George Orwell warned that Big Brother was watching.
But during the recording of their newest album, OK Computer, Radiohead discovered that Big Brother was actually also little brother, big sister, mom, dad, neighbor Ned and cousin Chet. And they weren't just watching Radiohead do what they do -- they were doing it with them, simultaneously.
"It all got very surreal," says guitarist Jon Greenwood.
Radiohead -- who perform a sold-out show at Centennial Hall on Monday -- know how technology is blurring boundaries between people and places and ideas. Indeed, the band's new album OK Computer is a fizzing, art-rock brew of feedback, noise and synthesizer that acknowledges everything from computer chips to air bags.
But even Future Shock guru Alvin Toffler would have surely been bewildered at how the band's fans helped create the very album they were so eagerly anticipating. It started when Radiohead rented a big country house in a secluded valley outside Bath, England, to record their third album.
"We hired a house in the middle of nowhere," says Greenwood. "It felt like the opposite of a traditional studio, where you feel like you're the thousandth person to record in that studio, and you're just making yet another record, and there's gold discs everywhere from Status Quo to Whitesnake, and you don't feel like you're doing anything particularly creative."
But in this bucolic setting, Radiohead did more than just churn out three-note chords. The Oxford quintet spent hours surfing the many Radiohead-related websites and discussion groups on the Internet. And that, according to Greenwood, led to some strange, creative feedback.
"We'd go to all the chat rooms dedicated to Radiohead and we'd say we were Radiohead and then say actually we weren't and then pretend we were again," he says. "It all got very confusing.
"We had people coming in (online), pretending to be Colin, my brother, even though Colin was sitting next to me and wasn't typing anything."
But things got even stranger.
"Some of the websites had the lyrics for the album, even though it hadn't been recorded yet," he says. "They'd taken bootlegs, conceivably, and just written down what they thought Thom (Yorke) was singing. So if Thom was ever stuck for lyrics, he'd occasionally go to these sites and steal all this kind of garbled, mistranslated singing he was doing."
It's clear that Radiohead embraces technology. On the visual side, the band has put out some shockingly unique videos, including the new animated video for the single Paranoid Android.
And on the sonic side of things, OK Computer evokes an Orwellian, post-industrial wasteland filled with motorways, digital voices and spiritual emptiness.
"I think we're the first generation to grow up having computers as toys, not being scared at all," says Greenwood. "You could tie two or three of the songs together with computers, but you could equally link others with transport and speed. So it's kind of too much of a mess to describe, really."

TOPPED CHARTS

Critics are hardly calling it a mess. After their ode to self-loathing, Creep, topped the charts in 1993, Radiohead released their second album, The Bends.
"There's a general feeling that The Bends was kind of under-reviewed and under-received in some places," says Greenwood. "So the attention on the third album is very heightened. People learned to like the second album about a year after it came out, so everyone is very hungry and very eager to get something out of the third album."
It seems to have hit the spot. Critics are hailing OK Computer as one of the most influential albums of the year. Once dubbed the "new U2," the Oxford quintet are being touted as the future of rock 'n roll.
The success of OK Computer may have something to do with the fact that it sounds like nothing else you've ever heard. And in an era of lightning-fast change, anything new and different is embraced. And that's something Radiohead understands.
"We're permanently bored and hungry for new things," says Greenwood. "And touring and playing different shows every night is a good cure, really.
"Radiohead has taken over my life. But it would be churlish to complain. That's the way things are. And it's kind of a buzz."