Video Friday 2/22/08

I've been making a mix of 90's music for the Bandit Queen over the past few days. It's 4 discs long at this point, and that's with a load of limitations I've placed on myself for it (examples: no rap, metal, or ska; only songs that received significant radio airplay; one song per album; etc.) As such, I've been in a 90's music frame of mind. I was already halfway there before I ever began though, as I'd recently purchased and read the 33 1/3 book series volumes on the Pixies' Doolittle, Nirvana's In Utero and Radiohead's OK Computer. (All excellent books by the way.)

I personally love OK Computer, in a way that might be slightly unhealthy. The song "Lucky" makes me feel like I'm having a heart attack. But in a good way! Anyway, this is the video for "No Surprises", a track from that album. It's weird and arty, and for the most part is just Thom Yorke and his creepy eye staring at you, reading your thoughts, and singing along.

Then he drowns.

OK Computer.

Radiohead's OK Computer is often thought to depict a dystopia, and its artwork contains references to George Orwell's novels, especially Nineteen Eighty-Four. The band have cited Orwell several times throughout their career. However, singer Thom Yorke said, "Loads of the music on OK Computer is extremely uplifting. It's only when you read the words that you'd think otherwise." A notable aspect of the album is an apparently circular narrative. In the opening song "Airbag", someone survives a horrific car crash, while the final song "The Tourist" contains the line "they ask me where the hell I'm going / at a thousand feet per second" and ends with a chorus of "hey man, slow down". However, the band said this had not been intentional, but they had noticed it after finalising the track listing.