Given the fatuous and impolitic nature of most of the above, one wonders whether, decennial aside, the world truly needs yet another OK tribute. Considering further the fact that the band has already released three post-OK LPs (one of which, 2000’s Kid A, many consider artistically superior) and are currently working on a fourth, one realizes it may be about time for us all to move on. Are we truly ready to shut the door on this though, to extinguish all possibility of that singular apogee of OK-panegyrics, that tribute album of bona fide OK Computer stature? Slated for a special Sunday release on July 1 to celebrate OK’s original U.S. arrival date, OC Computer: A Classic Revisited by Artists from Fox’s The OC promises to be that very apogee, that necessary insurmountable and lasting piece of artistic homage to Radiohead’s seminal record. The brain-child of Josh Schwartz and Scott Schirley, respective creator and music editor of the smash-hit teensoap The OC, this per-song tribute is far more deliberate, more conscious than its predecessors. Proving their musical matchmaking prowess goes beyond the realm of serial television, the duo collates twelve of the show’s most popular featured bands who in turn—despite myriad existing tributes—take the songs each to wholly new places.

Things commence predictably enough with the auteurs of the show’s appropriated theme song, Phantom Planet, whose rendition of “Airbag” is similarly upbeat and straightforward. Singer Alex Greenwald diligently excises much of Yorke’s wordless crooning and relies on his signature mixture of late-teen confidence and early-twenties nostalgic lament; the song sheds its English getup and dons a faux-vintage tee and some Abercrombie cargo shants. Like a prologue, the song fades quickly, giving way to Conor Oberst’s über-stripped, sad-folk take on the epic “Paranoid Android.” With nothing but his trusty six-string and ever-maturing vocal chords, Oberst (alone, though credited as Bright Eyes) plods slowly through this classic, the lack of computer-generated voice, layered guitars, electronic bleep-bloops, and driving bass line only serving to emphasize the narrator’s naked vulnerability; when he croaks “What’s there?” it’s no longer just a refrain but a desperate plea. The time changes are dead-on, and energy seems to amass rather than fluctuate—by song’s end it’s hard to imagine a few guitar strings haven’t snapped. Following this behemoth even Radiohead’s original “Subterranean Homesick Alien,” often cited as one of OK’s weaker tracks, would surely pale, but here it’s given a nice anthemic, pseudo-punk boost by L.A.-via-Chicago funsters OK Go. Honoring their name’s titular reference to the album, the band flirts with the meta here, referencing their own oeuvre by digressing into an idiosyncratic chorus straight out of “You’re So Damn Hot,” then segueing back seamlessly. Twinkling backdrop tremolos are reproduced verbatim by a cheap eBay synthesizer used maybe once on a Weezer B-side, though apart from this the track rests comfortably atop a satisfying mountain of chunk. And it’s certainly chunk that’s needed to set the tone for The Suicide Machines, whose bombastic hardcore-punk/ska format might otherwise feel out of place. Indeed, despite the band’s seemingly irreconcilable stylistic differences with the somber, spooky, slow-burner “Exit Music,” this track stands out as one of OC’s strongest. Without a chorus to hinge on, the Machines alternate genres per verse, performing the final one twice. “We hope/ that you choke/ that you choke” seems all in good fun accompanied by groovy contrabass, up-strumming, a snare-driven beat, and doo-wop harmonizing, but when the distortion pedals kick back in, those same words carry with them some frighteningly serious implications.

Lady Sovereign heads up the album’s groove-heavy midsection by stripping all recognizable melody from “Let Down” and replacing it with lead-heavy bass swoops, slick-quick beeboobeeps, and choppy spurts of jive. “Let down, hangin’ around,” she repeats relentlessly, using the line as lyrical anchor to Yorke’s fragmented stanzas, which she also rattles off with casual, dangerous ease. The UK grimester’s juvenescence is revealed, however, when Southern crunk king T.I. drops the first beat of “Karma Police.” Heavier than all of Great Britain, this track is alarmingly driven, the lyrics completely apposite; “This is what you get/ when you mess with us” definitely sounds like an open invitation to an ass-whooping. And still the integrity of Radiohead’s version is maintained—somehow the track still feels the same. Perhaps it’s the piano line sampled straight from the original’s intro, but more likely it’s T.I.’s delivery—intense and earnest—that recalls Yorke’s own. Transplants, whose breakthrough 2002 hit “Diamonds and Guns” has since been wasted hawking Garnier shampoo, follow up by dumping trainloads of sampled guitar riffs, buzzsaw synthbass, chopped-to-hell drums et al into their take on “Fitter Happier.” Here the track becomes a proper song, stepping up from its previous stature as side A/side B divider. Whether they’ve kept the original computer-generated vocals or dusted off their own Apple LCIII to recreate them is unclear, but the aim here is clearly not sociopolitical commentary via obtuse David Byrne–like non sequiturs. Instead the impassive voice takes a back seat as the trio stuffs as much volume into Pro Tools as possible to produce a veritable noisefest, an all-out assault with just enough recognizable rhythm to keep your foot tapping. It’s like listening to Warhol’s “Five Deaths,” were such a thing possible. Above the din Armstrong screams the final lines, “A pig/ in a cage/ on antibiotics” ten times in a row, the live-human vocals sounding at first capricious and then, through repetition, relegating themselves back into the realm of the mass-produced, the nightmarish, inhuman arena of pure technology. Gwen Stefani provides the final leg of this mid-record dance party, and it’s almost dumbfounding how comfortable her marriage with “Electioneering,” OK’s most raucous track, feels. Making no bones about shedding the dread and panic of the original, Gwen and producer Timbaland massage the thing into a rattly rump-shaker, the lines “I go forward/ you go backward/ somewhere we will meet” alone comprising enough sass to tax even the surest of Hokey Pokeyers—or Kama Sutra enthusiasts.

Thereafter, however, comes the biggest disappointment of the album, its necessary Achilles’ heel, its intentional Amish mis-stitch. Rooney, known for its feel-good/feel-blue, Brian-Wilson-meets-The-Strokes radiopop, decide to wax Black Heart Procession–ish in an ill-conceived attempt to make “Climbing Up the Walls,” one of the darkest tracks in Radiohead’s entire repertoire, even darker. Give them points for their derring-do, for the innovative use of the saw, but at six minutes long, the dirge may have benefited from a nice uplifting synth solo instead. One wonders if Rooney’s fraternal connection to Phantom Planet had something to do with their inclusion here. Luckily though, Death Cab for Cutie, immortal and undisputed indie-rock kings, veritable doers of no wrong, follow quickly behind; their lilting, melting, butterfly-wing-fragile rendition of “No Surprises” is the most beautiful track on the album, and it lends a welcome hand as aural janitor. Gibbard takes some liberties with the lyrics, particularly at the end of the first verse: “I hate the quiet guys/ I can’t change/ the garbage on our side,” he swoons. In the hands of a less-accomplished poet this sort of license might have seemed blasphemous, but he pulls it off with panache. A rousing acoustic jam follows the final chorus, cuts off cold a-la “I Want You (She’s So Heavy)” and twenty-eight seconds of pure sobering silence precede Less Than Jake’s cover of OK’s crux, “Lucky,” which accomplishes in just a minute-fourteen what it took Radiohead over three times as long to do: slay listener ear. It’s interesting, the decision to bulk up OC’s final tracks with so much energy, considering, among so many other things, that integral triangle-ting at the close of OK Computer. The quietude that follows this single, resonant note is unnerving; there’s so much left unresolved you’re almost forced to spin the disc again to see what you must have missed. Here, instead, Something Corporate turn “The Tourist” into a fist-pumping, fun-loving, punk/emo tribute to all things youthful, after which the only thing you’ll want to hear is the sound of your Converse going through the window of a Banana Republic in South Coast Plaza.

Despite perceived philosophical disparities—Radiohead’s world-weary warnings against consumerism and image vs. The OC’s apparent celebration of both—the compilation is a solid and cohesive triumph. Not surprisingly, Schwartz attributes this unprecedented congruity to close collaboration with the band: “They were rad to work with, actually,” he says. “Granted it was mostly Capitol [Records, Radiohead’s U.S. label] who we spoke to, mostly, but Thom and Johnny both told me that they were total fans of the show, which is like, like it was totally sick to hear that.” Nor should this come as a surprise—the band authorized “Fog (Again),” a live B-side from the “Go To Sleep” single, for use in a season-three episode of the show, an uncharacteristic move for them. Further, “Black Swan,” from Yorke’s solo album The Eraser, appears a season later in episode four. Which is not to say that an amaranthine OC-marathon is necessarily the reason for the new ’head album’s delay, but Against The Day is only so many pages long—the band has to be doing something to occupy themselves in the meantime. In any case, for those going bald in anticipation of Hail to the Thief’s imminent follow-up, for those upon whom the opening bars of “Karma Police” unleash a consistently pleasant wave of subtle, undefinable nostalgia; hell, if you’ve never even heard OK Computer before, OC Computer is a purchase of absolute necessity, a worthy encomium to the defining album of a generation.