Various Artists
OKX: A Tribute to OK Computer
Stereogum.com, 2007
When Radiohead released OK Computer in 1997, it was hailed as a masterpiece. True, it sags a bit towards the end, and Fitter Happier has everyone getting a workout as they leap for the skip button, but overall it's a subtle, nuanced work, with textures, shadings, and astonishing songwriting.
To celebrate its tenth anniversary, Stereogum.com has released a download only compilation called OKX: A Tribute to OK Computer, by a number of esoteric artists that the website champions, such as Slaraffenland, Vampire Weekend, and David Bazan’s Black Cloud.
There are a few good covers here, such as Mobius Band’s Subterranean Homesick Alien, which pitches somewhere between Caribou and Unrest. After a while, though, the thing you notice most is the slow, slow pacing of all the songs. Even a notoriously turgid band like Slowdive used to play with the dynamics of their records. The majority of OKX is curiously dull, a seemingly impossible feat with an album as fascinating as OK Computer. It’s as though a car is put into drive but the accelerator never pressed: it just kind of rolls along at about five clicks.
The obvious deficiencies of some of the artists are masked with a Protools Botox injection that gives them sweet-looking, but ultimately paralyzed, smiles. There are great washes of quartz-locked beats, deliberately overdriven rhythms, post-ironic synths and slow, languid vocals. All manner of musical frippery abounds.
You can’t fault anybody for trying, but perhaps the ultimately flat and one-dimensional nature of these recordings is itself the ultimate tribute to Radiohead. Simply put, the contrast puts into sharp relief the brilliance of OK Computer.
Review by Greg Hood-Morris
Agree? Disagree? Email Greg at criticizegreg@gmail.com
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