Instead of continuing the collaboration with John Leckie, RADIOHEAD decided to immerse into a field they had treated as a black box before.
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Walking away from professional record studios alone can be perceived as a crucial point for the record. It also set an industry standard: by delving into the production side of music and taking matters into their own hands, RADIOHEAD were one of the first Britpop bands to consider recording an integral part of the songwriting process, shifting focus from composition towards sound – and by self-producing OK Computer together with Nigel Godrich, they also showed the way to go as a modern rock band in an industry that had yet to fall apart from the pressures of file-sharing, music downloads and streaming. In that sense, the making of OK Computer already foreshadows many aspects of RADIOHEAD’s unique dynamic that enabled them to produce both the ground-breaking indie rock of OK Computer and the avant-garde experimental rock music that followed.
Although in a way, the stars aligned on a number of occasions for Thom Yorke and the rest of the gang, following their second album The Bends, they managed to access their individual capabilities and seize the opportunities their major label backing could offer. However, great works are never the product of mere chance. It’s for those reasons that most critics treat RADIOHEAD’s third album OK Computer, whose 20 th anniversary was just celebrated with a special reissue entitled OKNOTOK, as an epiphany of sorts for rock music and music history as a whole – a record remarkably dense in its intellectual foundation and blessed with an exceptional level of musicianship, both in terms of production and songwriting. Remaining in your original lineup for over 30 years is an accomplishment for any kind of band, let alone when you have released over half a dozen commercially successful and critically acclaimed albums and managed to stay relevant to this day. Most bands consider themselves lucky if they have one smash hit or an exceptional album in their discography, or if they manage to carry on for more than a decade. From today’s viewpoint, the story of RADIOHEAD sounds like an unlikely tale, full of strange occurrences and fortunate coincidences.