Library of Congress adds OK Computer to the National Recording Registry

The Library of Congress has put Radiohead's 1997 album OK Computer on the National Recording Registry, it announced on 25 March. The library says it chose the album for its themes of anti-consumerism and alienation.

The registry keeps recordings the library judges culturally, historically or aesthetically significant, and one has to be at least ten years old to be considered, and the public's nominations count in the choice. The 25 picked this year also take in the Doors' first album, Lauryn Hill's The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill and a Sesame Street record.

Matt Barton, a curator at the library, told BBC News that OK Computer belongs to a strain of rock that perhaps begins with the Velvet Underground and runs through the Doors. Pop music is not entirely positive in its outlook, shall we say. I think we can say that OK Computer really sums a lot of that up.²