Radiohead's OK Computer and "sophistication": a semi-technical listening guide

You may remember a while back the Channel 4 Top 100 Albums Ever thing wherein OK Computer was deemed the 'best album ever' and in the subsequent discussion on here claims were made by me (amongst others) about how 'sophisticated' a record it is. It became apparent that different people had very different ideas indeed about what this actually meant; and while 'sophistication' was claimed for OKC I for one never offered any justification as to how or why we might think that.

OK Computer is exceptional in terms of the range, power and subtlety of expression it achieves, which is only made possible by its well-considered and intelligent musical language. I thought it might be worthwhile to take a look at some of the interesting compositional features in the album and offer an interpretation as to why they're there, how they're "sophisticated" and what effects they're used to achieve. I should say from the outset that personally I have no interest in music which is complicated for its own sake and indifferent to expression along the lines of some of the 20th-century Modernist composers; however OKC isn't complex so much as simply compositionally and musically literate, fulfiling the often-neglected prerequisite of originality to be considered a musical work in its own right, and where ingenious compositional devices appear they are always used to achieve particular effects or moods. The end result is very subtle and powerful yet at the same time always remains very lucid and approachable, maintaining throughout simple diatonic harmony and clear textures.

This isn't by any means a full-blown analysis, simply a few pointers to some of the more interesting musical features and my interpretation of them. I appreciate that there may not be many people interested in this kind of discussion because to anyone properly interested in music theory - rather than a dabbler like myself - this will be mostly rather trivial, and anyone who isn't interested in music theory won't be interested by definition . Still, on with the show; if you can be bothered to read all the way through, comments, suggestions, quibbles or arguments are encouraged.

Airbag
The album opens with a stark nine-bar guitar figure which plunges the listener immediately into a shadowy, restless harmonic ambiguity. As many as three different home keys are implied in the space of the first six notes of the track - E, F, C, B, C#, A - which suggest the triads F major, A minor and A major, unsettling the listener who is unable to decide where the tonal centre of the music lies. The track is eventually going to more-or-less settle down in A major, though the continual insistence on the third degree of the scale alternatively flattened and sharpened - the C and C# - is particularly disorientating as the music appears to shift between the major and the minor mode. Throughout the track, in fact, the harmony is in general very sparse and largely implied rather than explicit, with the occasional interjections from the bass doing very little to clarify the 'home' key and frequent intrusions by the 'foreign' second and fourth degrees of the scale, and this very deliberate ambiguity allows for a considerable degree of tension and pathos in the music without it simply becoming cloying. The surprise shift to the harmonically very remote supertonic chord (B major) at 1' 01'' marks the beginning of the brief chorus (In an interstellar burst...). Also worthy of note is another Radiohead fingerprint, namely refusing to resort to conventionally foursquare phrase lengths, such that - for example - the entry of the drums at 14'' and of the voice at 26'', in the sixth and tenth bars respectively, are both a bar later than 'expected', which further keeps the listener slightly on edge and prevents the music feeling flat and earthbound; similarly, the 'second verse' beginning at 1' 32'' cuts short a restatement of the opening guitar figure. At the end of the track, the coherence of the music - deliberately tenuous throughout - begins to dissolve completely before rallying one final time to close on a very ambivalent guitar chord full of crunchy suspensions, the supertonic (second degree of the scale, B) in particular sticking out like a sore thumb; overall, more questions are posed than are answered. Boop boop boop boop...

Paranoid Android
Balm to the ears after the starkness of Airbag, this lengthy and full of incident if rather disparate track opens with a six-bar harmonically descending figuration in the guitar where the fifth and sixth bars are essentially a repeat or elongation of the third and fourth; a powerful forward momentum is created by the fact that when the chord sequence loops round on itself it effectively meets up with itself so that it sounds like a continuation rather than a repetition. The voice enters with a sweetly floated arch-shaped melody sung between the beats; the second sung phrase (From all the unborn...) is only four bars long, with the fifth and sixth 'elongating' bars cut out, precipitating the sudden entry of the bass guitar at 47'' and announcing the first chorus of sorts. A sudden, unexpected modulation up a minor third (at 2' 09'') marks a considerable ratcheting up in tension, the effect being reinforced by a slip into 7/8 time (one quaver shorter per bar than the moderate 4/4 we've had so far) as if the music is in such a hurry we can't even wait for each bar to finish before the next one starts. (The use of a modulation or implied modulation by a minor third is a recurring motif at crucial points through the album, in particular constituting basically all of the harmony in Fitter Happier and playing a crucial role in The Tourist.) Angry instrumental outbursts increase in intensity - note in particular the exotic-sounding whole-tone line in the guitar - with the time impatiently slipping back and forth between 7/8 and 4/4 until at 3' 27'' a crisis is reached and the music grinds to a halt; then, all sound and fury spent, we hear a new harmonically wide-ranging passage in slow 4/4 time, the descending bassline heavy with resignation. At 5' 36'' the voice gives up the ghost altogether and the instruments rally themselves for a defiant restatement of the 'angry' music from earlier, which all of a sudden stops abruptly and is left hanging in the air; again, the listener is left to draw his or her own conclusion.

Subterranean Homesick Alien
The wonderfully mysterious, other-worldy brief introduction consists of three very remote chords (D minor, A flat major, D major); the figuration and melodic line are arranged carefully so that the juxtaposition of these chords is not jarring. On the D major chord the bass is hanging in mid-air on an A, which is the dominant or fifth degree of the D major scale; this means the chord is effectively in second inversion which sets up the very strong sense of anticipation. For a bar and a half (in a moderate 6/8 time) the listener is balanced on the edge of the precipice, waiting for something to happen... and then, over half a bar, the bass plummets a ninth from A right down to G and we find ourselves, disorientated and amazed, in the magically unexpected dominant seventh in G. From here on in the track is wry, tender and wistful, the bass on the most part sticking with a pedal G during the verses and the harmony weaving gently around it (G-7, C, C minor, G major are the main implied chords for the most part, though the C chord is sometimes made to sound more like E minor) giving a static, timeless feel of wide-eyed wonder tinged with just a touch of regret. The choruses are marked both by a change in harmony and by an implied change in tempo, achieved simply through each of the 6 beats in the bar being marked strongly (the very definite 6/8 in the drums offset against a 4/4 rhythm in the bass for the final repetition of 'Uptight') before a return to the gently rocking swing of the main 6/8 time. Then, all of a sudden, at 4' 12'', we hear the opening figure again... but this time the tempo slows slightly, and when we arrive on the final D major chord the bass lands firmly on the tonic D, the root position chord producing a profound sense of closure and a remarkably satisfying conclusion to the song.

Exit Music For A Film
In contrast to the lazily conventional view of Radiohead, this and No Surprises are the only two properly relentlessly downbeat tracks on the album. A masterclass in slow-burn controlled intensity and build-up of tension in the key of B minor, almost in a kind of abbreviated rondo form (a recurring theme punctuated by episodes of different music). At 2' 50'' when we finally get the full band there is again new musical material, with in particular a shocking shift to the supertonic chord C sharp major (at 2' 54'', on the word 'laugh'); the emotional temperature is raised higher and higher and at 3' 14'' we land on the dominant chord F sharp major for two endless bars until finally at 3' 21'' a return to the music we heard at the beginning - rounding out an emphatic perfect cadence - gives some kind of release; the full forces gradually fall away while, as if in some kind of hypnotised state, the last few chords repeat over and over as the music sinks slowly to a bleak conclusion.

Let Down
Title says it all really. The first and arguably only really disappointing track of the album, Let Down is uncharacteristically leaden and flat-footed. It plods along in a slow and flat-footed 4/4 time, and while the accompanying semiquaver figures in the guitar and tuned percussion make a cursory attempt at establishing some cross-rhythms they don't really do so with much conviction. Harmonically it's firmly and unambiguously earthbound in A major, with the chord sequence a desperately unexciting 1 - 5 - 6 - 5 and chord changes you can set your watch by, plus barely anything at all happening in the 'chorus'. The accompaniment includes a very prominent repetition of the leading note G# and the C# a fifth below, which - despite being the mediant of the home key - is made to sound 'foreign' as if it's related to the G# rather than A; however because the harmony never really goes anywhere not much actually comes of this. Moving swiftly on...

 

Karma Police
A complete contrast to the low-content preceding track, here we have plenty of harmonic incident and an exhibition of how to relate chords to each other through attention to the position of the chord (ie. root position or first or second inversions). The harmony walks up and down so much during the verse that again the 'home' key is disguised, at least until the chorus ('This is what you'll get...') when G major is established unequivocally. With the first three chords being A minor, D major 1st inversion, E minor (2 - 5b - 6 with respect to G major) this means that the track opens by preparing and executing an interrupted cadence before we've even had the chance to work out what it is that it's interrupting, which is disorientating and goes a long way to producing the whimsical, quixotic feel. The music proceeds in a moderate 2/4 time with the harmony rarely staying still for more than two beats at a time; notice particularly the subtle harmonic difference between bars 6 and 7 (8'' - 10'') and bars 10 and 11 (15'' - 17''), the unexpected brightness of F major (with a scrunchily discordant G in the melody) in bar 6 sinking back down again to E minor before the music makes another attempt at getting out of its rut and achieves closure via a perfect cadence between bars 10 and 11 (D major - G major, 5-1). Another classic Radiohead fingerprint sees a musically distinct (though in this case closely related) lengthy coda beginning at 2' 34'' ('For a minute there...') where the unexpected appearance of E major at the end of the chord sequence strikes a slightly threatening, foreboding tone - and well it may, for we run headlong into

Fitter Happier
A brief study in electronic claustrophobia, with economical use of harmonic modulations in sustained string chords to achieve the chokingly close effect - starting in B minor and moving to the dominant F sharp major, then at 53'' sliding downwards several shades darker into A flat minor and thence to the dominant D flat major, before wrenching back up to B minor at 1' 37'' to end the track on a note of escalated paranoia.

Electioneering
A curious shift in style here, the compressed intervals of the heavily detuned guitar (with notes alternately wildly sharp or flat relative to each other) used to produce a piquant, almost sitar-esque effect. It's always refreshing when - as here - a rock act manages to establish a lively, upbeat tempo without the drummer having to lift a finger. Based in a kind of bluesy, approximate D minor, the opening guitar riff features a very prominent (and very sharp) G, and the vocal line keeps insisting on C, respectively the 4th and flattened 7th degrees of the scale and so harmonically both 'foreign' notes which keep the otherwise fairly uneventful harmony from getting too stuck-in-the-mud; notable also is the unsubtle but still welcome music-painting in the chorus ('I go forwards / And you go backwards...') where indeed the descending voice and ascending bassline move in contrary motion. A funky emphasis on the normally weak second beat of the bar (particularly in the drums during the brief instrumental at 1' 28'' and again at the end) also helps maintain the strong onward momentum right through to the reappearance of the opening riff which is again used to close the track.

Climbing Up The Walls
Another restless, cooped-up and frustrated track, the aural equivalent of insomniac tossing and turning, where the bass immediately implies that we are trapped halfway between the tonic B minor and the subdominant E minor, never really properly settling down in either and never quite managing to move away either. The repeated high-pitch G#-A motif in the right channel is queasily out of tune, the G# much higher than centred on the note to pinch the interval uncomfortably tight, adding an additional degree of discomfort to the already discordant notes. Curiously, the vocal line is doubled in octaves throughout, the slight ensemble variations between the two lines adding texture to the melody. During the chorus the harmony makes a repeated attempt to break away from the E minor rut it's been stuck in but never quite manages it, eventually reaching a grinding impasse as the melody stops dead on the strongly discordant F sharp supertonic on '...walls'. Also notable are the 'spacer' bars at the end of the 8-bar blocks in the verse - the first time at 1' 02'' - which serve to break up the otherwise rather flat and featureless structure and impart a pleasingly irregular feel; the track finally dissolves into a cacophony of electronic dissonance, then suddenly we find ourselves in

No Surprises
The track opens with, for once, the picking out of a completely unambiguous F major chord, made extra sugary-sweet by the constant repetition of the A mediant. The radiant sweetness at first appears to be offering us some respite after the chaos at the end of the previous track, but on closer inspection we can hear a slight edge of hysteria implied by the pitch bending sharp to an ever-so-slightly disturbingly unnatural degree during the decay of each note; the sense of unease is also heightened by the fact that the whole track is tuned just a shade below the 'concert' pitch (A=440Hz) of the rest of the album, giving a slightly disconcertingly 'wrong' sound. Starting out by alternating the tonic chord with the subdominant minor, the track drips with resignation and fatalism, the drooping downward lines of the melody giving the impression of a quiet but profound despair. A second vocal line enters at 2' 06'' bringing a poignant set of suspensions to the party, expanding into an eloquent and moving close-harmony backdrop for the final chorus before the music winds down to a final "Amen" on the B flat minor - F major plagal cadence which has been marking time throughout.

Lucky
A rich, dark bittersweet chocolate truffle of a song, and probably my personal favourite of the album. Resplendent in a luxurious E minor, the song moves in a measured yet irresistibly inevitable 2/4 time with an unusual but attractively balanced structure to the verses - these are built out of five-bar blocks with a harmonic hiatus of sorts on the last two bars of the first block and on the first two bars of the second block, followed by a four-bar repose to gather breath again. Having wallowed in harmonic darkness throughout the verse, the appearance of the flattened seventh degree of the scale (on the words 'Pull me out...' at 1' 10'') prepares us for the exhilaratingly radiant subdominant major sunburst at the beginning of the refrain, the impact of which is further heightened rhythmically by the fact that it appears half a beat before the beginning of the bar and then hangs endlessly in the air (without interruption from the percussion) for a whole beat. The chorus ends standing on the edge (on the words 'standing on the edge' ) of an imperfect cadence at 1' 34'' (C major - B major) made to sound darkly, wryly humourous by the inclusion of the flattened seventh (B flat) in the C chord. The cumulative effect is heightened during the second verse through additional suspensions in the harmony, the intensity almost overwhelming the vocal line at 2' 24'' which is driven to soar up a minor sixth rather than following the more even course taken during the first verse. Following the chorus a brief instrumental musing eventually comes back round to the material of the chorus, then the track finds its conclusion (how else?) hanging high and dry on that imperfect cadence.

The Tourist
A laid-back, whimsical ballad in - for once - 3/4 time, with a particularly elegant chord sequence which winds its way from the tonic B major to the dominant minor (F sharp minor), then up to that chord's relative major (A major) for three full-length bars before a rhythmic-sleight-of-hand one-beat-long bar precipitates a wonderfully unexpected harmonic slip down a semitone (G sharp major). We're now come far enough harmonically that when the sequence loops back to the beginning it sounds like a modulation up a minor third and hence moving forwards rather than repeating itself. A second vocal line enters at 1' 03'' moving mostly a sixth below the melody (though sometimes slightly out of synch). At 1' 35'' we suddenly move up a gear in terms of intensity for the chorus, the voice rising to a strained high F sharp ('Hey man...') and the harmony taking on a pronounced regretful tone (B major to F sharp minor as before then up to the much more poignant A minor this time). The second verse and chorus take the same pattern and are followed by an instrumental restatement preceding the final chorus. This time a subtle change in the harmony accomplishes a remarkable transformation of the character of the music; B major moves to F sharp minor as before, but this time the following A minor chord incorporates a pronounced D natural, which of course does not 'fit' in the chord and in the context of the music wants to resolve to the D sharp of the B major triad. The simple inclusion of this mildly discordant note transforms the regret and pathos from the earlier choruses into a sense almost of incredulity, as if to ask, well, what on earth were we so worried about? Settling down into B major, the track and indeed the album end up striking an almost comic note, the triangle ringing out resolutely to finish.

 

bloody hell!

[dons full Yorkshireman flat cap]

I knows what I like and I like what I knows.

[/removes flat cap]

I actually like this album, but I dont have the knowledge of the language that is musical structure.

Well written no doubt for those that fully understand it

 

Pete - I totally agree that this Album is one of the greatest ever and is fully deserving of its reputation - it probably gets played here more than any other non-classical work. The funny thing is, Let Down is one of my favourite tracks on it!

BTW - Congratulations on a very ambitious post!

 

A superb analysis, no idea whether it's right or wrong! I love OK Computer.

On a recent trip abroad, I came across a new vinyl copy which I am hoarding, and gloating over. Heh heh.

 

Im listening to it at the moment. 94th out of 100 in VH1's best 100 albums ever by the way (not that much can be read into that)

Its a beautiful album full of rich and original ideas. Listening to it again after a bit of an absence reminds me why I was such a radiohead nut at the time of pablo honey/the bends/ ok computer.

I felt they lost the plot with later albums, but are occasionally still touched by genius.

Pete, an amazing post - and a fine contribution to the forum sir. Thank you.

 

superb post pete .... however give me kid a , the bends and hail any day
________
Ford Sho V6 Engine Specifications

 

i feel like i need to gloat that Ive seen em live

I also just missed out on some tickets when they were in San Fransisco - but they'd sold out Work jollys can be a bitch sometimes!

RHead IMO are the only band that has ever changed so significantly and completey got away with it. The bends versus KidA - genius.

 

The emperor's new clothes or what a load of bollocks.

Bob

 

Thanks for the encouragement folks - I've been sitting on this for a couple of weeks unwilling to post it because I was worried it'd just make me look like a twat . Which to be fair is probably what the lurkers are thinking, but anyway.

Hail To The Thief is a superb album and marked a return to form IMO - there are some very good things in Kid A and Amnesiac but both of those are just a bit too gimmicky on the whole. Radiohead demonstrated with OKC that they're really, really good at just writing good music and they only properly came back to that with HTTT after a period in the wilderness of just making silly noises for the sake of it (relatively speaking).

 

I have avoided Hail to the thief because of Kid A and Amnesiac. Perhaps I'll give it a go. I like The Bends as well.

 

I haven't really heard much by them, certainly not any of their albums...sigh...

 

Not a fan Bob?

What floats your boat then? I can see why RHead can sound like Muzak to some, I guess it depends on what direction your coming from.

 

I love let down, one mans poison as they say

 

Go for it; I loathed Kid A/Amnesiac, but Hail is good. I still don't "get" The Bends although I now own it and think it's "ok".

"Lucky" is their best ever track in my opinion - amazing.

 

Okey-doke.

Listen to "Street Spirit" and "Just" really loud.

 

I'm afraid I don't quite understand what you're referring to here Bob. Any chance you could clarify a bit? I'm pretty confident that what I wrote originally is substantially technically accurate, though I obviously wouldn't like to claim that my ear is infallible. And I don't think any of the interpretation I attached to it should be particularly controversial either.

Or do you just really not like Radiohead?

The Bends was a good album but it's not a patch on HTTT or OKC, just lacking in power, finesse and subtlety by comparison. Radiohead's original rise was meteoric, and the inspired-in-places The Bends fits comfortably between the rather mundane Pablo Honey and the awesome OKC.

 

To take a hi-fi nerd stance, I propose that most hi-fi systems make OKC sound like unlistenable mush in places, and very few can follow all of the instruments/noises/rhythms properly.

IOW, it's a severe test for a system.

 

Me too.... the overlapping guitars sound something like Gamelan music to me, and the synthesizer and guitar strumming at the end reminds me of my big brothers '70s prog rock. Not a bad thing in my book.

 

Must say, I haven't listened to OKC for a while but after Pete's extraordinary and enlightning post , I'll have to give it another whizz. And I'll probably get a lot more out of it.

Thanks for taking the time Pete.

:respect: