OK COMPUTER

This album was often hailed as the pinnacle of modern rock, and I can't definitively disagree. I haven't heard an album more complete and diverse. More soul-crushing and redemptive at once. This is Radiohead's crowning work, in my opinion, and it really does get me that at present it has less than four stars as a rating.

The recording is the voice of a universe on the edge of the future. In my opinion, the music depicts the modern world staring at the monsters it has created -- the danger of everything that the world has come to be. But it is also an immensely personal record, venturing into the fear and joy of trying to deal with a future so foreign and inexplicable that it defies everything you have ever known. The journey can't be nailed down -- but it works on many different layers.

OK Computer starts out with Airbag, a hardline musical bomb about the moment right after one has avoided a car accident. The buzzing guitar, soaring in and out of dissonance, matches an expertly-sampled drumtrack and Thom Yorke's beautiful wail. "I am born again," Yorke calls repeatedly, a resurrection from a kink in the system. The scream of an individual. The second track is Paranoid Android, possibly the band's most revered song. An epic that pairs absolute rock chops with stunning harmonic streches. The lyrics, again, are daggers at the hearts of many things -- Radiohead are open to interpretation. Paranoid Android has been touted as an epic about Rome, a story about Yorke's encounter with cokehead yuppie boors, and a parable about modern values. Which one is it? It doesn't really matter. However you read it, it hits you just as hard when an achingly beautiful vocal section is cut down by an immensely striking line: "God loves His children, God loves His children, yeah" spat out with such utter irony and contempt that you can't help but be affected. The lasershot guitar punch that follows seems very fitting.

The next section of the album involves a nice little piece on considering the unknown -- and the unknown considering you (Subterranean Homesick Alien). The atmosphere really is great here, even though this isn't necessarily the strongest song on the album. Exit Music (For A Film) is the next song, and it is another stunner. Beginning with just acoustic guitar and haunting vocals, it progresses into an infinitely creepy and gorgeous ode to what seems to be a desperate love in souring times. Let Down, the fifth track, is one of the most upbeat songs on the album, marked by a wonderful vocal line (especially in a third verse harmonic overdubbing) and remarkable lyrics. The ache is there, shrouded in disappointment and the dullness of life, but in that ache is this amazing howl of human will -- that "one day / I am gonna grow wings." It sounds trite until you hear it.

The middle of the album contains Karma Police, a popular piano piece with an interesting chord sequence and matching lyrics (though I personally don't listen to it as much as other songs on the record). Also featured is the atmospheric Fitter Happier, with a robotic voice that echoes the world's repression of humanity into a predictable little package.

Next are two of the darker songs on OKC: Electioneering and Climbing Up The Walls. Electioneering, perhaps the track I turn to least on the record, is a loud stab of a song, whereas Climbing Up The Walls is a scary number on paranoia and insanity. An inescapable horror at every stop.

After this venture into darkness, the final three tracks tie OKC to a close with gleams of humanity through the hull of oppressive spirits. No Surprises is an ironically placid number which sparkles and asks sardonically for "the quiet life / with no alarms and no surprises please." Lucky is about the closest that OKC gets to producing a love song -- it's a great call for love from someone who is trying to hold onto his optimism. "I feel my luck could change," Yorke explains, before crying for help. The wonderful chorus line of "Pull me out of the aircrash / pull me out of the lake / cause I'm your superhero" is a look at how love operates -- the idea of a helpless superhero is a potent one. And the final track, The Tourist, ebbs with a wandering need to go somewhere in life -- even if you're not sure where it is you're headed.

This album is philosophical, beautiful, challenging music. Prog rock? Maybe. But definitions are petty. With all of the sweeping majesty of Wall-era Floyd and all of the lyrical prowess of modern rock heros like U2 or Beck, Radiohead have really made a masterpiece with OK Computer. And that is no exaggeration.