohead grew slowly into me. I remember one afternoon I was listening to No Surprises in my bedroom and something just clikced inside me.

    OK Computer is perfect. It also involves all this feeling of the 1990′s when i went to uni. The Tourist is me in Vienna in 1998.

    Radiohead are something you cannot get back from. Just like that. Anything else might be good, but always less.

  • bianca

    climbing up the walls. it moves me in a way i couldnt describe.
    if anyone took radiohead away from me i would become crazy.
    ok computer and kid a have always been a battle for the best album. but i think ok computer is more relatable.
    i got into radiohead wayy too late. about 2 years ago, my english teacher had radiohead posters up in the classroom.

    officially changed my life.

  • stu

    this woz the one that got me into radiohead,i remember getting it on a saturday morning putting it in cd player with my head phones on,when it finished i woz blown away,i new then that i’d heard the best album ever,past,present or future!!they shud bring out a special edition..lets start a campaign!!

  • Jamie

    When I was in about Year 10 (14/15 years old), I’d had The Bends for quite a while and really wanted to hear OK Computer. The only person I knew who had a copy was my friend’s girlfriend’s dad, but they’d just split up. I convinced her to persuade her dad lend the CD, and then I passed it on to my friend (she wasn’t impressed when she found out…).

    The first time I listened to it, it terrified me. Absolutely fucking terrified me. The second time it just sounded so alien and unusual, and the third time it was the most beautiful thing I’d ever heard. It’s never sounded as good as that third time since, but it’s still a bloody good album. However, Either/Or and Kid A beat it in the best album ever or best Radiohead album ever category.

  • Louiswin

    I discovered Radiohead in the summer of 2000. I heard about how great OKC was. I must say that it is the most original album I’ve ever heard. From the opening guitar line of “Airbag” to the bell ding at the end of “The Tourist”, this album blew me away. You will need to listen to this album repeatedly to appreciate it … because with each repeat you hear something different than you did before that causes you to appreciate it even more. Wow! What an increadible effort by Radiohead. The production is first quality and I would venture to say that it is the album of the 90s. My only regret is that I didn’t buy this until almost 3 years after it came out (I could have started to enjoy it earlier).

    Warning: this is not a pop record. These guy are serious musicians and very talented. Thom Yorke is a wonderful songwriter. There is really not one bad song on this album. All are great and stick out on their own. If you like music that is very diverse (the song “Paranoid Android” is as diverse as you will every get in one song alone and quite beautiful), then I recommend you buy OK Computer. I’ve never hear anything like it … it’s a very significant record and should be on everyone’s top 10 list.

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