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| April 2, 1998. Bill Graham Civic Auditorium, San Francisco, California. Radiohead perform in support of their latest album, OK Computer. After the concert, standing outside in the chilly San Francisco air, a man cries softly as a woman comforts him. The music’s impact is evident in the lost, vacant faces of those emerging from the arena. Today I need only listen to one song for my body to surge with indescribable longing and emotion. Thom Yorke (vocals, guitar), Jonny Greenwood (guitar), Colin Greenwood (bass), Ed O’Brien (vocals, guitar) and Phil Selway (drums) were boyhood friends in Oxford, England. They originally formed the group On A Friday, quickly renaming it Radiohead (after a Talking Heads song). They achieved almost overnight success with the slacker anthem, “Creep,” from their debut album, Pablo Honey. Not satisfied with the attention received by the song and album, Radiohead returned with The Bends, a much more introspective and mildly popular album. Third time was the charm. OK Computer went platinum in the U.S. and won a Grammy for Best Alternative Performance. OK Computer captures a spirit and an experience that had previously been neglected by popular music. Apathy and alienation greeted an increasingly technologically and emotionally controlled world. Mass marketing, invasive media and cubicle life fragmented society. Songs such as “Subterranean Homesick Alien” and “No Surprises” exposed in both lyrics and sound the desperation and mental despair that plagues many. On “No Surprises,” Thom Yorke cries “A heart that’s full up like a landfill. A job that slowly kills you” as the guitars slowly and monotonously wail from behind. The songs reveal our reluctant complicity to this dark world that we, as humans, have created and that Radiohead compellingly exposes. The music of OK Computer is ethereal. Yorke’s voice appears to float in and out as distorted sounds hover around one another, seamlessly playing hide and seek. The guitars, a typical mainstay of rock music, emit strange and chilling sounds. On “Let Down,” Yorke speaks of the banality of life, “the emptiest of feelings...let down and hanging around” as three guitars, drums, and bass simultaneously harmonize their distinct sounds. Computers, the supposed cancer of humanity, are used throughout the album, enhancing and mutating the music, creating compelling and full movement. Radiohead flawlessly has produced a modern-day symphony. OK Computer is not an easy album. Listening requires dedication and involvement that can be emotionally draining at times. The music-documentary “Meeting People Is Easy” offers a stark glimpse, chronicling the band’s own frustrating experiences on the OK Computer tour. One of my friends, riveted to the music, placed the tape in his Walkman in 1997 and has yet to remove it. The corresponding booklet, created by Radiohead friend and artist Stanley Donwood, features a partial shadow of a figure with the ominous caption “Lost Child.” Despite this feeling of confusion and loneliness, there is an element of bizarre, yet sincere hope. Radiohead are still together and still producing excellent albums. The world still moves forward (or in circles, whichever you prefer) and humans are still humans (for now). And there continues to be a human community, there for one another in degrees. As Radiohead states in their acknowledgements, “we hope you are OK. thank you for listening.” --Stephanie Lutjens (email)
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