This article: By late 1995, Radiohead had already recorded one song that would appear on their next record. "Lucky", released as a single to promote the War Child charity's The Help Album, was recorded in a brief session with Nigel Godrich, the young audio engineer who had assisted on The Bends and produced a 1996 B-side, "Talk Show Host". The band decided to self-produce their next album with Godrich, and began work in early 1996. By July they had recorded four songs at their rehearsal studio, Canned Applause, a converted apple shed in the countryside near Didcot, Oxfordshire. In August 1996, Radiohead toured as the opening act for Alanis Morissette. They resumed recording not at a studio but at St. Catherine's Court, a 15th-century mansion near Bath. The sessions were relaxed, with the band playing at all hours of the day, recording in different rooms, and listening to the Beatles, DJ Shadow, Ennio Morricone and Miles Davis for inspiration.Radiohead released their third album, OK Computer, in June 1997. The album found the band experimenting with song structures and incorporating ambient, avant garde and electronic influences, prompting Rolling Stone to call the album a "stunning art-rock tour de force". Radiohead denied being part of the progressive rock genre, but critics began to compare their work to Pink Floyd, a band whose early 1970s work influenced Greenwood's guitar parts at the time. Some compared OK Computer thematically to Floyd's bestseller The Dark Side of the Moon (1973), although Yorke said the album's lyrics were inspired by observing the "speed" of the world in the 1990s. Yorke's lyrics, embodying different characters, had expressed what one magazine called "end-of-the-millennium blues" in contrast to the more personal songs of The Bends. According to journalist Alex Ross, the band had become "the poster boys for a certain kind of knowing alienation—as the Talking Heads and R.E.M. had been before". OK Computer met with critical acclaim. Yorke said he was "amazed it got the reaction it did. None of us... contains an answer for the question: What is the name of the band that resumed recording not at a studio but at St. Catherine's Court?, what is it ?


Radiohead