At times, I've found that annoying. I've always encountered plenty of people who weren't necessarily massive music fans, but solemnly declared their respect and admiration for Radiohead, as if somehow they were the only band deserving of such plaudits. So I jumped off the Radiohead ship.
At some point, if I was ever on it. There are bands whose corner you're in, who you buy into to the extent you're prepared to give time and care, support them and defend them, as they develop and extend and do things differently from what you first liked about them. For me, bands like Blur and Wilco, I went with wholeheartedly and was rewarded by, other bands, like Midlake, Super Furry Animals, Iron and Wine, Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, I went with to the extent of giving new work of a different style a full chance, before not quite being convinced by it.
Radiohead, I didn't go with at all. I didn't buy Kid A, or Amnesiac or Hail to the Thief. I was a little dismissive of the extent of the adoration they received. "Radiohead? Just a band."
But maybe I was never with them at all. Thom Yorke was the cover star of the first music magazine I bought, Vox(the predecessor to Uncut) in early 1995, just as I was taking a full interest in all that Britpop stuff. New to how music journalism worked, I was put off. I'm not sure I even read the interview, but all the highlighted text from Thom Yorke seemed to be angry and whiny and moany and self-justificatory. I didn't quite get that all the vaguely "interesting" statements were being pulled out of context.
Anyway, The Bends was a prominent gatecrasher in that prime Britpop year. The singles received airplay on the radio, they were on Top of the Pops, but I couldn't quite see the wood for the trees. I liked songs about London and characters and gritty realism.
Looking back, The Bends was by far the most influential British album of that year, for good or bad. In terms of its own forebears, I suppose there's a bit of US alt-rock, though not exactly grunge, there's Jeff Buckley, of course, but The Bends itself set the template, in the immediate and distant future, for anthemic British rock balladry - anyone from contemporaries the Longpigs to Coldplay, Keane and everything that came from that.They all wanted to be like Radiohead.
Listening to it now (I didn't actually buy The Bends till a few years ago), it's obvious that none of them got close. Common thought has it (not incorrectly) that Radiohead made two "classic rock" albums, The Bends and OK Computer, then moved on to something else, something a little more obscure, and they were so beloved that most of their fans (not me, though!) went with them.
And, yes, The Bends sounds fairly conventional. It was acclaimed at the time, but it's the follow-up, OK Computer, that immediately was hailed as a massive step forward and one of the greatest albums of all time. The comparison I've heard of, as the relationship between the two albums being somewhat like that between Revolver and Sgt Pepper's works well up to a point. Perhaps The Bends, years down the line, is more entirely of itself than OK Computer, more comfortable in its own skin. Having said that, I think the songs on OK Computer are a fair bit better than those on Sgt Pepper.
For I appear to find myself a Radiohead repenter. I hadn't really been looking forward to writing this particular post, I just thought it was the appropriate album for 1995, but I have found, on relistening to The Bends, many times, OK Computer, and everything else of Radiohead that I have, marvels and feelings I wasn't fully expecting.
I'm quite sure that if I heard The Bends or OK Computer now, as a new album by a relatively new artist, I would think they were by far the best English rock albums I'd heard for a long time. At the time of its release, I did listen to OK Computer a lot, but just as quickly fell out of love with it, for reasons I'm unsure of.
[Incidentally, 1997 is an interesting musical year, isn't it? Commonly seen as the post-Britpop comedown, the year it all went sour, symbolised by Oasis' hopeless, bloated Be Here Now and various chancers on the bandwagon too late, perhaps it was the best year of the lot. It was a year I had a 7 month gap in my new music listening, being out of the country, so when I came back there was a lot to catch up on, but there was Blur's self-titled 5th album, often now seen as their finest, there was The Verve's Urban Hymns (not for me, but for many others), there was Spiritualized's Ladies and Gentlemen ..., a singularly great album, and there was OK Computer (not to mention Bob Dylan's Time Out of Mind, the first album of his renaissance)]
Anyway, I knew what to expect listening back to OK Computer. The Bends, yes, I've listened to it, but I'm not sure I'd ever really given it my full attention. I hadn't quite got how good every single song is, how the non-singles are the prettiest, how it rises and swells, how there's not a dull moment, how many lovely tunes there are. Gosh, they had great tunes back then.
I've realised that the thing that has probably stood in the way for me and Radiohead is the lyrics - the lack of a lightness, of a skip and a jump and a dazzling wordplay - there are slogans and there's pain and there's anger and occasionally there's something a little clumsy. Whatever I don't warm to lyrically doesn't seem to matter on The Bends - it really works here. The occasional glimpses of naivety, of callowness, are rather charming, as if it's hard to believe Radiohead were ever callow. This was the band who'd done Creep not long before, though.
Anyway, I've really failed them with this post. I haven't got to grips with the issue at all, and I can't seem to form sentences at the moment for some reason. Sorry about that. Suffice to say, I'm really glad I chose this album for 1995. It was an unexpected delight.
Accept my Radiohead compilation in light of my fairweather fandom
Airbag
No Surprises
Lucky
Lift
Reckoner
Idioteque
Fake Plastic Trees
Creep
[Nice Dream]
Videotape
Let Down
Exit Music (for a film)
Weird Fishes/Arpeggi
i wish is was bulletproof
Planet Telex
My Iron Lung
Karma Police
But I assure you, there'll be more Radiohead listening for me. I feel like a fool!
A full and frank confession, and as such perhaps more exicting than an in depth analysis of the band!
ReplyDeleteIn case you want an excuse to dislike them again, my musician friends have reported running into Radiohead's industry people, and claim that they actively market themselves as the 'intelligent' band, and write music accordingly.
But yes, you are a fool not to have noticed and appreciated the Bends' status as an album of all good songs. (Not the same kind of music at all, but 1995's 'I should Coco is up there, too!)