There is a thing called the 2nd album slump. Generally what happens is bands have years of writing and playing before they get signed, so their debut album is great, it sells, it\u2019s successful. Now suddenly they have 8 to 12 months to write, record and release their next album. A lot of bands fail to live up to the success of their debut.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Radiohead decided that was bollocks, and released an album leagues ahead of their debut, Pablo Honey<\/em>. The Bends<\/em> is an impossible album \u2013 impossible that a band could grow and evolve so fast in the space of a couple of years. It\u2019s a tour-de-force of hit after, after hit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n My best friend and I were driving around one day in 1995, when he produced a sampler cassette \u2013 I have no idea where he got it, and I\u2019ve never seen another one like it \u2013 but it was a short cassette with, two, or maybe four tracks from The Bends<\/em>. He shoved into my car cassette player, and played Just <\/em>and my jaw nearly fell off.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It was insane, it felt like someone had taken Nirvana<\/em>\u2019s Smells Like Teen Spirit<\/em>, then upped the intensity again, and again, and again, until the universe shattered under the strain Jonny Greenwood\u2019s guitars and opened a portal into Grunge Heaven (would that be Nirvana?). The guitars, the vocals and the utter passion and intensity just blew me away.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Although I\u2019ve remained a fervent Radiohead fan over all the years, and all the incarnations, I still return to The Bends<\/em> again, and again. It is the rawest and most powerful of their albums, I think. I\u2019ve heard it start-to-finish hundreds of times (there was a period of about 3 years where it was my waking up alarm \u2013 the whole album, I\u2019d just lie in bed and listen from start to finish, and then get up), and it never gets old. It still surprises me, (the bassline on Nice Dream<\/em>, Thom\u2019s desperate vocals on My Iron Lung<\/em> and Just<\/em>, the fact the guitars are tuned wrong in Street Spirit<\/em>). It\u2019s the gift that keeps on giving.<\/p>\n\n\n\n