"It's really weird to be playing chords again. Haven't played chords for a long time. I realised I haven't played chord changes since OK Computer and stuff like that"
About this Quote
There’s a quiet shock in Ed O’Brien calling basic guitar work “really weird,” as if strumming chords is an old dialect he once spoke fluently and then abandoned. The line is funny in a low-key way, but it’s also revealing: for a musician best known inside Radiohead’s atmosphere machine, “chord changes” aren’t just a technical choice, they’re a worldview.
The context is doing most of the heavy lifting. OK Computer sits at the hinge point where Radiohead’s rock scaffolding starts dissolving into something more fragmented, more textural, more suspicious of traditional resolution. When O’Brien says he hasn’t played chord changes since then, he’s pointing to a band-wide aesthetic migration: away from guitar as a vehicle for progression and toward guitar as color, drone, shimmer, and architecture. The subtext is less “I forgot how” and more “I’ve been living in a different musical grammar.” Chords imply forward motion, emotional legibility, a kind of narrative comfort. Post-OK Computer Radiohead often resists exactly that.
What makes the quote work is its humility. Instead of mythologizing innovation, he frames it as muscle memory and estrangement: artistry as the accumulation of habits so deep they change what feels normal. There’s also an implied nostalgia without sentimentality. He isn’t claiming the old way was better; he’s startled by how foreign “normal” can become after decades spent chasing the uncanny.
The context is doing most of the heavy lifting. OK Computer sits at the hinge point where Radiohead’s rock scaffolding starts dissolving into something more fragmented, more textural, more suspicious of traditional resolution. When O’Brien says he hasn’t played chord changes since then, he’s pointing to a band-wide aesthetic migration: away from guitar as a vehicle for progression and toward guitar as color, drone, shimmer, and architecture. The subtext is less “I forgot how” and more “I’ve been living in a different musical grammar.” Chords imply forward motion, emotional legibility, a kind of narrative comfort. Post-OK Computer Radiohead often resists exactly that.
What makes the quote work is its humility. Instead of mythologizing innovation, he frames it as muscle memory and estrangement: artistry as the accumulation of habits so deep they change what feels normal. There’s also an implied nostalgia without sentimentality. He isn’t claiming the old way was better; he’s startled by how foreign “normal” can become after decades spent chasing the uncanny.
Quote Details
| Topic | Music |
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