OK COMPUTER

This is the kind of harrowing music Pink Floyd used to make. What THE BENDS promised in such songs as "Planet Telex," "Bulletproof" and "Street Spirit" is delivered here, in a big way: the cello-like arpeggio that opens "Airbag," the Gregorian-chant-like section of "Paranoid Android," the eerie and Floydian-like guitar on "Subterranean Homesick Alien," the sparce acoustic guitar/theremin/background sounds of "Exit Music (For a Film)," the terrifying singalongs "Let Down" and "Climbing Up the Walls" (with its atonal strings at the song's denouement, this might be my favorite track on the album), the creepy piano haunting the background of "Fitter Happier," and the resigned come-downs of "No Surprises," the Floydian "Lucky," and "The Tourist." Okay, "Electioneering" and "Karma Police" (ironically the only song that received radioplay in the US) aren't up to the standards of the other tracks. But lyrically they belong with the album. This is an album peeling away every strand of hope (including hope in a corrupt, corporate "democracy") and exploring why, when it comes, people may embrace a MATRIX-like existence in a virtal world. (AMUSED TO DEATH, indeed - this is the album Waters *should* have made.)

Along with Tricky's MAXINQUAYE, it's a perfect fin-de-siecle album. People who were shocked at the band's next album, KID A, really shouldn't have been - this album represents the off- balance tottering at the edge before the fall into KID A-AMNESIAC's 21st century virtual reality. People who clamor for "OK COMPUTER PART 2" should realize that KID A-AMNESIAC *IS* the sequel, and as such, is a necessary addition to their collection after OK COMPUTER.