Pablo Honey review

Pablo Honey, the debut album of Radiohead is nearly always regarded as their worst one. Still, this is Radiohead who are, one,  responsible for my current favourite album of all time and two, are Radiohead so it can't really be bad.

Tracks:

1. You: 8/10 a pretty solid opener and well executed, although it's sentimental for Radiohead and it's overreliant on overdone guitar riffs.

2. Creep: 8/10 the band's most popular song may not represent the band well but it is a terrific rock tune and is always enjoyable to listen to.

3. How Do You?: 7/10 derivative and overdone but it's still a fun burst of chaotic guitar riffs.

4. Stop Whispering: 7/10 just another song. It's well done and hits various peaks though.

5. Thinking About You: 7/10 a derivative but nuanced song which benefits from being less heavy and overdone.

 6. Anyone Can Play Guitar: 7/10 an unremarkable, heavy and enjoyable tribute to the guitar.

 7. Ripcord: 7/10 a fun if derivative song.

 8. Vegetable: 6/10 a decent rock song which like virtually everything on this album isn't bad at all but feels formulaic and safe compared to later Radiohead stuff.

9. Prove Yourself: 6/10 a depressing and overdone song which is enjoyable but mainly in a casual way and as a song it's definitely flawed.

10. I Can't:7/10 this one's decent and has a good instrumental.

 11. Lurgee: 7/10 the title is weird and the lyrics just repeat themselves over and over, so the fact this song is still perfectly OK is surprising.

12. Blow Out: 8/10 one of the album's strongest, this sounds more interesting and complex than many of the album's other tracks and is quite effective with its lyrics overall. It literally closes the album very well as the outro is terrific.

Best song: Creep
Worst song: Prove Yourself

Summary: All of these songs are decent. They're well played and well written up to a point but they just aren't close to the standard of Radiohead's later work. The guitar instrumentals are too repetitive and similar, while the lyrics are fairly basic. Creep is the only song anyone seems to remember from the album, and there's a reason for that. It's entertaining enough but Radiohead's other albums are far better.It's the debut of a band trying to find their voice and song type and Radiohead hadn't done that yet but they still started out with a petty decent first album, although it is derivative and repetitive.



Final rating: 7/10