Round of 8: (1) Radiohead - OK Computer vs. (24) The Beatles - Abbey Road Bracket

Round four is here. The final eight albums. What album will come out on top?

NOTICE: PLEASE DO NOT VOTE UNLESS YOU'VE HEARD BOTH ALBUMS. STOP DOING THIS SHIT.

For this matchup, we start with:

(1) Radiohead - OK Computer

vs.

(24) The Beatles - Abbey Road

 

remember these will be up until Sundays from now on

 

went with the Radiohead album. don't wanna hear any complaints since there's only one left. probably a top 20 ever for me.

 

This is the matchup that's going to make my head spin like a top. Radiohead are great but it's Abbey goddamn Road.

 

tbf it's OK damn Computer

 

Abbey Road for sure. Go back to it way more, and “Something” is the best song on either album.

 

not even the best on its album

 

man it isn’t even the best george song on the album lol

 

*This* is the matchup that’s making people’s heads spin? I don’t begrudge anybody who votes for Abbey Road but let’s not act like OK Computer isn’t an absolutely seminal album.

 

Maxwell’s Silver Hammer is the best song on either album

 

i don't think anyone's head has been been spinning haha

 

Wut

 

have you heard here comes the sun, it's their biggest song for a reason

 

Snark aside: By what metric is that their biggest song?

 

To be clear, I love “Here Comes the Sun”; a great pop song. But “Something” is one of the most profound love songs ever written. My favorite George song, and probably my favorite Beatles song, period. I’d pick it over most things.

 

you could make an argument that the metrics for stuff like this in the modern day are dumb and it clearly wasn't the biggest in the era of the band, but it's pretty inarguable it's their biggest song in 2022

 

Abbey Road for me

 

OK Computer easy.

 

Gonna start posting dumb shit like "only one of these albums has 'Fitter Happier..."

 

Abbey Road isn't my absolute favourite album ever but it's probably my pick for best album ever.
OK Computer is not far behind. But it is behind.
Two phenomenal records.

 

OK Computer was one of the first albums I ever owned on CD in 1997. Although it wasn't until about 10 years later I really appreciated it. Abbey Road I only listened to for the first time during the first lockdown. I have no attachment to it, so it's a pretty easy vote for me.

 

Frank Sinatra also called It the greatest love song of all time.

Abbey Road 100%, the only considerable bad song on there Is Maxwell Silver Hammer and even then it isn't that bad.

 

I didn't realize it was their biggest song on streaming. Interesting.

I do think that "biggest song on Spotify" is an imperfect metric for equating to "biggest song, period" though. So much of that depends on what gets on Spotify's big curated playlists, and "Here Comes The Sun" is on a lot of playlists.

I did a feature for Billboard earlier this year where the assignment was to make a playlist featuring the signature song and one lesser-known gem from every band on the "When We Were Young" festival lineup. What I found pretty quickly is that a band's most iconic/well-known/best-charting song and that same band's biggest song on Spotify only lined up about 50 percent of the time. That was especially true of the more hardcore-leaning bands, because their biggest Spotify song would usually be their one acoustic ballad. I think the amount of playlist listening and overall passive listening that happens on Spotify means that an artist's most "agreeable" song tends to get the most play, even if it wouldn't be deemed their biggest song anywhere else, by any other metric.

Then again, we have seen signature songs change for a lot of classic artists as they've been found by a new generation and reappraised through a modern lens. "Dreams" becoming the signature Fleetwood Mac song comes to mind, or "Dancing in the Dark" becoming the Springsteen song that probably gets the most airplay.