Radiohead’s OK Computer released 15 years ago today

I was rather over whelmed by it actually. I remember recoiling from it as I was still bathed in the glow of ‘creep’ and the bends. This speaks of the great leap forward which is OK Computer. I totally get it now seeing how it is permanently in my top 10 of all time fav albums. The perfect soundtrack to the millennial fears that permeated the cultural mood of the time.

I love that album now as much as I did when I first bought it. I have to listen to it every few months at least, the more I’ve listened the more I have re- discovered different elements to it. Could quite possibly be in my top 3 albums ever, maybe even best!

being from oxford and in the local band scene, new radiohead albums were a very big deal. virgin megastore opened at midnight with local bands playing and giveaways etc. at first i was not sure (i was primarily into grunge and alt rock then and this seemes really lacking bluster after ‘the bends’) but kept it in my walkman anyway. i remember a day or two later getting really stoned at a mate’s house and walking half of oxford listening to it, completely consumed by it! i got to ‘the tourist’ as i arrived at gloucester green and was actually in tears because of thom’s amazing vocal performance and the beautiful arrangement. i then left my bag at the bus station, losing a load of my own demo tapes i had inside as i completely forgot to pick it up, so oblivious to everything around me because of this album. it opened up a lot of doors to other acts only yet ajar for me musically. it also had loads of production techniques (as did primal scream’s ‘vanishing point’ from that time) i had used on my aforementioned 4track demo tapes but in a wide screen high production value that really gave me hope and reassurance that my ideas about making music were not only valid but really worked! still today certain tracks really send shivers up my spine: climbing up the walls and the tourist being 2 of my ultimate fave radiohead songs ever! lee x

I was going into 8th grade when I discovered Radiohead (1999), and immediately went on a bender of purchasing every album. I remember the exact moment I put on OK Computer for the first time: out in the backyard, blue Discman strapped to my waist, mowing the lawn. Sure, not the most ideal of settings, but I still remember the opening riff to Airbag–how it excited something in me. It’s like I knew this album would probably change how I listened to music. For the rest of the afternoon, I was listening to it over and over again, trying to pick apart every last nuance (and trying to decipher what the hell Thom was saying). It’s still one of the most vivid memories I have of my childhood, and every time I listen to the album in full, I’m taken right back to that sense of awe and excitement I felt in the late 90′s.

The day Ok computer was released was one of the best days of my life. I was in grade 11, had been eagerly anticipating its release, and had my final exam for the year on the same day. I took the test, and then rushed to get the album from the local mall. Sitting on my balcony on a warm sunny day, I put on the album start to finish. I played it over and over again that day, and for months after. In grade 12, it was pretty much the soundtrack to my life. I wrote the lyrics and doodled illustrations of them in all my notebooks, spent hour discussing and analyzing its lyrics with friends, and listened to the songs any chance I had. At a formative, it influenced so much of my thinking and perception of the world, so much so that I don’t think I would be the same person today without it. I haven’t listened to any album so fanatically since (maybe except In rainbows). But I can certainly say, no other album has been as influential for me. I don’t listen to it much now, but once in a while, when the occasion calls for it – like driving on desolate highway at night – I throw it on, and it’s still just as mesmerizing.

I unfortunately only found out about Radiohead in college 2007. After watching an episode of Ergo Proxy the ending theme began as Paranoid Android. I was completely mesmerized by the music and listened after watching every episode. After a while I picked the album. Couldn’t say I loved it at first since I not only cursed by the mainstream, but none of the other songs on the album were like P.A. I found myself listening to the album a lot though. One thing led to another and Radiohead is my favorite and most respected band. I’m proud to say I own every album they have including the box version of OK Computer.

July ’97. Loved Paranoid Android. Bought the single. Loved its B-sides, Polyethylene (Pts 1 & 2) and Pearly*. Decided to buy the album. It was my very first Radiohead album. Became an obsession; my favourite of all time. The rest is history.

I found and I was charmed by this album and even Radiohead, sometime in 2006 and from that day every time I hear, I see more reasons to love this band, this album and everything that is created for them.

Thom, Jonny, Ed, Colin and Phil, thanks for everything.

I can not wait to see them live in Brazil in the near future.

I was 14 and in France for the first time when OK Computer came out. I was an exchange student and my host family had a CD player in my room for me. I had got the CD in London but hadn’t listened yet. I will never forget being in that tiny room in Lille, France and hearing the opening of “Airbag”. I still smile when I hear it and think of that time in my life.

I initially bought ‘OK Computer’ on cassette tape; probably a couple of weeks after it was released. I was 14 at the time and that summer I was going on holiday to Rome with my family and my best friend’s family. We both had cassette Walkmans and wanted to listen to the album and other tapes during the trip. I think David, my friend, might have actually bought his copy of OK Computer at the airport before we left. Anyway, as a fourteen year old I was obviously quite angsty and fell in love with Radiohead after The Bends a couple of years before, admiring in particular Thom Yorke’s “fuck you” attitude I had seen on TV. It was also around the time that I had learnt what an atheist was at school and had stopped going to Church on Sundays. My growing cynicism of religion, mixed with hormones and general teenage animosity was reaching a apex just in time for the Rome trip and the impending visit to The Vatican – I was determined that OK Computer was going to be the soundtrack to my Vatican tour. Now, I can’t say we listened to the album throughout the trip but it was certainly on blasting in my ears for part of it. At the time this was, as far as I was concerned, one of those ‘small victories’ that you conjure up in your head as a kid. The Vatican, as you would expect, was full of tourists all pushing into each other and I recall being pleased with myself for noticing the poignancy of the track ‘Tourist’ right at that moment. In two weeks I’m actually going back to Rome for the first time since that holiday to see Radiohead play at Ippodromo delle Capannelle. For old time’s sake and to celebrate its 15th Anniversary, I will listen to OK Computer when I visit The Vatican again before the gig.

It was six months later that I bought OK Computer, having read a few really engaging interviews with the band, and too many glowing reviews to even count. I felt like I was arriving pretty late to the party.

The first time I listened to the CD, I quite literally was moved to pull my car to the side of the road mid-Fitter Happier, so I could collect myself and restart the CD to hear from the beginning—I hadn’t paid super close attention during the first song or two and wanted to immediate correct that.

That album seemed to just go cachink!— snapping so perfectly into an empty spot in my head and heart I didn’t know was there. To see them perform that year and enjoy that as a collective experience was all the more amazing.

It’s so impressive to consider how far they’ve come since then, and how much has happened in my own life and in the world along the way.

Happy Birthday, OK Computer!

Estaba a punto de cumplir 13, me sentia sola en ese paso de niña a adolescente y pasaba todo el dia encerrada en mi habitacion. Un dia en la radio escuche Karma Police y dije wow! no entendia nada de ingles, pero la musica me volo la cabeza. Ahorre mis mesadas y me compre un cassette despues de mi cumple, en septiembre del 97, cuando llego a Chile y de ahi se transformo en mi compañero inseparable durante 2 años, me dormia escuchandolo, lo llevaba en mi walkman y me sirvio de refugio, de escudo frente al ataque siniestro de las boy bands de la epoca y las estellas pop y de fiel compañero en las noches de pena infinita. Mi favorita, por lejos, Lucky

A classmate was all like “Dude you gotta hear these guys, Radiohead, check out this album”. I took it home, played the CD and never gave it back. I avoided him in the hallways. This album introduced me to Radiohead, ….thanks a lot Sergio, sorry ’bout that.

I am doing the same for my kids. Started off Radiohead, now onto Portishead

The first time I ever listened to OK Computer was through Paranoid Android video on MTV (1997). I remember turning the volume all the way up and rocking with my brother when the “heavy” part came. Then, it was Karma Police of course. It was 2001 when I finally got the CD, and it completely changed the way I used to think about music. I´d never get tired of listening to him. It´s still one of my favorite albums ever. Let Down and Climbing Up The Walls are probably the ones I like the most at the moment.

I already knew a couple of songs (Paranoid Android, Karma Police), but the first time I listened to the new album it was a few days after my 16th birthday, in october 2003. Throughout the whole year I got more and more into Radiohead and for my 16th birthday I asked my parents, family and friends to receive the complete album discography. I remember listening to the full album for the first time inside the car with my father. The first impact was strange. I liked it immediately but it required a couple more listenings to get it. Back then I also didn’t like Climbing Up the Walls… what a fool! One of my Radiohead’s favourite now. OK Computer is my favourite album on par with Amnesiac. Of course I still give it a play, quite often. Such a masterpiece.

I got it a couple of weeks early, found it on Japanese import or something. This was great, as I was seeing them live at Glastonbury 1997 for the first time a couple of weeks later. I was a typical obsessive teenager and didnt listen to anything else for literally 6 months I still think the jumps between pablo honey to the bends, and from this to Ok computer arepretty much unparalleled in rock! Spent months absorbing everything, the basslines in Airbag, all the bits to Android, and Lucky is probably still the best thing they’ve ever written. I personally think that, Kid A possibly aside, KOL represents the most significant rebirth of RH since then. But I seem to be in the minority on this…

The first time I ‘got’ OK Computer was during a early evening midsummer thunder storm, it perfectly soundtracked the lightning and thunderclaps and as ‘The Tourist’ brought the album to a close, the moon shone through the window for the first time. Sounds corny, but the album made sense at that moment in time.

My first time with OKC was on tape. It didn’t go too well b/c the new tape I purchased was spoiled. My friend and I went to the mall to return it for the CD version and my parents weren’t happy that I did that. OKC is what lead me to collect the rest of the albums over the summer. I still listen to OKC and think “Wow! You are reason that got me obsessed with them, huh?”