The label handed the master tapes to Sean Slade and Paul Q. Kolderie , the producers behind Pablo Honey , and they set about giving the record a more American-style mix. From a chart standpoint, they failed. The Bends peaked at No. But the album was a critical hit, and at the end of — after which time Radiohead had rocked arenas as tour support for R.
Read on for our track-by-track take on this year-old collection of cockeyed beauts. The spirit of alienation in the lyrics keeps things sour enough to balance out the sugary acoustic guitars and falsetto hook. The spirit of experimentation with sound features more prominently. Thom Yorke's voice is a haunting and vulnerable instrument as he explores the emotional imagery of his lyrics. The music plays with contrasts; loud and soft, dirty and clean; and layers of noise and effects to create dynamic and evocative experiences.
The Bends doesn't yet add the electronic textures of later albums, but it's a clear evolutionary step toward the sound perfected with OK Computer and the result is an amazing piece of work. As with other reissues in this series, this Collectors Edition pairs the original album with a second disc containing all related EPs, singles, b-sides and live recordings.
All of these tracks are good and represent the transition from Pablo Honey toward the more focused and immediate sound of The Bends. The comparatively spare "You Never Wash Up After Yourself" stands out with its simple sadness and an understated performance from Yorke.
Other non-album tracks compiled here are worth listening to but fall more clearly into the category of second-tier songs. The live tracks are also worthwhile; the three song set from the single for "Fake Plastic Trees" is quite intimate but is less striking than the album versions, and the BBC Sessions have a satisfying grungy edge; but ultimately these performances are not the most compelling material on offer.
The loose "Anyone Can Play Guitar" and delicate "Thinking About You" thankfully break up the minute mood, but most of the rest of the album is squarely in the post-grunge wheelhouse. That's not always a bad thing: "Stop Whispering", opener "You", and a re-recorded version of early single "Prove Yourself" hold up well-- and "Creep" has oddly gotten better with age. If Pablo Honey didn't betray hints of the band Radiohead would become, neither did its B-sides.
Unlike contemporaries such as Blur, who used their non-album material to explore new ideas or moods, Radiohead's Pablo Honey -era work is primarily lesser versions of the album. The extra material kicks off with their debut release, the Drill EP, which features three rudimentary versions of LP tracks, plus "Stupid Car", the first of Thom Yorke's odd automobile-themed fixations still to come: "Killer Cars", "Airbag", the "Karma Police" video From there, it's a mishmash of alternate takes and also-rans highlight: the U.
I distinctly remember then the first time someone suggested The Bends was a great record. Not being one of the million-plus Pablo Honey owners at the time, I was content to hear "Creep" on the radio over and over and expected I'd soon spend about as much about time with Radiohead's catalog as one would with, say, Hum or Ned's Atomic Dustbin or School of Fish.
Anyone who had explored those two earlier singles, however, would have been excited for the LP. Balancing a slightly artier sense of musical self-destruction with a sinewy guitar line, on "Lung" Radiohead found new ways to pick apart and re-construct the typical alt-rock template.
Elsewhere on the EP, the five B-sides demonstrated a band whose collective heads seemed to crack open and spill out new ideas, moving the group away from the dour dead-end of grunge signifiers: With more loose-limbed and nimble guitar work "The Trickster" , hints of art-rock "Punchdrunk Lovesick Singalong" , the valuing of texture over riffs "Permanent Daygliht" , offers of emotional nourishment "Lozenge of Love" and "You Never Wash Up After Yourself" and tension and apprehension about workaday life "Lewis [Mistreated]" , and themes of misanthropy um, most of the five songs , these tracks pointed the way toward what was to come.
The Bends was essentially split between these poles: warmth and tension; riffs and texture; rock and post-rock. To many fans, this more approachable and loveable version of the band is its peak.
I can't agree, but the record is still a marvel. It feels, with hindsight, like a welcome retreat from the incessant back-patting and 60s worship of prime-period Britpop and a blueprint for the more feminine, emotionally engaging music that would emerge in the UK a few years later-- led by OK Computer.
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