Radiohead - OK Computer (1997), 7/10

Overexposure has diminished the critical status of OK Computer for quite some time, but it is a respectable project worthy of admiration and love. While it has perhaps been supremely overrated due to its easily digestible sound for a range of audiences, even crossing generation lines, that does not take away from its cultural and artistic impact. There is a unique, emerging sound the band achieved on the record that is truly prophetic, yet timeless. Though “Paranoid Android” is something of an operatic dynamics piece, it is excellent as a single, perhaps the best on the first half of the album along with “Exit Music (For a Film)”. The second half is thematically stronger, hosting two of the greatest Radiohead songs in “Lucky” and “The Tourist” just at the close of the album. Both tracks deliver delicate and graceful performances from Thom, with “The Tourist” serving as the perfect period piece for the finality of the album’s narrative arc, and “Lucky” leaning into the delicate approach that would be explored many years later with A Moon Shaped Pool. OK Computer is perhaps a bit bloated and inconsistent in its statements, but still an early example of a "classic" modern rock album, particularly considering its release during a creative draught in pop music during the mid/late nineties.