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Radiohead made it with Nigel Godrich in 1997, much of it recorded in an old mansion called St Catherine’s Court near Bath, the band living in the house while they worked. They had a clean guitar record in them after The Bends and chose not to make it. What came out instead was paranoid, beautiful and strange: songs about cars, computers, airports and a quiet sense that modern life was grinding people down without anyone quite noticing.

It should have been a commercial risk. A six-minute single in three parts, an interlude spoken by a computer voice, almost no obvious choruses. Instead OK Computer became the record that turned Radiohead from a respected guitar band into the band their generation argued about. It topped the UK chart, sold by the million, and started showing up at the top of “greatest album” lists where it has more or less stayed.

The unease is the point, and so is the prettiness wrapped around it. That tension runs through every track, and nowhere more deliberately than the gentle, sad lullaby sitting near the end. Press into that one.

Worth knowing

The title is not theirs. "OK, computer" is a line of dialogue lifted from the radio version of Douglas Adams's Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: a record about machines swallowing modern life, named by a machine.

Tracklist

1 of 12 covered

The songs we’ve dived into are lit in gold, tap to read. The rest are here for the full picture.

1 Airbag 4:48
2 Paranoid Android 6:27
3 Subterranean Homesick Alien 4:28
4 Exit Music (For a Film) 4:27
5 Let Down 5:00
6 Karma Police 4:24
7 Fitter Happier 1:57
8 Electioneering 3:51
9 Climbing Up the Walls 4:45
11 Lucky 4:19
12 The Tourist 5:27

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