In the first verse and chorus of the first movement, Yorke describes an emotional landscape of paranoia and confusion created by modern urban life and interactions with strangers over guitar-driven riffs and robotic voices in the background. Arguably the best song of the 90s, the changes in music reflect the lyrics in each movement.
An epic with four distinct sections put together from three different songs, it portrays three different states of mind. The masterpiece “Paranoid Android” comes next, epitomizing the Radiohead-trademark abstract lyrics and progressive sound.
The ironic juxtaposition is a reminder that while technology (the airbag) is our savior, before that can happen, it (the German car) has the capability of annihilating us. In the song, Yorke is born again as a superhero to save the world after an airbag miraculously saved his life after a car crash. “Airbag” is one of the brighter track on the album, but that is to highlight the irony of the track. The opener “Airbag” is set in the next World War, which is quite unsettling considering it is never mentioned again after the first line, like a fact that should be taken for granted. In the album, Radiohead seemed to see this coming, predicting a dystopian world where human life is contingent on technology. In the two decades since the release of the album, advances in technology have radically changed not only the music industry, but also our society. Only until recently when record sales are so low big artists do not bother trying to sell anymore that we see Beyoncé and Rihanna alike letting their artistic side run free. The peak in album sales during this period allowed artists to followed their artistic ambitions, before the internet and home computer became prevalent, transforming the way the public access to music and consequently how music is sold and made. Released in the summer 1997, OK Computer is one of the last masterpieces that make artistic statements.
The album is both musically and lyrically depressing, discussing Schizophrenia, suicidal thoughts, social alienation, political malaise, near death experiences, human’s dependency on technology, etc. ” However, we still don’t know what happened to that album since OK Computer is definitely not it. Thom Yorke said at the time that he was “deliberately just writing down all the positive things that. After the lyrically morbid The Bends (1995), Radiohead wanted to make a positive album.
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