release date: Mar. 13, 1995
format: cd
[album rate: 3,5 / 5] [3,66]
producer: John Leckie
label: EMI Japan - nationality: England, UK
Track highlights: 1. "Planet Telex" - 2. "The Bends" - 3. "High and Dry" (4 / 5) - 8. "My Iron Lung" - 9. "Bullet Proof..I Wish I Was" - 12. "Street Spirit (Fade Out)"
2nd studio album by British britpop and alt. rock band Radiohead (originally released on Parlophone / Capitol Records) introducing a style and sound, which may be seen as a move from what was primarily britpop to bolder alt. rock, but what is more striking with this, compared to the weak debut, is clearly that the music here is obviously of more original material. This is simply where the band finds its own sound. Also, the band comes out as something other than the ordinary, a strong unit of skilled instrumentalists, and although critics labelled it britpop, it's clar that radiohead is something very different from Blur, Oasis, Pulp, and other examples of typical britpop. The album doesn't include evident hit singles but it's much more the whole album and the complexity of the compositions as such, which makes this a much welcomed release.
I never saw myself as a big Radiohead fan and must admit that I have never listened much to this particular album, although, it's definitely more than ordinarily 'interesting'. In retrospect, the album has been lauded as a source of inspiration for many subsequent artists of [especially] softer predominantly British alt. rock and indie pop artists like Coldplay, James Blunt, Keane and contemporaries like Pulp, Manic Street Preachers, and Travis. The album is included in "1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die" and imho, it's quite understandable why so many regard the band as renewers of popular music in the 1990s.
[ allmusic.com, Blender, Record Collector 5 / 5, Rolling Stone 3,5 / 5, Rolling Stone (retrospect) 4 / 5, Spin 2,5 / 5 stars ]
