Due to extreme laziness I'm virtually retired from Ciao, although I'll still read and post the odd o...
Due to extreme laziness I'm virtually retired from Ciao, although I'll still read and post the odd op every now and then......
Member since:16.01.2001
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In the period from the mid sixties to the late seventies rock music became plagued with lots of pretentious tosh trying to convince people that they were IMPORTANT and had something MEANINGFUL to say. This came to a head with bands like Yes , Emerson Lake & Palmer and to some extent Pink Floyd (Roger Waters anyone?). Lyrics were often impenetrable and banal, and the music often became so complicated it was almost impossible to play (in the case of some of Yes's stuff I wish it had been impossible to play). Anyway 1977 turned up, punk crawled out from under several stones and blew a lot of it away, but you know, stuff like that never goes away, and today we have Radiohead. Prior to Kid A , Thom Yorke was quoted as saying the band were ditching melody as an outdated concept or something. I'm all for experimentation, but maybe it's something to do with them coming from Oxford....
This digression is just to put across my point that Radiohead have taken their place in the pantheon of pretentious gits with their musings, noodlings and pontifications...
However the fact that they seem to be pretentious gits doesn't stop them from producing some gorgeous music, and this , in my humble opinion is their best album. Coming on the back of their excellent debut , Pablo Honey this is and album packed with wonderful songs, six of which were hit singles , hence the title of the op.
The album opens with a heavily reverbed guitar motif taking us into "Planet Telex", with Thom Yorke (the way he spells his name should make us wary), in fine voice especially on the soaring chorus. This is followed by the title track featuring some fairly heavy guitar riffing.
The next two tracks "High and Dry" and "Fake Plastic Trees" were both hit singles and are more gentle but still gorgeously constructed songs with unforgettable hooks.
"Just" was another single with it's distinctive almost Gilmouresque guitar runs, and superb accompanying video. If you haven't seen the video track it down, it may be pretentious, but it is fantastic.
The album has twelve tracks, and it's hard to say that any one is better or worse than the others, because different days you have different favourites. The thing is , though many of these were hit singles , none of them are what you class as "pop" songs, you can't really dance to them. The full track listing is as follows:
1. Planet Telex 2. The Bends 3. High and Dry 4. Fake Plastic Trees 5. Bones 6. Nice Dream 7. Just 8. My Iron Lung 9. Bullet Proof... I Wish I Was 10. Black Star 11. Sulk 12. Street Spirit (Fade Out) The album features high in any "greatest of all time" chart, and despite my panning of the band for being pretentious, this is still a truly great album, and one that should be in everybody's collection, and is often available at mid price so you have absolutely no excusenot to buy it.
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Great opinion, although I can't say I agree with your opinions of their later work, Kid A being deserving of a Nobel Prize! But, you put across a good, fair argument and we're agreed with regard to the brilliantness of The Bends, although lyrically and musically I still feel that OK Computer is light-years ahead.
Boris 28.08.2001 22:36
Great Op!, Totally agree with you, fantastic album, pretentious bands! Cheers-Matt :)
After the massive success of Pablo Honey--or, more specifically, the single "Creep"--had ... more
made them a household name, most had written Radiohead off as one-hit wonders. That they could return with an album as awesome and monumental as The Bends, therefo...
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Advantages: Fine gossomer touches allied to acute lyrics with firework explosions of guitar Disadvantages: Unfairly overshadowed now maybe by later releases
Advantages: Some Fantastic Tracks, no weak ones at all. As close to a flawless album I think I have heard Disadvantages: None, unless you dont like Radiohead
Andy.mack 15.11.2003 (05.04.2004)
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