How did ‘Ok Computer’ propel Radiohead into the pantheon of music culture?

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ESSAY_ How did ‘Ok Computer’ propel Radiohead into the pantheon of music culture?

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REFERENCE LIST

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BIBLIOGRAPHY & COVER

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RADIOHEAD - OK_COMPUTER “Ok Computer transformed Radiohead from a cult British act into the most important rock band on the planet.”

Greene, A., 2017. Inside ‘OK Computer’: Radiohead Look Back on Their Paranoid Masterpiece. [online] Rolling Stone. Available at: <https://www.rollingstone.com/feature/radioheads-rhapsody-ingloom-ok-computer-20-years-later-121093/> [Accessed 14 May 2021].

How did ‘Ok Computer’ propel Radiohead into the pantheon of music culture?

The year is 1997. Grunge, the leading genre in the US for most of the decade is declining in popularity, whilst Britpop in the UK is at its peak (Shepherd, 2008). Radiohead, having enjoyed the success of their sophomore studio album, ‘The Bends’ and after an equally fruitful, albeit stressful (Kleinedler, 1996) tour, are about to release the follow-up. The band, per their own words (Q Magazine, 2003), were advised that if they released ‘The Bends Pt 2’ they would sell six or seven million copies. Sagaciously, they decided to go in the opposite direction and release a record that its ambition was only matched by its earth-shattering impact in the music world.

This essay will argue on behalf of OK Computer being a culturally important record because it has environed and encapsulated the postmodern bewilderment of the 21st Century irrevocably, “by exploring the paranoia and disillusionment faced by the onset of technological breakthroughs and political conspiracies” (McKee, 2017). Radiohead created a record that, 20 plus years later, not only still perfectly illustrates the postmodern panorama of its era, but also rings nerverackingly prophetic for ours, all the while simultaneously being arguably unrivalled in its critical and commercial consistency (McKee, 2017; Hogan, 2017). It will draw from theories such as Marxism, the Frankfurt School and Postmodernism to support these arguments.

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‘Ok Computer’ was released on May 21, 1997. It was an instant classic, receiving glowing critical praise, with the NME, amongst others, calling it “one of the greatest albums in living memory” (Oldham, 1997), and triumphant sales, reaching gold in the US within a week and making it to number 1 in the UK charts (This Day In Music, 2020). The album manifested themes of an aloof, detached society, plagued by consumerism and political turmoil, an almost dystopian age where machines are taking over (Dhillon, 2017).

The UK had only just held its elections on the 1st of the same month, with Tony Blair and Labour winning over John Major and the Conservative Party, which had been in power since 1979 and Margaret Thatcher, thanks to a more centrist direction in their policies than the historically usual left of Labour (Harrop, 1997). Even though Major was relatively uncontroversial in comparison with Thatcher, the dent that the Tory government had left on the working class since his infamous predecessor was still palpable, making the Marxist theory as current as when it was first introduced in the 19th century by German philosophers Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. As the theory has evolved and branched out to various other fields over the years, there is no definitive interpretation of Marxism, however, it is most succinctly represented by the Communist Manifesto (Marx and Engels, 2018). Released by Marx and Engels in 1848, its main objectives were the emancipation of the working class (the proletariat), across the world, the abolition of private property and inheritance, and the centralisation of the means of production, communication and transportation, amongst others. They sought to end the capitalist society, that benefits the rich (the bourgeoisie), and create a communist one, where all would have equal opportunities.

Radiohead was not directly communist and ‘Ok Computer’ is most certainly not a Marxist record, however, the band tackled numerous topics that were if not akin to communism, at least antithetical to consumerism, a notion arguably intertwined with capitalism. As Andrea Migone (2007) asserts, patterns of excessive consumerism that were already omnipresent started to further develop after the second world war in capitalist countries, favouring the wealthy. The suggested solution here was Sen’s theory of equality of opportunity, which could be considered a modern take on Marxism (Ferreira and Peragine, 2015). Thus, in the song ‘No Surprises’ we see Yorke singing about “a job that slowly kills you” (Radiohead, 1997), possibly narrating a workingclass, exhausting life. He goes on to further express his disdain for the government, which as aforementioned had been especially hard on the working class for decades, in the lyrics “Bring 03

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down the government / They don’t, they don’t speak for us”. Although the song was written during Major’s term as Prime Minister, and despite any constrained optimism for the first Labour victory since Thatcher, the sentiment remained the same for Blair’s party (Britton, 2017). Judging from Yorke’s criticisms of the governments that followed throughout the years, it is safe to argue that his concerns raised in ‘Ok Computer’ in regards to politics were amplified (McLean, 2006; O’Connor, 2021). Furthermore, the first lyrics of Paranoid Android where Yorke cries “Please could you stop the noise, I’m trying to get some rest / from all the unborn chicken voices in my head” (Radiohead, 1997) could be a reference to another grave outcome of capitalism and rampant consumerism, mass production: as Boyd and Watts (1997) argue in their book on agriculture and capitalism, the 1990s was the first time in American history that people consumed more chicken per capita than beef, a result of post-war capitalism in the US. That argument is strengthened by the correlation between mass production and cheap labour, a classic outcome of capitalism, as urban poverty in America in the 90s was still prevalent (Galster, 2005). In the first half of the lyric “please (...) rest”, Yorke, as the worker, is possibly asking for some respite before he goes back to work (Radiohead, 1997). The song continues with the line “ambition makes you look pretty ugly”, hinting at the power-hungry capitalist, denouncing mass consumption and greed (Hugonnier, 2019).

Another example of Radiohead’s distaste for capitalism and distrust of the government is the song ‘Electioneering’. To electioneer is to “try to persuade people to vote for a particular political party” (Cambridge Dictionary, n.d. [a]), and Yorke, portraying the politician, exclaims “I will stop at nothing (…), I trust I can rely on your vote” (Radiohead, 1997). In addition, the lyric “When I go forwards you go backwards and somewhere we will meet” could be referring to the ever-extending gap between the upper class and the lower classes, marking a similar distinction Marx made between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat (OCR, 2015). It is worth bringing attention to the 'Airbag/How Am I Driving?' EP that Radiohead released in 1998, for the North American market (Radiohead, 1998); a 7-song collection of 'Airbag' and 'Ok Computer' B-sides, it contained a quote by philosopher and social critic Noam Chomsky, an ardent antagonist of capitalism and consumerism (Sperlich, 2006). The quote explains how the system aims to persuade the people that they are inadequate to deal with serious societal and structural issues, in order to control them (Chomsky, 1987). It could be argued that Chomsky’s endeavour to awaken the reader resembles that of Marx’s, who in the Communist Manifesto urges the working class to unite and revolt (Marx and Engels, 2018).

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Elsewhere in the record, the song ‘Fitter Happier’ perfectly encapsulates all of Thom Yorke’s concerns and infatuations. Instead of his vocals that adorn the rest of the album, this track’s story is chronicled by a computerised, robotic voice, similar to today’s automated voice assistants, such as Apple’s Siri and Amazon’s Alexa. There are at least two conclusions that derive from that fact alone: on one hand, it could point to the idea of automation, where technology starts taking over more and more of humanity’s usefulness (McKee, 2017). One could argue that in this song, Radiohead predicted the future: a report shared by the Guardian in 2016, claimed that 6% of all jobs in the US would have been replaced by robots within 5 years (Solon, 2016). On the other, it could be Radiohead’s way of describing how capitalism and consumerism dehumanise the worker, leading them to an ouroboros of an existence in autopilot, “the addictive, slavish routine of capitalist societies” (Hugonnier, 2019). The latter is augmented by the lyrics, where Yorke (as the lyricist behind the android’s voice) narrates a healthy, albeit conventional and mundane life.

The last few lines, “fitter, healthier and more productive, a pig / in a cage on antibiotics” perfectly summarise the concept of capitalistic alienation as Radiohead convey it throughout ‘Ok Computer’, as well as being a nod to their environmental and mass consumption distresses (Radiohead, 1997).

It could be claimed that Radiohead, with their Oxford education and immense commercial success, were hypocritical in their criticism of the status quo and technology as they benefitted from them. Indeed, wealth has been a common subject in interviews of the band and especially Yorke, with questions revolving around contracts, sales and the general sense of ‘celebrity’; Yorke’s annoyance has always been evident in his responses, ranging from sarcasm to fury, even fretfulness about making and spending money, saying that as tempting as it might be if someone told you that you would never have to worry about your finances again, you would still “find stupid ways to get rid of it” (Tate, 2009, pp. 112-113). However, it is important to remember that Radiohead conquered the music industry on their own terms, as even though they could have made another commercially inclined album like ‘The Bends’, they chose to take a risk, bought their own equipment and co-produced an ambitious follow up with Nigel Godrich, a seemingly unorthodox choice, as he aimed to move from rock to electronic dance music before finally focusing on ‘Ok Computer’ (This Day In Music, 2020). Moreover, in 2007, Radiohead shocked the world by self-releasing ‘In Rainbows’ with a pay-what-you-want distribution model that might as well have been Marx inspired, removing the capitalist middle man (Tate, 2009). As D.E. Wittkower 05

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(2009, pp. 133-134) writes in ‘Everybody Hates Rainbows’, Radiohead paved the way for a world with potentially less profit but more freedom, a world where people would be able to claim culture back from labels and the soulless millionaires who see music as a means for more financial growth.

The concept of humankind succumbing to technology and becoming extinct, replaced or enslaved, was not invented by Radiohead. In popular culture, for instance, a film on the subject is James Cameron’s release of ‘The Terminator’ (1984), which despite the more ominous take, derives from a similar foreboding fear of AI advancements. In literature, George Orwell’s ‘1984’ (2008), initially released in 1949, paints a picture of a dystopian society of constant government surveillance and a totalitarian regiment. Eerily enough, in 2015, the GCHQ, the UK government’s security and intelligence agency, named a surveillance program for collecting online information after ‘Ok Computer’s 6th track, ‘Karma Police’ (Gallagher, 2015).

In philosophy, one of the main theorists who spoke of the abrasive social and political repercussions of technological progress was Herbert Marcuse, who, in his work ‘One -Dimensional Man’ states that “In the medium of technology, culture, politics, and the economy merge into an omnipresent system which swallows up or represses all alternatives” (1964, pp. 10). Marcuse was one of the most notable theorists of the Frankfurt School, an institution of social and critical philosophy founded in Germany in 1923 (Strinati, 2004). Heavily inspired by Marx, the Frankfurt School looked to expand on his ideas, and search for answers on two key subjects: firstly, why the working-class revolution that Marx predicted had not happened yet, and secondly why Fascism was on the rise in a country like Germany, which was enjoying technological advancement (Edgar and Sedgwick, 2007). Marcuse’s theory (1964) on capitalism expanded on one of Marx’s main ideas, that objectification of the labourer in capitalism turns to alienation, meaning that not only the person becomes a reflection of their labour and objectified themselves into a materialistic existence, but also foreign to the society they live in. Marcuse averred that capitalism and industrialisation pushed the workers so much, that made them feel as an extension of the products they made or bought. That links back to consumerism as well, and once again ‘Ok Computer’ teems with potential references. In ‘Let Down’, the lyrics describe “ Disappointed people clinging on to bottles”, whilst in ‘Karma Police’ Yorke compares a man to a fridge and a detuned radio, whilst at the end of the song he repeats the line “for a minute there I lost myself”, alluding to 06

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alienation (Radiohead, 1997).

Another central figure of the Frankfurt School and perhaps the most relevant when it comes to music themes, being a musicologist, was Theodor W. Adorno (Zuidervaart, 2015). Adorno, along with Horkheimer conceived the term “Culture Industry”, by which they described the massproducing of culture, which did not promote certain products, but rather a capitalist lifestyle through standardisation, i.e. the reproduction of specific formulas that are most likely to lead to profit. Specifically, in the Dialectic of Enlightenment, they write: “The whole world is passed through the filter of the culture industry” (Adorno and Horkheimer, 2002, pp. 99), conveying in essence that people are too blinded by the materialistic commodities of capitalism to rise and rebel. ‘Ok Computer’ contradicts that notion despite its indisputable commercial success; fundamentally, indirectly on the merit of Radiohead’s motives to write and record it, who, instead of financial security, followed their artistic vision (Kleinedler, 1996). Not only the album as a whole was unconventional, but the band chose ‘Paranoid Android’ as the lead single. At 6m27s, three contrasting sections and multiple key and tempo changes, it was the most musically intricate piece of the album, a complete antithesis from the usual radio-friendly pop songs (Greene, 2017). Still, the degree of experimentation in the song did not stop it from becoming a classic, named the best song of the last 15 years in 2011 by Spin, amongst other accolades and praise (Hogan, 2011).

Then, directly, with lyrics all around the album indicating their dissatisfaction with the fast-paced, mass consuming culture of a capitalist society. In ‘Fitter Happier’, where part of the monotonous and tedious routine of a healthy member of the capitalist society are activities such as “regular exercise at the gym”, “on Sundays ring road supermarket” or material resources like “a safer car”. Then in ‘The Tourist’ and the line “Hey man slow down, slow down / Idiot, slow down, slow down”, it is implied people go through the motions without thinking; and, lastly, in ‘Exit Music (For A Film), where Yorke sings “today we escape” and “We hope your rules and wisdom choke you” (Radiohead, 1997). The song was initially intended for Baz Luhrmann’s 1996 version of the Shakespearean ‘Romeo and Juliet’, and was therefore inspired by the tragic story of the young lovers; however, as is usually the case with Radiohead songs, there is room for interpretation, especially given the context of the song as part of ‘Ok Computer’ (Melançon, 2009). As Jérôme Melançon writes in ‘The Real Politics in Radiohead’, perhaps the heroes in the song are trying to escape from all the voices surrounding the album, telling them what to be. After all, ‘Exit Music’ has been used in pop culture for TV series depicting dystopian realities where technological 07

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evolution has gone awry, such as ‘Westworld’ and ‘Black Mirror’ (Harvilla, 2016). Regardless of whether Radiohead deliberately calculated a multi-faceted meaning for the song, it would be conservatively safe to assume that Adorno, who was very critical of popular music’s development, would at least appreciate the depth and the intentions in ‘Ok Computer’ (Witkin, 2003).

If there is one movement and style that ties all the above together and permeates ‘Ok Computer’, that is Postmodernism. First emerging in the mid-1980s, Postmodernism is difficult to elucidate, due to the variety of areas it has appeared in (Singh, 2011). Nonetheless, Britannica defines it as a movement identified by scepticism and “an acute sensitivity to the role of ideology in asserting and maintaining political and economic power” (Duignan, 2020), whilst the Cambridge Dictionary (n.d. [b]) distinguishes it as a style of art that combines different periods of time. In ‘Ok Computer’, postmodernism is evident through its critique of consumerism; as Danielle Todd explains, in our postmodern zeitgeist, consumption serves as a connection between the consumer and their efforts to adjust themselves in the social structure (Todd, 2012).

It is important to note that Postmodernism has been associated with Marxism, albeit with a degree of incredulity (Seaver, 2014); Stephen Hicks (2011) suggests that postmodern philosophers, like Foucault, perpetuated Marxist politics through their own theories and the studying of cultural Marxists. There is much debate on the matter, with Matt McManus (2019) rejecting the correlation between Postmodernism and what he considers cultural Marxism, which is the Frankfurt School authors; still, it is interesting how all these movements have been critiqued side by side, and can also be observed in the landscape of ‘Ok Computer’.

Beyond the concept of consumerism, ‘Ok Computer’ views the world through nearly every other postmodern lens as well: for instance, the perception of ‘digital paranoia’, scattered all around the record (McKee, 2017): from the title itself that implies a submission to technology, to the machines “taking over” and claiming human form or vice versa (humans becoming ‘robotic’) in ‘Fitter Happier’’s computerised narration, as well as ‘Paranoid Android’’s title and lyrics such as “I may be paranoid, but not an android” conveying a postmodern schizophrenia, the album is brimming with technophobia references, all the while being an excellently produced, technologically advanced masterpiece that transcends genre itself and, ultimately, embraces Postmodernism (Radiohead, 1997; Hogan, 2017). And, of course, as George A. Reisch (2009) explores in ‘Is 08

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Radiohead The Pink Floyd of the Twenty-First Century?’, the fragility of a technological civilisation, as ‘Airbag’ describes a car accident (“an airbag saved my life”) with ‘The Tourist’ acting as its prequel, describing the impending crash (“Sometimes I get overcharged / That’s when you see sparks / They ask me where the hell I’m going / At a 1000 feet per second”) and ‘Let Down’ a repetitive, almost hypnotising infrastructure (“Transport, motorways and tramlines / Starting and then stopping / Taking off and landing / The emptiest of feelings”) (Radiohead,1997) that once again indicates alienation. Last but not least, the album mirrors Baudrillard’s theory of hyperreality, who, in his criticism of the postmodern technological society, credits it to the rise of consumerism, explaining how we perceive images, such as in film, to be more real than our lives (McLavertyRobinson, 2012). Specifically, ‘Fitter Happier’ and its robotic slogans “reveal the rhetoric with which capitalism disguises its own hollowness” (Footman, 2009, pp. 255).

Radiohead could have released ‘Ok Computer’ in any decade of the last 100 years and it would still accomplish the feat of sounding simultaneously current and oracular. Not only it immaculately captured the socio-political unrest of a capitalist society in the 90s, but it also uncannily prophesied today’s postmodern reality. “Each song actually yields a vivid premonition of life as it is lived now, when a volatile cocktail of unfettered consumerism, technological dependency, social disconnection, and paranoia has yielded a U.S. president with all the class and credibility of an infomercial huckster” (Berman, 2017). But its true greatness does not lie in its predictiveness; this is a record that, despite doing everything unconventionally and regardless of all the academic theory imbuing it, it still accomplished immense critical and commercial success. With ‘Ok Computer’, Radiohead not only altered the music landscape but influenced all facets of society, from the political terrain to the academic sphere, without compromising their popularity. As Marc Hogan (2017) deliberated, “Held up as a pillar of artistic and commercial success for the last 20 years, Radiohead’s epochal third album is an undisputed classic- but is it the last of its kind?”. One may argue it is.

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