Editing OK Computer (section)

===Commentary, interpretation and analysis===
[[File:TonyBlairArmagh1998.jpg|thumb|In interviews after the album's release, Thom Yorke criticised [[Tony Blair]] (''pictured in 1998'') and his [[New Labour]] government – echoing the album's pervasive theme of political disillusionment.]]

''OK Computer'' was recorded in the lead up to the [[1997 United Kingdom general election|1997 general election]] and released a month after the victory of [[Tony Blair]]'s [[New Labour]] government. The album was perceived by critics as an expression of dissent and scepticism toward the new government and a reaction against the national mood of optimism. Dorian Lynskey wrote, "On May 1, 1997, Labour supporters toasted their landslide victory to the sound of '[[Things Can Only Get Better (D:Ream song)|Things Can Only Get Better]].' A few weeks later, ''OK Computer'' appeared like [[Banquo]]'s ghost to warn: ''No, things can only get worse''."{{Sfn|Lynskey|2011|pp=496}} According to Amy Britton, the album "showed not everyone was ready to join the party, instead tapping into another feeling felt throughout the UK—pre-millennial angst.&nbsp;... huge corporations were impossible to fight against—this was the world ''OK Computer'' soundtracked, not the wave of British optimism."{{Sfn|Britton|2011|pp=259–261}}

In an interview, Yorke doubted that Blair's policies would differ from the preceding two decades of [[Conservative Party (UK)|Conservative]] government. He said the public reaction to the [[Death of Diana, Princess of Wales|death]] of [[Diana, Princess of Wales|Princess Diana]] was more significant, as a moment when the British public realised "the [[British Royal Family|royals]] had had us by the balls for the last hundred years, as had the media and the state."<ref name="SELECT"/> The band's distaste with the commercialised promotion of ''OK Computer'' reinforced their anti-capitalist politics, which would be further explored on their subsequent releases.{{sfn|Clarke|2010|p=142}}

Critics have compared Radiohead's statements of political dissatisfaction to those of earlier rock bands. [[David Stubbs]] said that, where [[punk rock]] had been a rebellion against a time of deficit and poverty, ''OK Computer'' protested the "mechanistic convenience" of contemporary surplus and excess.<ref name="Under Review">{{Cite AV media
 | date = 10 October 2006
| title = Radiohead: OK Computer – A Classic Album Under Review
 | medium = DVD
 | publisher = Sexy Intellectual}}</ref> Alex Ross said the album "pictured the onslaught of the [[Information Age]] and a young person's panicky embrace of it" and made the band into "the [[poster child|poster boys]] for a certain kind of knowing alienation—as [[Talking Heads]] and R.E.M. had been before."{{Sfn|Ross|2010|p=88}} [[Jon Pareles]] of ''The New York Times'' found precedents in the work of Pink Floyd and [[Madness (band)|Madness]] for Radiohead's concerns "about a culture of numbness, building docile workers and enforced by [[self-help]] regimes and [[antidepressant|anti-depressants]]".<ref name="PARELES">{{cite news
 | url = https://www.nytimes.com/1997/08/28/arts/miserable-and-loving-it-it-s-just-so-very-good-to-feel-so-very-very-bad.html
 | title = Miserable and Loving It: It's Just So Very Good to Feel So Very, Very Bad
 | last = Pareles
 | first = Jon
 | author-link = Jon Pareles
 | newspaper = [[The New York Times]]
 | date = 28 August 1997
| archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20090801142435/http://www.nytimes.com/1997/08/28/arts/miserable-and-loving-it-it-s-just-so-very-good-to-feel-so-very-very-bad.html
 | archive-date = 1 August 2009
| url-status = live}}</ref>

The album's tone has been described as millennial<ref name="Request"/><ref name="UNCUT">{{citation
 | title = Is OK Computer the Greatest Album of the 1990s?
 | date = 1 January 2007 | url = http://www.uncut.co.uk/music/radiohead/special_features/9209
 | magazine = [[Uncut (magazine)|Uncut]]
 | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20110724124036/http://www.uncut.co.uk/music/radiohead/special_features/9209
 | archive-date = 24 July 2011
| url-status = dead
}}</ref> or [[futurism|futuristic]],<ref name="DWYER">{{citation
 | last = Dwyer
 | first = Michael
 | title = OK Kangaroo
 | date = 14 March 1998
| magazine = [[Melody Maker]]}}</ref> anticipating cultural and political trends. According to ''The A.V. Club'' writer Steven Hyden in the feature "Whatever Happened to Alternative Nation", "Radiohead appeared to be ahead of the curve, forecasting the paranoia, media-driven insanity, and omnipresent sense of impending doom that's subsequently come to characterise everyday life in the 21st century."<ref name="Oasis and Radiohead">{{citation
 |last        = Hyden
 |first       = Steven
 |title       = Whatever Happened to Alternative Nation? Part 8: 1997: The ballad of Oasis and Radiohead
 |date        = 25 January 2011
|url         = https://www.avclub.com/part-8-1997-the-ballad-of-oasis-and-radiohead-1798223989
 |magazine    = [[The A.V. Club]]
 |archive-url  = https://web.archive.org/web/20110801232704/http://www.avclub.com/articles/part-8-1997-the-ballad-of-oasis-and-radiohead,50557/
 |archive-date = 1 August 2011
|url-status     = live
}}</ref> In ''[[1000 Recordings to Hear Before You Die]]'', [[Tom Moon]] described ''OK Computer'' as a "prescient&nbsp;... [[dystopia]]n essay on the darker implications of technology&nbsp;... oozing [with] a vague sense of dread, and a touch of [[Big Brother (Nineteen Eighty-Four)|Big Brother]] foreboding that bears strong resemblance to the constant disquiet of life on [[Homeland Security Advisory System|Security Level Orange]], [[post-9/11]]."{{sfn|Moon|2008|pp=627–628}} [[Chris Martin]] of [[Coldplay]] remarked that, "It would be interesting to see how the world would be different if [[Dick Cheney]] really listened to Radiohead's ''OK Computer''. I think the world would probably improve. That album is fucking brilliant. It changed my life, so why wouldn't it change his?"<ref name="McLEAN">{{citation
 | last = McLean
 | first = Craig
 | title = The importance of being earnest
 | date = 27 May 2005 | url = https://www.theguardian.com/music/2005/may/28/popandrock.coldplay
 | newspaper = [[The Guardian]]
 | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20110927075558/http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2005/may/28/popandrock.coldplay
 | archive-date = 27 September 2011
| url-status = live
}}</ref>

The album inspired a [[radio drama|radio play]], also titled ''OK Computer'', which was first broadcast on [[BBC Radio 4]] in 2007. The play, written by [[Joel Horwood]], Chris Perkins, [[Al Smith (playwright)|Al Smith]] and Chris Thorpe, interprets the album into a story about a man who awakens in a Berlin hospital with memory loss and returns to England with doubts that the life he's returned to is his own.<ref>{{cite web
| url = http://drownedinsound.com/news/2494978
| title = Radiohead: OK Computer play live on BBC this Friday
| last = Kharas
| first = Kev
| date = 16 October 2007 | magazine = [[Drowned in Sound]]
| archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20160304114432/http://drownedinsound.com/news/2494978
| archive-date = 4 March 2016}}</ref>
{{clear}}