Several reviewers noted the record's ambition. "Slant Magazine" described the song's lyrics as a "multipart anti-yuppie anthem whose ambition is anything but ugly", and Andy Gill wrote in "The Independent" that "Paranoid Android" could be the most ambitious single since Jimmy Webb's "MacArthur Park". Craig McLean of "The Sydney Morning Herald" described "Paranoid Android" as "a titanic guitar opera in three movements and 6 a half minutes". PopMatters' Evan Sawdey called the song "OK Computer"s "sweeping, multi-tiered centerpiece", Peter and Jonathan Buckley wrote in "The Rough Guide to Rock" that it was the album's "breathtaking high point". Allmusic's Stephen Thomas Erlewine called "Paranoid Android" "complex, multi-segmented ... tight, melodic, and muscular", and said it displayed Radiohead at their most adventurous. Browne admitted that, partially because of "Paranoid Android", "OK Computer" was significantly more expansive than "The Bends". "Rolling Stone" placed the song at number 257 on its 500 Greatest Songs of All Time list, and "Pitchfork" included the song at number 4 on their "Top 200 Tracks of the 90s".