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203 of 225 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
There's a reason the average review is 5 stars on amazon, November 29, 2004
The Bends. Radiohead's most accessible album. Radiohead's most underappreciated album at the time of its release. Dare I say Radiohead's BEST album?
I dare.
Yes, OK Computer purists may find my statement inaccurate, but let me just ask you this, Radiohead fanatics... If you were to loan any Radiohead cd to someone who never heard their music before, which would it be?
Personally, The Bends was my introduction to the band in 1999... and I'm glad it was. Maybe 4 years too late, but hey - it's never too late right?
Anyway, this album is classic. Yorke is at his most comprehensible and his lyrics are more human than on future releases. This is the singer/songwriter at his most passionate. Deep, elegant songs like Fake Plastic Trees and High & Dry soar like the best U2 songs (One, With or Without You, etc).
Jonny Greenwood's uses of spacy guitar and keyboard effects adds mood to the pieces while the rest of the band gels together so well, you don't even notice it.
If you're looking for a rock album that you can really fall in love with, rock out with, sing a long with... you get the idea. You can't go wrong with the Bends.
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16 of 16 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Undeniably Brilliant And Timeless, January 29, 2005
After the success of their debut album "Pablo Honey," Radiohead returned in 1995 with the highly-anticipated "The Bends." Now personally, I was not a very big fan of their debut album. It had a few high points but the rest was just boring and flat. I truly believe that if it wasn't for their sophomore album, Radiohead could quite easily have slipped off into obscurity to join a long line of other bands who were so 'promising.' However, that didn't happen because the world caught onto The Bends and rightly hailed it as one of the best albums of the 1990's. I don't consider this Radiohead's best album. Nor do I consider it a monumental masterpiece. It is a fantastic rock album though, and definitely amongst one of the best records I own in my 200+ collection.
The album opens with the brilliant "Planet Telex." The sonic soundscapes of this song's introduction are very memorable, and set the scene for the rest of the song. Thom's vocals are very distinctive on this song and I enjoy the chorus a lot. The album's title track, "The Bends," is the next song and is one of my favourites on the whole album. A lot of people don't really like this song but I bloody love it. It gets off to a rocking start and has a very anthemic chorus, but my favourite part of the song is the part where Thom sings, "I wish it was the sixties, I wish I could be happy, I wish, I wish, I wish that something would happen!" The next song is "High And Dry" and is a bit slower and more melancholy than its predecessors. The sunlight vocals of the chorus are very effective and the guitar in the chorus is great too - very similar to something Oasis were doing at the same time. "Fake Plastic Trees" is a fan favourite and is even slower than the mid-tempo track before it. I find the chorus very emotional and raw considering its 'fake' lyrical content - which is, I suppose, is what the song is aiming for.
"Bones" returns to the all-out rocking that dominated the opening of the album, with brash guitars and electrifying choruses, littered with eccentric vocals. It's not one of the best songs on the album, but it's still a great addition. "(Nice Dream)" is a very beautiful and deep rock ballad. I find this a great song as I listen to it because it just connects to you, but once you stop listening to the album and try to think of the melody of the song, I guarantee you won't remember. Very strange. "Just" is one of the album highlights and one of Radiohead's best ever songs. There's something about this song which makes it very unique and special yet on first-listen it sounds just very run-of-the-mill. The jittery guitars in the chorus that climb higher and higher make it a masterpiece in its own right.
"My Iron Lung" is another one of my favourite songs on the album. It has that instantly recognisable opening which runs again through the choruses that just twists and snakes its way around the lyrics. The way those lyrics are arranged is also very catchy and the song breaks out into a really heavy rocker near the second minute. "Bulletproof..I Wish I Was" is a gloomy yet oh-so-gorgeous ballad with some great soundscapes which create a beautifully atmospheric backdrop to Thom's dark vocals. "Black Star" is another one of my favourite songs from the album, yet again, because of the way the lyrics in the verses are arranged. It is so bloody catchy and I love how the song opens by becoming louder. It's as if we're arriving mid-song and we've missed something at the start. "Sulk" has a superb opening that sounds like something vibrating and bouncing off your speakers. The song itself has a great beat to it but I'm not too fond of the chorus. And then of course, there's the album closer, which is widely-hailed as one of Radiohead's finest-ever songs: "Street Spirit (Fade Out)." The music on this song is beautiful and melancholy, Thom's vocals juxtaposing this with fear and depression. I love the way he goes from a hushed note to a loud yelp within the space of "Fade out again." An absolutely beautiful song to close such a brilliant rock album.
OVERALL GRADE: 10/10
"The Bends" isn't my favourite Radiohead album. That title belongs to "OK Computer," and even "Kid A," in my opinion, is better than this second album. I'm a man of musical complexity - the weirder it is, the more I'll usually like it. It's a challenge to appreciate the music on OK Computer and Kid A, and I do appreciate it, after many listens, which is why I love them so much. I really took to "The Bends" quite easily so it was almost instantaneous that I loved it. Some people may not take to this album as well as I did, but out of all their six studio albums, I'd recommend this as the first one you listen to.
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19 of 20 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Honey-coated Sugar Bombs, March 16, 2005
You're sipping lemonade on a warm spring day, watching various modes of transportation sparkle productively in the distance; you've just discovered a new law of physics, and you're inhaling the scent of your neighbor's freshly mown grass mixed with orange tree blossoms. Normally, you would be in your low lit bedroom writing nihilistic poetry, but you've just heard a new album, The Bends, and it has inspired you to brave the sunshine and give in a little to your fundamental human need for social interaction. Unfortunately, as you brush away an excited butterfly, you realize that you don't really know that many people, and become more depressed as you face the fact that it will take more than just stepping outside your door to find like-minded individuals to have silly fun with. This album makes you want to make that effort. Just as an indulgent energy-rich breakfast can be a catalyst for a glorious day of intellectual stimulation, so The Bends has become a honeycomb of new possibilities in the seemingly pointless lives of countless individuals.
There is rock music on this album that will make you move your body, but there is also a cohesive latticework of lurid spontaneity that causes the listener to hear each song as a charming facet of a youthful personality. The lead singer's voice is actually fun to listen to because it relates so well to the music. Sometimes Thom Yorke sounds like a sneering, cynical English fellow (Just, My Iron Lung), and sometimes he sounds like an orphaned angel (Nice Dream, Bullet Proof..I Wish I Was). The last song, Street Spirit (Fade Out), stares a brooding swarm of nothingness in the eye and finds unparalleled beauty. While the music on this album has a more traditional radio-friendly rock sound than their later work, it is certainly no less moving.
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