title: Coach Carter

text: Coach Carter is a 2005 American biographical teen sports drama film starring Samuel L. Jackson and directed by Thomas Carter (no relation). The film is based on the true story of Richmond High School basketball coach Ken Carter (played by Jackson), who made headlines in 1999 for suspending his undefeated high school basketball team due to poor academic results. The story was conceived from a screenplay co-written by John Gatins and Mark Schwahn. The ensemble cast features Rob Brown, Channing Tatum, Debbi Morgan, Robert Ri'chard and singer Ashanti.


title: Coach Carter

text: The film was a co-production between the motion picture studios of MTV Films and Tollin/Robbins Productions. Theatrically and for the home video rental market, it was commercially distributed by Paramount Pictures. "Coach Carter" explores professional ethics, academics, and athletics. The sports action in the film was coordinated by Mark Ellis. On January 11, the film's soundtrack was released by Capitol Records. The film's score was composed and orchestrated by musician Trevor Rabin.


title: Coach Carter

text: "Coach Carter" was released in the United States on January 14, 2005. The film received good reviews with a score of 64% Fresh on Rotten Tomatoes and opened number one at the box office with a Martin Luther King Jr. Holiday Weekend total of over 29 million dollars. The film went on to gross $76 million worldwide.


title: Coach Carter

text: Ken Carter lives in Richmond, California. He becomes the coach for Richmond High School’s basketball team, the Richmond Oilers, having played for the team thirty years earlier. Initially, the team is rowdy, rude, and disrespectful. Carter gives the team contracts to sign and obey, requiring them to sit in the front rows of all their classes, and maintain a 2.3 (C+) grade point average. Carter asks the school's staff for progress reports of the players' grades and attendance. Despite anger from the players' parents, most players sign the contracts, though several team members walk out in disagreement, including Timo Cruz, a gifted player who also deals drugs for his cousin Renny. The school's principal, Principal Garrison, questions Carter's contracts, suggesting that the players will be unable to meet his conditions and that he would be better off sticking to coaching basketball.


title: Coach Carter

text: Carter begins a strict, disciplinary training regime for the team, focused largely on conditioning and teamwork. Carter's son Damian joins the team, switching from the private school St. Francis, to play for his father. Cruz witnesses the team win a game, afterwards asking Carter to let him rejoin the team. Carter agrees, but only if Cruz completes a number of exercises impossible to achieve before that Friday. Cruz commits himself to this against the odds. When he comes up short on that Friday in spite of his best efforts, the rest of the team pitches in and does the missing number of exercises for him. He is able to rejoin.


title: Coach Carter

text: Kenyon Stone, the team's captain, struggles to come to terms with his girlfriend Kyra being pregnant. The couple have a falling out over Kenyon's inability to commit to fatherhood. Another player, Junior Battle, skips classes, leading Carter to suspend him from the team. Battle's mother Willa visits Carter, asking him to let Battle back on the team and explaining that things have been hard after her older son Antoine was killed. Carter agrees after Battle apologises.


title: Coach Carter

text: The team continues to train and improve, bonding with Carter and becoming undefeated in the regular season. After winning the Bay Hill holiday tournament, the entire team sneaks out of the motel and attend a party at a nearby mansion while Carter is speaking to his wife on the phone. Carter discovers their absence, crashing the party to round up the team. Carter berates the boys on the way home, though Cruz points out the team are now winners as Carter intended. Later, Carter discovers that some players have not been keeping to their contracts, skipping classes and receiving poor grades.


title: Coach Carter

text: A livid Carter locks the gym, directing the team to the library where they will study with their teachers until everyone's grades meet their contracts' terms. A disillusioned Cruz quits the team again. Carter enforces his lockdown, garnering media attention after he forfeits several games, and enraging the local community. Carter reasons that the boys have no other options in Richmond aside from crime or sports, and he is hoping their commitment to their studies will give them better options in life.


title: Coach Carter

text: After a drug deal goes bad, Cruz watches Renny get gunned down in front of him. Distraught, Cruz goes to Carter, begging to be let back on the team. The school board holds a hearing, where Carter explains that sending his players to college and a better life is more important than basketball, and promises to resign if the lockdown is lifted. Though Principal Garrison and the board's chairwoman vote in his favor, every other councillor votes to end the lockdown. Carter prepares to leave, but discovers the team is refusing to play, choosing to continue with their studying and hold to their goal. Cruz, whom Carter had repeatedly asked "what is your deepest fear," answers by quoting from "A Return to Love".


title: Coach Carter

text: Carter decides to stay, and the team soon succeeds in their academic goal. Kenyon reunites with Kyra, learning she had an abortion. She said to him that she had a choice to make and she made it, for herself. They make up, and Kenyon asks Kyra to come with him to college, to which she agrees. The team play in the State Quarterfinals match against St. Francis, but lose by two points. Though they did not win, Carter expresses his pride that the team came together to persevere, give themselves options, and achieve the "ever elusive victory within." The film ends with the team celebrating with the community, and captions telling the fate of several key players who receive scholarships and go on to college.


title: Coach Carter

text: Filming locations for the motion picture included, Long Beach, California and Los Angeles. Such locations in Long Beach included St. Anthony High School’s gymnasium.


title: Coach Carter

text: The soundtrack for the film was released by Capitol Records on January 11, 2005. The score for the film was orchestrated by Trevor Rabin. An extensive list of songs are featured on the soundtrack, which differs from the soundtrack recording. The recording includes five songs which were not featured in the film: "About da Game" by Trey Songz; "Balla" by Mack 10 featuring Da Hood; "Beauty Queen" by CzarNok; "What Love Can Do" by Letoya; and "Wouldn't You Like to Ride", by Kanye West, Malik Yusef, and Common.


title: Coach Carter

text: Following its cinematic release in theaters, the Region 1 edition of the film was released on DVD in the United States on June 21, 2005. Special features for the DVD include; two commentaries: "Coach Carter: The Man Behind the Movie, Fast Break at Richmond High", Deleted Scenes and Music Video "Hope" by Twista Featuring Faith Evans. The film was also released on VHS.


title: Coach Carter

text: A restored widescreen high-definition Blu-ray Disc version of the film was released on December 16, 2008. Special features include two commentaries - The Man Behind the Movie; Fast Break at Richmond High; 6 Deleted scenes; "Hope" music video by Twista featuring Faith Evans; Writing Coach Carter: The Two Man Game; Coach Carter: Making the Cut; and the theatrical trailer in HD. An additional viewing option for the film in the media format of Video on demand has been made available as well.


title: Coach Carter

text: On Rotten Tomatoes, the film has an approval rating of 64% based on 150 reviews, with an average rating of 6.1/10. The site's critical consensus reads, "Even though it's based on a true story, "Coach Carter" is pretty formulaic stuff, but it's effective and energetic, thanks to a strong central performance from Samuel L. Jackson." On Metacritic, which assigns a weighted average, the film has a score of 57 out of 100, based on 36 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews". Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "A" on a scale of A+ to F.


title: Coach Carter

text: "Coach Carter" was released in theaters on January 14, 2005 in the United States. During that weekend, the film opened in 1st place grossing $24.2 million from 2,524 locations, beating out "Meet the Fockers" ($19.3 million). The film's revenue dropped by 24% in its third week of release, earning $8 million. For that particular weekend, the film slipped to 5th place with a slightly higher theater count at 2,574.


title: Coach Carter

text: "Coach Carter" went on to top out domestically at $67.3 million through a 16-week theatrical run. For 2005 as a whole, the film would cumulatively rank at a box office performance position of 36.


title: Vivarium (film)

text: Vivarium is a 2019 science fiction thriller film directed by Lorcan Finnegan, from a story by Finnegan and Garret Shanley. An international co-production between Ireland, Denmark and Belgium, it stars Imogen Poots and Jesse Eisenberg. It premiered at the Cannes Film Festival on 18 May 2019, and was released in Ireland on 27 March 2020 by Vertigo Releasing. The film follows a couple (Eisenberg and Poots) that is forced to care for a child while trapped in a seemingly perfect neighbourhood.


title: Vivarium (film)

text: The opening scene depicts the lifecycle of cuckoos before introducing primary school teacher Gemma and her handyman boyfriend Tom. They drive to meet with estate agent Martin and follow him to a suburban development of identical houses called Yonder. Martin shows them around house number 9. He asks if they have children, and when Gemma replies, "No, not yet", he mimics her perfectly. After looking around the garden they find Martin has vanished. Attempting to leave, they repeatedly find themselves back at number 9. They drive around the endless, identical streets until they run out of petrol.


title: Vivarium (film)

text: They sleep in the house. The next morning, they try to escape on foot, but consistently return to number 9. They find a box of tasteless vacuum-packed food in front of the house. Tom sets fire to the house and they sleep on the pavement. When they awake another box has been left, containing an infant and the message, "Raise the child and be released." When the smoke clears, the house is undamaged.


title: Vivarium (film)

text: 98 days later, the infant is the size of a ten year-old boy and mimics Tom and Gemma. Gemma and Tom wait in the garden with a pickaxe to attack whoever delivers the food, but they never see anyone. Tom starts digging a hole in the garden and becomes withdrawn. In the living room, the Boy watches fractal-like patterns on the television.


title: Vivarium (film)

text: Tom locks the Boy in their car to starve it, thinking if someone comes for the body they could force them to free them. However, Gemma takes pity and releases it. One day the Boy goes missing, and returns with a book full of symbols and images of humanoids with throat sacs. When Gemma asks him to mimic the person who gave him the book, he makes rasping sounds and inflates his own throat sacs.


title: Vivarium (film)

text: The Boy matures to resemble a young adult. Tom and Gemma avoid him and Tom becomes ill. The Boy leaves during the day and Gemma tries to follow him but always finds herself back at number 9. Tom continues to dig and finds a body in a vacuum bag. The Boy locks Gemma and Tom out of the house and they sleep in the car. Gemma pleads with the Boy for medicine for Tom but he replies, "Maybe it's time he was released." When Tom dies the Boy zips him into a vacuum bag and throws it into the hole Tom has dug.


title: Vivarium (film)

text: Some time later, Gemma hides in the car, and manages to wound the Boy with the pickaxe when he exits the house. The Boy hisses and crawls into a labyrinth under the pavement. Gemma follows it and crashes through the door into multiple rooms in other houses with more Boys and several strangers, one of whom has died by suicide.


title: Vivarium (film)

text: She lands back in number 9, weak and moaning. The Boy is cleaning the house. He carries her to a vacuum bag explaining that mothers die after raising their sons. The boy zips her into a vacuum bag, but before she dies, she manages to tell the Boy, "I'm not your fucking mother." The Boy buries her with Tom and fills in the hole. He drives back to the estate office, where an aged Martin lies dying in his chair. Martin gives The Boy his name tag and expires. The Boy puts Martin in a vacuum bag and puts it into a file drawer. When a couple walks in the door, the Boy greets them just as Martin did.


title: Vivarium (film)

text: In May 2018, it was announced that Lorcan Finnegan would direct "Vivarium" from a story he co-wrote with Garret Shanley, and that Jesse Eisenberg and Imogen Poots had joined the cast. It was shot in locations in Belgium and Ireland before moving to Ardmore Studios, Wicklow, Ireland.


title: Vivarium (film)

text: "Vivarium" premiered at the Cannes Film Festival on 18 May 2019. Shortly after, Saban Films and Vertigo Releasing acquired US and UK distribution rights, respectively. It was released in the United States, UK and Ireland on 27 March 2020, with a limited theatrical release and video-on-demand release the same day.


title: Vivarium (film)

text: On Rotten Tomatoes, "Vivarium" has an approval rating of based on reviews, with an average rating of . The site's critics consensus reads, ""Vivarium" may confound almost as often as it intrigues, but this well-acted sci-fi/horror hybrid has interesting ideas—and explores them with style." On Metacritic, the film has weighted average score of 64 out of 100 based on reviews from 23 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews".


title: English Channel

text: The English Channel (French: "la Manche;" also called the British Channel or simply the Channel) is an arm of the Atlantic Ocean that separates Southern England from northern France. It links to the southern part of the North Sea by the Strait of Dover at its northeastern end. It is the busiest shipping area in the world.


title: English Channel

text: It is about long and varies in width from at its widest to at its narrowest in the Strait of Dover. It is the smallest of the shallow seas around the continental shelf of Europe, covering an area of some .


title: English Channel

text: The Channel was a key factor in Britain becoming a naval superpower and has been utilised by Britain as a natural defence mechanism by which many would-be invasions, such as the Napoleonic Wars and those of Adolf Hitler in World War II, were halted.


title: English Channel

text: The population around the English Channel is predominantly located on the English coast and the major languages spoken in this region are English and French.


title: English Channel

text: The name first appears in Roman sources as (or , meaning the British Ocean or British Sea). Variations of this term were used by influential writers such as Ptolemy, and remained popular with British and continental authors well into the modern era. Other Latin names for the sea include (the Gaulish Ocean) which was used by Isidore of Seville in the sixth century.


title: English Channel

text: The term "British Sea" is still used in Cornwall and Brittany, with the sea known as in Cornish and in Breton. While it is likely that these names derive from the Latin term, it is possible that they predate the arrival of the Romans in the area. The modern Welsh is often given as (the Lord's/Prince's Sea), however this name originally described both the Channel and the North Sea combined.


title: English Channel

text: Anglo-Saxon texts make reference to the sea as ('South Sea'), but this term fell out of favour, as later English authors followed the same conventions as their Latin and Norman contemporaries. One English name that did persist was the "Narrow Seas", a collective term for the channel and North Sea. As England (followed by Great Britain and the United Kingdom) claimed sovereignty over the sea, a Royal Navy Admiral was appointed with maintaining duties in the two seas. The office was maintained until 1822, when several European nations (including the United Kingdom) adopted a three-mile limit to territorial waters.


title: English Channel

text: The word "channel" was first recorded in Middle English in the 13th century and was borrowed from Old French (a variant form of 'canal'). By the middle of the fifteenth century an Italian map based on Ptolemy's description named the sea as "Britanicus Oceanus nunc Canalites Anglie" (British Ocean but now English Channel). The map is possibly the first recorded use of the term "English Channel" and the description suggests the name had recently been adopted.


title: English Channel

text: In the sixteenth century, Dutch maps referred to the sea as the (English Channel) and by the 1590s, William Shakespeare used the word "Channel" in his history plays of Henry VI, suggesting that by that time, the name was popularly understood by English people.


title: English Channel

text: By the eighteenth century, the name "English Channel" was in common usage in England. Following the Acts of Union 1707, this was replaced in official maps and documents with "British Channel" or "British Sea" for much of the next century. However, the term English Channel remained popular and was finally in official usage by the nineteenth century.


title: English Channel

text: The French name has been used since at least the 17th century. The name is usually said to refer to the sleeve () shape of the Channel. Folk etymology has derived it from a Celtic word meaning 'channel' that is also the source of the name for the Minch in Scotland, but this name is not attested before the 17th century, and French and British sources of that time are clear about its etymology. The name in French has been directly adapted in other Romance languages (, , , ) as well as German ("Ärmelkanal").


title: English Channel

text: The IHO defines the southwestern limit of the North Sea as "a line joining the Walde Lighthouse (France, 1°55'E) and Leathercoat Point (England, 51°10'N)". The Walde Lighthouse is east of Calais (), and Leathercoat Point is at the north end of St Margaret's Bay, Kent, some North-East of Dover ().


title: English Channel

text: The Strait of Dover (), at the Channel's eastern end, is its narrowest point, while its widest point lies between Lyme Bay and the Gulf of Saint Malo, near its midpoint. It is relatively shallow, with an average depth of about at its widest part, reducing to a depth of about between Dover and Calais. Eastwards from there the adjoining North Sea reduces to about in the Broad Fourteens where it lies over the watershed of the former land bridge between East Anglia and the Low Countries. It reaches a maximum depth of in the submerged valley of Hurd's Deep, west-northwest of Guernsey.


title: English Channel

text: The eastern region along the French coast between Cherbourg and the mouth of the Seine river at Le Havre is frequently referred to as the "Bay of the Seine" ().


title: English Channel

text: There are several major islands in the Channel, the most notable being the Isle of Wight off the English coast, and the Channel Islands, British Crown Dependencies off the coast of France. The coastline, particularly on the French shore, is deeply indented; several small islands close to the coastline, including Chausey and Mont Saint-Michel, are within French jurisdiction. The Cotentin Peninsula in France juts out into the Channel, whilst on the English side there is a small parallel strait known as the Solent between the Isle of Wight and the mainland. The Celtic Sea is to the west of the Channel.


title: English Channel

text: The Channel acts as a funnel that amplifies the tidal range from less than a metre as observed at sea to more than 6 metres as observed in the Channel Islands, the west coast of the Cotentin Peninsula and the north coast of Brittany. The time difference of about six hours between high water at the eastern and western limits of the Channel is indicative of the tidal range being amplified further by resonance.


title: English Channel

text: The Channel is of geologically recent origin, having been dry land for most of the Pleistocene period. Before the Devensian glaciation (the most recent glacial period, which ended around 10,000 years ago), Britain and Ireland were part of continental Europe, linked by an unbroken Weald–Artois anticline, a ridge that acted as a natural dam holding back a large freshwater pro-glacial lake in the Doggerland region, now submerged under the North Sea. During this period the North Sea and almost all of the British Isles were covered by ice. The lake was fed by meltwater from the Baltic and from the Caledonian and Scandinavian ice sheets that joined to the north, blocking its exit. The sea level was about lower than it is today. Then, between 450,000 and 180,000 years ago, at least two catastrophic glacial lake outburst floods breached the Weald–Artois anticline.


title: English Channel

text: The first flood of 450 thousand years ago would have lasted for several months, releasing as much as one million cubic metres of water per second. The flood started with large but localized waterfalls over the ridge, which excavated depressions now known as the "Fosses Dangeard". The flow eroded the retaining ridge, causing the rock dam to fail and releasing lake water into the Atlantic. After multiple episodes of changing sea level, during which the "Fosses Dangeard" were largely infilled by various layers of sediment, another catastrophic flood some 180,000 years ago carved a large bedrock-floored valley, the Lobourg Channel, some 500 m wide and 25 m deep, from the southern North Sea basin through the centre of the Straits of Dover and into the English Channel. It left streamlined islands, longitudinal erosional grooves, and other features characteristic of catastrophic megaflood events, still present on the sea floor and now revealed by high-resolution sonar. Through the scoured channel passed a river, the Channel River, which drained the combined Rhine and Thames westwards to the Atlantic.


title: English Channel

text: The flooding destroyed the ridge that connected Britain to continental Europe, although a land connection across the southern North Sea would have existed intermittently at later times when periods of glaciation resulted in lowering of sea levels. At the end of the last glacial period, rising sea levels finally severed the last land connection.


title: English Channel

text: As a busy shipping lane, the Channel experiences environmental problems following accidents involving ships with toxic cargo and oil spills. Indeed, over 40% of the UK incidents threatening pollution occur in or very near the Channel. One occurrence was the MSC "Napoli", which on 18 January 2007 was beached with nearly 1700 tonnes of dangerous cargo in Lyme Bay, a protected World Heritage Site coastline. The ship had been damaged and was en route to Portland Harbour.


title: English Channel

text: The English Channel, despite being a busy shipping lane, remains in part a haven for wildlife. Atlantic oceanic species are more common in the westernmost parts of the channel, particularly to the west of Start Point, Devon, but can sometimes be found further east towards Dorset and the Isle of Wight. Seal sightings are becoming more common along the English Channel, with both Grey Seal and Harbour Seal recorded frequently.


title: English Channel

text: The Channel, which delayed human reoccupation of Great Britain for more than 100,000 years, has in historic times been both an easy entry for seafaring people and a key natural defence, halting invading armies while in conjunction with control of the North Sea allowing Britain to blockade the continent. The most significant failed invasion threats came when the Dutch and Belgian ports were held by a major continental power, e.g. from the Spanish Armada in 1588, Napoleon during the Napoleonic Wars, and Nazi Germany during World War II. Successful invasions include the Roman conquest of Britain, the Norman Conquest in 1066 and the Glorious Revolution of 1688, while the concentration of excellent harbours in the Western Channel on Britain's south coast made possible the largest amphibious invasion in history, the Normandy Landings in 1944. Channel naval battles include the Battle of the Downs (1639), Battle of Dover (1652), the Battle of Portland (1653), the Battle of La Hougue (1692) and the engagement between USS "Kearsarge" and CSS "Alabama" (1864).


title: English Channel

text: In more peaceful times the Channel served as a link joining shared cultures and political structures, particularly the huge Angevin Empire from 1135 to 1217. For nearly a thousand years, the Channel also provided a link between the Modern Celtic regions and languages of Cornwall and Brittany. Brittany was founded by Britons who fled Cornwall and Devon after Anglo-Saxon encroachment. In Brittany, there is a region known as "Cornouaille" (Cornwall) in French and "Kernev" in Breton. In ancient times there was also a "Domnonia" (Devon) in Brittany as well.


title: English Channel

text: In February 1684, ice formed on the sea in a belt wide off the coast of Kent and wide on the French side.


title: English Channel

text: Remnants of a mesolithic boatyard have been found on the Isle of Wight. Wheat was traded across the Channel about 8,000 years ago. "... Sophisticated social networks linked the Neolithic front in southern Europe to the Mesolithic peoples of northern Europe." The Ferriby Boats, Hanson Log Boats and the later Dover Bronze Age Boat could carry a substantial cross-Channel cargo.


title: English Channel

text: Diodorus Siculus and Pliny both suggest trade between the rebel Celtic tribes of Armorica and Iron Age Britain flourished. In 55 BC Julius Caesar invaded, claiming that the Britons had aided the Veneti against him the previous year. He was more successful in 54 BC, but Britain was not fully established as part of the Roman Empire until completion of the invasion by Aulus Plautius in 43 AD. A brisk and regular trade began between ports in Roman Gaul and those in Britain. This traffic continued until the end of Roman rule in Britain in 410 AD, after which the early Anglo-Saxons left less clear historical records.


title: English Channel

text: In the power vacuum left by the retreating Romans, the Germanic Angles, Saxons, and Jutes began the next great migration across the North Sea. Having already been used as mercenaries in Britain by the Romans, many people from these tribes crossed during the Migration Period, conquering and perhaps displacing the native Celtic populations.


title: English Channel

text: The attack on Lindisfarne in 793 is generally considered the beginning of the Viking Age. For the next 250 years the Scandinavian raiders of Norway, Sweden, and Denmark dominated the North Sea, raiding monasteries, homes, and towns along the coast and along the rivers that ran inland. According to the "Anglo-Saxon Chronicle" they began to settle in Britain in 851. They continued to settle in the British Isles and the continent until around 1050, with some raids recorded along the channel coast of England, including at Wareham, Portland, near Weymouth and along the river Teign in Devon.


title: English Channel

text: The fiefdom of Normandy was created for the Viking leader Rollo (also known as Robert of Normandy). Rollo had besieged Paris but in 911 entered vassalage to the king of the West Franks Charles the Simple through the Treaty of St.-Claire-sur-Epte. In exchange for his homage and fealty, Rollo legally gained the territory he and his Viking allies had previously conquered. The name "Normandy" reflects Rollo's Viking (i.e. "Northman") origins.


title: English Channel

text: The descendants of Rollo and his followers adopted the local Gallo-Romance language and intermarried with the area's inhabitants and became the Normans – a Norman French-speaking mixture of Scandinavians, Hiberno-Norse, Orcadians, Anglo-Danish, and indigenous Franks and Gauls.


title: English Channel

text: Rollo's descendant William, Duke of Normandy became king of England in 1066 in the Norman Conquest beginning with the Battle of Hastings, while retaining the fiefdom of Normandy for himself and his descendants. In 1204, during the reign of King John, mainland Normandy was taken from England by France under Philip II, while insular Normandy (the Channel Islands) remained under English control. In 1259, Henry III of England recognised the legality of French possession of mainland Normandy under the Treaty of Paris. His successors, however, often fought to regain control of mainland Normandy.


title: English Channel

text: With the rise of William the Conqueror the North Sea and Channel began to lose some of their importance. The new order oriented most of England and Scandinavia's trade south, toward the Mediterranean and the Orient.


title: English Channel

text: Although the British surrendered claims to mainland Normandy and other French possessions in 1801, the monarch of the United Kingdom retains the title Duke of Normandy in respect to the Channel Islands. The Channel Islands (except for Chausey) are Crown Dependencies of the British Crown. Thus the Loyal toast in the Channel Islands is "Le roi, notre Duc" ("The King, our Duke"). The British monarch is understood to "not" be the Duke of Normandy in regards of the French region of Normandy described herein, by virtue of the Treaty of Paris of 1259, the surrender of French possessions in 1801, and the belief that the rights of succession to that title are subject to Salic Law which excludes inheritance through female heirs.


title: English Channel

text: French Normandy was occupied by English forces during the Hundred Years' War in 1346–1360 and again in 1415–1450.


title: English Channel

text: From the reign of Elizabeth I, English foreign policy concentrated on preventing invasion across the Channel by ensuring no major European power controlled the potential Dutch and Flemish invasion ports. Her climb to the pre-eminent sea power of the world began in 1588 as the attempted invasion of the Spanish Armada was defeated by the combination of outstanding naval tactics by the English and the Dutch under command of Charles Howard, 1st Earl of Nottingham with Sir Francis Drake second in command, and the following stormy weather. Over the centuries the Royal Navy slowly grew to be the most powerful in the world.


title: English Channel

text: The building of the British Empire was possible only because the Royal Navy eventually managed to exercise unquestioned control over the seas around Europe, especially the Channel and the North Sea. During the Seven Years' War, France attempted to launch an invasion of Britain. To achieve this France needed to gain control of the Channel for several weeks, but was thwarted following the British naval victory at the Battle of Quiberon Bay in 1759 and was unsuccessful (The last French landing on English soil being in 1690 with a raid on Teignmouth, although the last French raid on British soil was a raid on Fishguard, Wales in 1797).


title: English Channel

text: Another significant challenge to British domination of the seas came during the Napoleonic Wars. The Battle of Trafalgar took place off the coast of Spain against a combined French and Spanish fleet and was won by Admiral Horatio Nelson, ending Napoleon's plans for a cross-Channel invasion and securing British dominance of the seas for over a century.


title: English Channel

text: The exceptional strategic importance of the Channel as a tool for blockading was recognised by the First Sea Lord Admiral Fisher in the years before World War I. "Five keys lock up the world! Singapore, the Cape, Alexandria, Gibraltar, Dover." However, on 25 July 1909 Louis Blériot made the first Channel crossing from Calais to Dover in an aeroplane. Blériot's crossing signalled a change in the function of the Channel as a barrier-moat for England against foreign enemies.


title: English Channel

text: Because the "Kaiserliche Marine" surface fleet could not match the British Grand Fleet, the Germans developed submarine warfare, which was to become a far greater threat to Britain. The Dover Patrol, set up just before the war started, escorted cross-Channel troopships and prevented submarines from sailing in the Channel, obliging them to travel to the Atlantic via the much longer route around Scotland.


title: English Channel

text: On land, the German army attempted to capture French Channel ports in the Race to the Sea but although the trenches are often said to have stretched "from the frontier of Switzerland to the English Channel", they reached the coast at the North Sea. Much of the British war effort in Flanders was a bloody but successful strategy to prevent the Germans reaching the Channel coast.


title: English Channel

text: At the outset of the war, an attempt was made to block the path of U-boats through the Dover Strait with naval minefields. By February 1915, this had been augmented by a stretch of light steel netting called the Dover Barrage, which it was hoped would ensnare submerged submarines. After initial success, the Germans learned how to pass through the barrage, aided by the unreliability of British mines. On 31 January 1917, the Germans restarted unrestricted submarine warfare leading to dire Admiralty predictions that submarines would defeat Britain by November, the most dangerous situation Britain faced in either world war.


title: English Channel

text: The Battle of Passchendaele in 1917 was fought to reduce the threat by capturing the submarine bases on the Belgian coast, though it was the introduction of convoys and not capture of the bases that averted defeat. In April 1918 the Dover Patrol carried out the Zeebrugge Raid against the U-boat bases. During 1917, the Dover Barrage was re-sited with improved mines and more effective nets, aided by regular patrols by small warships equipped with powerful searchlights. A German attack on these vessels resulted in the Battle of Dover Strait in 1917. A much more ambitious attempt to improve the barrage, by installing eight massive concrete towers across the strait was called the Admiralty M-N Scheme but only two towers were nearing completion at the end of the war and the project was abandoned.


title: English Channel

text: The naval blockade in the Channel and North Sea was one of the decisive factors in the German defeat in 1918.


title: English Channel

text: During the Second World War, naval activity in the European theatre was primarily limited to the Atlantic. During the Battle of France in May 1940, the German forces succeeded in capturing both Boulogne and Calais, thereby threatening the line of retreat for the British Expeditionary Force. By a combination of hard fighting and German indecision, the port of Dunkirk was kept open allowing 338,000 Allied troops to be evacuated in Operation Dynamo. More than 11,000 were evacuated from Le Havre during Operation Cycle and a further 192,000 were evacuated from ports further down the coast in Operation Aerial in June 1940. The early stages of the Battle of Britain featured German air attacks on Channel shipping and ports; despite these early successes against shipping the Germans did not win the air supremacy necessary for Operation Sealion, the projected cross-Channel invasion.


title: English Channel

text: The Channel subsequently became the stage for an intensive coastal war, featuring submarines, minesweepers, and Fast Attack Craft.


title: English Channel

text: The narrow waters of the Channel were considered too dangerous for major warships until the Normandy Landings with the exception, for the German Kriegsmarine, of the Channel Dash (Operation Cerberus) in February 1942, and this required the support of the Luftwaffe in Operation Thunderbolt.


title: English Channel

text: Dieppe was the site of an ill-fated Dieppe Raid by Canadian and British armed forces. More successful was the later Operation Overlord (D-Day), a massive invasion of German-occupied France by Allied troops. Caen, Cherbourg, Carentan, Falaise and other Norman towns endured many casualties in the fight for the province, which continued until the closing of the so-called Falaise gap between Chambois and Montormel, then liberation of Le Havre.


title: English Channel

text: The Channel Islands were the only part of the British Commonwealth occupied by Germany (excepting the part of Egypt occupied by the Afrika Korps at the time of the Second Battle of El Alamein, which was a protectorate and not part of the Commonwealth). The German occupation of 1940–1945 was harsh, with some island residents being taken for slave labour on the Continent; native Jews sent to concentration camps; partisan resistance and retribution; accusations of collaboration; and slave labour (primarily Russians and eastern Europeans) being brought to the islands to build fortifications. The Royal Navy blockaded the islands from time to time, particularly following the liberation of mainland Normandy in 1944. Intense negotiations resulted in some Red Cross humanitarian aid, but there was considerable hunger and privation during the occupation, particularly in the final months, when the population was close to starvation. The German troops on the islands surrendered on 9 May 1945, a day after the final surrender in mainland Europe.


title: English Channel

text: The English Channel coast is far more densely populated on the English shore. The most significant towns and cities along both the English and French sides of the Channel (each with more than 20,000 inhabitants, ranked in descending order; populations are the urban area populations from the 1999 French census, 2001 UK census, and 2001 Jersey census) are as follows:


title: English Channel

text: The two dominant cultures are English on the north shore of the Channel, French on the south. However, there are also a number of minority languages that are or were found on the shores and islands of the English Channel, which are listed here, with the Channel's name in the specific language following them.


title: English Channel

text: The Channel has traffic on both the UK–Europe and North Sea–Atlantic routes, and is the world's busiest seaway, with over 500 ships per day. Following an accident in January 1971 and a series of disastrous collisions with wreckage in February, the Dover TSS, the world's first radar-controlled traffic separation scheme, was set up by the International Maritime Organization. The scheme mandates that vessels travelling north must use the French side, travelling south the English side. There is a separation zone between the two lanes.


title: English Channel

text: In December 2002 the MV "Tricolor", carrying £30m of luxury cars, sank northwest of Dunkirk after collision in fog with the container ship "Kariba". The cargo ship "Nicola" ran into the wreckage the next day. There was no loss of life.


title: English Channel

text: The shore-based long-range traffic control system was updated in 2003 and there is a series of traffic separation systems in operation. Though the system is inherently incapable of reaching the levels of safety obtained from aviation systems such as the traffic collision avoidance system, it has reduced accidents to one or two per year.


title: English Channel

text: Marine GPS systems allow ships to be preprogrammed to follow navigational channels accurately and automatically, further avoiding risk of running aground, but following the fatal collision between Dutch Aquamarine and Ash in October 2001, Britain's Marine Accident Investigation Branch (MAIB) issued a safety bulletin saying it believed that in these most unusual circumstances GPS use had actually contributed to the collision. The ships were maintaining a very precise automated course, one directly behind the other, rather than making use of the full width of the traffic lanes as a human navigator would.


title: English Channel

text: A combination of radar difficulties in monitoring areas near cliffs, a failure of a CCTV system, incorrect operation of the anchor, the inability of the crew to follow standard procedures of using a GPS to provide early warning of the ship dragging the anchor and reluctance to admit the mistake and start the engine led to the MV "Willy" running aground in Cawsand Bay, Cornwall, in January 2002. The MAIB report makes it clear that the harbour controllers were informed of impending disaster by shore observers before the crew were themselves aware. The village of Kingsand was evacuated for three days because of the risk of explosion, and the ship was stranded for 11 days.


title: English Channel

text: Many travellers cross beneath the Channel using the Channel Tunnel, first proposed in the early 19th century and finally opened in 1994, connecting the UK and France by rail. It is now routine to travel between Paris or Brussels and London on the Eurostar train. Freight trains also use the tunnel. Cars, coaches and lorries are carried on Eurotunnel Shuttle trains between Folkestone and Calais.


title: English Channel

text: The coastal resorts of the Channel, such as Brighton and Deauville, inaugurated an era of aristocratic tourism in the early 19th century. Short trips across the Channel for leisure purposes are often referred to as Channel Hopping.


title: English Channel

text: The Rampion Wind Farm is an offshore wind farm located in the Channel, off the coast of West Sussex. Other offshore wind farms planned on the French side of the Channel.


title: English Channel

text: As one of the narrowest and most well-known international waterways lacking dangerous currents, the Channel has been the first objective of numerous innovative sea, air, and human powered crossing technologies.


title: English Channel

text: Pre-historic people sailed from the mainland to England for millennia. At the end of the last Ice Age, lower sea levels even permitted walking across.


title: English Channel

text: Pierre Andriel crossed the English Channel aboard the "Élise", ex the Scottish p.s. "Margery" in March 1816, one of the earliest seagoing voyages by steam ship.


title: English Channel

text: The paddle steamer "Defiance", Captain William Wager, was the first steamer to cross the Channel to Holland, arriving there on 9 May 1816.


title: English Channel

text: On 10 June 1821, English-built paddle steamer "Rob Roy" was the first passenger ferry to cross channel. The steamer was purchased subsequently by the French postal administration and renamed "Henri IV" and put into regular passenger service a year later. It was able to make the journey across the Straits of Dover in around three hours.


title: English Channel

text: In June 1843, because of difficulties with Dover harbour, the South Eastern Railway company developed the Boulogne-sur-Mer-Folkestone route as an alternative to Calais-Dover. The first ferry crossed under the command of Captain Hayward.


title: English Channel

text: In 1974 a Welsh coracle piloted by Bernard Thomas of Llechryd crossed the English Channel to France in 13 hours. The journey was undertaken to demonstrate how the Bull Boats of the Mandan Indians of North Dakota could have been copied from coracles introduced by Prince Madog in the 12th century.


title: English Channel

text: The Mountbatten class hovercraft (MCH) entered commercial service in August 1968, initially between Dover and Boulogne but later also Ramsgate (Pegwell Bay) to Calais. The journey time Dover to Boulogne was roughly 35 minutes, with six trips per day at peak times. The fastest crossing of the English Channel by a commercial car-carrying hovercraft was 22 minutes, recorded by the "Princess Anne" MCH SR-N4 Mk3 on 14 September 1995,


title: English Channel

text: The first aircraft to cross the Channel was a balloon in 1785, piloted by Jean Pierre François Blanchard (France) and John Jeffries (US).


title: English Channel

text: On 26 September 2008, Swiss Yves Rossy aka "Jetman" became the first person to cross the English Channel with a Jet Powered Wing,


title: English Channel

text: He jumped from a Pilatus Porter over Calais, France, Rossy crossed the English Channel where he deployed his parachute and landed in Dover


title: English Channel

text: The first flying car to have crossed the English Channel is a Pégase designed by the French company Vaylon on 14 June 2017. It was piloted by a Franco-Italian pilot Bruno Vezzoli. This crossing was carried out as part of the first road and air trip from Paris to London in a flying car. Pegase is a 2 seats road approved dune buggy and a powered paraglider. The takeoff was at 8:03 a.m. from Ambleteuse in the North of France and landing was at East Studdal, near Dover. The flight was completed in 1 hour and 15 minutes for a total distance covered of including over the English Channel at an altitude of .


title: English Channel

text: On 12 June 1979, the first human-powered aircraft to cross the English Channel was the "Gossamer Albatross", built by American aeronautical engineer Dr. Paul B. MacCready's company AeroVironment, and piloted by Bryan Allen. The crossing was completed in 2 hours and 49 minutes.


title: English Channel

text: On 4 August 2019, Frenchman Franky Zapata became the first person to cross the English Channel on a jet-powered Flyboard Air. The board was powered by a kerosene-filled backpack. Zapata made the journey in 22 minutes, having landed on a boat half-way across to refuel.


title: English Channel

text: The sport of Channel swimming traces its origins to the latter part of the 19th century when Captain Matthew Webb made the first observed and unassisted swim across the Strait of Dover, swimming from England to France on 24–25 August 1875 in 21 hours 45 minutes.


title: English Channel

text: Up to 1927, fewer than ten swimmers (including the first woman, Gertrude Ederle in 1926) had managed to successfully swim the English Channel, and many dubious claims had been made. The Channel Swimming Association (CSA) was founded to authenticate and ratify swimmers' claims to have swum the Channel and to verify crossing times. The CSA was dissolved in 1999 and was succeeded by two separate organisations: CSA Ltd (CSA) and the Channel Swimming and Piloting Federation (CSPF), both observe and authenticate cross-Channel swims in the Strait of Dover. The Channel Crossing Association was also set up to cater for unorthodox crossings.


title: English Channel

text: The team with the most Channel swims to its credit is the Serpentine Swimming Club in London, followed by the international Sri Chinmoy Marathon Team.


title: English Channel

text: As at 2005, 811 people had completed 1,185 verified crossings under the rules of the CSA and the CSPF. The number of swims conducted under and ratified by the Channel Swimming Association to 2005 was 982 by 665 people. This includes 24 two-way crossings and three three-way crossings.


title: English Channel

text: The Strait of Dover is the busiest stretch of water in the world. It is governed by International Law as described in "Unorthodox Crossing of the Dover Strait Traffic Separation Scheme". It states: "[In] exceptional cases the French Maritime Authorities may grant authority for unorthodox craft to cross French territorial waters within the Traffic Separation Scheme when these craft set off from the British coast, on condition that the request for authorisation is sent to them with the opinion of the British Maritime Authorities."


title: English Channel

text: The fastest verified swim of the Channel was by the Australian Trent Grimsey on 8 September 2012, in 6 hours 55 minutes, beating the previous record set in 2007 by Bulgarian swimmer Petar Stoychev.


title: English Channel

text: There may have been some unreported swims of the Channel, by people intent on entering Britain in circumvention of immigration controls. A failed attempt to cross the Channel by two Syrian refugees in October 2014 came to light when their bodies were discovered on the shores of the North Sea in Norway and the Netherlands.


title: English Channel

text: PLUTO was war-time fuel delivery project of "pipelines under the ocean" from England to France. Though plagued with technical difficulties during the Battle of Normandy, the pipelines delivered about 8% of the fuel requirements of the allied forces between D-Day and VE-Day.


title: OK Computer

text: OK Computer is the third studio album by the English rock band Radiohead, released in Japan on 21 May 1997 and in the UK on 16 June 1997. Radiohead self-produced the album with Nigel Godrich, an arrangement they have used for their subsequent albums. Radiohead recorded most of "OK Computer" in their rehearsal space in Oxfordshire and the historic mansion of St Catherine's Court in Bath in 1996 and early 1997. The band distanced themselves from the guitar-centred, lyrically introspective style of their previous album, "The Bends". "OK Computer"s abstract lyrics, densely layered sound and eclectic influences laid the groundwork for Radiohead's later, more experimental work.


title: OK Computer

text: The album's lyrics depict a world fraught with rampant consumerism, social alienation, emotional isolation and political malaise; in this capacity, "OK Computer" has been said to have prescient insight into the mood of 21st-century life. The band used unconventional production techniques, including natural reverberation through recording on a staircase, and no audio separation. Strings were recorded at Abbey Road Studios in London. Guitarist Ed O'Brien estimated that 80 per cent of the album was recorded live.


title: OK Computer

text: Despite lowered sales estimates by EMI, who deemed the record uncommercial and difficult to market, "OK Computer" reached number one on the UK Albums Chart and debuted at number 21 on the "Billboard" 200, Radiohead's highest album entry on the US charts at the time, and was soon certified 5× platinum in the UK and double platinum in the US. The songs "Paranoid Android", "Karma Police", "Lucky" and "No Surprises" were released as singles. The album expanded Radiohead's international popularity and has sold at least 7.8 million units worldwide. A remastered version with additional tracks, "OKNOTOK 1997 2017", was released in 2017, marking the album's twentieth anniversary. In 2019, in response to an internet leak, Radiohead released "MiniDiscs [Hacked]", comprising hours of demos, rehearsals, live performances and other material.


title: OK Computer

text: "OK Computer" received critical acclaim and has been cited by listeners, critics and musicians as one of the greatest albums of all time. It was nominated for the Album of the Year and won Best Alternative Music Album at the 1998 Grammy Awards. It was also nominated for Best British Album at the 1998 Brit Awards. The album initiated a stylistic shift in British rock away from Britpop toward melancholic, atmospheric alternative rock that became more prevalent in the next decade. In 2014, it was included by the United States Library of Congress in the National Recording Registry as "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".


title: OK Computer

text: In 1995, Radiohead toured in support of their second album, "The Bends" (1995). Midway through the tour, Brian Eno commissioned them to contribute a song to "The Help Album", a charity compilation organised by War Child; the album was to be recorded over the course of a single day, 4 September 1995, and rush-released that week. Radiohead recorded "Lucky" in five hours with engineer Nigel Godrich, who had engineered on "The Bends" and produced several Radiohead B-sides. Godrich said of the session: "Those things are the most inspiring, when you do stuff really fast and there's nothing to lose. We left feeling fairly euphoric. So after establishing a bit of a rapport work-wise, I was sort of hoping I would be involved with the next album." Singer Thom Yorke said "Lucky" shaped the nascent sound and mood of their upcoming record: Lucky' was indicative of what we wanted to do. It was like the first mark on the wall."


title: OK Computer

text: Radiohead found touring stressful and took a break in January 1996. They sought to distance their new material from the introspective style of "The Bends". Drummer Philip Selway said: "There was an awful lot of soul-searching [on "The Bends"]. To do that again on another album would be excruciatingly boring." Yorke said he did not want to do "another miserable, morbid and negative record", and was "writing down all the positive things that I hear or see. I'm not able to put them into music yet and I don't want to just force it."


title: OK Computer

text: The critical and commercial success of "The Bends" gave Radiohead the confidence to self-produce their third album. Their label Parlophone gave them a £100,000 budget for recording equipment. Guitarist Jonny Greenwood said "the only concept that we had for this album was that we wanted to record it away from the city and that we wanted to record it ourselves". According to guitarist Ed O'Brien, "Everyone said, 'You'll sell six or seven million if you bring out "The Bends Pt 2",' and we're like, 'We'll kick against that and do the opposite'." A number of producers, including major figures such as R.E.M. producer Scott Litt, were suggested, but the band were encouraged by their sessions with Godrich. They consulted him for advice on what equipment to use, and prepared for the sessions by buying their own equipment, including a plate reverberator purchased from songwriter Jona Lewie. Although Godrich had sought to focus his work on electronic dance music, he outgrew his role as advisor and became the album's co-producer.


title: OK Computer

text: In early 1996, Radiohead recorded demos for their third album at Chipping Norton Recording Studios, Oxford. In July, they began rehearsing and recording in their Canned Applause studio, a converted shed near Didcot, Oxfordshire. Even without the deadline that contributed to the stress of "The Bends", the band had difficulties, which Selway blamed on their choice to self-produce: "We're jumping from song to song, and when we started to run out of ideas, we'd move on to a new song ... The stupid thing was that we were nearly finished when we'd move on, because so much work had gone into them."


title: OK Computer

text: The members worked with nearly equal roles in the production and formation of the music, though Yorke was still firmly "the loudest voice", according to O'Brien. Selway said "we give each other an awful lot of space to develop our parts, but at the same time we are all very critical about what the other person is doing." Godrich's role as co-producer was part collaborator, part managerial outsider. He said that Radiohead "need to have another person outside their unit, especially when they're all playing together, to say when the take goes well ... I take up slack when people aren't taking responsibility—the term producing a record means taking responsibility for the record ... It's my job to ensure that they get the ideas across." Godrich has produced every Radiohead album since, and has been characterised as Radiohead's "sixth member", an allusion to George Martin's nickname as the "fifth Beatle".


title: OK Computer

text: Radiohead decided that Canned Applause was an unsatisfactory recording location, which Yorke attributed to its proximity to the band members' homes, and Jonny Greenwood attributed to its lack of dining and bathroom facilities. The group had nearly completed four songs: "Electioneering", "No Surprises", "Subterranean Homesick Alien" and "The Tourist". They took a break from recording to embark on an American tour in 1996, opening for Alanis Morissette, performing early versions of several new songs.


title: OK Computer

text: During the tour, filmmaker Baz Luhrmann commissioned Radiohead to write a song for his upcoming film "Romeo + Juliet" and gave them the final 30 minutes of the film. Yorke said: "When we saw the scene in which Claire Danes holds the Colt .45 against her head, we started working on the song immediately." Soon afterwards, the band wrote and recorded "Exit Music (For a Film)"; the track plays over the film's end credits but was excluded from the soundtrack album at the band's request. The song helped shape the direction of the rest of the album; Yorke said it "was the first performance we'd ever recorded where every note of it made my head spin—something I was proud of, something I could turn up really, really loud and not wince at any moment."


title: OK Computer

text: Radiohead resumed recording in September 1996 at St Catherine's Court, a historic mansion near Bath owned by the actress Jane Seymour. It was unoccupied but sometimes used for corporate functions. The change of setting marked an important transition in the recording process. Greenwood, comparing the mansion to previous studio settings, said it "was less like a laboratory experiment, which is what being in a studio is usually like, and more about a group of people making their first record together".


title: OK Computer

text: The band made extensive use of the different rooms and acoustics in the house. The vocals on "Exit Music (For a Film)" feature natural reverberation achieved by recording on a stone staircase, and "Let Down" was recorded in a ballroom at 3 a.m. Isolation allowed the band to work at a different pace, with more flexible and spontaneous working hours. O'Brien said that "the biggest pressure was actually completing [the recording]. We weren't given any deadlines and we had complete freedom to do what we wanted. We were delaying it because we were a bit frightened of actually finishing stuff." Yorke was satisfied with the recordings made at the location, and enjoyed working without audio separation, meaning that instruments were not overdubbed separately. O'Brien estimated that 80 per cent of the album was recorded live, and said: "I hate doing overdubs, because it just doesn't feel natural. ... Something special happens when you're playing live; a lot of it is just looking at one another and knowing there are four other people making it happen." Many of Yorke's vocals were first takes; he felt that if he made other attempts he would "start to think about it and it would sound really lame".


title: OK Computer

text: Radiohead returned to Canned Applause in October for rehearsals, and completed most of "OK Computer" in further sessions at St. Catherine's Court. By Christmas, they had narrowed the track listing to 14 songs. The strings were recorded at Abbey Road Studios in London in January 1997. The album was mixed over the next two months at various London studios, then mastered by Chris Blair at Abbey Road. Godrich preferred a quick and "hands-off" approach to mixing, and said: "I feel like I get too into it. I start fiddling with things and I fuck it up ... I generally take about half a day to do a mix. If it's any longer than that, you lose it. The hardest thing is trying to stay fresh, to stay objective."


title: OK Computer

text: Yorke said that the starting point for the record was the "incredibly dense and terrifying sound" of "Bitches Brew", the 1970 avant-garde jazz fusion album by Miles Davis. He described the sound of "Bitches Brew" to "Q": "It was building something up and watching it fall apart, that's the beauty of it. It was at the core of what we were trying to do with "OK Computer"." Yorke identified "I'll Wear It Proudly" by Elvis Costello, "Fall on Me" by R.E.M., "Dress" by PJ Harvey and "A Day in the Life" by the Beatles as particularly influential on his songwriting. Radiohead drew further inspiration from the recording style of film soundtrack composer Ennio Morricone and the krautrock band Can, musicians Yorke described as "abusing the recording process". Jonny Greenwood described "OK Computer" as a product of being "in love with all these brilliant records ... trying to recreate them, and missing".


title: OK Computer

text: According to Yorke, Radiohead hoped to achieve an "atmosphere that's perhaps a bit shocking when you first hear it, but only as shocking as the atmosphere on the Beach Boys' "Pet Sounds"". They expanded their instrumentation to include electric piano, Mellotron, cello and other strings, glockenspiel and electronic effects. Jonny Greenwood summarised the exploratory approach as "when we've got what we suspect to be an amazing song, but nobody knows what they're gonna play on it." "Spin" characterised "OK Computer" as sounding like "a DIY electronica album made with guitars".


title: OK Computer

text: Critics suggested a stylistic debt to 1970s progressive rock, an influence that Radiohead have disavowed. According to Andy Greene in "Rolling Stone", Radiohead "were collectively hostile to seventies progressive rock ... but that didn't stop them from reinventing prog from scratch on "OK Computer", particularly on the six-and-a-half-minute 'Paranoid Android'." Tom Hull believed the album was "still prog, but may just be because rock has so thoroughly enveloped musical storytelling that this sort of thing has become inevitable." Writing in 2017, "The New Yorker"s Kelefa Sanneh said "OK Computer" "was profoundly prog: grand and dystopian, with a lead single that was more than six minutes long".


title: OK Computer

text: The album's lyrics, written by Yorke, are more abstract compared to his personal, emotional lyrics for "The Bends". Critic Alex Ross said the lyrics "seemed a mixture of overheard conversations, techno-speak, and fragments of a harsh diary" with "images of riot police at political rallies, anguished lives in tidy suburbs, yuppies freaking out, sympathetic aliens gliding overhead." Recurring themes include transport, technology, insanity, death, modern British life, globalisation and anti-capitalism. Yorke said: "On this album, the outside world became all there was ... I'm just taking Polaroids of things around me moving too fast." He told "Q": "It was like there's a secret camera in a room and it's watching the character who walks in—a different character for each song. The camera's not quite me. It's neutral, emotionless. But not emotionless at all. In fact, the very opposite." Yorke also drew inspiration from books, including Noam Chomsky's political writing, Eric Hobsbawm's "The Age of Extremes", Will Hutton's "The State We're In", Jonathan Coe's "What a Carve Up!" and Philip K. Dick's "VALIS".


title: OK Computer

text: The songs of "OK Computer" do not have a coherent narrative, and the album's lyrics are generally considered abstract or oblique. Nonetheless, many musical critics, journalists, and scholars consider the album to be a concept album or song cycle, or have analysed it as a concept album, noting its strong thematic cohesion, aesthetic unity, and the structural logic of the song sequencing. Although the songs share common themes, Radiohead have said they do not consider "OK Computer" a concept album and did not intend to link the songs through a narrative or unifying concept while it was being written. Jonny Greenwood said: "I think one album title and one computer voice do not make a concept album. That's a bit of a red herring." However, the band intended the album to be heard as a whole, and spent two weeks ordering the track list. O'Brien said: "The context of each song is really important ... It's not a concept album but there is a continuity there."


title: OK Computer

text: The opening track, "Airbag", is underpinned by a beat built from a seconds-long recording of Selway's drumming. The band sampled the drum track with a sampler and edited it with a Macintosh computer, inspired by the music of DJ Shadow, but admitted to making approximations in emulating Shadow's style due to their programming inexperience. The bassline stops and starts unexpectedly, achieving an effect similar to 1970s dub. The song's references to automobile crashes and reincarnation were inspired by a magazine article titled "An Airbag Saved My Life" and "The Tibetan Book of the Dead". Yorke wrote "Airbag" about the illusion of safety offered by modern transit, and "the idea that whenever you go out on the road you could be killed". The BBC wrote about the influence of J. G. Ballard, especially his 1973 novel "Crash", on the lyrics. Music journalist Tim Footman noted that the song's technical innovations and lyrical concerns demonstrated the "key paradox" of the album: "The musicians and producer are delighting in the sonic possibilities of modern technology; the singer, meanwhile, is railing against its social, moral, and psychological impact ... It's a contradiction mirrored in the culture clash of the music, with the 'real' guitars negotiating an uneasy stand-off with the hacked-up, processed drums."


title: OK Computer

text: Split into four sections with an overall running time of 6:23, "Paranoid Android" is among the band's longest songs. The unconventional structure was inspired by the Beatles' "Happiness Is a Warm Gun" and Queen's "Bohemian Rhapsody", which also eschew a traditional verse-chorus-verse structure. Its musical style was also inspired by the music of the Pixies. The song was written by Yorke after an unpleasant night at a Los Angeles bar, where he saw a woman react violently after someone spilled a drink on her. Its title and lyrics are a reference to Marvin the Paranoid Android from Douglas Adams's "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" series.


title: OK Computer

text: The use of electric keyboards in "Subterranean Homesick Alien" is an example of the band's attempts to emulate the atmosphere of "Bitches Brew". Its title references the Bob Dylan song "Subterranean Homesick Blues", and the lyrics describe an isolated narrator who fantasises about being abducted by extraterrestrials. The narrator speculates that, upon returning to Earth, his friends would not believe his story and he would remain a misfit. The lyrics were inspired by an assignment from Yorke's time at Abingdon School to write a piece of "Martian poetry", a British literary movement that humorously recontextualises mundane aspects of human life from an alien perspective.


title: OK Computer

text: William Shakespeare's "Romeo and Juliet" inspired the lyrics for "Exit Music (For a Film)". Initially Yorke wanted to work lines from the play into the song, but the final draft of the lyrics became a broad summary of the narrative. He said: "I saw the Zeffirelli version when I was 13 and I cried my eyes out, because I couldn't understand why, the morning after they shagged, they didn't just run away. It's a song for two people who should run away before all the bad stuff starts." Yorke compared the opening of the song, which mostly features his singing paired with acoustic guitar, to Johnny Cash's "At Folsom Prison". Mellotron choir and other electronic voices are used throughout the track. The song climaxes with the entrance of drums and distorted bass run through a fuzz pedal. The climactic portion of the song is an attempt to emulate the sound of trip hop group Portishead, but in a style that bass player Colin Greenwood called more "stilted and leaden and mechanical". The song concludes by fading back to Yorke's voice, acoustic guitar and Mellotron.


title: OK Computer

text: "Let Down" contains multilayered arpeggiated guitars and electric piano. Jonny Greenwood plays his guitar part in a different time signature to the other instruments. O'Brien said the song was influenced by Phil Spector, a producer and songwriter best known for his reverberating "Wall of Sound" recording techniques. The lyrics, Yorke said, are about a fear of being trapped, and "about that feeling that you get when you're in transit but you're not in control of it—you just go past thousands of places and thousands of people and you're completely removed from it". Of the line "Don't get sentimental / It always ends up drivel", Yorke said: "Sentimentality is being emotional for the sake of it. We're bombarded with sentiment, people emoting. That's the Let Down. Feeling every emotion is fake. Or rather every emotion is on the same plane whether it's a car advert or a pop song." Yorke felt that scepticism of emotion was characteristic of Generation X and that it had informed the band's approach to the album.


title: OK Computer

text: "Karma Police" has two main verses that alternate with a subdued break, followed by a different ending section. The verses centre around acoustic guitar and piano, with a chord progression indebted to the Beatles' "Sexy Sadie". Starting at 2:34, the song transitions into an orchestrated section with the repeated line "For a minute there, I lost myself". It ends with guitarist Ed O'Brien generating feedback using a delay effect. The title and lyrics to "Karma Police" originate from an in-joke during "The Bends" tour; Jonny Greenwood said "whenever someone was behaving in a particularly shitty way, we'd say 'The karma police will catch up with him sooner or later.


title: OK Computer

text: "Fitter Happier" is a short musique concrète track that consists of sampled musical and background sound and spoken-word lyrics recited by "Fred", a synthesised voice from the Macintosh SimpleText application. Yorke wrote the lyrics "in ten minutes" after a period of writer's block while the rest of the band were playing. He described the words as a checklist of slogans for the 1990s; he considered it "the most upsetting thing I've ever written", and said it was "liberating" to give the words to a neutral-sounding computer voice. Among the samples in the background is a loop from the 1975 film "Three Days of the Condor". The band considered using "Fitter Happier" as the album's opening track, but decided the effect was off-putting.


title: OK Computer

text: Steve Lowe called the song "penetrating surgery on pseudo-meaningful corporations' lifestyles" with "a repugnance for prevailing yuppified social values". Among the loosely connected imagery of the lyrics, Footman identified the song's subject as "the materially comfortable, morally empty embodiment of modern, Western humanity, half-salaryman, half-Stepford Wife, destined for the metaphorical farrowing crate, propped up on Prozac, Viagra and anything else his insurance plan can cover." Sam Steele called the lyrics "a stream of received imagery: scraps of media information, interspersed with lifestyle ad slogans and private prayers for a healthier existence. It is the hum of a world buzzing with words, one of the messages seeming to be that we live in such a synthetic universe we have grown unable to detect reality from artifice."


title: OK Computer

text: "Electioneering", featuring a cowbell and a distorted guitar solo, is the album's most rock-oriented track and one of the heaviest songs Radiohead has recorded. It has been compared to Radiohead's earlier style on "Pablo Honey". The cynical "Electioneering" is the album's most directly political song, with lyrics inspired by the Poll Tax Riots. The song was also inspired by Chomsky's "", a book analysing contemporary mass media under the propaganda model. Yorke likened its lyrics, which focus on political and artistic compromise, to "a preacher ranting in front of a bank of microphones". Regarding its oblique political references, Yorke said, "What can you say about the IMF, or politicians? Or people selling arms to African countries, employing slave labour or whatever. What can you say? You just write down 'Cattle prods and the IMF' and people who know, know." O'Brien said the song was about the promotional cycle of touring: "After a while you feel like a politician who has to kiss babies and shake hands all day long."


title: OK Computer

text: "Climbing Up the Walls" – described by "Melody Maker" as "monumental chaos" – is layered with a string section, ambient noise and repetitive, metallic percussion. The string section, composed by Jonny Greenwood and written for 16 instruments, was inspired by modern classical composer Krzysztof Penderecki's "Threnody to the Victims of Hiroshima". Greenwood said, "I got very excited at the prospect of doing string parts that didn't sound like 'Eleanor Rigby', which is what all string parts have sounded like for the past 30 years." "Select" described Yorke's distraught vocals and the atonal strings as "Thom's voice dissolving into a fearful, blood-clotted scream as Jonny whips the sound of a million dying elephants into a crescendo". For the lyrics, Yorke drew from his time as an orderly in a mental hospital during the Care in the Community policy of deinstitutionalising mental health patients, and a "New York Times" article about serial killers. He said:


title: OK Computer

text: "No Surprises", recorded in a single take, is arranged with electric guitar (inspired by the Beach Boys' "Wouldn't It Be Nice"), acoustic guitar, glockenspiel and vocal harmonies. The band strove to replicate the mood of Louis Armstrong's 1968 recording of "What a Wonderful World" and the soul music of Marvin Gaye. Yorke identified the subject of the song as "someone who's trying hard to keep it together but can't". The lyrics seem to portray a suicide or an unfulfilling life, and dissatisfaction with contemporary social and political order. Some lines refer to rural or suburban imagery. One of the key metaphors in the song is the opening line, "a heart that's full up like a landfill"; according to Yorke, the song is a "fucked-up nursery rhyme" that "stems from my unhealthy obsession of what to do with plastic boxes and plastic bottles ... All this stuff is getting buried, the debris of our lives. It doesn't rot, it just stays there. That's how we deal, that's how I deal with stuff, I bury it." The song's gentle mood contrasts sharply with its harsh lyrics; Steele said, "even when the subject is suicide ... O'Brien's guitar is as soothing as balm on a red-raw psyche, the song rendered like a bittersweet child's prayer."


title: OK Computer

text: "Lucky" was inspired by the Bosnian War. Sam Taylor said it was "the one track on ["The Help Album"] to capture the sombre terror of the conflict", and that its serious subject matter and dark tone made the band "too 'real' to be allowed on the Britpop gravy train". The lyrics were pared down from many pages of notes, and were originally more politically explicit. The lyrics depict a man surviving an aeroplane crash and are drawn from Yorke's anxiety about transportation. The musical centerpiece of "Lucky" is its three-piece guitar arrangement, which grew out of the high-pitched chiming sound played by O'Brien in the song's introduction, achieved by strumming above the guitar nut. Critics likened its lead guitar to Pink Floyd and, more broadly, arena rock.


title: OK Computer

text: The album ends with "The Tourist", which Jonny Greenwood wrote as an unusually staid piece where something "doesn't have to happen ... every three seconds". He said, The Tourist' doesn't sound like Radiohead at all. It has become a song with space." The lyrics, written by Yorke, were inspired by his experience of watching American tourists in France frantically trying to see as many tourist attractions as possible. He said it was chosen as the closing track because "a lot of the album was about background noise and everything moving too fast and not being able to keep up. It was really obvious to have 'Tourist' as the last song. That song was written to me from me, saying, 'Idiot, slow down.' Because at that point, I "needed" to. So that was the only resolution there could be: to slow down." The "unexpectedly bluesy waltz" draws to a close as the guitars drop out, leaving only drums and bass, and concludes with the sound of a small bell.


title: OK Computer

text: The title "OK Computer" is taken from the 1978 "Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" radio series, in which the character Zaphod Beeblebrox speaks the phrase "Okay, computer, I want full manual control now." The members of Radiohead listened to the series on the bus during their 1996 tour and Yorke made a note of the phrase. "OK Computer" became a working title for the B-side "Palo Alto", which had been considered for inclusion on the album. The title stuck with the band; according to Jonny Greenwood, it "started attaching itself and creating all these weird resonances with what we were trying to do".


title: OK Computer

text: Yorke said the title "refers to embracing the future, it refers to being terrified of the future, of our future, of everyone else's. It's to do with standing in a room where all these appliances are going off and all these machines and computers and so on ... and the sound it makes." He described the title as "a really resigned, terrified phrase", to him similar to the Coca-Cola advertisement "I'd Like to Teach the World to Sing". "Wired" writer Leander Kahney suggests that it is an homage to Macintosh computers, as the Mac's speech recognition software responds to the command "OK computer" as an alternative to clicking the "OK" button. Other titles considered were "Ones and Zeroes"—a reference to the binary numeral system—and "Your Home May Be at Risk If You Do Not Keep Up Payments".


title: OK Computer

text: The "OK Computer" artwork is a computer-generated collage of images and text created by Yorke, credited under the pseudonym the White Chocolate Farm, and Stanley Donwood. Yorke commissioned Donwood to work on a visual diary alongside the recording sessions. Yorke explained, "If I'm shown some kind of visual representation of the music, only then do I feel confident. Up until that point, I'm a bit of a whirlwind." The blue-and-white palette was, according to Donwood, the result of "trying to make something the colour of bleached bone". The image of two stick figures shaking hands appears in the liner notes and on the disc label in CD and LP releases. Yorke explained the image as emblematic of exploitation: "Someone's being sold something they don't really want, and someone's being friendly because they're trying to sell something. That's what it means to me." The image would later be used as the artwork for Radiohead's first compilation album, "". Explaining the artwork's themes, Yorke said, "It's quite sad, and quite funny as well. All the artwork and so on ... It was all the things that I hadn't said in the songs."


title: OK Computer

text: Motifs in the artwork include motorways, aeroplanes, families with children, corporate logos and cityscapes. The photograph of a motorway on the cover was likely taken in Hartford, Connecticut, where Radiohead performed in 1996. The words "Lost Child" feature prominently on the cover, and the booklet artwork contains phrases in the constructed language Esperanto and health-related instructions in both English and Greek. The "Uncut" critic David Cavanagh said the use of non-sequiturs created an effect "akin to being lifestyle-coached by a lunatic". White scribbles, Donwood's method of correcting mistakes rather than using the computer function undo, are present everywhere in the collages. The liner notes contain the full lyrics, rendered with atypical syntax, alternate spelling and small annotations. The lyrics are also arranged and spaced in shapes that resemble hidden images. In keeping with the band's then-emerging anti-corporate stance, the production credits contain the ironic copyright notice "Lyrics reproduced by kind permission even though we wrote them."


title: OK Computer

text: According to Selway, Radiohead's American label Capitol saw the album as commercial suicide'. They weren't really into it. At that point, we got the fear. How is this going to be received?" Yorke recalled: "When we first gave it to Capitol, they were taken aback. I don't really know why it's so important now, but I'm excited about it." Capitol lowered its sales forecast from two million to half a million. In O'Brien's view, only Parlophone, the band's British label, remained optimistic, while global distributors dramatically reduced their sales estimates. Label representatives were reportedly disappointed with the lack of marketable singles, especially the absence of anything resembling Radiohead's 1992 hit "Creep". ""OK Computer" isn't the album we're going to rule the world with", Colin Greenwood predicted at the time. "It's not as hitting-everything-loudly-whilst-waggling-the-tongue-in-and-out, like "The Bends". There's less of the Van Halen factor."


title: OK Computer

text: Parlophone launched an unorthodox advertising campaign, taking full-page advertisements in high-profile British newspapers and tube stations with lyrics for "Fitter Happier" in large black letters against white backgrounds. The same lyrics, and artwork adapted from the album, were repurposed for shirt designs. Yorke said they chose the "Fitter Happier" lyrics to link what a critic called "a coherent set of concerns" between the album artwork and its promotional material.


title: OK Computer

text: Other unconventional merchandise included a floppy disk containing Radiohead screensavers and an FM radio in the shape of a desktop computer. In America, Capitol sent 1,000 cassette players to prominent members of the press and music industry, each with a copy of the album permanently glued inside. Capitol president Gary Gersh said, "Our job is just to take them as a left-of-centre band and bring the centre to them. That's our focus, and we won't let up until they're the biggest band in the world."


title: OK Computer

text: Radiohead planned to produce a video for every song on the album, but the project was abandoned due to financial and time constraints. According to "No Surprises" video director Grant Gee, the plan was scrapped when the videos for "Paranoid Android" and "Karma Police" went over budget. Also scrapped were plans for trip hop group Massive Attack to remix the album.


title: OK Computer

text: Radiohead's website was created to promote the album, which went live at the time of its release, making the band the first to manage an online presence. Their first fansite, "atease", was made shortly following the album's release, with its title taken from "Fitter Happier". In 2017, during "OK Computer"s 20th anniversary, Radiohead's website was temporarily restored to its 1997 state.


title: OK Computer

text: Radiohead chose "Paranoid Android" as the lead single, despite its unusually long running time and lack of a catchy chorus. Colin Greenwood said the song was "hardly the radio-friendly, breakthrough, buzz bin unit shifter [radio stations] can have been expecting", but that Capitol supported the choice. The song premiered on the Radio 1 programme "The Evening Session" in April 1997 and was released as a single in May 1997. On the strength of frequent radio play on Radio 1 and rotation of the song's music video on MTV, "Paranoid Android" reached number three in the UK, giving Radiohead their highest chart position.


title: OK Computer

text: "Karma Police" was released in August 1997 and "No Surprises" in January 1998. Both singles charted in the UK top ten, and "Karma Police" peaked at number 14 on the "Billboard" Modern Rock Tracks chart. "Lucky" was released as a single in France, but did not chart. "Let Down", considered for release as the lead single, was issued as a promotional single in September 1997 and charted on the Modern Rock Tracks chart at number 29. "Meeting People Is Easy", Grant Gee's rockumentary following the band on their "OK Computer" world tour, premiered in November 1998.


title: OK Computer

text: Radiohead embarked on a world tour in promotion of "OK Computer", the "Against Demons" tour, commencing at the album launch in Barcelona on 22 May 1997. The tour took the band across the UK and Ireland, continental Europe, North America, Japan and Australasia, concluding on 18 April 1998 in New York. It was taxing for the band, particularly Yorke, who said: "That tour was a year too long. I was the first person to tire of it, then six months later everyone in the band was saying it. Then six months after that, nobody was talking any more." The tour included Radiohead's first headline Glastonbury Festival performance on 28 June 1997; despite technical problems that almost caused Yorke to abandon the stage, the performance was acclaimed and cemented Radiohead as a major live act. "Rolling Stone" described it as "an absolute triumph", and in 2004 "Q" called it the greatest concert of all time.


title: OK Computer

text: "OK Computer" was released in Japan on 21 May, in the UK on 16 June, in Canada on 17 June and in the US on 1 July. It was released on CD, double-LP vinyl record, cassette and MiniDisc. It debuted at number one in the UK with sales of 136,000 copies in its first week. In the US, it debuted at number 21 on the "Billboard" 200. It held the number-one spot in the UK for two weeks and stayed in the top ten for several more, becoming the UK's eighth-bestselling record that year.


title: OK Computer

text: By February 1998, "OK Computer" had sold at least half a million copies in the UK and 2million worldwide. By September 2000, it had sold 4.5million copies worldwide. The "Los Angeles Times" reported that by June 2001 it had sold 1.4 million copies in the US, and in April 2006 the IFPI announced it had sold 3 million copies across Europe. It has been certified triple platinum in the UK and double platinum in the US, in addition to certifications in other markets. By May 2016, Nielsen SoundScan figures showed "OK Computer" had sold 2.5million digital album units in the US, plus 900,000 sales measured in album-equivalent units. Twenty years to the week after its release, the Official Charts Company recorded total UK sales of 1.5million, including album-equivalent units. Tallying American and European sales, "OK Computer" has sold at least 6.9 million copies worldwide (or 7.8 million with album-equivalent units).


title: OK Computer

text: "OK Computer" was almost uniformly praised. Critics described it as a landmark release of far-reaching impact and importance, but noted that its experimentalism made it a challenging listen. According to Tim Footman, "Not since 1967, with the release of "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band", had so many major critics agreed immediately, not only on an album's merits, but on its long-term significance, and its ability to encapsulate a particular point in history." In the British press, the album garnered favourable reviews in "NME", "Melody Maker", "The Guardian" and "Q". Nick Kent wrote in "Mojo" that "Others may end up selling more, but in 20 years' time I'm betting "OK Computer" will be seen as the key record of 1997, the one to take rock forward instead of artfully revamping images and song-structures from an earlier era." John Harris wrote in "Select": "Every word sounds achingly sincere, every note spewed from the heart, and yet it roots itself firmly in a world of steel, glass, random-access memory and prickly-skinned paranoia."


title: OK Computer

text: The album was well received by critics in North America. "Rolling Stone", "Spin", the "Los Angeles Times", the "Pittsburgh Post-Gazette", "Pitchfork" and the "Daily Herald" published positive reviews. In "The New Yorker", Alex Ross praised its progressiveness, and contrasted Radiohead's risk-taking with the musically conservative "dadrock" of their contemporaries Oasis. Ross wrote: "Throughout the album, contrasts of mood and style are extreme ... This band has pulled off one of the great art-pop balancing acts in the history of rock." Ryan Schreiber of "Pitchfork" lauded the record's emotional appeal, writing that it "is brimming with genuine emotion, beautiful and complex imagery and music, and lyrics that are at once passive and fire-breathing".


title: OK Computer

text: Reviews for "Entertainment Weekly", the "Chicago Tribune", and "Time" were mixed. Robert Christgau from "The Village Voice" said Radiohead immersed Yorke's vocals in "enough electronic marginal distinction to feed a coal town for a month" to compensate for the "soulless" songs, resulting in "arid" art rock. In an otherwise positive review, Andy Gill wrote for "The Independent:" "For all its ambition and determination to break new ground, "OK Computer" is not, finally, as impressive as "The Bends", which covered much the same sort of emotional knots, but with better tunes. It is easy to be impressed by, but ultimately hard to love, an album that luxuriates so readily in its own despondency."


title: OK Computer

text: "OK Computer" was nominated for Grammy Awards as Album of the Year and Best Alternative Music Album at the 40th Annual Grammy Awards in 1998, winning the latter. It was also nominated for Best British Album at the 1998 Brit Awards. The album was shortlisted for the 1997 Mercury Prize, a prestigious award recognising the best British or Irish album of the year. The day before the winner was announced, oddsmakers had given "OK Computer" the best chance to win among ten nominees, but it lost to "New Forms" by Roni Size/Reprazent.


title: OK Computer

text: The album appeared in many 1997 critics' lists and listener polls for best album of the year. It topped the year-end polls of "Mojo", "Vox", "Entertainment Weekly", "Hot Press", "Muziekkrant OOR", "HUMO", "Eye Weekly" and "Inpress", and tied for first place with Daft Punk's "Homework" in "The Face". The album came second in "NME", "Melody Maker", "Rolling Stone", "Village Voice", "Spin" and "Uncut". "Q" and "Les Inrockuptibles" both listed the album in their unranked year-end polls.


title: OK Computer

text: Praise for the album overwhelmed the band; Greenwood felt the praise had been exaggerated because "The Bends" had been "under-reviewed possibly and under-received." They rejected links to progressive rock and art rock, despite comparisons to Pink Floyd's 1973 album "The Dark Side of the Moon". Yorke responded: "We write pop songs ... There was no intention of it being 'art'. It's a reflection of all the disparate things we were listening to when we recorded it." He was nevertheless pleased that listeners identified their influences: "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."


title: OK Computer

text: "OK Computer" has appeared frequently in professional lists of the greatest albums of all time. A number of publications, including "NME", "Melody Maker", "Alternative Press", "Spin", "Pitchfork", "Time", "Metro Weekly" and "Slant Magazine" placed "OK Computer" prominently in lists of best albums of the 1990s or of all time. It was voted number 4 in Colin Larkin's "All Time Top 1000 Albums" 3rd Edition (2000). "Rolling Stone" ranked it 42 on its list of The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time in 2020. It was previously ranked at 162 in 2003 and 2012. Retrospective reviews from BBC Music, "The A.V. Club" and "Slant" received the album favourably. "Rolling Stone" gave the album five stars in the 2004 edition of "The Rolling Stone Album Guide", with critic Rob Sheffield saying, "Radiohead was claiming the high ground abandoned by Nirvana, Pearl Jam, U2, R.E.M., everybody; and fans around the world loved them for trying too hard at a time when nobody else was even bothering." "Most would rate "OK Computer" the apogee of pomo texture", Christgau said in retrospect. According to Acclaimed Music, a site which uses statistics to numerically represent reception among critics, "OK Computer" is the 8th most celebrated album of all time. In 2014, the United States National Recording Preservation Board selected the album for preservation in the National Recording Registry of the Library of Congress, which designates it as a sound recording that has had significant cultural, historical or aesthetic impact in American life.


title: OK Computer

text: The album has been cited by some as undeserving of its acclaim. In a poll surveying thousands conducted by BBC Radio 6 Music, "OK Computer" was named the sixth-most overrated album. David H. Green of "The Daily Telegraph" called the album "self-indulgent whingeing" and maintains that the positive critical consensus towards "OK Computer" is an indication of "a 20th-century delusion that rock is the bastion of serious commentary on popular music" to the detriment of electronic and dance music. The album was selected as an entry in "Sacred Cows", an "NME" column questioning the critical status of "revered albums", in which Henry Yates said "there's no defiance, gallows humour or chink of light beneath the curtain, just a sense of meek, resigned despondency" and criticised the record as "the moment when Radiohead stopped being 'good' [compared to "The Bends"] and started being 'important. In a "Spin" article on the "myth" that "Radiohead Can Do No Wrong", Chris Norris argues that the acclaim for "OK Computer" inflated expectations for subsequent Radiohead releases. Christgau felt "the reason the readers of the British magazine "Q" absurdly voted "OK Computer" the greatest album of the 20th century is that it integrated what was briefly called electronica into rock". Having deemed it "self-regarding" and overrated, he later warmed to the record and found it indicative of Radiohead's cerebral sensibility and "rife with discrete pleasures and surprises".


title: OK Computer

text: "OK Computer" was recorded in the lead up to the 1997 general election and released a month after the victory of Tony Blair's New Labour government. The album was perceived by critics as an expression of dissent and scepticism toward the new government and a reaction against the national mood of optimism. Dorian Lynskey wrote, "On May 1, 1997, Labour supporters toasted their landslide victory to the sound of '.' A few weeks later, "OK Computer" appeared like Banquo's ghost to warn: "No, things can only get worse"." According to Amy Britton, the album "showed not everyone was ready to join the party, instead tapping into another feeling felt throughout the UK—pre-millennial angst. ... huge corporations were impossible to fight against—this was the world "OK Computer" soundtracked, not the wave of British optimism."


title: OK Computer

text: In an interview, Yorke doubted that Blair's policies would differ from the preceding two decades of Conservative government. He said the public reaction to the death of Princess Diana was more significant, as a moment when the British public realised "the royals had had us by the balls for the last hundred years, as had the media and the state." The band's distaste with the commercialised promotion of "OK Computer" reinforced their anti-capitalist politics, which would be further explored on their subsequent releases.


title: OK Computer

text: Critics have compared Radiohead's statements of political dissatisfaction to those of earlier rock bands. David Stubbs said that, where punk rock had been a rebellion against a time of deficit and poverty, "OK Computer" protested the "mechanistic convenience" of contemporary surplus and excess. Alex Ross said the album "pictured the onslaught of the Information Age and a young person's panicky embrace of it" and made the band into "the poster boys for a certain kind of knowing alienation—as Talking Heads and R.E.M. had been before." Jon Pareles of "The New York Times" found precedents in the work of Pink Floyd and Madness for Radiohead's concerns "about a culture of numbness, building docile workers and enforced by self-help regimes and anti-depressants".


title: OK Computer

text: The album's tone has been described as millennial or futuristic, anticipating cultural and political trends. According to "The A.V. Club" writer Steven Hyden in the feature "Whatever Happened to Alternative Nation", "Radiohead appeared to be ahead of the curve, forecasting the paranoia, media-driven insanity, and omnipresent sense of impending doom that's subsequently come to characterise everyday life in the 21st century." In "1000 Recordings to Hear Before You Die", Tom Moon described "OK Computer" as a "prescient ... dystopian essay on the darker implications of technology ... oozing [with] a vague sense of dread, and a touch of Big Brother foreboding that bears strong resemblance to the constant disquiet of life on Security Level Orange, post-9/11." Chris Martin of Coldplay remarked that, "It would be interesting to see how the world would be different if Dick Cheney really listened to Radiohead's "OK Computer". I think the world would probably improve. That album is fucking brilliant. It changed my life, so why wouldn't it change his?"


title: OK Computer

text: The album inspired a radio play, also titled "OK Computer", which was first broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 2007. The play, written by Joel Horwood, Chris Perkins, Al Smith and Chris Thorpe, interprets the album's 12 tracks into a story about a man who awakens in a Berlin hospital with memory loss and returns to England with doubts that the life he's returned to is his own.


title: OK Computer

text: The release of "OK Computer" coincided with the decline of Britpop. Through "OK Computer"s influence, the dominant UK guitar pop shifted toward an approximation of "Radiohead's paranoid but confessional, slurry but catchy" approach. Many newer British acts adopted similarly complex, atmospheric arrangements; for example, the post-Britpop band Travis worked with Godrich to create the languid pop texture of "The Man Who", which became the fourth best-selling album of 1999 in the UK. Some in the British press accused Travis of appropriating Radiohead's sound. Steven Hyden of "AV Club" said that by 1999, starting with "The Man Who", "what Radiohead had created in "OK Computer" had already grown much bigger than the band," and that the album went on to influence "a wave of British-rock balladeers that reached its zenith in the '00s".


title: OK Computer

text: "OK Computer"s popularity influenced the next generation of British alternative rock bands, and established musicians in a variety of genres have praised it. Bloc Party and TV on the Radio listened to or were influenced by "OK Computer;" TV on the Radio's debut album was titled "OK Calculator" as a lighthearted tribute. Radiohead described the pervasiveness of bands that "sound like us" as one reason to break with the style of "OK Computer" for their next album, "Kid A".