Radiohead - Pablo Honey

6.5 – England - 1993

Any appraisal of Radiohead’s first album is complicated by two factors: 1) the legacy of the rest of the band’s rather auspicious career; and 2) the presence of the break-out über-hit “Creep”. So let’s get those out of the way right now.
 
First, it’s unfair to judge Pablo Honey alongside what the band would end up doing on The Bends, OK Computer, and Kid A. Though supporters (if Grateful Dead fans are Deadheads, does that make Radiohead fans Radioheadheads?) could conceivably consider Pablo Honey one of the all-time great debuts (it isn’t, but more on that later), it pales in comparison to the group’s subsequent efforts. But that isn't something that should be held against it. That the debut is diminished in comparison to those subsequent albums is unfair to Pablo Honey, which should not be judged by such externalities. Along the same lines, The Stone Roses is an amazing record – truly one of the all-time great debuts – but not one iota of that amazement is attributable to the fact that The Second Coming was a gigantic, 99-track dog turd.

So we can’t judge Pablo Honey by what it isn’t, just what it is. But what is it? In truth, a fairly ordinary guitar-based post-grunge album. It doesn't help, of course, that Radiohead has spent the rest of their career more or less disavowing the “alternative” guitar-based sound of their debut in favour (ill-advisedly, in your correspondent's opinion, although that is a matter for another time) of aping Aphex Twin's noodly electronica. One imagines that present day Thom Yorke must be terribly embarrassed of the CD insert's pictures of him striking rock star poses in his tea shades...

Second, while the album is overshadowed by its follow-ups, it is also overshadowed by its own signature tune, “Creep”. Indeed, but for the grace of The Bends and so on, it’s easy to imagine that Radiohead and “Creep” would be regarded alongside, say, the Crash Test Dummies’ “Mmm Mmm Mmm” or Harvey Danger’s “Flagpole Sitta” as a risible one-hit wonder. Indeed, if it weren't the fact that Radiohead ended up releasing much, much better albums, thrift stores the world over would be littered with multiple copies of Pablo Honey bought solely for the radio hit and then tossed away alongside forgotten efforts by The Rembrandts, Primitive Radio Gods, and Better Than Ezra. That’s not to say there’s anything wrong with those bands (and lord knows I’ve extolled the underrated virtues of the so-called one hit wonder Blind Melon); it’s just that I don't think there's anyone who could name another Harvey Danger song (which is not to put down Harvey Danger: for all I know, their album, Where Have All The Merrymakers Gone? may be an underrated classic like Blind Melon’s Soup – I shall investigate and report back on my findings).

Moreover, “Creep” is precisely the sort of song that, in the catalog of a lesser band, would invite one-hit-wonder derision. Sure, it's got a good tune, it's well-arranged, and it nicely captures the post-grunge zeitgeist of the early-mid-nineties. But though Thom Yorke insists it was written as a joke, it does have the immediate appearance of the sort of depressive introspection that lends itself to parody and mockery. (And besides, we mustn't let the potentially deceptive declarations of authorial intention draw us away from the fact that the song was received by many listeners as an earnest and not entirely unpoignant expression of loneliness and alienation. Similarly, though Dr. John's finest voodoo work was apparently intended as a send-up of hippie-dippie psychedelia, that doesn't make “Angola Anthem” any less harrowing). Indeed, once the initial wave of “Creep”-fueled popularity died down, Radiohead have vehemently distanced themselves from the very song that gave them a career in the first place. They will never play the damned thing, and the band’s Frankensteinian distaste for their own creation is now a big part of the song’s mythology as the track’s most celebrated moment – the iconic ka-chunk immediately preceding the chorus – was guitarist and Serious Musician Jonny Greenwood's attempt to ruin the song.

In any event, the point is that Pablo Honey is more than just Creep & Other Holiday Favourites. It stands alone as an album just like any of the groups other records. The question is how well does it stand? It’s certainly nowhere near as good as anything else by Radiohead – King of Limbs possibly excepted. But there is also more to it than just “Creep”. Second single “Anyone Can Play Guitar” is perhaps the biggest hint of the genius yet to come and would not have seemed out of place alongside “Planet Telex” and “My Iron Lung”. “Stop Whispering” and “Thinking About You” are pleasant enough alt-rock ballads – and though one feels that this earnest balladeering is precisely what Radiohead has conspicuously avoided over the years, even the group’s supposedly “difficult” masterwork, Kid A, echoes these tracks with “How To Disappear Completely”. Finally, the concluding track “Blow Out” is hands down the best song on the album and has got to be one of the most underrated Radiohead songs (indeed, it sounds rather similar to Amnesiac highlight “Knives Out” albeit with a grunge quiet-loud-quiet dynamic).

Elsewhere, however, the album sounds – to its detriment – very much of its time. A slightly grunged-up middle period U2, it has not aged well. The album’s packaging looks like something the Stone Temple Pilots might have used for a single release. The back cover even features the mandatory hard-to-discern image of an old man with no shirt. It’s all so earnest that it’s no wonder that the band has tried to explain away the admittedly-excellent “Creep” as a joke.

Perhaps the best comparand for Pablo Honey is another contemporaneous debut by another spacey British guitar band: Verve’s A Storm In Heaven. Both were albums by touted “indie” bands in which classic space rock is recast through a post-grunge lens (although Verve, perhaps due to their Northern roots, had more of that Madchester ecstasy running through them). Both featured charismatic and brilliant singers backed by layered guitar genius (although whereas Radiohead had three guitarists, Verve made up the difference by adding lots of delay to Nick McCabe’s noodling). Both were preceded by EPs that foreshadowed their sounds (“The Verve EP” is indeed quite fantastic and arguably the best thing the band ever did). But listen to them back to back and it’s clear that even without a monster single like “Creep”, Verve’s debut is by far the better album. Sure, it’s much less of a “pop” record than Pablo Honey and it's way more jammy (plus, it benefited by the production of John Leckie who would go on to produce The Bends), but if you were to hear both of these records for the first time today, which band do you think would go on to be the defining Great Art Rock Band of the Turn of the Millenium and which band do you think would go on to make Matchbox-20-style chick-rock? Funny how things go, isn’t it?