OK Computer

There are albums that define a decade, and then there is OK Computer, which somehow managed to predict the next two. Released in 1997, Radiohead's third album arrived at a moment when the internet was just becoming a household word, and Thom Yorke was already writing about the anxiety, alienation, and digital dehumanization that the rest of the world wouldn't feel for another ten years. It sounds like a warning that came too late, and it is one of the most important rock albums ever made.

Most of it was recorded inside a 16th-century mansion in Bath called St. Catherine's Court, and you can hear the building in the music. The acoustic guitar on "Exit Music (For a Film)" was captured in a stone staircase. "Let Down" was tracked in the ballroom at three in the morning. The drum loop on opener "Airbag" was run through Jonny Greenwood's guitar pedals until it sounded like something mechanical breaking down. Producer Nigel Godrich, who became so essential that Radiohead has used him on every album since, helped the band turn a crumbling English estate into one of the most sonically inventive records in rock history.

If you've never heard OK Computer, clear your schedule. Start with "Paranoid Android," a six-minute song that shifts through four completely different movements like a fever dream. Then let the whole thing play front to back. By the time "No Surprises" closes everything out with a music box melody about wanting a quiet life, you'll understand why this album still sits at the top of every greatest records list a quarter century later.