Hello, everyone! Welcome to my website, or if you’ve been reading my posts already, welcome back! This is my first time doing a throwback album review outside of my mini review posts, and it’s a review of one of the most critically acclaimed albums of all time, if not THE MOST critically acclaimed album of all time, Radiohead’s OK Computer.

Now, before I talk about the album itself, I want to mention this: I haven’t listened to every Radiohead album yet. I’ve listened to a few other Radiohead albums, but not all of them. So, I’m not going to be making many comparisons to other Radiohead albums, and I think that’s okay. I don’t think listening to other Radiohead albums will change my opinion on this one.

So, where do I begin with this album?

Well … I think the right place to start is by mentioning that this album was considered extremely unique when it came out. I personally wasn’t alive when this album came out, but a lot of people who were alive at the time have said there was nothing else like this album at the time, and I think that’s a big part of the reason this got so much critical acclaim.

But I’m full of controversial music opinions … so, you’re probably very curious to find out how I feel about this album. So, do I love this album as much as the majority of critics?

Well … this review is going to be incredibly controversial. Because not only do I not love this nearly as much as seemingly almost everyone … but I don’t even like the album.

Yeah, I know. You’re probably re-reading that paragraph over and over again to make sure you read it right … but if I’m being totally honest, I just can’t get into this album at all as a whole. And of the Radiohead albums I have heard, it’s easily my least favourite.

And no, I’m not going to say this is super boring and pretentious. I get the appeal of this album, and I understand why it’s an all-time favourite for so many people. I’m not saying there’s nothing to it—there’s A LOT to it—it’s just that I personally don’t enjoy listening to it.

I don’t hate the album, and there are a few standout tracks to me that I like, but as a whole it just doesn’t click for me at all.

Keep in mind that, like with all of my reviews, this is just based on my own personal taste in music. And while at times it may sound like I’m pretending I’m ‘objectively right’, that’s not what I’m trying to do. Just keep that in mind.

“Airbag” opens the album, and I like the distorted guitars and the melody at the very start, and the drums kick in and sound really great! And while the lyrics are interesting, the rest of the song is so annoying to listen to! The vocal melodies don’t really seem to go anywhere, and it loses my interest very quickly. Aside from the lyrics and the intro at the very start, it’s a total slog to get through. It’s not one of my least favourite songs on the entire album, but I certainly don’t like it.

Next is “Paranoid Android”, which is one of my favourite tracks here, even though I don’t love it. I like the eerie acoustic guitars at the start, and the way the song progresses, but the robot vocals in the background are quite annoying, and the mixing on this song just doesn’t work for me, with the guitars being really overpowering. That being said, I like the vocal melodies a lot more here, and—despite being mixed too loud for me—I love the distortion on the guitar that shows up a few minutes into the track and is also in the second half of the song. All of this, to me, leads to a song I like, but not one that I love.

But I certainly like it more than the next track, “Subterranean Homesick Alien”. I don’t hate this song, but I certainly don’t like it. The rhythm of the percussion is really annoying, the guitar melodies don’t work for me at all, and while I like the huge chorus, the rest of the song is so cringey. I don’t really understand what the lyrics of the song are trying to say … there’s some sort of metaphor with aliens going to planet Earth, and none of Thom Yorke’s friends believe him when he says he saw aliens … it seems to have something to do with wanting to start a new chapter of your life, but the way it’s done makes for a very annoying listen, even though I respect the song, and aside from the chorus it doesn’t have much that makes me want to listen to it.

So, it’s not like I love the album up to this point, but I don’t really mind it that much … but then there’s track four, “Exit Music (For a Movie)”. Don’t get me wrong, Thom Yorke is an incredible vocalist, but something about the way his vocals are produced here just doesn’t sound good to me over this instrumental, and speaking of the instrumental, what is there in this song musically that would ever make me want to listen to it? And even worse is that the vocal melodies are super annoying and just keep meandering, and then that awful buzzing synth comes in partway through, and just makes this already awful song even worse.

Annoying meandering vocal melodies continue into the next track, “Let Down”, which has one of the most annoying choruses on the album, with the drums sounding really awkward over the rest of the instrumental. And while the lyrics are interesting, and there was clearly a lot of emotion put into this song, I just don’t enjoy listening to it at all. Just being honest here.

Track six is “Karma Police”, easily my favourite song here! I love the eerie acoustic guitars and piano here, and of all the songs on this album, I probably like the production on this one the most! To me, it’s the one great song on this album, and I actually really like the interpolation of “Sexy Sadie” by The Beatles. Also, that outro is absolutely incredible!

But then there’s “Fitter Happier”, which is just super cringey. I mean, it’s a cool experiment, and I get why some people might love it, but I also get why it’s often considered the worst song on the album … and while it’s not quite my least favourite song here—we’ll get to that—it’s certainly one of them. It’s probably the closest thing to a metal song on the album, but even as a fan of metal, I can’t stand this track.

But probably the second closest to a metal song is the next track, “Electioneering”, which starts off with some really nice percussion and distorted guitars. It’s a banger—probably my second favourite song here behind “Karma Police”—but there’s one major flaw here which holds me back from really loving this song: at the start of the song, Thom sings the line, ‘I will stop, I will stop at nothing.’ And I can’t help but think, ‘Thom, you just sang the word ‘nothing’ and you didn’t stop … the song continued.’ And it’s issues like that that hold the album back for me the most. Lots of little details which are easy to miss … and if you can look past things like that, I get it, but it really holds the album back for me a lot.

Speaking of which, the next song “Climbing up the Walls”, despite being by a band called Radiohead, is sung by Thom Yorke, who has a human head. And to make the album even worse, every member of the band has a human head. And that’s an issue with this whole album, not just a few songs. Why is the band called Radiohead when every member has a human head?

Also, the album’s called OK Computer, but not every song here is about a computer (at least not as far as I can tell), which gets really annoying.

Track ten on this album is “Kid A”. This is my least favourite song on the album, mostly because of the lyrics. It’s about a couple with three kids: Kid A, Kid B, and Kid C, with Kid A being the oldest of the three and Kid C being the youngest. And the parents decide to schedule a family meeting where they rank their kids from favourite to least favourite. That’s really mean!

The next song is track nine, “Yummy”. This is Radiohead’s metal cover of Justin Bieber’s 2020 single, “Yummy”, and I don’t like it at all. It sounds like if Radiohead did a cover of “Yummy” by Justin Bieber.

Overall, while I like a few songs here, as a whole I just couldn’t get into this album at all. I know it’s one of the most critically acclaimed albums of all time, but that doesn’t mean I have to like it. So, for me, it’s a 2.5/10. It gets worse as it goes on, and “Karma Police” is the only great song here. And even that song sounds too much like a Justin Bieber cover of “Yummy” by Radiohead.

But keep in mind that, as always, this is all just my opinion. Feel free to let me know in the comments what you thought of this album and/or what you thought of my review. Again, Radiohead’s music just isn’t for me outside of every album of theirs that isn’t OK Computer. I get the appeal, but I personally don’t enjoy listening to it.

Feel free to give me requests for albums I can review … no guarantee I review it, but I might. Anyway, thanks for reading my review of OK Computer, and I’ll be back with more reviews soon!

Final Thoughts
Rating: 4/10
Favourite Tracks: “Paranoid Android”, “Karma Police”, “Electioneering”
Least Favourite Tracks: “Yummy”, “Kid A”, “Fitter Happier”, “The Tourist”, “Radiohead”, “Creep”, “Justin Bieber makes better music than Radiohead”, “Simon Talks Music is a bad music reviewer”, “Paranoid Android”, “Love Yourself”, “Sorry”, “Simon gave this a 4/10”, “OK Computer is a better album than every other Radiohead album”, “OK Computer is the worst album of 1997”, “Track 1”, “Track 2”, “Track 3”, “Track 4”, “Track 5”, “Track 6”, “Track 7”, “Track 8”, “Track 9”, “Track 10”, “Track 11”, “Track 12”, “Track 1000000000”