This is a complex, slightly schizophrenic album; it can’t quite make its mind up if it wants to be guitar driven like its predecessor the bends or keyboard driven.
The lyrics throughout the album are a strange and melancholy bunch I won’t pretend I understand them. I’m not sure they are meant to be understood, just to evoke feeling, which they do with great effect.
The artwork is, as I have come to expect from radiohead, a very peculiar cut and paste affair. There are lots of travel images mixed with psycho cartoons, strange and not quite fulfilling.
Now onto the track listing- 1 Airbag Grungy guitars lead you into highly melodic and wonderful start to the album, it smoothes the transition between this album and the bends.
2 Paranoid Android A huge track, radioheads very own bohemian rhapsody. Bizarre “Gucci little piggies” and “unborn chicken voices” pepper the lyrics over the beautifully building music. Headphones help on this one you pick up much more depth to the sound with it. It’s almost prog rock.
3 Subterranean homesick alien Floaty keyboards are countered with a guitar-hit chorus of “I’m just up-tight”. Thom rambles on about being taken up in the air by an alien ship. It’s all very ethereal.
4 Exit music for a film A stark acoustic start sees Thom “wake from your dreams, the drying of your tears”, you can tell it’s not going to be much fun. Then a strangely synthetic sounding choir breaks in to a building to crescendo then returning to a quiet, haunting and sinister end of “we hope that you choke”, it mustn’t be much fun being Thom.
5 Let down Light melodic and altogether more cheerful music accompany a stream of consciousness lyric about betrayal. Rather beautiful.
6 Karma Police A deserved and obvious single, radiohead releasing singles!! Much more structure than previous songs, the lyric “Karma police arrest this girl, her Hitler hairdo is making me feel ill” and “this is what you get if you mess with us” are slightly sinister. Everything gets very fadey to the end.
7 Fitter Happier A scary electronic voice drones on about the benefits of a good life, a good drab unmedicated life. Sad, tragic and more than a little strange.
8 Electioneering Big guitars, cool intro back to the old days. Ranty and sparse lyrics. Good track.
9 Climbing up the walls This track is where Kid A began, scary whiny voices. A trip into mild derangement complete with ice-picks. There is a lot more structure and melody to this than Kid A, the song even winds up to a noisy guitar finish.
10 No surprises. This is sublime; radiohead at their fragile best, Thom spilling his emotional guts everywhere. One of the standout tracks of the album.
11 Lucky Lucky stands out from the album, it was included in the help album and produced a long time before the rest of the tracks. It could well be the bridge between the bends and ok computer.
12 The tourist Heavy and solemn choral back drop to finish off the album.
Altogether a good album, not as good as the bends but that would be hard.
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(Dec 14th, 2000)
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