The Radiohead Prophesies: How OK Computer Predicted the Future

Thom Yorke imagined our current Trump-addled digital hellscape 20 years ago.
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Radiohead’s OK Computer at 20: The Radiohead Prophesies: How OK Computer Predicted the Future

Photo by: Images by Jessica Viscius

This week, we are celebrating Radiohead’s OK Computer with essays, videos, interviews, visual artworks, and more. Check out all of the coverage here.


Though it’s technically Radiohead’s third record, OK Computer is really more like the first draft for a never-filmed pilot episode of “Black Mirror.” Much like that acclaimed sci-fi series, the album’s vision of the future didn’t feel like some far-off imaginary dystopia, but a logical, benign extension of the present that birthed it.

Back in 1997, the internet was still a shiny new toy for most, but Radiohead already sensed the depressing side effects of a totally wired world: the mindless amusement, the echo-chamber conformity, the pressure to keep up. There are no explicit mentions to computers on the album; from its passive title on down, OK Computer is ultimately less about technology than submission, depicting a world where aspiration has given way to automation, where the pursuit of happiness has become less of a goal and more of a process.  The whole thing emits the dispiriting sensation of staring at the dull glow of your laptop screen at 3 a.m., in a sparsely furnished condo unit in a state-of-the-art high-rise where you never say hi to your neighbors.

But OK Computer isn’t just some fuzzy, half-formed, crystal-ball prophecy. Each song actually yields a vivid premonition of life as it is lived now, when a volatile cocktail of unfettered consumerism, technological dependency, social disconnection, and paranoia has yielded a U.S. president with all the class and credibility of an infomercial huckster. Here’s a song-by-song breakdown of the album’s most prescient lyrics.

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“Airbag”

For Westerners, the 1990s were seen as a time of peace and prosperity; the Cold War and all those fear-mongering, nuclear-holocaust telefilms that came with it were already distant memories. But now that the person in charge of America’s nuclear arsenal has talked about bombing Russian ships just to boost his flagging approval ratings, the next World War feels once again like a looming inevitability. From its ominous opening line to its evangelical posturing to its allusions to bright lights and news tickers, “Airbag” could double as the opening number in a musical about Donald Trump’s presidency.


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“Paranoid Android”

According to legend, Thom Yorke wrote “Paranoid Android” after witnessing a well-heeled woman freak out after someone accidentally spilled a glass of red wine on her white Gucci dress. He found her enraged facial expression so unsettling that he had to go home and write a six-minute prog-punk suite about it. But by this point, disproportionate overreaction has become an American pastime, from the rise in road-rage incidents, to people getting shot over texting in movie theatres, to the president routinely unleashing Sunday morning Twitter assaults aimed at “Saturday Night Live.”


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“Subterranean Homesick Alien”

History has shown that, as technology advances, so too has the adult-entertainment industry. In this song, Yorke had seen the future, and that future was drone porn.

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“Exit Music (for a Film)”

As the title unsubtly suggests, “Exit Music (for a Film)” was initially written to accompany the closing credits of Baz Luhrmann’s 1996 po-mo Shakespeare redux Romeo + Juliet. And sure, it’s easy to read the lyrics as the doomed protagonists’ de facto suicide note. But clearly, Yorke was anticipating the inevitable moment when Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner will have to covertly plot their White House exile to save their damaged personal brands.


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“Let Down”

On one hand, commuters have less reason to be disappointed now. Public transportation has improved greatly since the time of OK Computer’s release: self-driving cars are now a thing, swipe-card technology has made tram rides more convenient, and personal entertainment consoles allow flyers to select their film of choice from an array of options rather than the entire flight being forced to sit through *Forrest Gump *again. On the other hand, we live in the era of 12-day traffic jams, subway cars that require human cattle prods, and airplane designers who actually want to make you feel like a bug crushed in the ground.


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“Karma Police”

In which Thom Yorke offers a spot-on description of what it’s like to sit through a Sean Spicer press scrum.

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“Fitter, Happier”

OK Computer’s roboticized spoken-word centerpiece is basically a one-way conversation between Siri and a gig-economy millennial who’s just signed a Change.org petition but can’t make it to the protest because he needs to live-tweet the Oscars.


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“Electioneering”

Some songs just write themselves.


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“Climbing Up the Walls”

OK Computer’s most chilling song sees Yorke playing the role of trespassing predator. However, in 2017, home invasions need not require any actual breaking-and-entering; hacking, doxxing, and identity theft are the intrusive tools of choice for negative creeps. When Yorke sings, “I’ve got the smell of a local man/Who’s got the loneliest feeling,” he’s basically painting the psychological profile of a troll.


Watch an animated version of this article.

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“No Surprises”

It’s not just that most people hate their jobs now; more and more people are actually killing themselves at work.


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“Lucky”

Sure, Yorke and Moby have had their disagreements over the years. But it was very thoughtful of the Radiohead singer to preemptively write a song about that time Moby turned down Donald Trump’s offer to DJ his inauguration party.


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“The Tourist”

OK Computer’s last song is quite possibly a prequel to its first one, with the imminent car crash of “The Tourist” setting up the life-saving inflation of “Airbag.” Though, these days, “The Tourist” feels less like an account of vehicular misadventure than a comment on the perils of flying with a Samsumg Galaxy.