OK Computer

OK Computer (1997) is the record that established Radiohead as something other than an alternative rock band. The production — Nigel Godrich with the band — introduced drone, delay, layered electronics, and rhythmic disintegration into a format that was still nominally guitar rock, arriving at something that sat in no genre comfortably and has been influential across all of them.

XL is Richard Russell’s label, and the story of how a hardcore-rave label became the home for Radiohead’s and Frank Ocean’s catalogue is one of the more interesting arcs in recent music history. Russell understood that the disposition required to take a record seriously — to listen all the way through, return to it, let it change your sense of what’s possible — is genre-agnostic.