How Radiohead made OK Computer in an old English country house

01The context

With The Bends in 1995, Radiohead avoided being remembered only for “Creep”. Touring that album left Thom Yorke exhausted and cut off, spending his days in hotels, on motorways and in airport terminals.

Those places became the setting for the new songs. Yorke wrote less about relationships and more about technology, consumerism and feeling like a replaceable part of a huge machine.

02How the album was recorded

Much of the album was recorded at St Catherine’s Court, a historic manor house near Bath owned at the time by the actress Jane Seymour. The band set up in different rooms and used the ballroom, the library and the staircases for their natural sound.

Nigel Godrich, then in his twenties, moved up from engineer to producer. He produced the record together with the band, and they tried unusual time signatures, layered keyboards and ambient textures.

03Hidden details

The voice on “Fitter Happier” came from the text-to-speech feature of an Apple Macintosh. “Exit Music (For a Film)” was written for the end credits of Baz Luhrmann’s 1996 film Romeo + Juliet.

Stanley Donwood and Yorke made the artwork together. The booklet is a collage of scribbled text, pictograms and cryptic phrases that echo the songs.

04The album’s legacy

OK Computer won the Grammy for Best Alternative Music Performance and often appears on lists of the best albums ever made. Three years later the band moved even further away from rock with Kid A.