Radiohead ‎– OK Computer

Does anyone knows how to spot the difference between this release and the original 1997 release?

I remember when this album first came out back in 1997... I was at university in London, nursing a chronic Drum & Bass fascination into a full time DJ/music/audio engineering career. Practically everyday, in between the numerous lectures on biochemical metabolic and immune pathways (that operate/function within the human body), I would do my best to avoid the end of day student union drink-ups and, instead, jump on a tube in order to venture out in to the dark, neon lit circuit-like roadways of the asphalt London sprawl, wondering down any street that looked ripe with promise, searching for all and any independent/underground record stores I could find... When I was lucky enough to track a new one down, I would note their number in my record store book and ring them up nearly everyday asking them for records that were on my list - a list that I religiously compiled after listening to KISS 100 FM's Fabio & Grooverider's Wednesday shows and reading various DJ top 10s in assorted magazines - so that I could tick them off, one by one, until I had some of the most sort after Drum & Bass tunes of the time to play out at the weekends.

This was around the same time that SPEED (Fabio and Bukem's night that used to be held down at the Mars Bar on Sutton Row, just off Soho Square, in London) closed down... And TEMPO had just been rumoured to replace it at the cozy underground venue of the Velvet Rooms (on Charing Cross Road, right next to Tottenham Court Road, in London). Roni Size was doing some BIG things back then in Drum & Bass, mainly on V Recordings and his Full Cycle and Dope Dragon labels... Not to mention that he had also just released an album on Giles Peterson's 'Talkin' Loud' imprint, entitled "New Forms" under the guise of 'Reprezent'.

Being really interested in electronic music back then - to the point I'd be religiously reading more NME, Melody Maker, WIRE, Muzik, DJ, Atmosphere, etc... than science papers, even during my exams - once I had heard that Size had been nominated for the Mercury Music prize, I became somewhat obsessed with reading everything I could about the mighty event ahead. While everyone in the Drum & Bass scene was talking about how they had at last got the recognition they deserved, many outside of it i.e. NME, Melody Maker, were saying how unlikely it was that Roni Size would win... Mainly because Radiohead - someone I had vaguely heard about at school - had released an album that was, at last, truly mind-blowningly worthy of the accolade, and thus would be the only obvious choice for the Prize panel. Still, all us Drum & Bass heads were at least very happy with what this meant for the Drum & Bass labels and artists we had supported for so long i.e. LTJ Bukem, Size, Krust, Die, JJ Frost, Fabio, Grooverider, Goldie, GCG, Pulse, Wax Doctor, Alex Reece, Adam F, Digital, Photek, etc... At last Drum & Bass had been recognised by the mainstream music fraternity! And, however you looked at this nomination for the BIG TIME i.e. whether Roni would size up to the mark and win... OR even not! Drum & Bass had just got one hell of a lot of seriously good publicity.

So when the night of the Mercury Music Prize arrived... I watched without holding my breath for Roni Size and his crew to win... Having been reading ALL of the press about just how brilliant 'this' album was from 'some' indie rock band - called Radiohead - one that I'd only vaguely heard of before, for me it was a forgone conclusion who had won... Why? Because the press usually hit the nail on the head. No doubt I didn't really ever understand why Radiohead should have won this prize until much, much later on in life... Rather I just accepted that moto... "5 billion people can't be wrong!" So when 'Reprezent' won that evening... I think we all lost it and went a bit mental... In fact we all went off later that week and celebrated down at Blue Note and any other venue that was doing some Drum & Bass night i.e. Bar Rumba, Tempo, etc... We'd never seen so many people down at these venues before... It honestly began to seem that, over-night, everyone had got into Drum & Bass... And slowly - all so very slowly - it began to go down the pan.

In the aftermath of - what I can only personally refer to as - Drum & Bass's resounding downfall... I found that I had to gorge myself on other strange vibes to get my underground fix... Most of these were WARP anomalies, which filled, in the only way I knew how, the vacuum that had been left by the commercialisation of a once fearless and experimental underground artistic movement. Still seeking phrenetic rhythmic chops and novel dance arrangements, ones that fell in line with the likes of Photek/Hidden Agenda/Motiv One/Reinforced i.e. serious breakbeat experimentation, I rediscovered old allies like Aphex Twin, Squarepusher and Autechre... The evolution from Drum & Bass to this new-bread glitch/breakbeat/techno free-form experimentalism was a logical - and natural - progression for me. But, still, I couldn't get over what had happened. I missed those nights out on the town that I had become so used to... Like immensely missed them... That rabble of clubs that had always sported the freshest, choicest cuts of acetate, which had only - just days before - come out of home studios and collided with the dance floor in explosive/original fashion... Cuts that sliced into your imagination; made you jack your body all night long; that left your soul reeling for more; feeling so alive... Clubs that were only sometimes listed in Time Out's eclectic underground selection.

Then, after much debilitation over the point... As well as being inundated with listening to more crap releases than a toilet could adequately flush away... I asked the fateful question... "Why hadn't this rock and roll band i.e Radiohead, won the Mercury Music Prize? Perhaps if they had, the damage that Drum & Bass had taken from over-commercialisation wouldn't have happened, and it would still be evolving in imaginative, breath-taking, strictly underground ways... Hell, who were Radiohead anyway?"

Finally... Five years later, after the 1997 Mercury Music Prize had sealed breakbeat music in a frame of "mainstream mania," I sat down at a friend's house, late one evening, and, having had a bit too much to drink down at "The George" (just off Belsize Park in London), I raved at him wildly how Drum & Bass had totally lost it. And I meant totally... I told how bored I'd become when sifting through track after similar track - all of which just followed some sort of basic pattern - to find one new tune that totally blew me away. All night long I recounted release after cheesy bloody release... And sung a song of tragedy and woe to him... A tune of lost heart and soul... And I asked why - oh, bloody why - didn't that 'Radiohead' band win back in 1997. To which my friend curiously asked whether I'd actually ever heard the Radiohead album that had got them nominated for the Mercury Music Prize back then... ? "No, I hadn't." I replied. And, shocked as he was (but probably more out of boredom from my rant, wanting to shut me up for an hour or so), he put it on.

AND I've got to say... I was amazed. There are some special moments in one's life... Ones that leave indelible marks on your impression and perspective on life... Ones that change, ever-so-slightly, your own perceptive outlook on how it all fits together. Like, your first kiss... The first time you fall in love... The first time you heard Bill Hicks... A true moment of sharing your time with someone who really needs it... Doing so without any need for reward or acknowledgement... When you leave home and stand on your own two feet... When you get your degree... Or win your first race... The first time you do acid... When you really help someone from your the bottom of your heart, and NOT do so just because you think it's the right thing to do... When you realise your humanity... OR when you loose everything, thinking it's the end... But get it all - and more - back again... When you finally loose your notion of 'self' and awake - even if only for a moment - to find the world free of any attachment and without any worry at all... THESE very moments stay with you for life, locked in the matrix of your memories as they subtly influence how you are in this present moment, allowing the idea of your 'self' to relate to the world around you in socially accepted ways of being. Because... It's from these special moments that we all find freedom within the limits in which we are bound to act... And, once we experience enough of them, we know how to grow beautifully within the confines provided to us, understanding together, from love, without hatred or anger, to show others, truly... So truly... How to understand life in more meaningful and open ways... Embracing every moment as if it was our first and last.

For me... This album captured... And still captures... All of that ideal... Doing so in a truly timeless (and slightly Bill Hicks) kind of a way... Giving one singularity - with immense gravitational force - an awe inspiring album for everyone to mull over time and again... Without it ever getting boring... Yes... It hit me that hard.

In fact... I was SO blown away by "OK COMPUTER" when I originally heard it, that I felt that Roni Size winning the Mercury Music Prize was probably the biggest mistake (and joke) in musical history. I mean... From the outset... "Airbag" harks the reincarnated patterns of a 'self' = less understanding... So I loose sight of my conceptualised notion of 'self', and wonder if all life is really just patterns of energetic motion... Motion that is comprised of chemicals that are made up of atoms, born from the hearts of stars... And surely then consciousness would purely be a by product of the complex, interdependent layers of chaos inherent in the system of chemical reactions between the different concentrated components of star dust in our bodies... I do not possess a soul. Rather I am a soul, forged in the hearts of Suns, burning brightly in all I do, experiencing only the vibration of the here and now, witnessing the birth of future possible generations in the vast furnaces of the heavens above... And I am amazed that all the interdependent events that gave rise this incarnation of my apparent 'self' actually survived this long to give rise to the idea of a 'me,' sitting here, writing this.

Then, with "Paranoid Android" touching on ambition's sinister side... I find a mirror to my own disdain for what happened in the Drum & Bass scene... The novelty and wonder of jumping on someone else's train, for all the wrong reasons... To make a quick buck... To gain so bit of fame... Without truly originating anything whatsoever... So the memes of Susan Blackmore's "The Meme Machine" are at work within the brands and genres that attract people to the smell of ludicrous irony, material success and fast spun fame... Seeking fleeting moments of base pleasure and success over true, diligent spiritual ecstasy (or Nirvana)... Thus many sell out and forget to listen to their hearts anymore...

All this leads beautifully into "Subterranean Homesick Alien"... Where Noam Chomsky' reference to how aliens would view us in his book, entitled "Media Control", comes out beautifully clear... As I remember the clear rushes from having been tripping all night long, to find this experience of 'self' greeted with the first rays of the morning summer's sun... And I realise how uptight we all can be... How close to new experiences we are... How we dislike what we don't like, pushing it away all the time... And bringing in whatever we fancy... And how weird the overall 'human' condition really is... How detached from 'natural ways' we've become... How confusing it becomes... Those unpaid bills... Those hidden desires... Those open formalities of closed acceptability.

But still, in all this confusion... Living within all these rules of societal hibernation... Of detached homely concerns... Ones which are passed down from father/mother to son/daughter, generation after generation... We are beckoned to wake from our subservient slumber in "Exit Music"... And see the chill, stark emptiness of reality... A reality that shows us nothing more than the fact that our social constructs simply - at best - the imagined meanderings of 'pattern seeking beings' which placed loosely over all phenomena to allow us a comfortable and egocentric view of the universe in which we find ourselves... That we could break free from all this delusion and grasp an unbounded, undefined and infinite world, if only we cared to truly try... Then we could grasp the Nirvana found by wiser masters than those we have today i.e. like the Buddha, rather than choke ourselves on our systems of constricted thought and understanding... Which only lead us into stronger attachment and further distractions from the only thing that matters... REALISATION OF THE TRUE NATURE OF MIND.

Within this age of choice... Procuring freedom of travel for all but the really impoverished i.e. you can travel to almost anywhere in the world within a single day... We have become passive wonderers, guided by our desires spawned from advertising, in a world where the offer of "better horizons lie ahead" continually leads us into wishing for a better future... A better circumstance... A better home... A better life. Thus we are lead away from true contentment within this present, timeless moment and proximity of bodily design. Here, in "Let Down", Radiohead poetically captures the nostalgic twists and turns that many of us find ourselves doing in daily routines i.e. going on holiday abroad to relax, waiting for the delayed train/plane to arrive, feeling that we should be treated better than this, that we deserve more than this... That 'this' shouldn't be happening to us... That we need something better... !? And so we loose ourselves in travel... Without a home or any context to our environment... We drivel about sentimentality and loss... If only we could see through this... And find the true nature of our reality... That we have won the lottery of existence... Perhaps we wouldn't ever need to feel let down again.

From there, we are next presented with "Karma Police..." Which leads on from "Let Down" somewhat pertinently into the Samsaric view of cyclical existence... We continually give everything we have... Aiming for true happiness, contentment, joy and other positive qualities that we seek in life... Yet, every time we do so, we only seem to find fleeting moments of these, which always eventually give way to their antonyms. Here, York's warbling voice on about how we all reap what we sow comes into a parallel with the notion of Buddhist Karma... Whether unwittingly doing so by following some fashion, or taking responsibility for our actions and learning an educated trade... We all are responsible for our choices in this life... And if we don't want something to happen... We have the choice to prevent it... To prevent it all. And to create all that is good for everyone... For every sentient being. ! But for those who cannot accept the role they play in their own fortunes, the Karma Police gentle repeat... "This is what you get... When you mess with us." In this interdependent world of cause and effect, we have a chance - one golden chance - to truly loose our notion of "self..." And be free. Even if only for a moment. And when we do... We find an openness... A spaciousness... Without being limited by definitions... A spaciousness that's free from clouds that prevent one fro realising the true nature of one's mind... Clearing our state of awareness and perspective to realise that... We simply are. And, thus, presently exist in Samsara's folds.

So many of us find ourselves following lifestyles that look after the supposed needs of the modern man... After all... Who are we to step out of line? These lifestyles that allow us to feel fitter and happier... So we can work better with our colleges... Play better together and lead more satisfying lives... Doing things more efficiently and faster than previously, working better together in corporations and companies that benefit everyone involved in working for them. Here "Fitter Happier" seems to cleverly tap into the barrage of media savvy catch phrasing and branding that was/is still going around... In a computer like voice, all the slogans we know so well are thrown into one melting pot and allowed a chance to mingle into an absurd herd like mentality of wellbeing and betterment. Everything is safer and healthier than it used to be... We more clever and widely read than we have been before... We sleep better... We all live longer. No chance for depression, sadness or feeling ugly... There is no place for negative feelings here... We should be at ease... In fact... We are at ease. Why should we worry? Eventually we are captured by this lifestyle... "No chance of escape." We know "everything"... We are given everything in this media rich world... Why should we want more? Yet, in tragedy, we are "Concerned (But Powerless)". We collect good memories... We eventually find perfect mental pictures of ourselves - ones that seem to define us as individuals, separate and independent from everyone else... And so we find meaning and joy in our lives. But in reality, these pictures are sometimes so far removed from actual fact, that if we were to peer back into them more precisely and openly... If we were to view them while tripping on LSD... We might see that many of us have in actual fact become nothing more than hairless ape like pigs... Sitting in our cage like homes... Quaffing an abundance of food and drink... Pleasure bent and hedonistic in desire... Left to live longer with the grace of antibiotics. !!! No doubt a bleak outlook... But can we deny that a coin has two sides?

The sense of independence and control that many of us feel we have in our lives is no doubt established in many ways... And one of those ways is via voting rights. However, we are rarely aware of the "Electioneering" that goes on behind the scenes of any major election... Elections that apparently give us free choice... As if prompted by Adam Curtis' BBC documentary, entitled "Century Of Self" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Century_of_the_Self), Radiohead offer a short and briefly mocking monologue that wouldn't be too far removed from what most political figures announce before elections now-a-days... In between all the facts and figures that are continually pumped out across the airwaves of radio and televised media... Facts and figures that show us all from behind the complex issues of stearing a country towards success, politicians can sometime make their lives seemingly more important and significant than they actually are. "When I go forwards you go backwards and somehwere we will meet" offers a thought for everyone to consider... By listening to and voting for these political figure heads - who simply use psychological catch phrases to win our vote with, offering the promise of what they could do rather than what they will do - do we not also dumb ourselves down and create this loop of disrespect?

Missing a song... We hit another gem "No Surprises". All I'll do here is list the lyrics as they speak for themselves...

- - - - - - - - - - - - - -

A heart that's full up like a landfill
A job that slowly kills you
Bruises that won't heal

You look so tired and unhappy
Bring down the government
They don't, they don't speak for us
I'll take a quiet life
A handshake of carbon monoxide

No alarms and no surprises
No alarms and no surprises
No alarms and no surprises
Silent, silent

This is my final fit, my final bellyache with

No alarms and no surprises
No alarms and no surprises
No alarms and no surprises please

Such a pretty house, such a pretty garden

No alarms and no surprises (let me out of here)
No alarms and no surprises (let me out of here)
No alarms and no surprises please (let me out of here)

- - - - - - - - - - - - - -

I could go on... But I won't.

After having heard it... Both lyrically and musically... And then comparing it to Reprezent's "New Forms"... Back to back... I couldn't understand why the Mercury Music Prize in 1997 had been handed over to Size's outfit. No way could I ever justify how the neat, but simple, melodic strips and lively rhythms of Reprezent's "New Forms" actually made bigger waves than the sheer all encompassing magnitude of mindful, omnipotent pros that Radiohead had fractured together through their alternative view on 21st century life in "OK COMPUTER"!?!? Perhaps no one had really heard the album... Like hadn't done back in 1997... ? OR perhaps the Mercury Music Prize judges had likened it to some Pink Floyd musical score, set to the drivellings of some mad-man's lyrics (again, sorry Tom)... ? THEN AGAIN perhaps they had just thought that the content of the album was slightly too depressing and heavy for their own lighter hearted, mass consumerist, wallet sized brains to absolve in to the overall universal perspective of their pleasurable, hedonistic lives... A perspective that the weak soul of 21st century life could never possible face in its present condition... ? OR maybe even the musical brilliance of this bright, day-light album, had set behind the horizon of corporate shallowness, and was now shinning on some other - more fortunate - part of the world, and so was lost against the neon flashes of the superficial night-time 'cheesy-quaver' fraternity? OR maybe, perchance, the judges just hadn't done enough acid...

Whatever the reason... Whether their heads had been in a "Brown Paper Bag", like mine had... Or whether they wanted a change from all the depressing grungy rock-and-roll going around at the time... They seemed to have totally missed how this album profoundly challenged (and could possible change) the way we saw - and should see - ourselves in the context of present day society... And, thus, they had left it high and dry. Speaking of which... I seem to remember that at this time quite a few of my friends were taking Prozac back then... The new wonder drug that helped everyone do what it was they apparently should be doing without getting too lost in the details... And possibly the judges were all high on it too...And because of their intake of this antidepressant, they preferred those lighter, happier upbeat rhythms on "New Forms" to jig to rather than the heady and somewhat realistically stark blues of "OK COMPUTER"... Okay... I'll stop there...

And just say that... I have now taken solace in a clearer perspective... One that came better into focus after I listened to this album... And so, I find myself no longer upset over the downfall of Drum & Bass. Rather, it's demise (well, I call it 'demise' only from my humble perspective, as isn't everything only from someone's perspective) has filled me with promise... Allowing change to carry on with evolution's open corridors of wonder... As each new turn now only opens up new doorways of vision and possibility, which eventually lead me down other musical avenues to discover many, many more new and wondrous an album... Albums just like this... Only maybe not quite as good.

For me... OK COMPUTER is easily 5/5!

I have a Canadian release with barcode 5099969546228. Anyone feel like adding this?

As a purist of electronic music and more specifically techno, it's not often I emerge from my bubble to discover other music. It's even rarer for me to remember an era of my life in connection with a rock album. Rediscovering this CD several years since last listening to it, it's hard not to get all dewy-eyed remembering 1997. Achieving the seemingly impossible, this emphatic follow-up to 'The Bends' not only lived up to its predecessor but completely blew it away. In many ways 'OK Computer' is a very mature album; still bearing Thom Yorkes' deathbed vocals, yet musically more mellow than 'The Bends'. Where I found 'The Bends' to simply be a collection of twelve fantastic tracks, 'OK Computer' worked better as an album. Everyone has different views on what defines an album as a masterpiece; in my opinion it needs to transcend mainstream popularity and appeal to everyone. With it's organic feel and a deeply personal touch 'OK Computer' carries this off with ease. Given time alone with your thoughts and a pair of headphones, it's impossible not to lose yourself in these tracks.

Together with 1998s mini-album 'How Am I Driving?', this era paved the way for Radioheads journey into the more experimental material of 'Kid A'. Utterly essential, irrespective of musical taste...everybody should own this album.

After the moderate success of The Bends (which also secured them as being beyond just "the band that does the song 'Creep'"), Radiohead was inspired to do more of their own thing. Inspired greatly by the Beatles' self titled "white" album, Radiohead set to make what many have called "The Dark Side of the Moon of the 1990s."

While denying the progressive rock connections that critics have made, it's hard not to see some attributes of progressive rock in this album. In fact, it's better to call it more of an art rock album. There is a unity between the songs that shows more of a state of mind, rather than a linear narrative or an explicit construct. The state of mind is living in the modern world with its emphasis on better living through science. And yet the 19th century notion of letting science and technology advance the human race into a better utopia has resulted in devasating wars and other forms of misery... far from being idyllic and peaceful.

Perhaps the song that really makes the point is the "intermission" song "Fitter Happier." Delivered coldly (and quite humorously) using a Macintosh computer, it states what the modern society looks for in a modern individual: someone who is basically programmed to do the right thing at the right time. This is their version of W.H. Auden's poem "The Unknown Citizen."

This is one of the many reasons many can point to as far as what Radiohead was able to create through this album. But like the album it's used to compare this to, OK Computer gives you space to think and ponder and not force you into a particular idea.

Transcends musical boundaries. One of THE great all time classic albums of any genre. Radiohead have pushed boundaries like no other rock group & while dance/electronic music has rightly reigned supreme in the 90s through it's superb creativity & inventivness, rock music has remained enthralled & tied to the past. Radiohead have been the great exception to that rule & this album shows them at the peak of their powers. They have not been afraid to look to electronic music for inspiration and to enhance their creative output, and for that they deserve massive respect. Their lyrics are thought provoking and poignant, their musicianship & production utterly superb and an overall contribution to music that will put them alongside the greats. RESPECT