OK COMPUTER

I consider this Radiohead's first album in which they flirt with the progressive genre. This seems to be the favorite of many fans and critics who would later abandon them, leaving them to us, the old lovers of prog. You gotta love a band for following their own muse, and forsaking easy popularity and "hits". As Mellotron chronicler Andy Thompson describes the album, "rather gloomy, understated music with a progressive bent, not to mention quite a bit of Mellotron"...and that about sums it up. After all, with their strong influences of Krautrock (has anyone here noticed this yet?), they didn't really fit in well to the popular categories of the day. Obviously, they are no longer an "alt-indie" band anymore by this point; however, the band would chafe publicly at the prog label being applied to them. In my opinion, the album hints at how they would soon transform themselves. I think the album is a little inconsistent...a brilliant lyric here...a crappy one there...brilliant guitar playing throughout...moody, with a lot of wierdness and experimentation. When it works (by my reckoning), it is brilliant, and dare I say, quite proggy. Recommended.