Frankly it wasn't great, I hadn't really listened to the second half of the album enough to fully justify placing a song like 'Sulk' higher than 'Blackstar', and so on. However, 1997's 'OK Computer' is a different story, it's my second favourite album of all-time and I've listened to it dozens of times. Here, I'm going to rank the songs from my least favourite to my favourite, although keep in mind that there arent really any weak tracks here.
12. Fitter Happier
Perhaps the only easy choice I had to make on this list, 'Fitter Happier' is surely doomed to come in last place on almost every 'OK Computer' ranking simply because it's a two-minute robot-voice interlude rather than a legitimate song. With that said, it works perfectly as an atmospheric interlude, especially when compared with some of the more boring or pointless interludes on 'Kid A' ('Treefingers') and 'Amnesiac' ('Hunting Bears'), as while those serve as ambient mood setters, 'fitter happier' actively chills the listener with it's Orwellian lyrics and gloomy soundscape that arguably predicts the more experimental landscapes created on the band's next album.
11. The Tourist
'The Tourist' is the only song on 'OK Computer' that I hesitate to call great, and while I usually get won over by the end, it's not a doubt I experience with any of the other tracks. While some of my favourite radiohead songs are some of their slowest ('Nude', 'How To Disappear Completely', 'Pyramid Song'), 'The Tourist' often feels like it's playing in slow-motion, giving it the effect of a lullaby. As such it works well as album closer, aided by the lyrics circling back to join up with 'Airbag', but it's inflated runtime and unchanging chord chord sequence are the only parts of the whole album that grate on me.
10. Climbing Up the Walls
This is Radiohead at their creepiest, with a soundscape of of rattling chains, scrathy violins, bird screeches and a rasping bassline all topped with Thom Yorke's murky and unsettling delivery of lyrics like 'Open Up Your Skull'. After the second chorus the creepiness explodes into a brilliantly incomprehensible mess of instrumentation, before ending with a demonic scream. It's puzzling that this sits so well with the tonally opposite 'No Surprises' in the tracklist, but somehow it works. As for why 'Climbing Up the Walls' isn't higher up, it's simply because although I admire Radiohead's attempt at making something creepy, it appeals to me less than most of the other songs which inspire less surface-level emotion.
9. Electioneering
I would hesitate to call any song on one of the most-critically acclaimed albums of all time underrated, but if i had to it would be 'Electioneering'. People seem to frequently name this song as the worst on 'OK Computer', because of it's more energetic and upbeat tone, but as someone who initially couldn't stand most of 'OK Computer', this is the song that single-handedly got me through those hectic first few listens. Aside form being one of Radiohead's better attempts at a grungy sound - I like this more than a fair bit of 'The Bends' - this song injects a much needed boost of momentum into the album right when it's in danger of becoming stale. It doesn't fit in perfectly, and it's not as ambitious as many of the other tracks, but IT HAS A COWBELL.
8. Lucky
I always feel like I should like this a bit more than I do. Several people and publications I know have listed this as one of the very best Radiohead songs. It's certainly an incredible achievement, creating one of the bleakest atmospheres on the record during the verses with the heavy bass and sparse guitar line, before lifting off into a chorus with one of the more memorable Radiohead riffs. My problem is with the transition to the chorus not sounding quite as powerful as I think it could and not really liking the 'We are standing on the edge' post-chorus section. That said, this is the first of the 8 standout tracks of the album in this ranking, so from here on out I believe every song is a 9-10/10.
7. Subterranean Homesick Alien
'Subterranean Homesick Alien' sounds both blissful and bleak at the same time, and is highly accessible compared to the songs surrounding it, with some of the cleanest production and most straightforwardly narrative lyrics on the album. Johnny Greenwood's guitar sounds like a waterfall for most of the runtime, and despite the lyrics about 'Living in a Town, where you can't smell a thing', the impression I get from the song is one of lying in a field at sunset, watching cows drifting up into distant UFOs.
6. Exit Music (For a Film)
'Exit Music' was the last song on the album that I fell in love with, I found the intro too sparse and unsettling to really engage with the rest of the song at first. Over time I've come to appreaciate this intro, a sharp change from the dense soundscapes offered up by the first three tracks, and focusing more on the intro led me to appreciate how great the build-up of this song is. First it's just Thom and his guitar, then a spooky robotic choir comes in, a sound I still haven't heard since, before we get one of the all-time great bass-drops in rock, as the song climaxes in a terrifying frenzy of everything getting louder with Thom Yorke shouting 'NOW WE ARE ONE' over it all.
5. Airbag
Even though it can be enjoyed easily as a standalone track, it's impossible to imagine any other song opening 'OK Computer' other than 'Airbag', with that immediately stark riff instantly putting the listener into the melancholy mood that much of the album carries. The layers of instrumentation are so dense here that it's easy to get lost within the choirs, programmed and acoustic percussion, razor-edge guitars and stuttering bass. The song never feels almost five minutes long, even despite a breakdown that uses record scratching, which is an impressive achievement.
4. Karma Police
I love 'Karma Police'. I've learnt it on guitar (Even though it uses less of the instrument than any other song on the album), I've memorised the lyrics, I've watched the video more than any other Radiohead video. While much of 'OK Computer' is sincere, 'Karma Police' has a layer of irony smeared over it, which makes it the funniest song on the album, especially when combined with the 'You've Got A Friend In Me' piano roll of the chorus. However, this fun transforms into something transcendental during the outro, where the murderous daydreams of the narrator are replaced with reality, helped enormously by the three note motif that starts off on a cello and moves up in pitch, being sang by a choir of Thom Yorkes all singing 'Ah-ah-ahh', until they are drowned out by white noise, in one of Radiohead's best outros.
3. No Surprises
Under the childlike, high pitched guitar melodies and relaxed vocal delivery of 'No Suprises' lies a restless, suffocating anxiety that never really quite comes out. The music video to the song, where a tank of water gradually fills up around Thom Yorke's head conveys this brilliantly, as well as nailing the hynotic nature of the repetitve riffs and vocal melody. Unlike other songs on 'OK Computer', 'No Surprises' doesn't build up to an explosive climax, instead the most passionately sung line being 'Such a pretty house, such a pretty garden', harking back to the depressing suburban materialism of 'Fake Plastic Trees'. For me, this is one of the most deeply affecting Radiohead songs, perfectly summing up feelings of mind-numbing boredom and uselessness with the opening line, 'A heart that's full up like a landfull'.
2. Paranoid Android
Two years ago this would have easily been my number one, and even now it's still a close-call between this and my actual number-one pick. This was the second Radiohead song I ever heard (After 'Street Spirit (Fade Out)'), and as such I have a long personal histroy with the song, from initially disliking all but the central 'bit with the riff' to also enjoying the intro, to enjoying the whole song, to having my mind blown by the details. It seems obvious now, but I remember how amazed I was when on my umpteenth listen I realised that a robotic voice was faintly saying 'I MIGHT BE PARANOID BUT IM NOT AN ANDROID' during the first part of the song, or when I realised that part of what made the outro so disturbing to me were the disorted screams that fit so well into the cacophony of Johnny Greenwood's insane soloing, Colin's propulsive bass and Phil Selway's passionate drumrolls, with Ed O'Brien presumably also doing something great. It's the 'Boheiam Rhapsody' of the 1990s, a song I have sub-consciously ripped off myself and an all-round classic.
1. Let Down
'Let Down' is both an inappropriate and appropriate title for not only my favourite song from 'OK Computer' but my favourite Radiohead song, and as such one of my all-time favourite songs. In one sense, this song is the furthest thing you could get from a let-down, it's a perfect song with dense yet never clumsy production, some of the finest lyrics Yorke's ever written and is perfectly structured. In the other sense, 'Let Down' so perfectly sums up the feeling of being let down that you feel as if no other song ever needs to be written on the topic. Something about the melodies in the song manage to simaltaneously crush you, like the 'bug in the ground' described in the lyrics, yet at the same time the chorus manages to be just upbeat enough to add a glimmer of hope to the song. The reason the song resonates so deeply with me is that it one perhaps the song I depended most upon during my time travelling to and from a school I dreaded along dreary motorways and broken streets on a grimy bus, usually under pale white skies - in short a situation that looked and felt a lot like the album cover of 'OK Computer', and one which is perfectly described by 'Let Down'. 'One day I am gonna grow wings' would be an overly cheesy line in most songs, but I needed it back then, and judging by the universal love for 'OK Computer', thousands, maybe even millions have needed it too.
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