"OK Computer": Classic Or Dud?

Once again, this is from my perspective as a girl who's never been into that side of music geekery, but the classic rock canon means very little aside from the fact that that album will be easier to find in a record store or more likely to go on a list of things to check out. Doesn't sound any different, doesn't change my reaction. I have the same ears whether I'm listening to The Beatles or something that came out of a record label run out of someone's living room.

I enjoy the same chord progressions, the same textures, the same harmonies.

Which is great, Melissa, but then let me ask you this -- how do you seek out new stuff to listen to? What are the channels, the tools, again, the context? There's *something* -- so what is it?

It is and it isn't. The thirteen-year-old also understands, through interviews and press clippings, that Radiohead is also "iconoclastic," despite the Number One albums.

This assumes that the 13 year old gives a shit about interviews and press clippings again, though.

And again, how do you think said putative *current* thirteen year old is hearing this stuff, and what perspective are they bringing to bear? They do not exist in a vacuum!

Yes, but the opposite of a vacuum isn't necessarily ONLY rock crit.

There is no magical process in which those chord progressions, textures & harmonies acquire strictly sociopolitical/cultural/canonical connotations---with the same intensity.

Not even colors or more imaginative evocations as a response to something as abstract and wide as sound? Just weird rankings? How fucking boring. Almost autistic, really. Strikes me as very far from reality.

I just check out stuff! Scroll through new release schedules on record labels and sites, skim a review here and there looking for key words that catch my interest, look out for recommendations from like-minded musicians and people, and check out soundclips on places like Amazon and Aquarius Music. Just a hodgepodge of sources. Sometimes people just emailing me albums out of the blue. I don't really know what the hype is the same way I don't know what the sports scores are.

Yes, but the opposite of a vacuum isn't necessarily ONLY rock crit

Quite right of course. I was actually thinking about how many bands -- most of whom are unsurprisingly dullards but hey -- have sent me random Myspace invites over the years, and how many of them put Radiohead in their influences list, more often than not rubbing up against other even more well-established names like U2, REM, etc., and tracking back to the Beatles and the like. An anecdotal story, obv,. but I'd say suggestive of the way orthodoxy rapidly becomes a closed loop.

I just check out stuff! Scroll through new release schedules on record labels and sites, skim a review here and there

...and you're saying you've never been into that side of music geekery? ;-) (I'm not trying to be mean, but clearly you're engaged with the discourse -- hell, with the language! -- to a strong extent.)

I like it fine, but "Airbag" is the best song on it - it never rises to that height again. It really does sound to me, now, like the Last Great Classic Rock Album, and I think its reception by its public - by the substratum of the public that came to love and embrace it - bears that out: the songs can be played around campfires on acoustic guitars without much harm to their structure and rhythms, etc. If you have grievances against classic rock, then this album is kind of a goad in your side.

Many of the other songs are great too, mind, but "Airbag" is something special - just confused enough, just brave enough.

Not even colors or more imaginative evocations as a response to something as abstract and wide as sound? Just weird rankings? How fucking boring. Almost autistic, really. Strikes me as very far from reality.

Very. I've rapidly grown to hate lists. My best-of votes over the last couple of years are essentially pro-forma and this year I'm not even sure I'll do that.

I also consider Bjork, whose work is often loved by Radiohead boosters, a maker of Classic Rock Albums.

You hate Björk, though, right?

haha "Radiohead boosters"

I watched a bit of that doco, meeting people is easy the other night. It's about them touring this album. Fuck it's awful.

It's not in the same way though. I literally just maintain a list of things to check out, once I've read about the existence of an album that sounds like it's something I might want to hear (or heard soundclips from it that sound interesting), I'm done reading about it. It's on the list, I'm not going to engage farther than putting it on that list and checking it out when I get to it. And the key words that I look for are not "good" or "classic", but things like, I dunno, "minor key" or "haunting". The rating/amount of slobber means exactly zip to me.

And again, how do you think said putative *current* thirteen year old is hearing this stuff, and what perspective are they bringing to bear? They do not exist in a vacuum!

Once again, from the only perspective I can provide, which is me 11 years ago, I was just entirely divorced from music crit in any sense at all. I read no interviews, had no idea what most of my favorite musicians looked like. I honestly found most of my favorite artists through "if you like PJ Harvey, check out _______" type recs.

that was a huge x-post

And the key words that I look for are not "good" or "classic", but things like, I dunno, "minor key" or "haunting"

More than fair! But that acts as a kind of filter, a series of signifiers. It's no different from my own (hello 'shoegaze' or 'psych' or whatever), and even if the word 'good' isn't used, we're looking for stuff that could be 'good' -- by our standards.

Well, that's kind of obvious, but irrelevant, since we're talking about the effect or lack thereof of someone else's hype, not someone else's adjectives and how I choose to filter them.

8===D

That's a really fine line to draw, Melissa! Could you explain that further, because I admit I don't see that distinction as functional.

xpost -- Amazing!

It's the difference between going to a restaurant because everyone says the chef is the best in the world and that everyone who is anyone has to go, and going because they're serving tuna steak and happen to be three blocks from your house.

xposts galore

Ned and Melissa both otm really. 13-year-olds now getting into Radiohead may not be swallowing music crit/reviews no, but Radiohead get plenty of press and even a one or two paragraph article on In Rainbows will usually say "critically-acclaimed rock band Radiohead..." or "experimental rock band Radiohead" and it's this sort of thing that feeds that classic-album-status train of thought when it comes to Radiohead, and OK Computer in particular. and as far as the artist recommendations go, they're still often mentioned in the same line as "If you like Coldplay... " or "If you like Muse..." :P

i like meeting people is easy. thom yorke said in an interview that there was just as much footage of them having fun on the tour, but the miserable stuff made a better movie.

very large x-post.

...yeah, Melissa, but tuna steak surely isn't an adjective. :-D

(Yes I am beating this into the ground. But the question of language and reception interests me. Also I admit I am far too tickled by the idea of haunting tuna steak.)

re meeting people is easy. It is totally boring and they all whinge the whole time.

Well, very few writers tend to write about music purely in objective terms, so I have to take "haunting" as "usually indicates tuna steak".

And Roz puts it better than I could. If I've made it seem like the whole idea is simply that of 'what rock critics say' -- perish the thought -- then that's my mistake, but as I've been saying, maybe not very well -- there's a big *big* world of context out there that's shaped how any number of acts are received, and Radiohead's a stellar example of one such act.

ned if you could only take one type of steak with you on a desert island, which would it be??

I have to take "haunting" as "usually indicates tuna steak"

I intend to use it in this sense from now on. ("Dragging" will indicate "will only provide water when asked.")

ned if you could only take one type of steak with you on a desert island, which would it be??

Salmon, lightly braised for its acid-folk qualities.

"The Tourist" alone gives me more pleasure than all but maybe one tuna steak I've ever had, and maybe not even that one.

there's a big *big* world of context out there that's shaped how any number of acts are received, and Radiohead's a stellar example of one such act.

While I wouldn't argue that context plays no role at all, I guess I do feel pretty absolutely that there's no context in the world that could get me to enjoy or not enjoy the taste of a meal.

And thus with Radiohead, and thus with music in general.

My enjoyment of particular chord progressions and textures, etc. is far too visceral for that.

I want to just hear this album again without thinking about how it’s been nailed up there now, crucified, used by everyone, those anthropophagi blood-drunk on their own idiot communion. FOR FUCK’S SAKE. How many bands stopped here, cloned it and made it awful precisely because they made it so dully tasteful? How many fans? How many writers? How many polls? How many of them listened to this album, had their breakdowns, thought rock and roll had come to save them again, then decided that when the later albums came out that all that could be done was to play this album again instead?

-- Ned Raggett, Sunday, 10 August 2008 17:22

This is really what I think is getting your goat the most, though, isn't it? Not the hype or the loss of appropriate context, but a great album spoiled by terrible imitations.

I mean, Bob Dylan gets a similar amount of hindsight hype, but without the cheap imitations, there's no loss of the original classic album's impact.

Also, I'm right with you, John, Airbag is the winner. I like Paranoid Android but could live without the rest.

I'd say the biggest effect of context/hype for me is the annoyance I feel when someone assumes that just because, say, OK Computer is my favorite album of the 90s, that means I haven't heard a lot of music and it comes from a position of ignorance or mere parroting.

yeah I would say it comes from a position of ignorance tbh

Oh, fuck off.

this fuckin guy

wilter has not yet been all the way around the block.

This is really what I think is getting your goat the most, though, isn't it? Not the hype or the loss of appropriate context, but a great album spoiled by terrible imitations.

It gets my goat, certainly, but not as the sole or prime point. If anything John's observation -- "If you have grievances against classic rock, then this album is kind of a goad in your side." -- is more apt, and this has less to do with the perceived quality of classic rock as music (or its terrible imitations) than with its suffocating nature as a concept.

this album was exciting, because prior to it i'd written them off as being in the same minor leagues as bush. people do remember "creep," right, and thom's died hair? around the same time a friend told me about on avery island (a way more inventive album), he insisted i check out okc, and, well, "paranoid android" is still as thrilling as, say, a kansas song, and "let down" is like a 90s "dust in the wind." it's strange though that people front like what's great about ok computer, kid a etc is how innovative they are, like they've never heard magma, harmonia, and aphex twin or whatever

hahaha

I adore Dust in the Wind, btw.

Ah ha! I see. Honestly, I thought y'all was talking about classic rock, like Lynyrd Skynyrd.

... and now, it seems, we are.

in what wierd universe are people still pimping for this record? i thought kid a was the one that "changed everything"

I've never heard a connection b/w Magma & OKC! Interesting point.

in what wierd universe are people still pimping for this record? i thought kid a was the one that "changed everything"

no, Kid A was the one that set new benchmarks for fail

xxpost the same universe where Q readers vote OK Computer "BEST ALBUM OF ALL-TIME" god knows how many years in a row.

What is it with this stupid premise that one day the voice of History will tell us how "wrong" or "right" our musical tastes were?

oh, britishes universe. it was a sincere question
xpost