From half a world away, the mid-'90s battle of Britpop between Blur and Oasis appeared overhyped and irrelevant. Someone needed to drop a war-ending payload on the whole silly mess.
Radiohead was perhaps an unlikely champion of rock's cause - two albums into its career the band was struggling to shake off the shoegazer tag it had worn since the release of debut single Creep in 1992.
Both Pablo Honey (1993) and The Bends (1995) contained richer material but a breakthrough had been slow in coming in the shadow of the British-media-fed obsession with parochial and laddish guitar pop.
Third album OK Computer (1997) delivered a walloping killer blow to the Britpop sideshow.
Here was an album as thrilling as any of the alt-rock genre, packed with tension and aggression but reliant on melodic invention for its appeal. The four members of Radiohead had taken a giant leap ahead of the pack, employing their own production skills and those of trusted engineer Nigel Godrich to deliver a broader range of sounds and styles.
On OK Computer the band used synthesizers and electronics to stunning effect. But while the use of technology was linked to themes of consumerism, shady politics and the head-spinning pace of life, it complemented rather than dominated the neatly arranged organic rock that held the album together.
First single Paranoid Android was a daring choice - a schizophrenic rant that brought three songs by three writers together as one. Karma Police and No Surprises were less challenging musically but no less biting in their observations of modern times.
This balance between the visceral and the intellectual was everything to the album's success as a benchmark piece. Before long, paler imitations from bands such as Muse, Travis and Coldplay would drive Radiohead further toward more experimental works - and further from pop's battleground.
