OK Computer Recording — Canned Applause, Bath

Radiohead's "OK Computer" (1997) — widely regarded as one of the greatest albums ever made — was recorded primarily at Canned Applause, a makeshift studio the band assembled in the ballroom and other rooms of St. Catherine's Court, a Tudor mansion near Bath owned by actress Jane Seymour. The band rented the house for several months in 1996 and 1997, setting up recording equipment throughout its historic rooms and using its grand, resonant spaces to achieve the album's particular combination of intimacy and grandeur. Producer Nigel Godrich worked with the band throughout.

The album's themes — alienation, technology, corporate dehumanisation, political paralysis — were expressed through a musical language that drew on krautrock, jazz, ambient electronics, and conventional rock in proportions that seemed to shift from song to song. "Paranoid Android," "Karma Police," "No Surprises," "Exit Music (For a Film)," and "Lucky" were among the compositions developed and recorded in the Bath mansion. The sense of space and slight eeriness that the historic building contributed to the recording environment is audible throughout.

St. Catherine's Court near Bath is a private residence and is not open to the public, but its significance in the creation of one of rock's canonical albums is well documented. Radiohead — Thom Yorke, Jonny Greenwood, Colin Greenwood, Ed O'Brien, and Phil Selway — had formed in Abingdon, Oxfordshire, and the English countryside setting was a deliberate retreat from the noise of their touring schedule. "OK Computer" was a Mercury Prize winner and has appeared at or near the top of virtually every "greatest albums" list compiled since its release.