"Karma Police" is a song by the English rock band Radiohead, released on 25 August 1997 as the second single from their third studio album, OK Computer (1997).
The music video, directed by Jonathan Glazer, has the singer, Thom Yorke, in the back of a car pursuing a man.
Yorke's voice is put through a reverb effect and a sliding melodic figure serves as a counterpoint to his vocals.
[10] After Yorke told the producer, Nigel Godrich, that he was not happy with the ending, the pair reconstructed it with loops and samples, a technique they developed on later Radiohead albums.
"[11] The title lyric originates from an inside joke; the members of Radiohead would threaten to call the "karma police" if someone did something bad.
[16] Yorke cited the closing refrain, "Phew, for a minute there I lost myself", as an example of his practice of using everyday phrases in his lyrics; he said he probably heard it on television.
[23] In 2023, the American hardcore band Pierce the Veil covered "Karma Police" on Triple J while touring Australia.
[24] Steve Huey from AllMusic described "Karma Police" as "haunting, mystifying, and exquisite", labelling it "one of the cornerstones of one of the greatest albums of the '90s".
[28] The video is shot from the perspective of the driver of a car pursuing a man along a dark road, with Yorke in the back seat.
Glazer initially pitched the concept to the American musician Marilyn Manson for his 1997 single "Long Hard Road Out of Hell".
Manson wanted a video similar to David Lynch's 1997 film Lost Highway, which opens with a shot of a road rushing beneath the camera.
[28] After Manson rejected the concept, the video commissioner Dilly Gent recommended it to Radiohead for "Karma Police".
Glazer won the 1997 MTV Video Music Award for Best Direction for his work on "Karma Police" and Jamiroquai's "Virtual Insanity".