The Cover Uncovered: Where is the road on Radiohead’s ‘OK Computer’ album cover?
Before devoting himself full-time to his high school band, Radiohead, frontman Thom Yorke attended Exeter University to study English and fine arts. He credited his time at university as being creatively preparatory for his career to come. However, above all else, it saw his path cross with those of his future wife, Rachel Owen, and Stanley Donwood, the graphic designer behind every Radiohead album cover from The Bends onwards.
Working closely with Yorke to create the sleeve designs, Donwood generally listened to Radiohead’s demos or rehearsals to gather inspiration for each album and single’s visual accompaniment. Working with a palpable motif, he would then blur the lines with artistic abstraction, tailoring a chromatic palette to the mood of the music. In Radiohead’s case, these are usually somewhat bleak pictures.
In 1995, The Bends was stylised with a bold, enhanced image of a CPR mannequin. This visual aspect ties into some of the album’s themes, most tangibly that of ‘My Iron Lung’. Two years later, Yorke and Donwood built upon this approach with several pertinent symbols featured on the iconic cover for OK Computer.
Often regarded as Radiohead’s salient masterpiece, OK Computer is a grim convergence of urban anxiety, existential dread and isolation. Pop cultural references are rife throughout the album, but, thanks to ‘Paranoid Android’ and ‘Fitter Happier’, the most prevalent is Douglas Adams’ The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, a sci-fi novel series that, with Yorke’s gloomy spin, gives the album a dystopian edge.
Heeding the themes of moribund consumerism and sociopolitical alienation, Donwood and Yorke honed in on the urban environment for the OK Computer album cover. In the centre of a pristine white page, we see a miraged road junction with several cars dotted about. A scribbled blur effect gives the road a supernatural aspect, allowing abstractions of congested synapses and the tireless whir of the Information Age.
The central image is open to interpretation in tandem with the music, but the image is an edited photograph of an existing road. The highway is located in Hartford, Connecticut, and this particular patch sports the glamorous name of the I-84/I-91 interchange. The area’s local newspaper, the Hartford Courant, noted potential plans for demolition and reconstruction of the interchange further north or underground in a series of tunnels. Consequently, Radiohead fans may be running out of time to visit this most mundane of musical Meccas.
The OK Computer album cover is otherwise a plaid void, representing the isolation and alienation found within. However, the top right corner features a small collection of smaller symbols to broaden the symbolism. An old-looking “Lost Child” poster confirms the hopelessness conveyed by Yorke’s lyrics, while a recoloured ‘Harmful’ chemical symbol stands at odds with a plea for “No alarms and no surprises, please”.
Finally, completing the cover art is the tip of an aeroplane, presumably taken from an aircraft safety card. An escape slide emanates to the left, where we can see passengers helping one another off the crash-landed aircraft. This image is an evident reference to the “Pull me out of the air crash” line from ‘Lucky’.
Have a listen to ‘Lucky’ below while you examine the brilliant album artwork for OK Computer.
