One of my college roommates used to make fun of another roommate for buying Radiohead's first album, Pablo Honey, on the strength of the single "Creep". The dismissive derider thought that Radiohead was clearly a one hit wonder on the tail end of the grunge phenomenon and would never be heard from again. Although I liked "Creep" well enough, I never bothered to listen to the album nor did I muster a counterargument. For all that I could tell, he was right.
A little while later, I heard a different acquaintance's copy of their second album, The Bends, and was shocked by how good it was, but I was too proud to go out and buy my own copy of it, because I didn't respect this dude's taste in music enough to allow myself to be so directly influenced by him! So I continued to resist becoming a Radiohead fan until I heard the undeniably great "Karma Police" and "Paranoid Android" and just had to finally purchase this wonderful CD. I still remember where and when I made that purchase and recall that day whenever I pass by the store, a big box next to an interstate where I pulled over on a whim, on road trips.
In short, OK Computer is absolutely deserving of its reputation as the Dark Side of the Moon of the '90s.
More specifically, we get a great intro a la "Speak To Me"/"Breathe"/"On the Run" in "Airbag" that establishes some themes while not blowing us away, but building up the anticipation with chord progressions and arrangements bringing unresolved tension. Then on to the main feast: on Dark Side we got the soaring, epic "Time", and here we get something arguably even better: "Paranoid Android" is one of the greatest prog rock tracks ever produced (whether Radiohead actually likes prog or not!). I love the loose feel of the acoustic guitars throughout the early part of the song and Colin Greenwood's playful groove on the bass, and, as usual, Thom sings the hell out of this one (And the lyrics! "Kicking, screaming, Gucci little piggie!" Hell, yes.), but this all still just build up for the guitar riffage/carnage to follow; Jonny Greenwood's Lovetone Meatball effect on the guitar solo absolutely kills.
With gut-punches from "Time" and "Paranoid Android" coming so soon after the album's introductions, do both of these albums peak too early? A case could be made for that, but they both attain great heights later, too, and function beautifully as cohesive listening experiences, so I tend to think that the albums probably flowed best with these tracks in their respective places. And flow is a key similarity here, in that both albums are better than the sum of their parts by virtue of the fact that they are both such superb bodies of work in their coherence and listenability on the whole (even when they're bringing on some serious depression!).
After the respective epics, the albums continue to flow in the same directins for now as we get a bit of a break in the action on both albums and mellow out a bit with "The Breathe Reprise" at the end of "Time" and "The Great Gig in the Sky" on Dark Side and "Subterranean Homesick Alien", "Exit Music (For a Film)", and "Let Down" on OK Computer. It is interesting how both "Great Gig" and "Exit Music" develop, dazzle, and dissolve in similar fashion, both moving the listener in similar fashion due to the expert song-craft employed by these two amazing bands.
Next we get the albums' "big hits" in "Money" and "Karma Police". Beyond that distinction, there's really not much of an honest comparison to be made between these tracks, but we continue to see how similarly the albums flow anyway. And there's still plenty left to enjoy on both of these albums, as we get moving slow songs about forms of isolation in "No Surprises" and "Us and Them".
The albums close in distinctly different fashions, much of this owing to the fact that Dark Side of the Moon is a concept album with musical themes that are reintroduced, rehashed, and resolved, whereas OK Computer continues to explore new musical directions. This aspect of the comparison also feeds into the whole "Dark Side of the Moon of the '90s" bit in that concept albums, while they are still being made, will probably forever be associated with the 1970s, the decade in which Dark Side of the Moon was released. If OK Computer had been a concept album, then the comparison probably would not have worked as well in terms of either its identity as a strong product of its times or of the widespread acceptance that it attained, which are absolutely essential for this comparison.
It is notable that OK Computer was obtained and enjoyed by such a wide swathe of rock fandom, even as represented by my own group of friends, who have fairly divergent musical tastes, because that is the kind of popularity that made Dark Side of the Moon the cultural touchstone of its day, too. Just about everybody of certain ages who was into rock music at the time of these releases knows these albums and can be expected to be conversant on the topic, even if they don't like them. I once dated an older woman who was convinced that I was someone else who was posting online, merely because the other guy and I shared a mutual love of both Radiohead and Neil Young; she failed to understand how thoroughly unremarkable that is. Name any major rock act plus Pink Floyd or Radiohead, and fans who share a love for both of them are going to be common.
Some may view it as a disservice to compare the albums in such direct fashion, especially since, despite the numerous comparisons, there is zero evidence that Radiohead was consciously aping or performing any sort of homage to Pink Floyd with this album, so let me be perfectly clear that I only intend to present this comparison on the basis of commonalities that both of these great albums happen to share and which have resulted in a frequently made observation that proves true under scrutiny. Radiohead definitely was not seeking to rehash any sort of '70s prog; Jonny Greenwood reportedly does not even like Dark Side of the Moon. Relatively speaking, Radiohead, who had started off sounded like a mishmash of U2 in a grunge direction with greater chops in evidence than either of those institutions, was bringing something just as new and excellent (if not even greater) to the table as Pink Floyd had within the natural progression and context of their own musical abilities and influences.
So now that we have that comparison out of the way, so what? An album doesn't attain greatness in a vacuum, so it's worth examining how it changed the musical landscape, especially in the case of this particular album. The album's title represents an obvious concession to technology, but this is still in large part a guitar album, especially in comparison to the direction taken by the band later on Kid A and Amnesiac. Still, much was made of that title at the time, and techno, although it never really caught on in the States like the media claimed that it would, seemed poised to dominate with the guitar reportedly on the verge of extinction. Although that didn't happen, there definitely was a rash of successful Radiohead clones popping up like Doves, Travis, and Coldplay, so, in that respect, the album has continued to influence the charts, even though it never helped to usher in any sort of techno-age at all.
However, although guitar driven rock directly influenced by Radiohead remains with us, we may never see the likes of an album like OK Computer and its widespread acceptance throughout rock fandom and influence on fellow musicians again. With the popularity of music downloading having hurt physical rock album sales, it is evident that the dynamics of music sales have shifted appreciably, and more rock fans are taking the opportunity to less expensively explore their own preferred niches, making it far less likely that rock fans will come together over and fully absorb an album in such a fashion ever again.
A few years after its release, some all-time-greatest-album lists placed OK Computer squarely at the top, and, although that has grown rarer, I still would not have a problem with it.
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OK Computer, Radiohead, Rolling Stone Magazine's #162
