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Peter reviews Radiohead's The Bends, an evolution from Pablo Honey.
The Bends: A Waggish Review by an Unstable Guy
By: Peter Easterwood
Radiohead is a famous alt-rock band that formed in Oxfordshire, England in 1985. The main members of the band are lead singer and songwriter Thom Yorke, main guitarist and pianist Jonny Greenwood, bassist Colin Greenwood, guitarist Ed O’Brien, and drummer Philip Selway. The band started with rehearsals and small gigs, first being named On a Friday, based on how the band used to rehearse on a Friday. These consistent rehearsals came to a sudden halt when everyone but Jonny Greenwood (lead guitarist and pianist) went to separate universities.
On a Friday still met up, but only during the holidays and breaks. During his time in college, Thom Yorke (lead vocalist and songwriter) became a member of a rock band named Headless Chickens. Through his time with the band, he was given the opportunity to expand on his writing, crafting early versions of songs Radiohead would use for their albums. The same goes with a techno band Yorke would also be a part of a band named Flickernoise, where he got to experiment with synths (later used for their highly acclaimed Kid A).
On a Friday got back together in 1991, continuing to rehearse and play for pubs. Throughout these performances, they gave away cassette tapes-- a minimal tape that previewed what they can create as a band-- putting their foot in the door as an actual band. The tape followed the grunge rock sound that was famous at the time (Thom Yorke was heavily influenced by The Pixies). Yorke, after the news of The Pixies' reunion, said, "When I was in school, the Pixies and R.E.M. changed my life." This tape gave them enough traction to achieve the sought-after first record label deal with EMI. This deal changed the future of On a Friday, now named Radiohead, right after signing. This gave now-named Radiohead the opportunity to make their first clean and finished studio album named Pablo Honey.
On Feb. 22, 1993, Radiohead released Pablo Honey, A very grunge-sounding album, dealing with self-consciousness and depression. Radiohead fell into the biggest trap any new band can fall into: copying the latest trendy genre. Even though Pablo Honey, compared to their other albums, is not as impressive or as experimental as the others, it is not as bad as Radiohead fans make it out to be. On the website Album of the Year, the collected critic score is a 66%, while the user score is a 60%. The issue with the whole album itself is that it just feels fake; it doesn’t feel like an actual Radiohead album, but what do you expect from a new band that is just trying to make it? Pablo Honey, even though it wasn’t that original, handed Radiohead a humongous amount of fans from two songs that grew big: “Creep” and “Anyone Can Play the Guitar.”
Image by Brett Jordan on Flickr
Pablo Honey is the embodiment of a double-edged sword; it gave Radiohead the fans they needed to grow but trapped themselves as just an average grunge rock band with grunge rock fans. The publicity got to Yorke’s head. He did not think they would get this big, giving him a short temper as a way to cope with the constant eyes that were on them. This poisoned the band's love for Pablo Honey, giving them the idea of killing the vibe they gave off. It was easier said than done, though. If they wanted to change the view of the band, then they would have to risk losing a lot of fans attracted to their sound. The Bends needed to be that album in their eyes; Radiohead did not want to stay stuck as an average band. The Bends was ultimately much more than average.
On Mar. 13, 1995, Radiohead’s long-awaited second studio album The Bends was released. Prior to The Bends being released, Yorke gave up the classic rocker mentality and was back to his ordinary self. The whole name for the album is a metaphor for their really quick rise to fame. The bends itself occurs to divers. EMedicineHealth, a commonly used site to explore the large variety of illnesses, defines the bends as: “The bends, also known as decompression sickness (DCS) or Caisson disease, occurs in scuba divers or high altitude or aerospace events when dissolved gases (mainly nitrogen) come out of solution in bubbles and can affect just about any body area including joints, lung, heart, skin and brain.” Radiohead related to the bends, just like divers who go up too quickly for air. Radiohead grew too quickly in popularity, resulting in the members feeling unstable as a band.
Image by Jason Hickey on Flickr
The Bends consists of 12 songs in the album, and two extras that were released with the singles prior to The Bends. “Planet Telex” is the opening track for the album, acting as an environment builder, with loud, messy guitars throughout the track. Yorke sings with more emphasis than he did on Pablo Honey, stretching his voice out, and sounding more energetic. Every song on the album speaks on the medioric rise Radiohead dealt with. For example, “High and Dry” pleads to the fans Radiohead gained to stay, and “Iron Lung” makes fun of the reliance Radiohead had on the song “Creep.”
Over the course of the album, the listener will hear different sounds through each song. It can go from slow and depressing like “Fake Plastic Trees” to “Just”, an aggressive, messy song, criticizing this unknown character for the random fear they have from something. The song can come off as Radiohead poking fun at the fact that they were scared of changing their sound as a band, and terrified of losing all their fans. The whole album cleans up the messiness in production showed on Pablo Honey, gives Yorke the ability to show his lyricism in a less cheesy, misunderstood manner, and overall kills the old Pablo Honey Radiohead. The Bends, although used to kill the vibe of Pablo Honey, kept the aggressive guitar trio (Yorke, Greenwood, and O’Brien), so Pablo Honey was not the worst album that Radiohead released (that’s a different story).
The album was received quite well, with multiple high ratings from many sites and articles. The shock came not too long after the release, seeing that the old grunge rock Radiohead has morphed into an indie, experimental rock band in one album. On AllMusic, a music review site run by multiple music listeners, Stephen Thomas Erlewire wrote a review for The Bends, giving it a 5 stars out of 5, and praising it for Radiohead’s evolution. Erlewire writes, “Pablo Honey in no way was adequate preparation for its epic, sprawling follow-up, The Bends. Building from the sweeping, three-guitar attack that punctuated the best moments of Pablo Honey, Radiohead created a grand and forceful sound that nevertheless resonates with anguish and despair -- it's cerebral anthemic rock.”
The Bends may be one of Radiohead’s most underrated albums. Other than “High and Dry” appearing as one of their most listened-to songs, listeners don’t hear many of their other songs that appeared on the album. The main issue with the album is that it does not dig deep into storytelling; it is more or less a preview of what the new Radiohead sounds like. That should not take away the fact that, without The Bends, there would be no Ok Computer, and no Radiohead we know now. This album shows the risks Radiohead is willing to take, with what came afterward, from the blocks they placed on The Bends, and the very loud, messy, yet peaceful-at-moments sound Radiohead brought. I’ll give The Bends a 9.3/10. It is a beautiful album to listen to, but balances out with the eerie voice Yorke uses time and time again.
Photo from Dena Flows
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