Tentative Andy
I'm in the Meal Deal
Partly cos its the most unfashionable thing I could do on here and it will annoy luka for a millisecond, but also cos I put Ok Computer on, on a whim, and I'm actually enjoying it. It's a different class of miserabilism. It's a bit grungier than their more recent stuff (the Nirvana influence still lingering at this point), which sticks a bit of an edge into the back of Yorke's wailing, which in recent years I've found laughable and intolerable.
It's also nostalgia. I remember having very gratifyingly gloomy walks along a rainswept beachfront listening to this album on holiday with my 'rents. The gloom was entirely focused on my self-imposed celibacy, rather than New Labour or whatever. And still is.
Radiohead often get shat on for being miserable by poptimists but as a Brit I'm constitutionally disposed to wallowing in misery.
I think Airbag will always be favourite tune from OK Computer, but yeah, most of the album is pretty good.
I feel like the reception of Radiohead did change a bit at some point. Back around the time of The Bends & OK Computer the meme always seemed to be how 'miserable' and 'depressing' they were (iirc Father Ted even had an extended joke about this?), but through the Kid A/Amnesiac period it gradually shifted to people seeing them as the epitome of 'serious', 'experimental' music, ideas of artistic progression etc.
As unfashionable and obviously un-dissensian as they are, I basically like all of their albums from The Bends up to In Rainbows. Found King Of Limbs fairly dull though and just haven't had any inclination to listen to the most recent album (can't even remember what it's called which I guess says it all).