Pros: Plenty of examples of those things that have become taboo in Radiohead world...tunes!
Cons: Dat dey don't make 'em like dis no more!
The Bottom Line: One of the best albums of the 90s, if not all time. Totally justifies the almost "beyond criticism" invincibility the band now seem to have.
Back in ‘92/’93, few would have put money on Radiohead becoming the most lauded band to immerge from the UK since the Beatles. With ‘Pablo Honey’, they succeeded in creating a truly under-whelming debut album that blended in nicely with the rest of the post-grunge crop. Only a handful of tracks showed any promise, in particular the joyous epic ‘Stop Whispering’, the tender emotion of ‘Thinking About You’, the raw, swingeing ‘Anyone Can Play Guitar’, and…oh, what’s that other one called?…*Tsk*, it’s on the tip of my tongue… ‘Cr…’…‘Cream?’… ‘Creed’…oh! Yeah, that’s it – ‘Creep’.
Both the key to their initial success and the bane of their recording lives, ‘Creep’ became a particularly frustrating albatross for the band, mainly for two reasons:
A/ because when people came to their gigs, especially in America, they generally only showed up to hear that one song, and…
B/ the reason so many people considered it their best song was because it WAS their best song! Radiohead were yet to write anything that really came close to this paean to the outsider…until ’94 and the release of ‘My Iron Lung’, that is.
Perhaps the greatest song ABOUT a song ever (are there any other contenders?), ‘My Iron Lung’ was a brilliantly ragged exercise in catharsis, a sinister slice of art-metal (described by Select magazine as being “essentially, Nirvana’s ‘Heart Shaped Box’ with jump-leads attached”) that focused on the futility experienced by the band when trying to interest the public in their other songs. It was an aural-assassins bullet with it’s sights firmly set on ‘Creep’ - the standard teen angst of old had gone, now Thom Yorke was seething:
“Scratch our eternal itch/a twentieth century b*tch/and we are grateful for our iron lung/…Suck, suck your teenage thumb/Toilet trained and dumb/When the power runs out, we’ll just hum/This, this is our new song/Just like the last one/A total waste of time, my iron lung”
The single served as a great introduction to it’s forthcoming parent album, but even ‘…Lung’ couldn’t prepare people for just how astonishing ‘The Bends’ would turn out to be. This really was a caterpillar to butterfly style metamorphosis, setting the band well on their way to the almost “living legend”-like status they enjoy (although I doubt the infamously moody Thom Yorke finds anything particularly enjoyable) today.
Beginning with the psychedelic-grunge of ‘Planet Telex’, the record starts off in a particularly trippy fashion. The track is almost drunk sounding (which, considering they recorded it at some ungodly hour, tanked up on excessive amounts of wine, is perhaps not too surprising): a juddering, powerful opener with blistering guitars and spaced out drums; it has a huge, intimidating sound, but also feels like it could collapse at any minute, like the band are almost sleep-walking through it.
The lyrics are classic Yorke nonsense - they were completely made up on the spot, but they seem to emanate some kind of meaning:
“You confess it, but it will stay stoned/You can crush it as dry as a bone/You can walk it home straight from school/You can kiss it, you can break all the rules/…Everything is broken/Everyone is broken”.
As the song comes to a close, the sound of a far off marching band (recorded by producer John Leckie from a hotel window in America) can be heard in the background before the surging title track bursts into life. ‘The Bends’ totally justifies the claims that surrounded the band at the time that they were destined to become “the next U2” - with it’s soaring guitars and catchy chorus, it’s very surprising that it was never actually released as a single. The music fits right in with what bassist Colin Greenwood describes as the band’s “hit everything loudly while waggling tongue in and out” mentality at the time, while the lyrics deal with a general feeling of dejection, e.g.:
“I wish it was the 60s/I wish I could be happy/I wish…I wish…I wish that something would happen”
It’s lyrics like these that led the press to, rather disturbingly, pin Yorke down as being the next rock ‘n’ roll casualty. With Cobain having killed himself just the year before and the Manics’ Richey Edwards disappearing mere months before the album’s release, interest in rock’s “dark side” had increased greatly. The focus on Yorke as next in line for martyrdom was obviously pretty sick, but it was definitely safe to say that Thom was not the happiest of bunnies, as many of the songs on this record will testify.
The U2 comparisons continue with one of the less striking tracks on ‘The Bends’ – ‘High And Dry’. This power ballad is cut straight from the “lighter-waving” cloth, nothing startlingly original, but charming none the less. The lyrics once again are concerned with feelings of dejection (AND rejection):
“You kill yourself for recognition/Kill yourself to never, ever stop/You broke another mirror/You’re turning into something you are not”
It’s a pretty song that arouses your emotions, but it doesn’t stand a chance against the track that follows. If ‘High And Dry’ tugs at your heart strings, then ‘Fake Plastic Trees’ f**king severs them. After seeing the late Jeff Buckley in concert in London, Yorke “…realised that you could sing like he did, in falsetto, without sounding drippy” according to Leckie. The recording of the track was undertaken amidst a particularly wracked atmosphere:
Thom – “That was one of the worst days for me. I spent the first five or six hours in the studio just throwing a wobbly. I shouted at everyone and then John Leckie sent everybody else away. He sat me down and I did a guide vocal on ‘Fake Plastic Trees’.”
Colin – “Thom played it in three takes, then burst into tears afterwards. And that’s what we used for the record.”
The music slowly builds, starting with just vocals and guitar, as the rest of the band eventually join in and strings gently swell in the background before the whole thing just takes off. Inspired by the “lonely sham relationships” Yorke came across while in Los Angeles, the lyrics plead for true feeling and meaning. It really is an incredibly, incredibly moving ballad and remains a highlight not only of this album, but of Radiohead’s whole back catalogue – a powerful, passionate burst of true emotion and intensity.
Next up is ‘Bones’. Stressed out about the record’s progress during its mixing, the band eventually turned to ‘Pablo Honey’ producers Sean Slade and Paul Kolderie, a decision that resulted in a minor transatlantic rivalry between them and Leckie. ‘Bones’ was the first track the US duo completed. “I remember putting it on and going, ‘Well, I’ll just mix this like the Pixies’”, Kolderie says. Apparently, when the band first heard the mix, they jumped around the room yelling “Yes! Finally!”. Leckie eventually admitted that he might not have succeeded in making the tracks so “blasting”. The decision was definitely a wise move, ‘Bones’ being one of the most overpowering songs on ‘The Bends’. The lyrics focus on the frustration of a man rendered helpless (e.g.: “I don’t wanna be crippled, cracked/Shoulders, wrists, knees and back/Ground to dust and ash/Crawling on all fours”), while the music grooves along with that classic “quiet-loud-quiet” dynamics formula (perfected – surprise, surprise – by the Pixies), but what really makes this track one of my favourites is the mid-section, where the lyrics and music combine to create a sense of both wistfulness and immense euphoria – the moment where Yorke sings the tragic lines “I used to fly like Peter Pan/All the children flew when I touched their hands” with such passion and conviction, and the music explodes, just elevating the track to a whole new level of power and emotion. This moment totally sums up the album for me in the mere 15 seconds it lasts; it manages to be both incredibly uplifting and sad, leaving you totally blown away.
After such a “blasting” anthem, it’s perfect that it’s followed by the soothing sounds of ‘(Nice Dream)’. The track is a swelling, meditative waltz complete with an obscure lyric that’s as bizarre as the use of brackets in the song’s title. According to Thom, the words allude to Kurt Vonnegut’s novel, ‘Cat’s Cradle’, in which “this crystal has been found which turns all water completely solid and someone decides to tip it into the sea”. In keeping with this theme, the track features the sound of whales under the ice (a tape of which Leckie purchased from an aquarium in Vancouver) as an ambient backing. The song has a nice, relaxed “chill out” feel to it, which is brilliantly disturbed by Jonny Greenwood’s savage guitar solo during the mid-section. Jonny is one of my favourite guitarists – his playing is almost schizophrenic: at times calm sounding, but prone to sudden bursts of violence. The best example of his technique is in the track that follows next, perhaps my favourite Radiohead song, ‘Just’.
A song about being “suckered” into friendship with an unshakable figure of hate, Thom described ‘Just’ as being “the most exciting thing I’ve ever heard us come up with on tape”. I whole-heartedly agree with him. This song is one of those rare occasions that a Radiohead track can actually be described as (gosh!) “swaggering”. Jonny’s spiky, ascending riff dominates this bilious rocker before all hell breaks loose and the guitar starts going crazy. Around the three-minute mark, it begins a spectacular ascent to eardrum piercing heights until, as Thom put it, “it doesn’t sound like a guitar at all”. The musical chaos acts as the perfect accompaniment for Yorke’s lyrics about “teach(ing) you how to get to purest hell”. It eventually finishes by coming back down to earth for a balls-y blues-rock finale. Awesome.
The twisted words and sounds of ‘My Iron Lung’ come next, followed by the much more sombre ‘Bullet Proof…I Wish I Was’. Like the title suggests, the song seems to be about Yorke detesting his emotional fragility, e.g.:
“Limb by limb and tooth by tooth/Tearing up inside of me/Everyday, every hour/I wish that I/Was bullet proof”
It’s a very gloomy song; the improvised guitar FX noises providing an ambient backdrop and accentuating the morose feel. It’s a good track, but it does kind of drift past without making much of an impact, especially when it follows the exceptional ‘…Lung’.
Things get more lively with ‘Black Star’. A distorted lament for a love that’s been broken down by everyday life, the track is a moving anthem that Yorke now considers one of his favourite songs off this album. “My favourite thing about this song,” Thom said, “is Jonny’s guitar when it comes on the chorus. Afterwards, everyone was saying, ‘We’ve got to do the guitar again because it sounds such a mess’. Me and Jonny were going ‘No, no…’”.
The penultimate track, ‘Sulk’, was actually written years before even the release of ‘Pablo Honey’. It came to existence shortly after Michael Ryan shot 16 people dead before killing himself in Hungerford, Berkshire, on 19th August 1987. ‘Sulk’ trys to contemplate what sort of tortured psyche could possibly carry out such a deed. Apparently, this song has actually become the band’s least favourite ‘The Bends’ track. Certainly, musically it is, along with ‘High And Dry’, one of the two most pedestrian moments on the record, but it’s still a very good song with a strong chorus and a great sentiment. I’d even go as far as to say it’s one of the album’s most uplifting tracks…bizarre, I know, considering the subject matter, but hey! It is!
The record comes to its breathtaking end with ‘Street Spirit (Fade Out)’. What’s there to say about this track that hasn’t already been said? Driven on by guitarist Ed O’Brien’s dark, chiming arpeggio, the song slowly builds, similarly to ‘Fake Plastic Trees’, with the other band members gradually joining the song, gradually growing louder and louder. However, unlike that track, ‘Street Spirit’ isn’t sad. A lot of people describe it as such, but I don’t think it is. I think a better description is “chilling”. Because this song isn’t mournful or melancholic…it’s just down right SCARY. Yorkes vocals, so emotive on ‘Fake Plastic Trees’, are cold and intimidating. The guitars don’t have any warmth to them, they’re very staccato, almost zombie like in their constant repetitiveness, while the lyrics? Jesus Christ…
“Cracked eggs, dead birds/Scream as they fight for life/I can feel death/Can see its beady eyes/All these things into fruition/All these things we’ll one day swallow whole”
…I think they speak for themselves.
Like Divine_Cheese pointed out in his review, it’s such a fantastic closing track because, for the most part, ‘The Bends’ is a very uplifting experience. Sure, the songs on here are hardly ‘Shiny Happy People’, but they are still anthemic. ‘Street Spirit’, on the other hand, is like the musical equivalent of a death knell. It leaves the listener puzzled and maybe even shaken, a sharp shock to the system after having been treated to such life affirming tracks as ‘The Bends’ or ‘Just’ or even ‘Fake Plastic Trees’. Having said that, the song (and subsequently the album)’s kiss-off line is “immerse your soul in love’. Perhaps the most positive and uplifting lyric on the whole record is found in the closing lines of its darkest and most claustrophobic song. Radiohead, ladies and gentlemen…contrary bastards to the end.
All in all I would say that, for me, ‘The Bends’ is Radiohead’s greatest album. It p*sses all over their recent voyages into the realms of tuneless electronic experimentation, and I find it an altogether more fulfilling listen than the vastly over-rated ‘OK Computer’. I just think that it’s a much more human record than ‘…Computer’, and as a result I can relate to it better. The music is more emotive, and as for the lyrics? Well, I find I can relate to lines like “Immerse your soul in love” much more so than “kicking, squealing, Gucci little piggy” (not to diss ‘Paranoid Android’, I think it’s one of the band’s best songs). This record touches me like few others have ever done. It’s a classic that deserves all the acclaim it deserves, and then some.
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