Surreal. Review on OK Computer - Radiohead

Radiohead’s third and probably best album ''Ok Computer '' is a direct progression from their previous album ''The Bends’. It’s a depressing but oddly compelling album and leaves you feeling depressed and wrung out. It’s a slow, spacey album, which leads you lovingly down the dark abyss of despair. …One step at a time. It kicks off with.

Airbag : A rather innocuous beginning to this album with its very own brand of dry humor but it’s a taste of things to come.

Paranoid Android: Thom's original choice for the opening single for this album. Thom relates an incident when he walked into a Los Angeles bar filled with yuppies drugged out on cocaine. He said he was ''surrounded by parasitic groupie types and pretentious California posers.” Their behavior in the bar is the inspiration behind this song. This song is a microcosm of the album and sets the tone for the rest of the album. I love the sneer in his voice when he mocks the lady at the bar by singing

''Ambition makes you look pretty ugly,

Kicking and squealing Gucci little piggy ''

And the grating in his voice when he mimics her subsequent rant.

Subterranean Homesick Alien: A song of alienation, of longing and hope, though the mood of the song rarely reflects hope. I always imagine it as a dirge, lamenting upon the soullessness of our walled in, constricted lives.

Exit Music [For A Film]: This is one of the best songs in the album and appears during the final credits of the movie Romeo and Juliet. I like to call this a nervous song with lots of spite thrown in. It’s a very depressing song and you really feel the tiredness and futility when they sing

''We hope your rules and wisdom choke you

And now we are one

In everlasting peace

We hope that you choke, that you choke''

Let Down: A beautiful song.

Let down and hanging on

Crushed like a bug in the ground

Let down and hanging around

Shell smashed

Juices flowing

Wings twitch

Legs are going

Don't get sentimental

It always ends up drivel

You get the feeling don’t you?

Karma Police: This is probably the most accessible song in the album and also the most hopeful. It’s a funny song and the name was inspired by a cartoon which asks the Karma police to” Arrest this man”. The video is also a pretty good one and reinforces the idea of karma and the subsequent idea of retribution overtaking the tormentor.

Fitter Happier: The total intonation is in a emotionless computer like voice. A song grieving the monotony of our life and the predictability of our reactions .Not exactly the best phase of the album but it'll do.

Electioneering: A very listenable song about power politics and the ethics of gain philosophy. A pleasant number to listen to, but it does not work for me any more. But it’s more of a breather, an appetizer before the main course, which are the next two songs in this album.

Climbing Up The Walls: A song of loneliness and depression .Its the call of the little voices in your head that awaken the demon within. A song, which blurs the line of your personality and your identity. This is a very claustrophobic song should be

listened in solitude. A very frightening song, which leaves you feeling hopeless and lost. This is the kind of song that makes you want to cut your throat and watch as your blood stains the white carpet making beautiful patterns in it. That’s what you want to do when they sing the refrain...

''So lock the kids up safe tonight

And shut the eyes in the cupboard,

Do not cry out or hit the alarm

You'll get the loneliest feeling that

Either way you turn,

I'll be there

Open up your skull,

I'll be there

Climbing up the walls''

No Surprises: The word that best describes this song is inevitability. This one is a masterpiece; its slow beat and the piano accompaniment leave you with a sense of utter despair and a feeling of futility. Imagine a shipwrecked, drowning man, in his last moments, having lost all hope, withdrawing his flailing arms and letting go knowing the inevitability of impending death. That’s the kind of mood this song evokes and I really wouldn’t recommend this song unless you want to really wallow in self-pity. It’s way too frightening for anything else.

Lucky: Another neat song but its not as good as the previous two but a very good one in its own right. It evokes a feeling of standing on the brink of an abyss with one leg outstretched but with a hope that the breeze is blowing towards you and that if you are going to fall, you are going to fall to the safer side.

The Tourist: The song laments the speed with which we lead our lives with the advise to

Slow down

Idiot, slow down and asking where the hell we are moving at ''A thousand feet per second''

A nice song to end this emotionally draining album and like all great albums the arrangement of songs is wonderful. Listening to the tracks in any other order is sacrilege it’s a very hypnotic album and takes some getting used to. But I certainly recommend that you get your hands on it right away.