Radiohead are an English rock band from Abingdon, Oxfordshire, formed in 1985. Radiohead released their debut single “Creep” in 1992. It became a worldwide hit after the release of the band’s debut album, Pablo Honey (1993). Their popularity and critical standing rose in the United Kingdom with the release of their second album, The Bends (1995). Radiohead’s third album, OK Computer (1997), propelled them to international fame; with an expansive sound and themes of modern alienation, it is often acclaimed as a landmark record of the 1990s and one of the best albums of all time. (More from Wikipedia)
My favorite PJ Harvey album thus far (and also the first one that I purchased, though I had heard about her for years), Stories From the City, Stories From the Sea (2000) is drawn from a six-month sojourn in New York City in 1999. I had been thinking that the album was her response to 9/11; it was actually released before that horrific date, but there is a sense of impending doom on many of these songs, particularly on “One Line” and her duet with Radiohead’s Thom Yorke, “This Mess We’re In”.
(January 2014)
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More generous praise can be found in the Wikipedia article. Reviewing a 1984 Certain General show at New York’s Pyramid club, the UK-based New Musical Express called the band “New York’s answer to [Echo and] the Bunnymen with a few [Jim] Morrison tendencies thrown in” [but with] “plenty of individuality and a lead singer full of passionate presence — agonized lyrics torn from twitching limbs”. The review concluded by observing that Certain General was “almost psychedelic in their unfettered spirit”. Bomp! Records – whose affiliated label Alive Records reissued November’s Heat in America in 1999 – has called them “NYC’s 80’s cult favorite”, while Rock & Folk identified Certain General as “the bridge between Television and Radiohead”.
(March 2015)
