Radiohead's OK Computer (Thirty Three and a Third series)

Rating:
Summary: Terribly boring, woefully incomplete
Review: The 33 1/3 series is a gift and when I saw they were writing a book on one of my all time favorite recordings, OK Computer, I couldn't have been happier.

The book in a word however, blows.

Much of the book is dedicated to some aimless theories about the place of LP records and cds in the broad landscape of musicology. Considering how painfully short this book is to begin with, it seems like a perfect waste of space - filler for an academic journal. When the author does get around to the actual work of Radiohead, he almost exclusively refers to the musical score and references much of their work as only "sound effects." While his analysis of the notes on the page is at times compelling, he fails miserably to describe "musical" and "technical" choices not accounted for in the score and their impact on the recording.

While other books in series may at times be criticized for being too journalistic, and speculating at the intent of the musicians, here the author goes to far in the other direction -- there isn't even a mention of the unique recording space this album was crafted in, not to mention any speculation as to the effect it might have had. Nigel Godrich the producer (along with the band) and engineer is reduced merely a mention, any notion of sculpting sound with studio tools is non-existent.

Considering the direction the band has pursued after this record, highly electronic and diffuse by western musical standards, this book serves little interesting purpose, but perhaps to serve as a footnote in a more comprehensive book by an author who can synthesize the roll of the composer with the concept of a recording as piece of art that is constructed with a different set of skills than the score it maybe also represented by.

In short, don't bother buying this book if you want to read anything about Radiohead the band or how they create music. This one will have little interest to anyone but musicology students and most of them will find it painfully incomplete as well.


Rating:
Summary: an unusual approach that pays off
Review: This book takes an unexpected approach to OK Computer, situating it as an important "CD album." Yes, there is a lot of time spent here discussing differences between albums and CDs, but the points the author makes about these differences I think address an important issue that is often overlooked in music writing. The author suggests that the technologies of listening--whether we listen to something as an album, as a CD, as an MP3, etc.--can never really be separated from the listening experience.

This is a tricky strategy, to be sure: the person who reads this book expecting to learn everything about how OK Computer was made instead is diverted into learning a lot about the history of recording, at least for part of the book. But this is only half the story: the rest of the book is indeed about the album, about how its songs are sequenced, about their images and patterns, about their meanings and non-meanings. The hyper-technical sections about each song's tempos, key changes, etc. are outrageous in their detail.

In the end, this book resonates. No, it has no gossip about the band, nor does it rely on the band members to explain or decode the songs. It's not worshipful. But it sticks with you, and offers a sharp alternative to the typical band-worship style of rock crit writing that has gained unfortunate prominence of late.

Rating:
Summary: A Rhetorical Bore
Review: Ugh. This is an example of how academia has invaded and pillaged modern music writing. This woeful treatise on Dai Griffiths's random thoughts on pop music and the question of "classic status" uses Radiohead's OK Computer as an unfortunate jumping off point. Most of the book is devoted to the study of pop music, the lexicon of recording conventions, and a labored breakdown of songs, not by sensible musical breaks, but awkwardly by minutes and seconds. Reading this book is about as much fun as parsing a calculus equation. Indeed it reminded me of why I am so glad to be out of school. It's intellectual masturbation (or wanking, I suppose) of the worst kind.

A choice quote: "...OK Computer might in time be a focal point for historians of life at the close of the twentieth century. 'This is what was really going on.' You want to know what 1997 felt like? OK Computer: tracks six - eight. Pushed for time? - track seven."

Track seven of course is "Fitter Happier." Yep. That song sums up the end of the 20th century, according to Griffiths, and naturally, this record. Point of fact, more time is spent discussing "Fitter Happier" in this book than for any other song on the album, a very strong indication of worthless dissection by a rhetorical bore.

Another great quote: "Thom Yorke is less a songwriter to my mind than a peculiar thing, an 'idea-led word-producer,' the words important as things in themselves rather than necessarily for their place in the song."

That from the section in the book, "Words." And from the section, "Those pesky sound-effect openings and endings":

"I'm not sure about those bits, though they certainly pad out the time."

In other words, the sound design of each song's opening, ending, and/or transitions exist merely to support the author's argument that CD albums are typically longer than albums recorded for vinyl release. Yes, those sonic orchestrations: time killers.

OK Computer is a remarkable album because of its ground breaking and remarkable music and lyrics. This is a solid basis for a book of this kind. Instead, this book is built upon the argument: OK Computer is an album made up of sound effects, music with key and tempo changes, words about animals, death, moods, and electronics, and is remarkable only in that it was recorded for a CD, not a vinyl LP. In fact, in time it will probably be remembered for being not very remarkable at all.

A note to the editors of 33 1/3: Next time hire a writer who actually enjoys the album he/she is writing about.

Rating:
Summary: This book sucked
Review: Wow. I thought because OK Computer was such a good album this book would probably be pretty good. But then I read it. The writing is so stale and unemotional that the author is unable to actually articulate what the album means to anyone. Instead, she uses chords and stupid bpm graphs to talk about the songs and othing about their emotional weight. Plain and simple, This book SUCKED don't waste your money on it. Buy the one on Let it Be by the Replacemnts instead.