18 hours of Radiohead's OK Computer Sessions Stolen ... and Then Released by Band*

Well Radiohead did say "OK Computer". Loose lips sink ships and all that.

 

Legally speaking, they do own the masters. They just license through the label. Physically, this us likely just a copy of what they already possess the original of internally...

 

Funny thing is I love oasis too but I was #triggered. I love ok computer more than almost any other album this side of the Beatles or pink floyd.

 

Yes but sometimes when someone comes in to crap on a thread on page 1 an opinion of that negative opinion is warranted.. apparently a good amount of folks skimming through this thread agree with me.

 

I'm not sure that's true at all. The XL deal was pretty vague, but it seemed to involve more of a "change of management" scenario that gave the band a say in the reissues rather than them owning the Masters.

If I'm wrong though, good for Radiohead.

 

Because -- if the scenario is true -- they botched their end of the fiduciary relationship by employing an enthusiast thief that stole work product instead of a paid professional. (To be fair, if I had signed a contract that gave a label ownership of masters I'd just be looking for an excuse.)

Bob Dylan hiring small armies to keep his tapes under lock and key during sessions makes more and more sense to me.

 

This is a fairly mean and personal comment about a sincere and heartfelt post with zero snark.

 

A few more random observations as I listen:

DISC 10 TIMESTAMPS:

0:06 - Last Flowers (different lyrics, more band structured, rock n roll sound.)

I kinda like this arrangement of "Last Flowers Till The Hospital", I like the melodic thing they do during the chorus section here (as the finished studio version that surfaced during the In Rainbows era came out very boring, IMO). Very Bends-like (it's interesting to hear songs like the many early versions of "Airbag" here still sounding very Bends-like).

DISC 9 TIMESTAMPS:

46:53 - ? (louder… bedroom recording)

This is another pretty great unfinished solo acoustic Thom recording ("You're the one...").

51:01 - A Reminder (acoustic bedroom recording)

This acoustic version reminds me what a great song this is, and this demo is much different and more aggressive than the very airy, Floydian, B-side version the band did with the rhodes piano (which I also love). These lyrics--are these not the essence of Thom Yorke?:

"If I get old
I will not give in
But if I do
Remind me of this

Remind me that
Once I was free
Once I was cool
Once I was me

And if I sat down
And crossed my arms
Hold me to
This song

Knock me out
Smash out my brains
If I take a chair
And start to talk ****

If I get old
Remind me of this
The night we kissed
And I really meant it

Whatever happens
If we're still speaking
Pick up the phone
Play me this song"

-
-
-

 

Gosh, there is so much stuff here. I was overwhelmed by the 18 hours worth so I just spent the last couple hours chiseling down my own "Alternate OK" single disc of the cream of the crop. I love there alternate "Let Downs". Wish there were some more "Homesick Alien" versions in the mix here.

Are these "unmastered" versions anything revelatory or just the regular album with lesser sound? I didnt notice much difference, but then again I'm listening to a computer.

Burning my disc now. Gonna put on the discman and go get lost in the dark.

 

DISC 3 TIMESTAMPS:

0:10 (unknown flute and sitar jam, skipping around)

IS:

Ahir Bhairav/Nat Bhairav - Hariprasad Chaurasia & Brij Bhushan
Kabra & Shivkumar Sharma

 

On one hand I'm super happy this exists and a huge period of Radiohead's history completely preserved, that and I managed to get all 18 hours...

Then again, putting myself in the head of an artist, if I had this much recorded that I never planned on showing anyone I'd want to quit my job.

 

Man, how is one supposed to tackle 18 hours of 'new' stuff in one go?

A few years ago, an absolute avalanche of Prince outtakes were released to the Web. Naturally, I got my greedy, grubby paws on them as soon as I can. But there was so much of it that I still haven't absorbed it all.

I expect that the same will happen with this set.

Oh well, it's not so bad to have first world problems like this!

 

Well I'm putting it on in the background while I plough through the Edinburgh Fringe programme!

 

I was surprised how easy it was to acquire this... but so far it sounds like a bunch of farting around on computers, or Thom banging away on a single chord. Some gems hidden here and there, though...

 

I'm not sure what I was expecting from these discs, but five minutes of Dynomutt certainly wasn't top of my list!

 

If I'm understanding the spoiler text correctly, that's all directly from the leaker - who was an intern? If so, I don't know that I believe a word of it. Seems like way too much inside knowledge of what the band was doing for a "intern".

 

I read the text wrong at first—I believe it was someone on 4Chan (his AMA quoted on Reddit) who knew the leaker and who also claims to be a former XL intern and / or band insider. A game of internet telephone. Probably BS.

 

DISC 11 TIMESTAMP

14:45 - Climbing Up the Walls (live at Mansfield 1996, higher quality, SBD for sure)

Thom rapping to the concert audience at the beginning: "Ok, this one features the artist formerly known as Colin, on bass synthesizer. But you don't care. But we do"

DISC 7 TIMESTAMP

29:18 Groovy/funky rock jam, then turns into very early Airbag, full band

The band stops at one point during the funky riff and Thom says into the mic "(It's like) Station To Station".

 

For those of you using the Reddit Google doc as a guide through the morass, don’t skip over the disc 8 @ 15:30 “Paranoid Android”. It says “same as OKNOTOK”, but that release only contained the last couple of minutes of the performance...

 

Someone made .cue files for the discs, by the way. I split the tracks up using that with Foobar, but it was a kind of tedious and roundabout way of doing it. I'm sure someone smarter than me has an easier way, but it worked great. 18 discs all tagged and split with art and metadata.

 

Thanks, I did not know this (it’ll take me years to work through that thread)!

Here’s an indirect link to it for the people in this thread:
OK Computer Sessions Mindisc CUE Files to Split Original Files! : radiohead

Audiophile caveat: doesn’t this technically transcode & slightly reduce the quality of the original mp3s (such as it were)?

I’m thinking of editing these cue files (renaming the .mp3 instructions to wav/flac/alac, converting the 18 mp3 files to wav/flac/alac, & then doing the splits)...

 

Apologies if this has been posted before

Here's the complete tracklist

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1kA8u6UhjbutZ-b7TXzmX4qkOTg6nGC1vPg50WwCcZyo/preview#

 

Thanks (didn't realize there had been a newly created version)!

 

To answer my own question (in the off-chance anyone else was wondering), this used to be a bit of an issue in the olden days but most modern cue splitters now do it without issue...

 

I’ll definitely be using these cue sheets. What’s the best way to do it without losing more quality?

Used XLD before but that was with lossless files