The Bends is a damned beautiful album!!!

[phillyfan26]

Ha, well, a couple tracks from OKC grew on me, and In Rainbows catapulted into my top five albums ever, so, it has some stiff competition.

 

[intedomine]

Mmmm, I've come to like it a wee bit more over the past year, but it still pales in comparison with OkC, KidA, Hail, and Rainbows

 

[U2Fanatic4ever]

Third now?

You disappoint me pfan...

agreed..



me too.

 

[Musikwala]

I wish it was the nineties

I wish I could be happy
I wish I wish I wish that something would...

*guitar*

 

[Kieran McConville]

I can't remember the last time I listened to The Bends. And it's not even like it's not good, it's just so far surpassed by what came after.

 

[Musikwala]

Kieran, how the heck did you manage to not make a single post in this thread for 12 whole years?

 

[Kieran McConville]

You know - I'm sure you know - this whole subforum was started because Interference needed a Radiohead forum. Things were getting out of hand.

All that said, I dunno why. Everything I had to say was said I guess.

 

[youarenotimmune]

I can't remember the last time I listened to The Bends. And it's not even like it's not good, it's just so far surpassed by what came after.

This is exactly how I feel as well.

 

[RaisedByWolves]

I have often heard this album referred to as Radiohead's second best album. Whilst it is certainly true that 'OK Computer' is Radiohead's defining album, I think they're totally different.

If a friend of yours is talking to you about music, and you want to introduce them to their music, believe me, you will not want to give them OK Computer. OK Computer takes 3 listens to appreciate. And you have to listen. It's not the kind of music you can put on while you do the dishes, at least, not at first.

There is, too, a reason why Radiohead fans will hark back the the days of 'The Bends'. It's Radiohead at their most vibrant, rocking, and accessible. Every song is brilliant.

If I've offended any hardcore Radiohead fanboys, I do apologize. Radiohead's best music is definitely OK Computer, but this is cool, fun, and open music, and I will hold it dear forever.

 

[lazarus]

I wish I could be happy
I wish I wish I wish that something would...

*guitar*

cool bump bro

I have often heard this album referred to as Radiohead's second best album. Whilst it is certainly true that 'OK Computer' is Radiohead's defining album, I think they're totally different.

If a friend of yours is talking to you about music, and you want to introduce them to their music, believe me, you will not want to give them OK Computer. OK Computer takes 3 listens to appreciate. And you have to listen. It's not the kind of music you can put on while you do the dishes, at least, not at first.

There is, too, a reason why Radiohead fans will hark back the the days of 'The Bends'. It's Radiohead at their most vibrant, rocking, and accessible. Every song is brilliant.

If I've offended any hardcore Radiohead fanboys, I do apologize. Radiohead's best music is definitely OK Computer, but this is cool, fun, and open music, and I will hold it dear forever.

 

[iron yuppie]

If a friend of yours is talking to you about music, and you want to introduce them to their music, believe me, you will not want to give them OK Computer. OK Computer takes 3 listens to appreciate. And you have to listen. It's not the kind of music you can put on while you do the dishes, at least, not at first.

I would say OK Computer is just as immediate in terms of riffs/melodies but also more complex lyrically and thematically. It rewards both in the short-run and long-run, which makes it arguably an ideal introductory album.

 

[Kieran McConville]

The Bends and OK Computer exist on a continuum. One was a logical extension of the other.

 

[david]

1995 i got a music magazine with a sampler CD, it contained Fake Plastic Trees. I listened to that song alone on repeat listen. I barely remember what else was on it, I think fun loving criminals and other random mid '90s bands. I got The Bends in 1996 and thus began my love for Radiohead. Then of course a year later OK Computer happened.

 

[Kieran McConville]

I just remember the penny dropping somewhere around 1996/97 that, oh, this was the 'Creep' band (not that it's a bad single at all, but 1992 was a long time ago at that point).

 

[iron yuppie]

The first time I heard Radiohead, I was a freshman in college. My roommate was playing Karma Police and I was totally captivated. I had atrocious taste at the time, so that song was a major turning point for me musically.

I may have said this before, but no other album has been more influential to me than Kid A. At the time it seemed so radical to me; at first I couldn't really handle it, but I gave it a number of tries because of how much I liked OK Computer. When in clicked, mainly through Idioteque, it opened my eyes to a world of alternative music I never knew existed.

 

[david]

I just remember the penny dropping somewhere around 1996/97 that, oh, this was the 'Creep' band (not that it's a bad single at all, but 1992 was a long time ago at that point).

If I recall Spin gave the Bends a not so great review at the time and compared it to Pablo Honey.

 

[cobl04]

OK Computer was my entry point. There are several old posts of mine in this forum hanging shit on it, calling it a load of noise and so on. First time I listened to it I turned it off after Fitter Happier. I went back to it a few months later and it just clicked, and thank god it did.

 

[Kieran McConville]

Karma Police was a revelation... I'm not sure I would have bought OK Computer absent one intriguing newspaper review that compared the band's music to the 'widescreen' aesthetic of mid-period U2, and also hearing Karma Police on the radio.

 

[Vlad n U 2]

The Bends is still the best Radiohead album for mine.

 

[Kieran McConville]

If I recall Spin gave the Bends a not so great review at the time and compared it to Pablo Honey.

Gotta love magazines and their retrospectively-mea-culpa'd reviews. I can imagine what Nevermind, Achtung Baby, Led Zeppelin's entire catalogue and a host of others got upon release.

 

[david]

Radiohead, 'The Bends' (Capitol)
SPIN Rating:5 of 10
May 1 1995
by Chuck Eddy

This is one of those follow-up albums (like the last Spin Doctors one and, I fear, the next Counting Crows, the Offspring, and Blur records) that I always hope will sound like ten imitations of the one or two great hits of the band's not-so-great previous commercial-breakthrough LP, but instead just proves the band is afraid to be pigeonholed into the only style it's very good at.

Radiohead's breakthrough hit was "Creep," which at first I dismissed as a wussy David Bowie cabaret ballad with corny Jesus and Mary Chain lawnmower guitar snags stuck in there. But eventually I fell in love because I'm a creep and weirdo who wonders what the hell I'm doing here myself, plus the lawnmowers really did snag me, and the falsetto part was heaven. Radiohead singing "I want you to notice when I'm not around" was even better than creepy weirdo Michael Jackson singing "You won't be laughing girl when I'm not around" in "Give In to Me" (my second-favorite song of 1993), and both lines felt like suicide.

The Bends is never "Creep"-like enough, but "My Iron Lung" (a late Beatles pastiche with surprise noise) and "Just" (which seems to swipe powerchords from "Smells Like Nirvana" by "Weird Al" Yankovic)come close. There's more nice guitar gush (e.g. the sub-Tom-Scholz anthemic stairclimb of "Black Star"), but the rest of the album mostly reminds me of Suede trying to rock like Sparks but coming out like U2, or (more often) that hissy little pissant in Smashing Pumpkins passive-aggressively inspiring me to clobber him with my copy of The Grand Illusion by Styx. Too much nodded-out nonsense mumble, not enough concrete emotion.

 

[cobl04]

If I spent 100 years coming up with descriptors for Creep I doubt I would ever arrive at "wussy David Bowie cabaret ballad"

 

[Kieran McConville]

There you have it folks. Good people, you've made a terrible mistake! Chuck Eddy says you shouldn't listen to Radiohead!

 

[AEON]

The Bends is still the best Radiohead album for mine.

Agreed. It's their most complete album and the one I go to most often. A dash of "shoegaze" and a pinch of "emo-before emo existed"

 

[LemonMelon]

Why would anyone have a copy of The Grand Illusion they would be willing to take out in public and cobbler somebody with? And what does Styx have to do with Smashing Pumpkins?

 

[Musikwala]

That SPIN review is It really sounds like this Chuck Eddy gave one cursory listen to the album and wrote a review.

But I have to say I chuckled at that comparison between that MJ line from Dangerous and the one from Creep. That is quite a stretch!

 

[djerdap]

but instead just proves the band is afraid to be pigeonholed into the only style it's very good at.

Fantastic.

 

[nielsgov]

I may have said this before, but no other album has been more influential to me than Kid A. At the time it seemed so radical to me; at first I couldn't really handle it, but I gave it a number of tries because of how much I liked OK Computer. When in clicked, mainly through Idioteque, it opened my eyes to a world of alternative music I never knew existed.

This is very similar to my experience with Kid A. It's funny that that album of all albums, even ten years after its release, is the one that widened my taste in music significantly. Such a special album.

 

[cobl04]

I never had that experience with Kid A. I liked it from the get-go but I had broadened my tastes more widely by the time I heard it.

On The Bends, I rate it fourth in their catalogue, behind In Rainbows, OK Computer and Kid A. Black Star is on my Rushmore (jesus I've been overusing that phrase recently but whatevs) and I think Bulletproof is one of the band's most criminally underrated songs. So so so so beautiful.

 

[LemonMelon]

On The Bends, I rate it fourth in their catalogue, behind In Rainbows, OK Computer and Kid A. Black Star is on my Rushmore (jesus I've been overusing that phrase recently but whatevs) and I think Bulletproof is one of the band's most criminally underrated songs. So so so so beautiful.

I agree with all of this.

But man oh man is that top four superb.