May's Album of the Month: Radiohead- Pablo Honey

Ok, so we all owned Pablo Honey at some point in 1993, and we mostly just owned it for one reason: "Creep". By 1994, most of us had traded that CD back in to the store thinking that Radiohead were flash-in-the-pan, one-hit-wonders. But, there was that one friend, who was really into the album who insisted that there was more to the band than "Creep" and that they were the future of rock.  Turns out, of course, that he was right.  By 1995, Radiohead released The Bends and showed everyone that they were a force to be reckoned with.  However, at least stateside, their debut album remains vastly underrated (I did some checking and, as it turns out, the album did have a bigger impact in the UK).

The Bends is usually held up as an exemplar of the group as a 'rock' band, however, in many ways, Pablo Honey actually rocks harder; The Bends was a great leap forward for the band, and it's definitely a bit more polished but Pablo Honey is more raw, more immediate. Thom Yorke's vocals have never soared quite as high as they do on this album, especially on more recent albums where he tends toward more subdued vocals or falsetto. Also, it is also a lot more ambitious than people remember; the guitar freakouts on this album could be just as avant-garde as anything on Kid A or Amnesiac.

Key Tracks: "You", "Creep", "Anyone Can Play Guitar","Thinking About You", "Ripcord", "Blow Out"