Radiohead could have easily been lumped into the flannel pile with the rest of the bands of the day or been overshadowed by Britpop entirely. Whether intentional or not, Radiohead forged a new breed of rock, a hybridisation of electronic and guitar-based music that carried with it the angst-ridden sensibility of grunge, the studio craft of bygone prog-rockers and Thom Yorke’s transcendent singing. The decade had its fair share of cerebral, avant-garde rock, but the genre had become increasingly retro leaning, instead turning inwards to the sound of 70s punk and the low-fi aesthetic of grunge, and leaving the studio wizardry and synths to the domain of purely electronic music. Pepper’ a record that comes along and breaks with tradition to change the trajectory of music entirely and OK Computer was it for the 90s. It’s one of those cultural milestones that incites a flashbulb memory and has inexorably occupied a special place in the musical landscape for the past 20 years. Radiohead’s apocryphal third album is inarguably, a classic. With OK Computer, Radiohead were hailed as the saviour of rock’s future, but they would also herald the end of its domination of the culture and help usher in a new chapter of art-pop with their ambient follow-up, Kid A. Since its release on, no acclaimed rock album of the past two decades has managed to match OK Computer’s critical and commercial success – selling more than 4.5 million copies worldwide to date. Even 20 years later, it has served as an informal tool kit for surviving the industrial/technological revolution that has unspooled itself since 1997. Radiohead’s art-rock opus OK Computer created a generation with a deep cynical streak and a healthy sense of paranoia and we’re forever thankful for it.
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