released OK Computer

Radiohead released their third album, OK Computer , in May 1997. It found the band experimenting with song structures and incorporating ambient , avant-garde and electronic influences, prompting Rolling Stone to call the album a “stunning art-rock tour de force”. Radiohead denied being part of the progressive rock genre, but critics began to compare their work to Pink Floyd . Some compared OK Computer thematically to the 1973 Pink Floyd album The Dark Side of the Moon , although Yorke said the lyrics were inspired by observing the “speed” of the world in the 1990s. Yorke’s lyrics, embodying different characters, had expressed what one magazine called “end-of-the-millennium blues” in contrast to the more personal songs of The Bends . According to the journalist Alex Ross , Radiohead had become “the poster boys for a certain kind of knowing alienation” as Talking Heads and R.E.M. had been before. OK Computer received acclaim. Yorke said he was “amazed it got the reaction it did. None of us fucking knew any more whether it was good or bad. What really blew my head off was the fact that people got all the things, all the textures and the sounds and the atmospheres we were trying to create.”