Parlophone reportedly gave the band and producer Nigel Godrich £100,000 to buy gear with, which they set up in the library of a Somerset manor house owned by actress Jane Seymour. On a sonic level, it was so experimental that their label Parlophone feared it wouldn’t sell. While many of their UK peers in the Britpop scene were mining the music of the ‘60s for inspiration, the instrumentation of OK Computer took a brave leap into the unknown.Įven by the standards of today’s cash-strapped music industry, OK Computer was expensive to make. Thom Yorke’s lyrics broke from the introspection of The Bends with its depiction of larger themes: technological anxiety, consumerism, political apathy and globalization.

The one thing you don’t want to say to us is what we should do, because we’ll kick against that and do exactly the opposite.”

“Everyone said, ‘You’ll sell 6 or 7 million if you bring out The Bends, Part 2,’ ” Ed O’Brien told Rolling Stone in 1997. In 1996, Radiohead entered the studio to record their third album with a clear objective in mind: to distance themselves from what Phil Selway called the “soul-searching” of The Bends. But how did the band craft the album’s dense collage of sound? 20 years on from the release of OK Computer, Scott Wilson picks out seven pieces of gear used to make the landmark LP.

OK Computer marked a noticeable shift from the guitar-led anthems of The Bends towards the more experimental sound that would define Radiohead’s later music.

Midi ok computer radiohead