PABLO HONEY
★★☆☆☆
Incredibly mid album. It's okay I guess. I don't say that to subscribe to the popular opinion, it's genuinely shrunk on me since I first listened to it. It starts off strong, gets really underwhelming in the middle, and recovers at the end. I want to like it but meh. I don't think it's very polished, and I don't think it's very creative. There are some fantastic ideas scattered throughout it like in "You" and "Blow Out", and I think the latter is the best possible segue into The Bends. Both get stuck in my head constantly. But it feels like it tries to be something it's not, like Radiohead weren't meant to write commercial power ballads.
I will say thinking about it makes me smile, it's a very endearing project. But that is with context, because I know that they move on to make really great music and it feels like a time capsule of what Radiohead used to be. On its own, I don't think it can carry the weight that "Creep" burdened on it.
Favourite Tracks: Blow Out, You