This piece circles back to ‘The Bends’ turning 30, and the exact moment Radiohead stopped sounding like a promising band and started sounding inevitable.
“I was 14 when a friend who worked at a record store invited me to an in-store signing for a British band he’d barely heard of… they were called Radiohead. I’d caught ‘Creep’ on a late-night MTV session, so I halfheartedly picked up a copy of Pablo Honey just to have something to sign.”
“When I placed my CD down, Jonny Greenwood gently nudged me toward The Bends instead, even offering to pay for it. I took his advice. That day, I walked away with two signed albums, but more importantly, I’d found a band that would go on to shape my musical world.”
“As soon as the music started, it was clear Radiohead had made a significant leap… Compared to Pablo Honey, The Bends felt like the work of a completely different band. Gone were the straightforward riffs. In their place were cinematic guitar layers, sudden dynamic shifts, and moments of hushed beauty.”
Read the full piece over on Eternal Soundtrack:
Eternal Soundtrack is our editor’s Substack, a space for longer, deeper writing where there’s room to zoom out, zoom in, and stay with a record past the usual Cougar Microbes frame.
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