Nearly three decades later, OK Computer still sounds like a transmission from another dimension. Radiohead’s third album captured the anxiety of the digital age before most of us even knew we were anxious.
From the opening notes of “Airbag” to the devastating closer “The Tourist,” this album maps the territory of modern alienation with surgical precision. Thom Yorke’s voice floats through textures that shouldn’t work together but somehow create something transcendent.
“Paranoid Android” remains one of the most ambitious singles ever released, a six-minute suite that somehow made prog rock palatable for alternative radio. And “No Surprises” achieves that rare thing: genuine tenderness without sentimentality.
Essential listening. Not just for understanding ’90s rock, but for understanding ourselves.