Radiohead - Pablo Honey POLL

Urgh, no.

i forgot that they opened their first album with a weird time signature song, guess the art rock signs were there all along

Lurgee is great, and I was lucky to be at one of those hail to the thief shows where they played it. (I think they only played it once or twice on that tour?)

― i will never make a typo ever again (Karl Malone), Tuesday, June 4, 2019 7:13 PM (one hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Yeah, it wasn't a regular fixture in the set, but they did play it a handful of times. There's some great sounding bootlegs of it floating around, and it fits in rather well with the rest of the set.

Does anybody have that photo of Britney Spears buying Pablo Honey?

Absolute mess of an album. Most of the songs poor to mediocre. As for the chorus of "Anyone Can Play Guitar": I think that's one of the *better* melodies on the album (it's the rest of the song that's terrible) - it (the chorus) reminds me of "Where I Find My Heaven" by Gigolo Aunts, though it's not as good as that of course. I remember borrowing the album back in 1993 and editing it down to a 6-song mini album to fill one side of a C60 cassette, but I can't imagine more than three songs actually being worth it. The one true gem on Pablo Honey is "Stop Whispering", which reminds me slightly of James's "How Was It For You?", though it's not as good as that of course.

Does anybody have that photo of Britney Spears buying Pablo Honey?

― Mr. Snrub, Tuesday, 4 June 2019 22:33 (twenty-two seconds ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i forgot that they opened their first album with a weird time signature song, guess the art rock signs were there all along

― ciderpress, Tuesday, June 4, 2019 8:31 PM (one minute ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Yup, and it's yet another one of the tracks from this album that's been given a live airing post-Kid A.

Absolute mess of an album. Most of the songs poor to mediocre.

You're going to have to elaborate further on this.

I listened through Pablo Honey yesterday and my impression was better than the first time I listened to it so many years ago but the only things on the album that grabbed/interested me were "Creep", "Anyone Can Play Guitar", and the time signature of "You". Everything else was a big 🤷‍♂️

It's rather clear 'Pablo Honey' is a terribly mediocre debut album, at best (and is exactly as hit-and-miss as debut albums from bands who transitioned into something way better should be).

I listened through Pablo Honey yesterday and my impression was better than the first time I listened to it so many years ago but the only things on the album that grabbed/interested me were "Creep", "Anyone Can Play Guitar", and the time signature of "You". Everything else was a big 🤷‍♂️

― Arugula Raccoon (DJP), Tuesday, June 4, 2019 8:40 PM (two minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Ah, that's fair enough. I know that you've never really been a big fan of this album, so I take it as a positive thing that it left you with a better impression this time around.

For me, the vocal melodies on 'Stop Whispering', 'Prove Yourself' and 'I Can't' are R.E.M. level beautiful. 'I Can't' actually feels to me like a bit of a forerunner to 'Black Star', actually.

In fact, 'I Can't' might just be the one that secures my vote, just for all the reasons I've said above: I think the vocal melody is beautiful, and I love the part where it drops down to Colin's bass before coming thundering back in. I would have chosen it as a single over 'Anyone Can Play Guitar' any day of the week.

Absolute mess of an album. Most of the songs poor to mediocre.

You're going to have to elaborate further on this.

i'm more of a pablo honey fan than most, but i think the burden of proof would fall on those arguing that the songs are NOT poor to mediocre, since that's been the consensus on it for at least 20 years now.

my friend's old band used to do a pretty good cover of You which made me like the original more, so I'd probably pick that one. not a massive Radiohead fan though. I have 3 of their albums but I never listen to them. possibly due to massive overexposure in the 90s by the same friend, although he mostly listened to OK Computer, not this one

Hmm. Nah, I'm not sure I agree with that given that I've yet to hear a convincing argument as to why this album is supposed to be poor to mediocre. It feels to me that while there is a consensus surrounding this record, it's a consensus opinion founded on very little.

(x-post)

my friend's old band used to do a pretty good cover of You which made me like the original more, so I'd probably pick that one. not a massive Radiohead fan though. I have 3 of their albums but I never listen to them. possibly due to massive overexposure in the 90s by the same friend, although he mostly listened to OK Computer, not this one

― Colonel Poo, Tuesday, June 4, 2019 9:21 PM (one minute ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Radiohead fans have always been a notoriously rabid bunch, some of them even astoundingly obnoxious in their fandom, although I feel that people are beginning to - thankfully - calm down regarding them in recent years, particularly after the last couple of albums.

I think Pablo Honey is pathologically hook-averse aside from "Creep", which is probably why everyone latched onto it.

By the time The Bends came out, the band's songwriting had moved on to a level where each song, for good or ill, was an earworm. They then took that sensibility and dragged it through all sorts of permutations, causing the subsequent albums to tower over the debut (at least up until In Rainbows, which I feel hits the same anonymous buttons as Pablo Honey and is where I get off the Radiohead train).

Projecting my experience as a listener, Pablo Honey feels like a band writing music for themselves; The Bends through Hail To The Thief feels like a band writing music for themselves and other people, and In Rainbows on goes back to being introverted just-for-themselves, only with the context/good will generated by the run of extroverted albums. (And I will repeat that this is me projecting my experience as a listener onto their albums, not my assumption of what they were trying to do.)

(I realize the idea of Amnesiac as an extroverted album may bemuse people but the fact that large swathes of it are very weird doesn't necessarily mean it's introverted)

the burden of proof

lol the burden of proof is never on turrican; he'll say some shit like 'well, it's immaculately produced' and then it's everyone else's responsibility to elaborate

i know this, but i just want everyone to understand that the full power of the legal system stands behind me

I'd never considered their albums on an introvert/extrovert scale, just a "difficulty" scale (with King of Limbs as the least listener-friendly; The Bends and In Rainbows as the most straightforwardly accessible). Of course the only "difficult" thing about Pablo is that it's half terrible.

I wish he was special xp

Terrible cover too.

Oh yeah, peak/nadir 90s graphic design

I think Pablo Honey is pathologically hook-averse aside from "Creep", which is probably why everyone latched onto it.

By the time The Bends came out, the band's songwriting had moved on to a level where each song, for good or ill, was an earworm. They then took that sensibility and dragged it through all sorts of permutations, causing the subsequent albums to tower over the debut (at least up until In Rainbows, which I feel hits the same anonymous buttons as Pablo Honey and is where I get off the Radiohead train).

I understand what you're saying, but I don't necessarily agree with it. First of all, I think to say that Pablo Honey is "pathologically hook-averse", especially when comparing it to Radiohead's later work, is painfully harsh, particularly as Kid A was notoriously criticised for being willfully hookless but also because these songs do have hooks. One feature I've noticed about this album is that 'You', 'Thinking About You', 'Vegetable', 'Lurgee' and 'Blow Out' don't really have choruses, the hooks on those songs are in the verses and in the guitar work. It's the same deal with 'Ripcord', 'Prove Yourself' and 'I Can't', most of the action is happening in the verses. Sure, the chorus to 'Prove Yourself' isn't much, the ascending "PROVE YOUR-SELF", but the verse melody has far more content melodically so it isn't really an issue, and it still manages to be more melodic than, say, 'How to Disappear Completely', which also doesn't have much of a chorus.

I don't Radiohead's album sleeves have been pretty hit and miss, to be honest. OK Computer, Kid A, Amnesiac, In Rainbows and A Moon Shaped Pool, yes. Pablo Honey, The Bends, Hail to the Thief and The King of Limbs, no.

Of course the actual consensus opinion on the album, as a cursory glance at the album's Wikipedia page will show you, is that it's mediocre to good (as per both its contemporary and its retrospective reviews). I find much of it rather poor - hook-averse, definitely, also many songs take off from a decent idea and then they kind of peter out, all in all its a hackneyed indie rock album and sounded like it at the time even to my inexperienced ears.

I actually kind of hate that I've now spent time reacquainting myself with this album, as there are literally 100 good-to-great albums from 1993 alone I could have been spending time with.

xp: the verse melody (and its lyrics) to "Prove Yourself" is probably my absolute least favourite thing about this album, and the three-song stretch of Vegetable-Prove Yourself-I Can't is its worst. I don't know what "argument" I could possibly offer to convince someone who hears REM-level beauty here, and I don't think I'd want to.

"planet telex" is much better than this whole record

Obviously, I don't agree - particularly with your description of it being "hackneyed", which I find - alongside most criticisms I read/hear of this record - unnecessarily harsh and over the top. I think what you actually mean is that you can detect some of the artists that Radiohead were influenced by at this stage of this existence, but you could say the same about pretty much any Radiohead record. You're implying that the band don't have any distinguishing features of their own at this stage, and while of course this is still an early stage of their evolution, I don't agree - the likes of 'You' and 'Blow Out' really couldn't be anyone else, as far as I'm concerned. It's fair enough that the verse melody/lyrics to 'Prove Yourself' are your least favourite things about this album, but that in and of itself isn't really a valid criticism of the work.

(x-post)

(yeah, we all know that Radiohead made other albums after this)

"planet telex" is much better than this whole record

― american bradass (BradNelson), Wednesday, June 5, 2019 12:27 AM (four minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Truth bomb

i don't really think the production on this record works either, sounds kinda papery and dimensionless, which... the songs kinda feel like first drafts *already*, it doesn't help. when the guitars start really taking over during the solo section of "prove yourself" i'm like yes! this is the record i want! and it just dissipates into another chorus. good chorus though

lmao at the idea of discussing this record in a vacuum

*steps into vacuum*

Yep, the lyrics on this album are still really bad in here

it's true!

I'd like to think that we're now at a point in time that people have calmed their tits regarding this band to the point where we can now discuss this record not for what it isn't but for what it is.

In hindsight, perhaps this was asking too much. Nobody is demanding you discuss this record in a vacuum, Brad, the point is that this record shouldn't be unfairly penalised as consequence of the records the band made after it. I agree that the production could have been a great deal better - this was touched upon above.

the only reason anyone is even thinking about this record in the 2k19 is because of the subsequent records the band made

Ripcord is a lot better than Creep duh
although Bones is better than Ripcord
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6VRVOklCd2Y

"Creep" was much bigger than most buzz clips of its era and its corresponding album would probably be remembered as well as Lemonheads or Dinosaur Jr records from around the same time.

had they broken up after Pablo Honey

Yes, this is a take that I often hear: "it's a good record, but we wouldn't be talking about Radiohead now if it had been the only record the band had made", and it's a bit of a nonsense statement really, because we have absolutely no way of knowing that. Certainly, if their post-Pablo Honey work had never existed then nobody would be able to draw comparisons between this record and what came after, but this record would still exist and I'm fairly confident it would have been rediscovered by now if that had been the case.

Also, billstevejim OTM. Not only do I definitely prefer 'Ripcord' to 'Creep', but I'm also unconvinced that this record would have been forgotten about.

They would be about as renowned as Belly

Terrible cover too.

― John Harris is a Guardian columnist (Tom D.), Tuesday, June 4, 2019 2:50 PM (forty-nine minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Oh yeah, peak/nadir 90s graphic design

― Simon H., Tuesday, June 4, 2019 2:54 PM (forty-five minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

every baby cover needs whiney's frank sobotka remix

For example it was the 2nd biggest song of the year on KROQ. A lot of people bought the album. Records like that don't just disappear.
http://www.radiohitlist.com/KROQ/KROQ-1993.htm

They would be about as renowned as Belly

― i will never make a typo ever again (Karl Malone), Tuesday, June 4, 2019 10:50 PM (two minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Possibly. There are far worse bands to be compared to, and in any case it wouldn't be an issue because we never would have known their subsequent work.

For example it was the 2nd biggest song of the year on KROQ. A lot of people bought the album. Records like that don't just disappear.

― billstevejim, Tuesday, June 4, 2019 10:53 PM (two minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Exactly!

As said above, the production and mix is another problem - to me, its weirdly jarring and murky at the same time. Like, turn it up and it starts to grate, but turn it down and it's just dull.

I think what you actually mean is that you can detect some of the artists that Radiohead were influenced by at this stage of this existence

You're implying that the band don't have any distinguishing features of their own at this stage

And for the record: "I find X boring" or "X doesn't move me" are the *only* valid criticisms of any work of art, as opposed to "this is flawlessly written and immaculately produced", or as in this case, "a band that even at this stage were better musicians and had more talent than many in the oversaturated world of '90s alternative rock" - that's a Patrick Batemanesque parody of music criticism. (But to be fair you've explained above at a number of occasions which particular elements of which particular songs move you in what ways and that's all anyone can ask for. 'The burden of proof' is then indeed on others to describe as precisely why they *don't* like something, although that can be a lot harder.)

Most of the songs go into this 'rock jam' mode toward the end

Hmm. What you've described is something I consider to be a feature of this record rather than a bug, particularly in the case of 'Blow Out'!

When Yorke whines "I'm better off dead" on "Prove Yourself" there is no doubt this is Radiohead. It's also hilariously awful, maudlin teen angst to the point of satire. I don't buy it and it doesn't move me.

Yorke was still in his early 20's when this record was released, and that particular song may very well have been kicking around for a while before it was recorded. Anyway, this is an alternative rock record from 1993, you really shouldn't be surprised to find that teenagers were its target audience - once you get beyond a certain age, you're not meant to "buy it" and it's not meant to move you, but that's not the fault of the record. Personally, I don't relate to the lyrics of 'Prove Yourself' at all in 2019 - my fondness for the song is strictly musical - but I find it difficult to hold its lyrics against it when there quite possibly has been someone, somewhere at one point who was the right age for the song lyrically who did relate to it. Also, even though I'm long distanced from my teenage years, I haven't forgotten what they were like.

TS: Pablo Honey vs. Bush’s Sixteen Stone

(I was 20 when this album came out. I had spent the entire year before listening to the Seattle version of teen angst, and most of my actual teens dancing my legs down to the knees to The Smiths. I was definitely its target audience. But even within that context, or maybe particularly within that context, I thought it was a weak record and it fell flat.)

Aha. In that case, I think what you meant to say was back in your teens/early 20's, you thought the likes of Kurt Cobain "meant it", and you thought that since Radiohead were relative alternative rock latecomers that Thom Yorke didn't "mean it", for want of a better phrase. The only person who could tell you whether the sentiments in 'Prove Yourself' were genuine or not is Thom Yorke himself, and since he's gone on record as stating that pre-Kid A he tended to use his songwriting as a way of dealing with various emotional issues etc. I'm likely to think that, at the point he wrote those songs, he "meant it" ...

I've made similar errors in the past. For example, when Linkin Park first appeared I thought that Chester Bennington didn't mean it or wasn't genuine. Can't argue that I was wrong about that one.