The Bends - Radiohead

Year Released: 1995

Label: Parlophone

Year Bought: 2000

Some records I'm going back to for the first time in a while. Others, like 'The Bends', are still in my regular rotation.

What to say about this album? The crashing piano chords of opening track 'Planet Telex' give an immediate indication that this is not the same band that made 'Pablo Honey'. The album is a quantum leap from that record, which – while it has its fans, including me – is by-and-large the sound of just another guitar band.

'The Bends' is different. From the slowing-down-time intro of the title track, to the how-high-can-you-go guitars on 'Just', the album constantly delights.

'Fake Plastic Trees' is a magisterial effort, while 'Black Star' contains one of the great opening lines:

"I get home from work and you're still standing in your dressing gown, well, what am I to do?"

The recording process for this record was inspired by seeing Jeff Buckley perform an intimate show in London, which made the band decide to start with vocals and guitar for many of the songs and build up from there.

As a result, there's some gorgeous layering on tracks like 'Fake Plastic Trees', 'Sulk' and '(Nice Dream)'.

The real delight is saved until the end with 'Street Spirit', which sounds like yet another leap from the band. It almost feels like a bridge to the next record.

It's not a perfect album though. 'Bullet Proof ... I Wish I Was" feels a bit by numbers, both lyrically and musically. I've never really had much love for "High and Dry". In an album full of great lyrics, a chorus that just repeats "Don't leave me high, don't leave me dry" feels phoned in.

But it's a great album. It's the sound of Radiohead realising that they really do need to push themselves to avoid being just another band.

9/10

Comments

Pointless Nostalgic – Jamie Cullum

Year Released: 2002 Label: Candid Year Bought: Can't Remember Jamie Cullum burst into the nation's consciousness with a performance on Parkinson in April 2003, a showing that was soon followed by the huge-selling album 'Twentysomething'. It was 2002's 'Pointless Nostalgic' that put Cullum on Parky's radar, and shows the jazz singer and pianist beginning to hone the act that would make him such a breakthrough. There's a host of standards here – 'In The Wee Small Hours of The Morning'. 'It Ain't Necessarily So', 'I Can't Get Started' – alongside a couple of originals and a cover of Radiohead's 'High And Dry'. I remember that song being a big deal at the time for some reason. I think it was seen as rare merging of jazz and alt-rock. Cullum's version is not bad, and actually keeps it quite light and subdued without slipping into a dirge. Cullum was just 23 when this was recorded, and perhaps it's his yo...

Franz Ferdinand – Franz Ferdinand

Year Released: 2004 Label: Domino Year Bought: 2004 January 2004. I'd just quit uni. Was back at the family home in Bishop's Stortford. The place I'd been so desperate to get away from, and I was back and already bored. And then things got a bit less boring. I remember this so clearly. I was having a shower and the radio was on, and on came 'Take Me Out'. I couldn't believe what I was hearing. At first I thought it must be an old tune that had passed me by, but no, it was announced as a new song by a band called Franz Ferdinand. It sounded glorious. It sounded interesting. After the staleness of the post-Britpop years, and beigeness of Coldplay, Travis et al, there was actually a British band doing something interesting. I loved it, and when the album came out the next month, I gobbled it up with glee. Listening back now, and I still love it. The hushed opening of 'Jacqueline', the sleaze of 'The Dark of the Matinee', the homoeroticism of 'M...

Ringleader Of The Tormentors – Morrissey

Year Released: 2006 Label: Sanctuary Year Bought: 2006 Released in 2006, 'Ringleader of the Tormentors' in many ways represents the apex of the Morrissey resurgence that began two years earlier with 'You Are The Quarry'. Whereas that album peaked at number 2 in the album chart (although it did spawn 4 top ten singles), its successor gave Morrissey his first number 1 album since 1994's 'Vauxhall and I'. 'Ringleaders...' raised some eyebrows at the time as Morrissey sang explicitly about something he had previously made a virtue of not discussing. His sex life. "There are exploding kegs between my legs," he sings on 'Dear God Please Help Me' – a tune that swells and grows to a climax with strings written by Ennio Morricone. "Now I'm spreading your legs with mine in between," he later adds. Perhaps this new found desire of the flesh was due to this album being recorded in Italy, and references to the country season the ...

All The Records I've Ever Owned

Search This Blog