They’re certainly not hard-up for ideas, but 10 years on from its release, Radiohead still live in OK Computer’s vast shadow, as, indeed, does most modern rock. Tim Footman, of course, takes care to consider this in his guide to the band’s masterpiece.
Much of Welcome To The Machine… incorporates a detailed track-by-track analysis of each song. The author offers not only a crisp prose style but an impressive knowledge of the subject, much of which has been harvested from the constant stream of Radiohead articles that ran through 1997-98. An additional chapter on cover versions makes for an interesting and occasionally alarming read, although respect is obviously due for the entirely warranted mention of ex-Radio One DJs Mark & Lard and their No Big Sizes (a phenomenal interpretation of No Surprises), delivered under the much-missed Shirehorses guise.
Come the final section, Footman attempts to justify his book’s overdramatic subtitle by arguing that music’s recent intertwinement with technology (piecemeal downloading; iTunes culture; listener interactivity) and a lack of truly groundbreaking bands from the last decade makes OK Computer the last indisputable inclusion into the established rock canon. Not a concrete theory, it’s intriguing enough to ensure that this doesn’t cover the same ground as other OK Computer literature.
