"Paranoid Android" is a song by English alternative rock band Radiohead, released as the lead single from their third studio album, OK Computer (1997), on 26 May 1997.

It received acclaim, with critics claiming it to be the band's magnum opus, comparing it to the songs "Happiness Is a Warm Gun" by the Beatles and "Bohemian Rhapsody" by Queen.

Its animated music video, directed by Magnus Carlsson, was placed on heavy rotation on MTV, although the network censored portions containing nudity in the US.

[8] Influenced by the editing of the Beatles' Magical Mystery Tour, Radiohead shortened the song to six and a half minutes,[9] with the organ solo replaced with a shorter guitar outro.

[28] This section uses multi-tracked, choral vocal arrangement[24] and according to Dai Griffiths, a "chord sequence [that ordinarily] would sound seedy, rather like something by the band Portishead".

[9] The lyrics tie in with a number of themes common in OK Computer, including insanity, violence, slogans, and political objection to capitalism.

To conceive the video, he locked himself in his office for over 12 hours to stare out of the window, listen to the song on repeat and jot down visual ideas.

[39] Like Robin, the "Paranoid Android" video is drawn in a simplistic style that emphasises bold colours and clear, strong lines.

The band appears in cameo at a bar, where they drink while watching a man with a head coming out of his belly dancing on their table.

[40] However, in this cameo only the versions of Yorke and Jonny Greenwood resemble themselves;[39] O'Brien said "If you freeze-frame it on the video, the guy with the five strands of hair slicked back, that's Colin.

"[41] Colin Greenwood said "there was no way that we could appear in it to perform in it because that would be so Spinal Tap" and that having animations that did not resemble the band members allowed the video to be "twisted and colourful which is how the song is anyway".

[42] The MTV vice president of music Lewis Largent told Spin: "You can watch 'Paranoid Android' a hundred times and not figure it all out.

[47][48] The cover illustration accompanying the single depicts a hand-drawn dome that contains the phrase "God loves his children, yeah!

This sort of demon is almost impossible to kill the only way to do it is to cover its face with wet bread and karate chop its head off otherwise you are in trouble and so is the neighbourhood.

[47][50]Written on the back of the CD2 single is: A cathedral of white in a suburban shanty town two up two down houses with just the asbestos and the skeletons left.

[48]Each time I'd hear it, I'd keep thinking about people doing intricate jobs in factories – working on industrial lathes – getting injured from the shock of being exposed to it.

While Colin Greenwood said the song was "hardly the radio-friendly, breakthrough, buzz bin unit shifter [radio stations] have been expecting",[52] Capitol supported Radiohead's choice for "Paranoid Android" as the lead single from OK Computer.

[54] "Paranoid Android" was premiered on the BBC Radio 1 programme The Evening Session in April 1997, nearly a month before its release as a single.

"Polyethylene (Parts 1 & 2)", included on the CD1, 7-inch vinyl, and Japanese releases of the single, were a multi-section piece formatted much like "Paranoid Android" itself.

'"[60] "Melatonin", also on the CD2 release, is a synthesiser-based song with lyrics similar to that of a lullaby, but with an undercurrent of menace in lines like "Death to all who stand in your way".

[62][better source needed] When Radiohead were asked about it being featured as the theme, they originally declined, but after being shown a preview of the anime they obliged and allowed it to be used.

NME chose it as its "Single of the Week", and the journalist Simon Williams described how the song "sprawls out like a plump man on a small sofa, featuring all manner of crypto-flamenco shufflings, medieval wailings, furiously wrenched guitars and ravishingly over-ambitious ideas.

"[35] Simon Williams of NME described the song as "not unlike 'Bohemian Rhapsody' being played backwards by a bunch of Vietnam vets high on Kings Cross-quality crack".

[35] Kemp praised the mix of acoustic and electronic instrumentation to produce "complex tempo changes, touches of dissonance, ancient choral music and a King Crimson-like melodic structure".

[32] Browne wrote of "celestial call-and-response vocal passages, dynamically varied sections, and Thom Yorke's high-voiced bleat".

Slant Magazine described the song's lyrics as a "multipart anti-yuppie anthem whose ambition is anything but ugly",[66] and Andy Gill wrote in The Independent that "Paranoid Android" could be the most ambitious single since Jimmy Webb's "MacArthur Park".

[67] Craig McLean of The Sydney Morning Herald described "Paranoid Android" as "a titanic guitar opera in three movements and 6 [and a half] minutes".

[68] PopMatters' Evan Sawdey called the song OK Computer's "sweeping, multi-tiered centerpiece",[43] Peter and Jonathan Buckley wrote in The Rough Guide to Rock that it was the album's "breathtaking high point".

[69] AllMusic's Stephen Thomas Erlewine called "Paranoid Android" "complex, multi-segmented ... tight, melodic, and muscular", and said it displayed Radiohead at their most adventurous.