OK Calculator is a demo collection from TV on the Radio which they self-released in 2002. The album's title alludes to Radiohead's album OK Computer.

Origins

"We made this disc OK Calculator and left it in cafes and just different places. Just 24 tracks of four-track stuff. And that's on-line now. We sold a few of them on our first tour, a couple, but then the CD burner broke, etc. That's on-line and someone wrote about it as "the extremely rare but superb OK Calculator" and I’m sitting there going, "Are you kidding me?" Rare, yeah, rare because we're making them ourselves, and superb, that's not up to us, but it's not superb. (laughs) I’d be the first person to tell you. There's more hiss on some of those songs than there are songs. And it's fun, and I love it, but I wouldn't call it superb."

• Tunde Adebimpe

Reception

In Magnet, Bryan Bierman listed the album as a hidden gem and wrote, “Adebimpe’s voice alone makes up most of the tracks, and though the album’s rough sound takes some getting used to, this arrangement is surprisingly effective. Songs like ‘Yr God’ and ‘Aim To Please’ show off his soulful vocals, and you can hear some early signs of the later songwriting style the group would adapt. Sitek's recordings are a little more polished, using the atmospheric electronics that would later envelope a lot of TVOTR's music, like the slow ambience of ‘On A Train,” or the Kraftwerk fever dream ‘Pulse Of Pete.’”

Track listing

The tracks "Freeway" and "On a Train" later re-appeared on the 2004 7" and CD single for "Staring at the Sun".