Album of the day (#954): OK Computer by Radiohead - Music

AlexZangari

Gender: Male

Age: 32

Location: gone

I see Fitter Happier as being just as musical as any other track. I find it to be great on its own as well as in the context of the album. Then again I'm the kind of guy who listens to John Cage.
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cattlest

Gender: Male

Age: 43

AlexZangari wrote:

I see Fitter Happier as being just as musical as any other track. I find it to be great on its own as well as in the context of the album.

It's the track that really fits in with the album art (I can see 'Airbag' too considering the roads). As far as subject matter, it seems on par with 'No Surprises' and one on the Airbag EP 'Palo Alto'.
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AlexZangari

Gender: Male

Age: 32

Location: gone

I think Let Down matches the album art best just from the first line,"Transport, motorways, and tramlines."

Also, fun fact: "Palo Alto" was originally titled "OK Computer."
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Mother Nature's Son

Gender: Male

Age: 32

MrFrogger wrote:

I don't really see how people can rank Filter Happier as song, it's more of a transition between the 2 halves of the album, and a good one at that.

Madadude ranked it as a track. Wink

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cattlest

Gender: Male

Age: 43

AlexZangari wrote:

I think Let Down matches the album art best just from the first line,"Transport, motorways, and tramlines."

Also, fun fact: "Palo Alto" was originally titled "OK Computer."

interesting stuff. i love learning little facts like that
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HoldenM

To Pedantically Split Infinitives

Gender: Male

Age: 31

If we're ranking tracks...

Airbag
Lucky
Exit Music (For a Film)
Let Down
Electioneering
Climbing Up the Walls
No Surprises
The Tourist
Karma Police
Paranoid Android
Subterranean Homesick Alien
Fitter Happier

soundguardian

Gender: Male

Age: 34

Location: alone in the superunknown

this album is such a Let Down

OR NOT

no, but seriously, fantastic album, I like most of the tracks a lot. Radiohead's albums just seem to demonstrate a natural progression in their changes in creative direction. Pablo Honey and The Bends are pretty straight-up alternative-influenced albums in keeping of REM inspiration, etc (with obvious exceptions in something like "Street Spirit (Fade Out)" or, in especial, something like "My Iron Lung").

It's here that you see a transition from that to the unique eccentricities and electronica exploration in Kid A. this album seriously busted the mold in a way that not many records could after the tapering of the grunge scene around 1995-1996. took a couple of years, but this came out and it fascinated listeners. I of course was like... 6 when this came out, so I couldn't appreciate it until years after its original release. every time I listen thru it or thru one of the tracks, I hear something new - a detail in instrumentation or texture I never noticed before. EASY REPEATED LISTENING xD
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Evandar

soundguardian wrote:

this album is such a Let Down

OR NOT

no, but seriously, fantastic album, I like most of the tracks a lot. Radiohead's albums just seem to demonstrate a natural progression in their changes in creative direction. Pablo Honey and The Bends are pretty straight-up alternative-influenced albums in keeping of REM inspiration, etc (with obvious exceptions in something like "Street Spirit (Fade Out)" or, in especial, something like "My Iron Lung").

It's here that you see a transition from that to the unique eccentricities and electronica exploration in Kid A. this album seriously busted the mold in a way that not many records could after the tapering of the grunge scene around 1995-1996. took a couple of years, but this came out and it fascinated listeners. I of course was like... 6 when this came out, so I couldn't appreciate it until years after its original release. every time I listen thru it or thru one of the tracks, I hear something new - a detail in instrumentation or texture I never noticed before. EASY REPEATED LISTENING xD

Texture is indeed something Radiohead are very good at. Badass headphones is the way to go with albums like "OK Computer" and "Kid A".

junodog4

Future Grumpy Old Man

Gender: Male

Location: Calgary

AlexZangari wrote:

It's a great pick for our #1, I think. I'm sure it will be surpassed someday though. And I'm also confident that one day Kid A will be our highest ranked Radiohead album.

Bang on.
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EyeKanFly

Head Bear Master/Galactic Emperor

Age: 34

Location: Gotham

soundguardian wrote:

every time I listen thru it or thru one of the tracks, I hear something new - a detail in instrumentation or texture I never noticed before. EASY REPEATED LISTENING xD

Same here.

MrFrogger wrote:

I don't really see how people can rank Filter Happier as song, it's more of a transition between the 2 halves of the album, and a good one at that.

I completely agree. The subject matter is great, but it's not a "song" in the sense that the other songs on the album are. As a comparison, I find "Fitter Happier" similar to "Who Will Survive in America" off MBDTF. "Who Will Survive..." is a closing track, and though it is musical, it's spoken word, and an exitlude to "Lost in the Woods" (for me at least). That being said, I like listening to it (both "Fitter" and "Who Will Survive"), but I can't consider it as powerful a "song" as the rest of the tracks on the album. That's just me though, and who am I to define the meaning of "song" anyway... I guess it's hard to explain though, because there's spoken word "songs" like "Belong" by R.E.M. and lots of stuff by Johnny Cash which I still love as songs. I guess I'm having a hard time defining it myself, haha. I suppose if it has rhythm (which "Fitter Happier" definitely has), then it might as well be a song.

I seem to have convinced myself that my own opinion was wrong Think

EDIT: Actually yeah, scratch a lot of that. I like a lot of hip-hop and rap, and some of that contains spoken word, so I suppose it's very unfair to uncategorize "Fitter Happier" as a song.
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