The Bends

I could crywank all night to this behemoth. Blisters on me fingers and on me dick. So much blood and so many tears. Like a recently widowed hedgehog trying to escape from a blender. Welp.

I've been secretly dreading the day we'd get a Radiohead album. Not because I think they're bad, but because I've put them off for so long. Well it's time to pay the piper. I'm enjoying this quite a bit. It's a lot less experimental than I was expecting, and I mean that in a good way. I assumed they would be pretentious artsy music but it's just good solid alt-rock. This album is on countless "best ever" lists, and I don't quite see that, but maybe if I heard it in the '90s when I was barely 2 years old I would see it. It's still great though, plenty to love. Favorite tracks: Fake Plastic Trees, High and Dry, Bullet Proof, The Bends. Album art: I'd say it's iconic. One of those "have you dreamed this man" sort of ubiquitous images. Which mannequin is getting the best (radio)head? 4/5

No, sorry, don't like Radiohead. Don't understand all the hype at all. Media darling, whiney college kids. Kid A and OK Computer are always in the 'best albums ever' lists but I hate them and think they're shit.

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Their best album and the purists can go fuck themselves 🙃 It’s actually a brilliant guitar album and there’s a reason fans still clamour for these songs live - it was before Radiohead got lost up their own arse. It came perfectly after the grunge hangover and was an anecdote to the Brit Pop bullshit

Sounded like whiny shit then, sounds like whiny shit now.

The whole album is great from start to finish. A true classic in that it has indefinite replay desire.

Sorry. I realize a 2 star rating will upset many people, but Radiohead has always been a snooze fest for me.

Everything is broken, am I really sinking this low? I bet you think that's pretty clever, don't you boy? My fake plastic love, I don't want to be crippled and cracked. The sea would electrocute us all and that's what really hurts; a total waste of time. I wish that I was bulletproof, sometimes you sulk, sometimes you burn. Immerse yourself in love.

This is maybe the 4th or 5th best Radiohead album and it’s still perfect. That’s how great they are.

BABY'S GOT THE BEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEENDS alright, in all seriousness, The Bends is a very very very good album. as the album that kicks off Radiohead's inhuman 26-year streak of exceptionally good albums, it contains all the nascent elements that make them arguably the best group to ever do it. unfortunately for this album - that position means that it is constantly compared to the albums that followed it, especially its older brother and greatest album of all time (in my Opinion) OK Computer. this tends to be an unfavorable comparison because - while all the things that make Radiohead Radiohead are present in this album, it's still very much bogged down in *genre*. while all the records following itare unique enough in their construction that you basically have to throw in the towel and say something like 'experimental rock' if asked about their genre - for about half of The Bends' tracklist, Radiohead are basically just doing Alternative Rock. to be fair though, The Bends is Radiohead doing alt-rock very very well - the title track is an exemplary britpop tune, with sneering verses and a soaring, anthemic chorus, fake plastic trees still stands as one of the band's best ballads which is *really* saying something, and even less pivotal tracks like bones or black star are still pretty good on the virtue of the instrumentation and vocals alone. the best songs on here however are the ones where radiohead is beginning to do their own thing - the strange, airy atmospheres of planet telex or bulletproof, and the moments on both of these tracks where thom's falsetto really PROPELY comes out. the best song on this entire album though is the closer however, where Radiohead's greatest strength as a band first becomes apparent - the ability to rip a specific feeling out of your psyche and then blast it back at you with twice the strength. street spirit (fade out) embodies the eldritch, existential horror of death & death anxiety so well that it is harrowing and genuinely hard to listen to. i never listen to this album on its own because hearing the end of street spirit fade into complete silence still leaves a pit in my stomach even after god knows how many listens. i'd give this album a 9/10, its closer to a 10 than an 8

This incarnation of Radiohead is great songwriting before they started to branch out with more experimentation. The songwriting is rock solid and Street Spirit is one of my favourite tracks of theirs

It's kind of hard to put into words how amazing "The Bends" is. Radiohead, particularly the later stuff post-"OK Computer," can be pretty polarizing. Many are put off by Thom Yorke's wailing or the samples and computer blips or whatever. (I am not in this group.) But on "The Bends" what you get is peak Radiohead. A band that moved past a really solid but not groundbreaking debut to deliver a sophomore album that was a mature and unique example of a band finding their sound. (And then they continued to play with and tweak that sound relentlessly for the next decade. To subvert expectations? Who knows what's in the mind of these guys.) While Yorke's moaning and wailing are more exaggerated on later albums (while still working for me most of the time), on this album the vocals are a perfect instrument to complement the guitars (which do some wailing themselves, in a good way) and percussion. There are some songs where you can actually understand a bunch of the words(!), and Yorke writes some powerful lyrics. There are too many stellar songs to single them all out. It is a complete package, without a dud, from start to finish. I was curious for another perspective on the 1000 greatest albums one day when I was frustrated by another middling English band that never made it big across the pond, and found a list created by Colin Larkin in the late 90s, last updated in 2000. Unlike "1001 Albums You Must Listen to Before You Die," Larkin's list allowed fan voting from around the world. The top 10 is heavy with Beatles, as expected, but #2 is "The Bends." That's how good and influential this album is. While "Pablo Honey" feels fairly 90s, "The Bends" feels timeless. I think I like it even more every time I listen.

I first heard a song from this album, Fake Plastic Trees, in the movie Clueless staring Paul Rudd and some other people. This movie, and the Baz Luhrmann version of Romeo and Juliet (starring Paul Rudd!) which also featured a Radiohead song (Talk Show Host), introduced me to Radiohead and led me to an album that has become one of my top 5 favorite albums of all time. The album starts with a woosh like something is blowing in, then hits you with the guitars, and honestly this might be my second favorite opening to an album (behind the base line for Seven Nation Army). I get excited every time I hear that woosh because I know what is coming next. The layers of sound! The guitars get loud like an arena rock show, then soft again, always layered in a way that is indicative of how experimental they are/will continue to be. At times you get flavors of U2, Oasis, REM, and yet they have a sound that is uniquely their own. The music is always vulnerable, eerie at times, angry at times, and broken in the most hauntingly amazing way. I am a lyric person but despite the fact that I can't tell what Thom Yorke is saying 80% of the time, the combination of his voice and the music transcend the often unintelligible lyrics. The snippets of what come through can be devastating. The rejection of the fame/attention, the futility of life, and the intense longing to belong. The optimism and positivity is cut with cynicism (Nice Dream) but you are quickly brought back up from the nihilism of Fake Plastic Trees by the reverb-y guitars of Bones. They achieve a balance in this album that I can't find in many other works. Case in point is the fade out of Street Spirit which is a perfect contrast to the way the album wooshed in with Planet Telex The Bends would be in my desert island 5-disc CD changer. It perfectly encapsulated my 90s angst while managing, like Paul Rudd himself, to never age.

“The Bends is one of the best guitar albums of the 90’s” -People who have yet to hear The Flaming Lips’ “Clouds Taste Metallic”

This one was something else. I loved it. Great!

RADIOHEAD

there are some pretty cool moments on here but I think they kind of get lost in an overall muddled/aimless feeling album. it's quite mopey (which worked okay on some of the tracks) and the vocals didn't grab my attention. probably would be a 2.5 there's some good stuff but none of it was really compelling or interesting to me.

I think this is absolutely stunning. It's laden with beauty and emotion and meaning. It's even so melodic in certain parts and extremely catchy. A dreamscape kaleidoscope of sounds. However, I wouldn't be able to listen to this full album on a hangover or a sad day because that would be a bit much and I would be spiralling down v quickly. Not exactly cheery is it now.

Radioheads classic 2nd Album. great set of songs from Thom and the boys. I must admit I personally prefer "OK Computer" if I had to chose a favourite Radiohead album. This is great though and justifiably in this list. "High & Dry" "The Bends" "Fake Plastic Trees" and "My Iron Lung" are my favourites on this album. A good choice.

With screeching guitars and poignant lyrics, sung beautifully by Thom Yorke, Radiohead improve on every single aspect of Pablo Honey. The Bends is an incredibly engaging record with a good variety of rock bangers and blisfully melancholic ballads, and it makes you feel like the world is caving in on you, just when you need it's structure most to support your desperate and delicate mind. It's a masterpiece, and easily worth a 5/5.

Baby’s got the bends. You don’t have any real friends. This is TOTALLY how I feel as we try to re-enter somehow into the world. Our kids have to deal with very metaphorical decompression of going from lockdown or podding or significant isolation to freaking public school, crammed hallways, cramped school buses. But I like what the album conjures for me more. Another album that transports me to college. This one is glued to the membranes of my curious and trepidatious cells. It coaxed the leery adult from the grips of my apprehensive adolescence. It doesn’t hurt that I could figure out how to play most of these on the guitar—back when Radiohead’s simplicity matched my skill. I love the explosiveness of the Bends and Thom Yorke’s unbridled bellows. To playing on the upbeat in the chorus in Bones. “I used to fly like Peter Pan! All the children flew when I touched their hands.” (Nice Dream) sounds just like one to me. The melodic descent of the partial barre chords at the beginning contrasts with the whining riffs toward the end. Just has a cool rock-out start. I often quote this song (and not just nowadays): “You do it to yourself, you do, and that’s why it really hurts.” Ain’t it the truth. #maskupassholes #getthefuckingshot I love the cliffhanger chord that Black Star ends on. But I think my most favorite song is Sulk. I’m a sucker for slow builds. Simple single note motif on the guitar that leads to a more complex and interesting variation in the bass line that descends down the scale as he declares a holiday, falls asleep, drifts away. Radiohead and I kinda parted ways sometime around Kid A. We grew apart. Maybe my grown ass self should revisit the newer stuff and find something new about myself. We’ll see. Solid 5 from me.

While Radiohead (in retrospect) had very humble beginnings with their debut, the following album 'The Bends' was not only more ambitious but even better recieved by the public and also the critics. Of course their extreme critical acclaim wouldn't come until 'OK Computer' but 'The Bends' showed the potential they had. By blending a more timeless Alternative Rock style with elements of Post-Britpop, they created a cohesive album with highlights that tower above nearly everything they created at that point. Compared to their later albums, this is much more conventional and not as artistic and experimental as for example 'Kid A' or 'In Rainbows'. And while I do love some radiohead albums a lot (In Rainbows stands as one of my all time favourites ever and is a 10 for me) 'The Bends' is in my eyes very overrated. It has its moments but it hasn't aged as well as their later albums. The album opens with 'Planet Telex', one of the few songs to use a synthesizer, here mainly present in the intro and outro. I think it's a pretty good song: I like the structure and the chorus but for my personal enjoyment it doesn't have a real highlight that makes it stick out among other alt-rock songs. It feels a little too basic to be a truely great song. The following title track 'The Bends' is compared worse. I'm not sure why they named the album after that song as it isn't really a highlight or important to the album. Thom Yorke's sometimes very unclear vocals that sound like they were recorded throw a wall seem very unfitting and weird without adding. The song isn't bad, mainly because of the instrumentation but even that lacks any sort of hook. 'High and Dry' is a really good song and one of my favourites of the album. It feels much more focused and thought out. The chorus is incredible and builds up in very little time which makes it really rewarding. My main criticism with this track is mainly Thom's lyricism which I really don't care for on the album in general and combined with the performance he puts on, it just feels like trying but not being able to fulfill that to the full potential. 'Fake Plastic Trees' is loved among the Radiohead fans but it does click with me as much. I like how its structured and it builds up with more and more instruments but it does not give anything rewarding except being the song with the best lyricism on the album. It's just there and I don't care for it much. It is also way too long. The next song 'Bones' does pick it up with a much louder sound and a surprising chorus that kind of comes out of nowhere. And that very noisy part is actually really good. I actually might prefer this song over FPT. The first half closes with '(Nice Dream)' which has some really nice strings that add a lot to the more melancholic and lonely sounding song. A very beautiful but sad song to end that first bunch of tracks off with. Unlike the last track, 'Just', which starts the first half, is much more up-beat and easily my favourite song here (I know that that's a basic take). A great intro, bridge and chorus all with some very nice songwriting and lyrics. It's the best song on the album although it is not a perfect song in my opinion. 'My Iron Lung' is really chaotic at times and then slows for the hook and I do enjoy both of these parts on their own, I am just not really a fan of how they're connected. It's still a nice song but nothing more than that. A very strong contrast gives 'Bullet Proof..I Wish I Was' which has more acoustic guitar and clean sound but it also lacks the highlight. It moves past me in a way that some moments actually become a little bit annoying. 'Black Star' is a much better song. It has a great and emotional high but outside of the very good chorus, the song does not interest me much. 'Sulk' also isn't as strong as other songs. The intro is good with the very weird and fast guitar that nearly sounds like a synth but I do not care much about this song. I think I just like Radiohead more when they experiment and try more interesting things. The album closes with one of its best songs: 'Street Spirit (Fade Out)' has a very emotional build up and I love the performance Thom gives. The lead guitar is also very adding to the emotional weight of this track. Easily one of my favourites. favourites: Just, Street Spirit (Fade Out), High and Dry, (Nice Dream) least favourites: Bullet Proof..I Wish I Was, Sulk, The Bends Rating: very strong 6 https://rateyourmusic.com/~Emil_ph for more ratings, reviews and takes

Seemingly came out of nowhere by band that refreshingly seemed to care far more about their music than anything else It’s streets ahead of most of its contemporaries and deserves a listen at least once by everyone

I always knew that Radiohead made some good stuff but i was legitimately shocked when i found out just how good The Bends really was. The guitar work was just out of this world as was the work with all the other instruments to the point where these songs nearly moved me to tears due to their amazing instrumentation. Thom's singing was also great as were the lyrics just being about embracing your imperfections and learning that its okay to not be okay. While Amnesiac and Hail To The Thief are good albums in their own right and have arguably more interesting elements. I still feel that The Bends is my favorite Radiohead album so far because of just how good it sounds. Best Song: Just Worst Song: My Iron Lung

Extraordinarily strong rock album, probably my favourite Radiohead.

This is a 5. One of the greatest albums ever recorded.

Late to the party. Worth the hype.

Do you have to British and of a certain age for this to really make sense? It's full of angst and relevance. Come on now kids of the 90's..."don't leave me high"

About as straightforward as Radiohead ever got and it’s very good indeed- the boys sure can play and make excellent rock tracks. The production is extraordinarily good; the blend is great- the guitars sound almost like a Co vocalist alongside Yorker’s impulsive yelps and screams. There are hints throughout of the experimentation that was to follow. Here the building blocks.

One of the best alternative albums of all time.

Radiohead - The Bends (1995) Just Put a little pressure on a string down or up in a way to make that note go higher, that's a bend. Welcome to another place where you are the instrument and all of the notes will sound like bends across your whole body, each feeling better than the previous one highly and softly, when even the pain you can control by the gain you receive. But the release is the way back home, they just don't want you to know that so soon in your journey when we all know that the path is greater than the arrival at the finish line or the next station. Hitch the gear up, let the pedal loose and grip the gas out of your tank, racing with your fears, tearing up your ears, as in a radio station your head is way too much tall than you can hardly believe in your own eyes. A

Brilliant! Can’t fault any of the tracks. One of the best albums ever.

I don’t think I can honestly give this anything lower than a 5. It was an atmospheric, melodic experience that I got lost in and didn’t want to find my way out of.

The album that got me into Radiohead. So many amazing songs, even deep into the album. I could listen to it every day.

A perfect rock album and the one that introduced me properly to the genre. I know and love every song. Absolutely untouchable (well, apart from the other fantastic Radiohead albums).

It may not be their best album, but it is Radiohead's perfect, "no skip" album.

Classic Radiohead. Songwriting is amazing.

Radiohead's first step beyond being "the Creep band". A stone cold classic. A stone cold classic made even better by having what looks like an Easter Island head in the final flings of ejaculation on the cover.

Missed this album the first time around, a Radiohead album I can dance to! Bloody hell - I might start liking them!

Crap boobs crap

Fantastic Radiohead...I live High and Dry

Already loved the album. Great sound such a classic.

An all time great. I'm always amazed that this is their second album. When many bands load up their first with songs they've been writing since they formed and the second suffers, this is the opposite. Where "Pablo Honey" had "Creep" and not much else, this is all great to classic songs. Is it their best album? Maybe not. But within the scope of what it sets out to accomplish, it's entirely successful. I know I listen to it much more than "OK Computer" and is in my pantheon of favourite albums.

Love this album and the band

classic , know and love

One of my favorite Radiohead albums. Solid rock and catchy hooks.

Before I signed up for this project - "I bet these MF'ers are going to make me listen to Radiohead." Today - "I fucking knew it!" 4 songs in - "Do I like Radiohead???" End of the album - "Well shit."

I feel like it's basic. Don't know why? I mean, it's good don't get me right but it didn't really pop out.

Nr. 7/1001 Planet Telex 3/5 The Bends 4/5 High And Dry 3/5 Fake Plastic Trees 4/5 Bones 3/5 (Nice Dream) 3/5 Just 2/5 My Iron Lung 2/5 Bulletproof... I Wish I Was 3/5 Black Star 3/5 Sulk 3/5 Street Spirit (Fade Out) 3/5 Average: 3 I really wish to be able to get into Radiohead, since they are so universally acclaimed. I just can't...

I had no idea what I was getting into, as I've not really listened to much Radiohead before, but I was pleasantly surprised with this album! Planet Telex's atmosphere was an interesting introduction to this album. I don't have much to say besides that, and that it had a really fun atmosphere - loved the keyboard parts. The Bends is ok. Not a favorite track, just sort of there, reminding me of a lot of other classic rock tracks. High and Dry is another song that reminds me of stuff I'd listen to on the radio as a kid driving through Saskatchewan with my uncle. It's a nice chill song, but I don't see myself revisiting it too much after this. I love the vocals on Fake Plastic Trees. It's got some really interesting stuff happening underneath the vocals too at some points! Bones is a lot more in line with the music I find myself gravitating towards, and as such it's been my favorite so far. I'm a big fan of (Nice Dream), it's really nice and chill with good atmosphere. Which all sound like buzzwords now, but oh well. I'm pretty tired and all I know is that this song is fun and I like the guitar on it. It sounds like a dream, which I assume is the point. Just is fun, but sort of blends into the rest of the album for me? Not sure why. It might be because I'm a tad tired writing this! The funky little guitar bit around 2 minutes in is wonderful. My Iron Lung bangs harder than it has any right to and I have no idea why. It's just fantastic. Bullet Proof ... I Wish I Was has some really cool vocal moments, I love Thom Yorke's voice. Black Star is something I could see myself appreciating more at like 3AM. It's a good song, but I'm just not in love at this moment in time. I feel the same about Sulk. Maybe listening to this album in the middle of the day isn't the right time for it! Love the guitar so much on Street Spirit (Fade Out). This song is such a good closer to the album. I really love it. This and My Iron Lung are the highlights of the album for me by far.

This falls into the category of most Radiohead I've heard - a little whiney, a little uncanny--musically interesting but not in a way that pulls it up out of just 'meh' for me.

Well, that was cringetastic. I‘m probably through with that thing. I used to really love the band, though. Ages ago…

4. The Bends - Radiohead. 12 Tracks Fake Plastic Trees is 1 of the most beautiful songs written by anyone, ever, but with the exception of that & High & Dry, the album is filled with melancholy overrated rubbish.

I hate to disappoint louis but i kinda didnt like this. It seemed pretty limp to me, like they were just being radiohead and nothing else, no tracks stood out and none stuck in my head, except for just but id heard that before. I dunno, i find all the other radiohead ive heard just a ton more interesting. Not offensive though so it gets a 2

The vocals are hard to understand. It honestly all sounds the same. But maybe I'm too smoothbrained to understand.

High and Dry, Fake Plastic Trees poznate; Street spirit jedino super

ok so I don't like radiohead much at all, but I can at least stomach the first two albums in that "I don't like it but at least time doesn't slow to a crawl while it plays" way. there's still a TINY bit of rockin edge to this and htey hadn't gone into full goes-nowhere-rock territory just yet. 2/5 - 1 point because that's the lowest mark, and 1 extra point just because it wasn't as mind-numbingly "fuuuuucking hell, is this over yet?!" boring as radiohead got later on.

Fire. I’ve heard a bunch of these songs before, but listening to the whole thing start to finish is such a treat. I usually listen to this kind of music and Radiohead in general, but this album still feels like something I re-discover each time. There are so many standouts it’s hard to choose. “High & Dry,” “Fake Plastic Trees,” and “(Nice Dream)”—that distorted guitar in the middle and then it softens at the end... just ufff. “Just” is funny, almost mocking at first, then it gets angry in the chorus. The vocals build, the guitars explode, it’s just vibessssss. “My Iron Lung” is full of rage in the chorus and it sounds amazing. “Bullet Proof... I Wish I Was” starts off kind of boring but the chorus feels angelic, like you’re being lifted. The guitar progression is beautiful. In “Black Star,” Thom’s falsetto shines, and again the guitars are on point. Even songs I don’t love like “Sulk” still have a vibe and work in the background. And then “Street Spirit (Fade Out)”—so moody and atmospheric, like a movie soundtrack. The guitars are haunting and Thom’s voice fading in and out just hits. It ends with a more hopeful lyric but it still leaves you in a deep place. The lyrics are cool, melancholic, self-loathing, angry, introspective, always digging into the fakeness of everything. There’s nothing I didn’t like honestly. It’s not a happy-go-lucky album, it’s a whole mood. One of my favorites albums of all time.

This was one of my favourite albums as a teenager and it's still as good as the first time I heard it. I've always liked Radiohead, but I'm not as big a fan as a lot of people. In my opinion, this is the best Radiohead album. Truly excellent from start to finish.

4.5 stars rounded up for sentimental reasons Full disclosure: this is my favourite band. I wasn’t a cool elementary school kid who was listening to this in 1995. I didn’t become a fan until university, between Hail to the Thief and In Rainbows. I was a student figuring out who I was and my take on the world after my varsity hockey career ended. My laptop was full of Radiohead songs that I had grabbed from my brother’s computer. I threw them on shuffle on Windows Media Player with all my other music. Every time I’d hear an amazing song and had to check what it was - it was Radiohead. It happened so many times that I decided to properly dive in and never looked back. So my initial experience with The Bends was in a world where OK Computer and Kid A had already been established as classics. There was a big portion of the fanbase (ateaseweb, anyone?) that looked down on The Bends as an inferior precursor to those 2 masterpieces. Ultimately I think that’s snobbery. The Bends may not be as complex or conceptually unified as Kid A/OKC, but it’s an incredibly listenable record. I still listen to it all the time! It’s so difficult to talk about Radiohead albums without the context of what came before and after. As a follow-up to Pablo Honey, The Bends is a big leap forward. PH is ok, it has some overlooked good songs and a bunch of so-so stuff that sounds like second-rate versions of other popular rock bands. On The Bends they sound more confident, and Thom’s persona is more fully developed. Still, I don’t think anything on this album really predicts the even bigger leap they took after this with OK Computer. My main quibbles with The Bends are: Thom’s angsty lyrics didn’t age as well as I would’ve wanted. On some songs he comes across trite, a 90s Gen X cliche. And the gripes that resonated with me when I was in my early 20s don’t hit as hard anymore. But really, he was just capturing a zeitgeist and his own internal turmoil at the time. With Thom I’ve always felt it was more about the expressiveness of his voice than the literal words he sings anyway. My other critique is the reason I’d technically take a half star off: sequencing. They have two pairs of songs back-to-back that sound really similar: High and Dry + Fake Plastic Trees and Just + My Iron Lung. It doesn’t bother me as much for the first pair but the second two have a dated post-grunge sound so it’s more noticeable. I’m splitting hairs because I like all those songs but I guess I grade on a curve when it comes to this band. Planet Telex - Starting out very strong with one of my favourite tracks on the album. Thankfully, we have long since left behind its association with Jian Ghomeshi’s Q (yes, I was a regular listener before the shit came to light). When I saw them play this live I was ecstatic! The Bends - The Bends is ostensibly about the alienation Thom felt after rocketing to fame with the success of Creep. He starts off singing about finding his real friends, asking “where are you now when I need you?” By the third verse he’s making fun of himself - “they brought in the CIA / the tanks and the whole marines to blow me away” - until it all explodes into one of Jonny’s most satisfying solos. Thom belts out a final desperate cry for connection, “I wanna be part of the human race!” before deflating back down to ask again, “where are you now when I need you?” We don’t know who he’s searching for - his real friends, his girlfriend, any authentic human connection at all, all of the above? I don’t know if Thom ever really adjusted to being a star, but this is one of his only songs that seems to directly reference fame. It’s a total banger and I love it. They performed this on Jools Holland at the time and I’m probably personally responsible for 90% of the that video’s views on YouTube. Thom never sings this “straight” anymore. On the occasion they do play it, he sneers and mumbles his way through it as if he’s mocking his younger self. It’s too bad. High and Dry - I feel like there are 2 types of people: those who love this song, and those who spent too much time wanking on Radiohead message boards. This is clearly a great song and people should get over themselves. (I’m excusing the band themselves because I do sympathize with getting sick of your own songs) A lot of Radiohead songs are cited for “inventing Coldplay” and this is a prime suspect. Coldplay and their ilk took High and Dry’s acoustic guitar + falsetto formula, dialled up the romantic longing and turned down the bitterness to ride a wave of cash money. It’s fine - I like Coldplay’s first two albums! I actually came to Radiohead via Coldplay. The best part about the Radiohead clone army is that it pissed off Thom enough that he eventually blew up Radiohead’s sound and did something completely different. That intense commitment to innovation is what makes Radiohead great. Anyway I like this song and it’s too bad the band seems to hate it. Fake Plastic Trees - Even though I think this song influenced Chris Martin just as much as High and Dry, luckily the band have not disowned this one. The lyrics are pretty on the nose, but it’s Thom’s emotional delivery that gets me every time. Anyone who’s mystified that girlies are in love with Thom needs to watch videos of him singing this live in the 90s. I cried when I finally heard them play this live! Bones - One of the few songs where you can hear Thom’s English accent! (On “I used to fly like Peter Pan”) (Nice Dream) - An overlooked song that I absolutely love. Thom’s vocals sound angelic. There’s a video of him performing a solo acoustic version at Much Music that I’ve watched approx 100000x. Just - Thom and Jonny really went off on this one. The vague sinister tone, the sneering vocals, the screeching guitar, and that blistering outro solo. It’s so good! Iconic video. My Iron Lung - Despite my complaints about the sequencing, this song absolutely rips. I love that it’s a formulaic grunge song that mocks grunge (including their own song Creep). The “if you’re frightened” bridge and subsequent solo make the song for me. Bullet Proof - Not a song I put on outside the context of this album but I’m fine with it as an interlude. Black Star - I love the fade-in intro. This could have been a hit single! They had no business burying such a good song so low in the tracklist. This is where everyone puts their filler. Instead they pull out this melancholy gem that projects a failing relationship to celestial proportions. The juxtaposition of the mundane drudgery of daily life with interstellar imagery is so Thom. He does this on OK Computer with Subterranean Homesick Alien and on A Moon Spaced Pool with the devastating, perfect Decks Dark (2 of my favourite Radiohead songs!). Sulk - Thom never really sang like this after this album. I get that he changed his songwriting style but it’s kind of a shame. I guess he couldn’t have belted like this forever anyway. Street Spirit - I think this song/video helped earn them their enduring reputation of a depressing, self-serious band. It does kind of sound like a Metallica ballad. It’s a little heavy-handed but this is still a beautiful, impactful album closer. I’ll never love a band as much as I loved Radiohead in my early 20s. But that’s ok! Every time I listen to them I can get that feeling again.

The perfect soundtrack for my early 20's angst. I find it fascinating that they released this right after Pablo honey and creep... in my pretentious opinion it is so leagues ahead that it kind of tickles me. I LOVE RADIOHEAD!!

Radiohead is my favorite band. Ever. No contest. So this review is far from unbiased, but that's okay. I absolutely adore The Bends. It's not reinventing the wheel or anything like that, but it's such a solid guitar rock album. The song writing and guitar work are beyond amazing. Some of the best riffs land on this record. Being Radiohead's most accessible album (maybe besides In Rainbows), it does a great job at introducing who they are and what they're about. Playing well and intricately while delivering some kick ass songs. 5*, almost perfect. Standouts: The Bends, Fake Plastic Trees, My Iron Lung

Honestly one of the most beautiful works of musical art I've ever experienced. I can't believe I'd never heard "Bullet Proof..." before today. Gorgeous.

The album that launched the careers of Travis, Keane, and Coldplay. But let's not hold that against them... Angst meets pop. This album has tension in spades, bitter lyrics beautifully sung, punctuated by Johnny Greenwood threatening to break his guitar at any opportunity.

i love this album i wish british people were real

I'm incapable of separating this from my nostalgia, so...I won't try. 5/5

Dang, I forgot how good this album is. Haven't listened to it in years and just played it on repeat for a while. Great stuff.

I really do enjoy their first two albums, it really goes to show that even just starting out, they were really damn good but of course their best material is literally everything after from No Surprises and Exit Music for a Film, to the flawless perfection that is the whole Kid A album, to the rest of their neat electronic albums I don’t think they ever had a low point in their career despite being diverse as fuck, it’s all consistently enjoyable I think that’s why I like Swans, King Crimson, etc. Radiohead is right there with them as one of my favorite bands 10/10

I've never listened to much Radiohead, so I was very interested going into this. I was not disappointed! This album felt incredibly well crafted, from the production to the music to the lyrics. The album had an overall "sound" to it, but each song stood on its own and was interesting and unique. Thom Yorke's vocals on this album are nothing short of ethereal. His lyrics are not always understandable, but I didn't care; his stylings really lend something extra to the songs, and he knows just what style(s) and vocalizations to use in a given musical scenario to take the track to the next level. I found myself waiting to hear what he was going to do from track to track. Based on what I know about 90s music, I could quickly tell upon hearing this that there was not anyone else quite like Radiohead at the time. Though I was not really aware of who Radiohead had influenced in the music world, it is incredibly obvious upon hearing this album that it was setting standards for where alt rock would go for years to come following the grunge era. Bands like Muse, The Killers, and Coldplay were clearly influenced by this album in their own works, 10+ years after this album came out. This album was a definite win for me!

One of my most-listened-to albums of all times. Classic.

An immense, powerful classic!

One of the first alt-rock albums in a long time I’ve listened top to bottom. It’s great if you’re feeling a bit under the weather.

Great, never listened to them, can see why they are popular.

A nearly perfect album. One great song after another. The guitar playing throughout is amazing and that includes some of the best accoustic guitar strumming anywhere. This was my introduction to Radiohead and it remains my favorite. OK Computer and Kid A are more ambitious and perhaps greater accomplishments, but for me this is where Radiohead hit their sweet spot 5 🌟

I had never heard the whole album- I see why so many of my friends had it

Alternative rock at its best. Strong and catchy songwriting. I love Radiohead. Bye.

It's downright frustrating how this album gets no love in the shadow of Radiohead's later, more experimental work. This is an album which exemplifies guitar-driven brit-rock, full of incendiary licks and inward-looking lyrics. It's almost as though the sheer consistency of this album is held against it compared to the zigs and zags of the following albums, even the zigs and zags within the tracks of those albums.

Dude I've been missing out. I thought Radiohead was annoying like how Nirvana is annoying to me but they aren't. Oh my god my eyes are opened.

It is a noisy, grim album that will leave an impression.

My second Radiohead album on this journey. I like Radiohead but have really only listened to the hits and Kid A. I liked In Rainbows when I got it 6 months ago but now totally forget what it sounded like. Anyway, I liked this. Most of it was a little too slow and dreary for me to listen to regularly, but it's good stuff regardless. "Just" was the highlight for me.

Just a brilliant album, forgot how good

I used to listen to this one a lot as a kid. It's a great album, although it'll always be eclipsed a little by OK computer.

In my opinion a very mediocre rock album. The guitar work and most instrumentals, were nothing particularly special, but I did enjoy the synths when they were used, and the lyrics were sometimes a little idiosyncratic. For me the record was overall just nothing really special, as a whole, but I did enjoy certain tracks a lot, I could listen to certain tracks, but the bigger picture was missing for me. Favorite song: Sulk. Overall score 5/10

There's three things you can do if you have a decently selling but not well loved album (well, five, but breaking up generally isn't anyone's first choice, and being dropped is less of a decision and more of something that happens TO you.). You can refine the style you've already got, you can try something new, or you can try to do both at the same time. The last one is the riskiest, but also possibly the most rewarding, and I think that's what happened with The Bends. The album isn't a million miles from Pablo Honey in its construction, though everything is more polished and with more thought put in And yet the vibe is very different. Thom's clearly in a melancholy mood, and while the biting sarcasm is still there it's much more balanced. If Creep is bare-bones angst, this one has some meat to it. If you love guitar, then you'll have a buffet-load to consume (Just has a ridiculous riff, and I mean that as a compliment) and the rhythm section is on point. There's also clearly an effort to make the songs distinct. It's almost sad then that The Bends struggles to get out of the shadows of the band's later albums. It would be unfair to call it monotonous when they do it so well, but it's distinctly lacking in lyrical and emotional variety and arguably about 10 minutes longer than it needed to be. It is a good next step, and I'd listen to a lot of these songs in isolation but I'm not sure it'd make my 1001 list. Probably shouldn't play it while you're depressed either (unless you're the sort of person who it helps) Tangent: My Iron Lung would be a better version of a 'complain about how famous we are' song than The Byrds managed, if the chorus wasn't near unlistenable. Fave: Just Least Fave: My Iron Lung (good lyrics though) Strong Bad Demerit Score: 1

Another one that's a perfectly nice vibe and not much else.

I haven't listened to much of Radiohead, so I'm not sure whether this album is typical or not for them (or at least typical for them in the mid-90s), but it's an interesting combination of very familiar-sounding mid-90s indie/alt-rock sort of stuff, yet without being at all distinctive beyond a song or two that might have made some air-time (like "High and Dry" or "My Iron Lung", I think, but then again it might just be very similar to some *other* mid-90s indie/alt-rock tune). I *was* a bit surprised that some of the songs were a little harder-edged (and a teensy bit less falsetto) than I expected of Radiohead. It kind of feels like this isn't really a great Radiohead album to include in the 1001 album collection, frankly, but maybe it was more influential than I appreciate, and certainly the "Influence" and "Legacy" sections of the Wikipedia article suggest I'm just ignorant of this album's majesty. Either way, entertaining enough, in a somewhat disappointingly generic way.

It was fine? I didn't love it and it got a bit samey but the sounds were nice. I can't decide if it gets points or loses points for the terrifying album art

Es unhörbar zu nennen wäre unfair. Es ist schon atmosphärisch und es sind schöne Momente auf dem Album.

i was cautiously optimistic after ok computer finally Did Something For Me recently but man i still rly rly dont get this tbh FHJFSHJFS. whatever combination of brain chemicals have to go off for me to find aching beauty in the guitar lines and weird winding melodies has not happened yet, i think im still just sitting here not understanding radiohead as a Guitar Rock band at all, i dont hate it but it just washes right over me in an entirely uninvolving way both sonically and emotionally. i thought thom yorke had clicked for me as a vocalist, for a chunk of this i genuinely thought he had somehow unclicked, but tbh maybe i just prefer his semi-inhuman ghost voice floating over those more adventurous, expressionist soundscapes...the physicality and grounding of a Real Band, even one playing in a haunted cavern as is the vibe here, just seems unflattering to me personally. street spirit is pretty undeniable, but other than that...its pretty flower-power

A few ok songs early on but goddamn is this boring as fuck.

Lame

I get why people may like this album, but after listening to all tracks, it just didn't grab me. Maybe Radiohead take themselves too seriously and think they're better than they actually are. It's all a bit too pretentious

Not as bad as I was bracing for, but not something I'm going back to anytime soon.

Few tolerable tracks but yeah I have no idea what's the appeal. I mean it could have been worse, at least it's not a Coldplay album.

More straight forward then some of the later albums we've listened to. It's just not my thing. Fake plastic trees bugs me as much as when i first heard it. Thom Yorke's voice is still weird.

I never have liked the vocals of Radiohead. They have killer instrumentals though.

boring, every song sounds the same. some good bits, but not enough

hot take: radiohead is overrated

Meh, honestly kinda boring to listen to

It might grow on me if I listen to it a bunch but I'm not generally a Radiohead fan.