Radiohead classic worth revisiting

In the midst of today’s ever growing musical world, it can be hard to find anything; sometimes people don’t even know where to begin. While this may not show you every song, album or EP that you’d ever dream of hearing, let this inspire you to search and dive into the infinitely deep hole that is the modern music world.

Coming out of Abingdon, Oxfordshire, Radiohead consists of Thom Yorke, Jonny and Collin Greenwood, Ed O’Brien and Phillip Selway. They are mostly classified as English Rock, but can convey a lot of emotions, especially on today’s album, The Bends. Radiohead hadn’t been a band that I much dabbled in before being recommended it by a student for this review, but I’m very glad that I did, so I’d like to give a shoutout to Abby Colton for telling me to listen to this album.

Now for the music itself, in general, Radiohead seems like every other rock band that you’d find, and to be fair, it is, but that doesn’t make it bad, as there are tons of groups like them that are well-liked: see bands like Weezer, The Smashing Pumpkins and Sonic Youth. Even when using the basic trio of guitar, drums and bass, these bands can still bring out a lot of emotions, and often for some songs they’ll bring in unique instruments, which can make each song more unique and memorable. A lot of the songs on The Bends have really good and memorable riffs, such as “Bones,” “Just” and “HIgh and Dry.” I’d like to mention a few of my favorite songs from the album that really stuck with me, and that I’ve been listening to constantly.

“Fake Plastic Trees” is a slow and sad song about the want for a real relationship in a materialistic world, portrayed greatly with lyrics like “Her green plastic watering can/For her fake Chinese rubber plant/In the fake plastic earth.” The combination of lyrics and the Hammond organ along with the cello give it a beautiful sound. Another song that caught my ears was “Black Star,” a song about the struggles of being in a relationship with someone suffering from mental illness, with lyrics like “Troubled words of a troubled mind/I try to understand what is eating you/I try to stay awake, but it’s 58 hours/Since that I last slept with you.” It’s clear that the perspective that this song is being sung from wants to help and understand what’s going on with this other person that’s mentally struggling, but is struggling themselves to help. The chorus “Blame it on the Black Star” is a metaphor for blaming something that isn’t the cause of their issues, something like a black star is an intangible, non-existent thing, easy to pin the blame on.

With everything that’s being said, I went into this album pretty hopeful that I’d walk away with a new favorite song/band, and it’s safe to say that I definitely got what I was looking for out of The Bends,  and I would easily recommend this to any indie rock fan. It deserves it’s 8.5/10.