We are observers rather than participants. A sneaking feeling that you don’t belong anywhere and that you’re examining the world around you rather than actually being in it. Somewhere deep down in your gut, in places you don’t talk about at dinner parties, beneath your veneer of respectability and hidden from the world, lurks a kindred spirit to the alienated, overwhelmed and nihilistic figures of this album. Honestly though, it’s much more basic than that. In “Paranoid Android,” they encountered a song comprised of three movements littered with embittered, spewed lyrics, juxtaposed with jaggedly succinct guitar lines and a morosely angelic host. It was this change that meant EMI balked at what was offered, downgrading sales predictions and hopes for the album. But this time, there was a broader palette on offer as the band began their metamorphosis to a more electronic entity. Once again, like its precursors, OK Computer was fueled by the frenetic Johnny Greenwood’s angry, angular guitar work and Yorke’s witheringly pointed delivery and lyrics. Drawn to the inherent danger and ominous foreboding of Davis’ masterpiece, the band wanted to create their own shocking soundtrack to a modern world beset by globalization, ruthlessly efficient technology, and the creeping insinuation that it was all too much to bear. In an interview with Q magazine, Thom Yorke claimed Miles Davis’ epochal, monumental Bitches Brew (1970) as the primary influence. Squirrelled away (after a couple of choked starts) in a rural mansion near Bath, the band set about reconciling a disparate set of references and influences to create a cohesive album of the very highest quality.
0 kommentar(er)
