So, its getting a bit late in January, but maybe this can run through February for a bit. You might be wondering why I've paired up an album most everybody has heard and loved with an album few people remember and many considered to be really weak (its a personal favorite of mine, and I also seem to recall our own Sam Strange stating a preference for "Boingo").
For me, there's always been a lot of interesting parallels and contrasts between the two albums. Both were released within an year of each other; "Boingo" in 1994 and "The Bends" in 1995. "Boingo" was released at the very end of Oingo Boingo's almost 20 year career, while "The Bends" is considered by many who would rather pretend Pablo Honey didn't exist as the beginning of Radiohead's. The 1994/1995 period is an interesting one for music. At the front end of it we've got the death of Cobain and the release of Vitalogy kind signally the beginning of the end for grunge in America, and at the back end of 1995 we reach the point where Britpop begins to wear out its welcome in the UK, after failing to make any much in the states (this may have been a good thing depending on your tastes). After that dual collapse it seems like we spent a lot of the rest of the 90s mired in boy bands and bland "alternative" bands that were anything but.
Both albums also seem to my ear to be, to different extents, obsessed with the Beatles and middle-60s psychedelia, particularly in terms of melody and texture. They also express this interest in expansive texture in similar ways, often building over an acoustic guitar part with heavy layers of distorted electrics that often weave in and out of near dissonance with each other and mostly eschewing keyboards. They differ in terms of brevity. None of the songs on The Bends break five minutes, and many are less than four, while more than half of the songs on Boingo are over five minutes, with many reaching nearer to ten, and in one case exceeding fifteen.
Note: Some of the tracks for these albums have been hard for me to find online, particularly for the Boingo. Sorry if that's inconvenient for anyone that has to rely on Youtube for these threads. There are a lot of live versions of the tracks from Boingo on Youtube, but I don't want to link to them in lieu of album tracks. If people want I'll link them in a later post.
The Albums:
Boingo
Tracks:
1. Insanity
2. Hey!
3. Mary
4. Can't See (Useless)
5. Pedestrian Wolves
6. Lost Like This
7. Spider
8. War Again
10. Tender Lumplings
11. Change
While in many ways, this album seems Elfman and company branching out into new sonic territory, it also sees the band reaching back to the early stages of its career. While primarily known for synth-pop hits in the mid and late 70s, the bands first three albums display an intense punk/new wave energy that partially resurfaces on their last album. Boingo also attempts, for the first time since their third album "Good for Your Soul", songs with social and political relevance. Returning also is the avant-garde, near-symphonic, jazzy sweep of the band's early does as the musical theater troupe "The Mystic Knights of the Oingo Boingo" (which was the name they recorded the soundtrack to the cult film "The Forbidden Zone" under). However, instead of hiring a cadre of musicians, they go for that sound by doubling and redoubling sometimes preposterous amounts of guitars, with assistance from new member Warren Fitzgerald, of the Vandals, another pean to Boingo's ska-punk past, who nicely complements Elfman and Bartek's guitar work (Bartek in particular gives, IMO, career-best performances on this album). "Boingo" also finds the band looser than they've ever been, with the drums and bass being given tons of room to stretch out and find a good groove for the song instead of locking into the metronomic pulse of earlier Oingo Boingo tracks. All of these facets, present in varying amounts throughout the songs on the album finally culminate in "Changes", a 16 minute psychedelic epic that pulls out every trick in the album's book and introduces a few more just before it crosses the finish line.
Personal favorites:
Spider
Hey!
I Am The Walrus
Changes
Can't See (Useless)
Awesome tracks that were cut from the album because it was already too long:
Vultures (with great guitar solo by Bartek): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K4ApWNFUJ4E
Water: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JRiDpPzcJzg Excellent live version from the band's final concert: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-jTXsx2mymE
Helpless (only on the cassette version of the album): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=05Hu4g6fS64
The Bends
Tracks:
1. Planet Telex
2. The Bends
3. High and Dry
5. Bones
6. (Nice Dream)
7. Just
8. My Iron Lung
10. Black Star
11. Sulk
I'm going to admit right now that I have much less to say about this album than I do the Oingo Boingo. I wish I could say its honestly that there's not much to say about the album that hasn't already been said, but really its because Oingo Boingo is a band that I grew up with and Radiohead somehow managed to become a late discovery for me (I know, I know) so there's simply more pent up in my ahead about Boingo. That said, "The Bends" is without doubt one of my favorite albums, and ties with "In Rainbows" for the Radiohead album I play the most.
Jumping in, we find Radiohead also a band trying to redefine themselves. However, instead of trying to adapt to a changing musical landscape, they are, on The Bends, trying to outpace the publics expectations and get out from the shadow of the unwanted comparisons to earlier bands that got attached to "Pablo Honey", which ranged the gamut from "Nirvana-lite" to "U2-lite", neither of which are very flattering to Radiohead (not to besmirch either band, its just that "lite" isn't ever really any good for anyone). The band have really limbered up and refined their sound in the short time since Pablo, sounding generally more assured, both compositionally and instrumentally. The drumming is tighter and more muscular, the bass adds interesting melodic underpinnings, and Johnny Greenwood's playing and tone really seem to start blossoming on this album. Thom Yorke's vocals begin to sound like he owns them, and his lyrics have started going to more interesting places than they did on Honey. Rounding it all out, the production on this album really shimmers, full of contrasting sonic layers (listen to the alternatingly grungy and sweet Bones) To top it off, the album is chock full of great songs (like I need to tell anyone). More than anything it really opens the door to the greater things that would come later for Radiohead, but at the same time its a great album in its own right.
Personal Favorites (yes its like half the track list, so sue me):
Planet Telex
Fake Plastic Trees
Bones
Just
My Iron Lung
Black Star
Street Spirit (Fade Out)
Well, hopefully this has been an interesting read. Can't wait to hear what others think about the albums.
