Nineties Decompression

PopMatters has been running a series of features commemorating the 20th anniversary of Radiohead's The Bends, an album I've long enjoyed as a decent rock record.  To me though, it is a transitional record. I came to the band at the time of the thrilling OK Computer.  Returning to The Bends, I was struck by how similar it sounded to Britpop, the sound of the day.  Yet, because of what happened afterwards, it's rarely remembered in the same breath of those groups.  There is a kind of queasy, uneasy relationship that I felt needed to be explored, and I've done so in this article, my first in over a year.

Uncool Britannia: Radiohead's 'The Bends' vs Britpop in a Battle for the Soul of Britain

I've also done a Genius annotation of the article, which is a really cool new tool they're testing in Beta for authors and web commenters.

And here's Thom Yorke eating ice cream