OK Computer

iTunes Review

With 1997’s OK Computer, Radiohead officially became a serious hard rock band in search of progressive textures. Their previous album, 1995’s The Bends, represented the perfect balance between pop and its experimental edges. OK Computer would gently toss the pop tag aside (2000’s Kid A would be less gentle with its ruthless artistic ambition). Using their guitars to create seemingly endless layers of sound, adding strangely alluring keyboards and throwing together a few off-kilter rhythms, the British quintet fashioned themselves as both pioneers in their “alternative” rock field and as throwbacks to the album-oriented rock of Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin and Rush, where much of the music’s power depended on its overriding concept. The deliberately disjointed “Paranoid Android” represents the band’s increasingly complex side as it breaks into various pieces within itself and settles for no easy ways out. “Lucky,” “Karma Police,” and the haunting sweep of “Exit Music (For a Film)” are, by comparison, almost motionless in their sonic waves, floating on warm, fuzzy sonic beds. Not exactly space-rock in the strictest sense, but definitely music looking to travel beyond the usual constraints of time and space.