Pablo Honey
Encyclopedia
Pablo Honey is the debut studio album
by the English
alternative rock
band Radiohead
, released in February 1993. The album was produced by Sean Slade
and Paul Q. Kolderie
and was recorded at Chipping Norton Studio and Courtyard Studio, Oxfordshire
from September to November 1992. It features three charting singles: "Anyone Can Play Guitar
", "Stop Whispering
" and perhaps the band's most well-known hit on mainstream radio, "Creep". Pablo Honey peaked at #22 in the United Kingdom charts and went platinum there and in other countries. The album title comes from a Jerky Boys
prank call skit in which the prank caller says, "Pablo, honey? Please come to Florida!" to his victim. This snippet is sampled by the band on the track "How Do You?".
Following the release of Pablo Honey, Radiohead would digress from its introspective, grunge
-influenced style and self-deprecating lyrical themes toward more expansive and experimental works. The album received a generally favourable critical reaction, but was criticised for its derisive sound and inclusion of underdeveloped songs, and has been unfavourably compared to the band's subsequent albums. It has, nonetheless, been cited by listeners and critics as one of the best debut albums of recent years.
/Parlophone
and changing their name to Radiohead. The band's first official release, the Drill EP, was produced by their managers Chris Hufford and Bryce Edge, and sold poorly. For their debut album the band sought the production skills of Massachusetts
-based Paul Kolderie and Sean Slade, responsible for Dinosaur Jr. and Buffalo Tom
albums of which they were fans.
Several months in advance of the album, the band came out with their debut single "Creep". According to bassist Colin Greenwood
, "Creep" had been written by singer/rhythm guitarist Thom Yorke
sometime in the late 1980s, while he was at Exeter University, and was shared with other members of the band, who were mostly very enthusiastic, citing the song as a reason to continue making music together. However, it was not included on any of their early '90s demo tapes and had not been a part of their live set. At the time, "Inside My Head" (which would later be released as a b-side to "Creep") was considered a good candidate for the band's lead single.
Sometime in 1992 the band began an impromptu performance of "Creep" at a recording session, referring to it as their "Scott Walker
song" because it reminded them of one of their musical idols. Rumour states that Jonny Greenwood
's famous guitar crunches in the chorus were supposedly an attempt to ruin a song he did not like. But "Jonny played the piano at the end of the song and it was gorgeous," stated producer Paul Kolderie (though the piano was mixed in at the wrong time, the band decided to keep the take complete with mistake, not for the last time). "Everyone who heard 'Creep' just started going insane. So that's what got us the job doing the album." As soon as their managers and producers realised the song was an original (not a Walker cover), other plans were put on the back burner, to the band's surprise, and "Creep" was released as a limited single to the public in late 1992. However, the single initially went nowhere. It was even blacklisted from BBC Radio 1
for being too depressing.
In the meantime the bulk of the album was recorded, in autumn 1992. Recording sessions were completed very quickly, as the band had been playing many of these songs for years. However, what ended up on Pablo Honey represents only a fraction of their On a Friday-era recorded material, with very little overlap with earlier demos. The album was once described by a Radiohead member as 'Our greatest hits as an unsigned band', with smooth sonic textures, anthemic vocals and walls of guitar noise. "Prove Yourself", which had led off Drill
, reappears however in a different recording, as do "You" and "Thinking About You" in reworked versions.
musical climate of 1993, Pablo Honey did not receive particular attention. Several critics, however, were enthusiastic about the band's forthcoming debut release. NME
referred to the band as "one of rock's brightest hopes." In the United States, their debut single, "Creep", prompted industry observers and fans to draw parallels between Radiohead and Nirvana
, with some even touting Radiohead as the "British Nirvana". Pablo Honey would not garner the widespread acclaim of Radiohead's subsequent releases, but received a generally favourable critical reaction. NME awarded the album 7/10, foreshadowing the band's future success by describing it as "one of those flawed but satisfying debuts that suggests Radiohead's talents will really blossom later on." The magazine heavily criticised the track "How Do You?", writing that it "breaks the momentum of Pablo Honey horribly, throwing all of Radiohead's tortured sensitivity out of the window and leaving them sounding like beer-gutted losers from the class of '76". Q magazine
, who also drew comparisons with Nirvana, awarded the album 3 out of 5 stars, equating to a "good" album, and wrote, "British teenagerhood has never been grumpier... the best bits rival Nirvana, Dinosaur Jr. and even the mighty Sugar." Record Collector
also awarded the album 3 out of 5 stars, describing it as a "promising debut record", and commending its lead single, "It contains their 'biggest' single in 'Creep.' A 12-bar blues jam with added crunch." A consistent theme in British reviews was that the album's first half (where its three singles are placed), with the exception of "How Do You?", outweighed that of the second half, which often descended into banal post-grunge
stylings.
Stateside, several music publications gave the album positive reviews. Rolling Stone
wrote in its year-end review, "What elevates them to fab charm is not only the feedback and strumming fury of their guitarwork and the dynamism of their whisper-to-a-scream song structures, which recall the Who by way of the early Jam, but the way their solid melodies and sing-along choruses resonate pop appeal." Billboard
said of the album, "This U.K. quintet is primed to blast onto the American scene with initial modern rock track "Creep," a tense, guitar-dominated number that appears in unexpurgated form on this debut album. Certain tracks here may remind listeners of U2 (thanks largely to Thom E. Yorke's vocal mannerisms and overall guitar texturing), but lyrics have enough bite to make it on their own. "Ripcord," "I Can't," and "Blow Out" all contain excitement enough to heat up at target radio markets." Entertainment Weekly
gave the album a "B" rating, opining that it "mates Smiths-type self-consciousness with dramatic U2-like vocals and guitar, with Cure-style heavy but crunchy pop." Stephen Thomas Erlewine of Allmusic also drew comparisons with U2
, writing, "Radiohead's debut album, Pablo Honey, is a promising collection that blends U2's anthemic rock with long, atmospheric instrumental passages and an enthralling triple-guitar attack that is alternately gentle and bracingly noisy. The group has difficulty writing a set of songs that are as compelling as their sound, but when they do hit the mark -- such as on "Anyone Can Play Guitar," "Blow Out," and the self-loathing breakthrough single "Creep" -- the band achieves a rare power that is both visceral and intelligent." Erlewine named singles "Creep" and "Stop Whispering", along with acoustic ballad "Thinking About You", as the best tracks on the album. Mario Mundoz of the Los Angeles Times
wrote, "This English quintet's debut doesn't really deliver anything you haven't heard before, steering too close to Smiths-like melodies and trying ever so hard to be depressed in the way the Cure popularized. Occasionally, though, it does offer clever lyrics and good hooks." Robert Christgau
did not recommend the album, but named "Creep" as a "choice cut".
has expressed the opinion that the album has been somewhat underrated since release. NME
placed the album 35th of the 50 albums to appear in the magazine's end-of-year list for 1993, describing it as "a throwback to a homegrown tradition of great guitar-band albums. In 1998, Q magazine
readers voted Pablo Honey the 61st greatest album of all time. A Virgin
poll saw Pablo Honey voted 100th in the all-time top 1000 albums. In 2004, Q included "Lurgee" and "Blow Out" a list of twenty essential, lesser-known Radiohead songs as part of their "1010 Songs You Must Own". In 2006, Classic Rock
recognised the importance of Pablo Honeys contribution to popular music in the 1990s by including the album in their "200 Greatest Albums of the 90's" (also featured in sister publication, Metal Hammer
) as one of the 20 greatest albums of 1993. In a 2008 review, the BBC
described the album as Radiohead's "exploration of suburban, adolescent self-awareness", concluding, "It all resulted in a stunning blend that combined the best aspects of prog rock (challenging lyrics, deft chord changes, novelty time signatures and so forth) with the plaintiveness of bedsit singer song-writing and the sound of expensive equipment thrashed at by experts. Though later albums were better received, this remains one of rock's most impressive debuts." The same year, Blender
placed the album 82nd in a feature entitled "100 Albums You Must Own", writing, "Self hate couldn't have found a better British exemplification with this band's debut single, which hit the world as part of an album that constructed walls of crunchy guitar tones amidst the dark lyrical content." British music critic, Louis Pattison, in a review for Amazon
, said of the album, "Pablo Honey... is much more than filler. "Anyone Can Play Guitar" is certainly as good as "Creep"; swathed in walls of feedback, it races blindly into an apocalyptic chorus, frontman Thom Yorke singing "As the world turns and as London burns, I'll be standing on the beach with my guitar." Certainly, indie-rock seldom got better than this"; in 2009, Amazon editors ranked Pablo Honey 26th in their "The 100 Greatest Debut Albums of All Time". IGN Music
, in a 2010 article, ranked the often-maligned Pablo Honey as the 5th best of Radiohead's seven studio albums, writing, "Is it a classic? Yes. But when you consider that Radiohead would become one of the most innovative bands of the decade, Pablo Honey feels somewhat conventional. That doesn't make it any less awesome, however." Over time, the band began to drop many of the songs on the album from live setlists. However, since the turn of the millennium, "You", "Creep", "Lurgee" and "Blow Out" have all received live airings.
and Mike Hazlewood
Studio album
A studio album is an album made up of tracks recorded in the controlled environment of a recording studio. A studio album contains newly written and recorded or previously unreleased or remixed material, distinguishing itself from a compilation or reissue album of previously recorded material, or...
by the English
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
alternative rock
Alternative rock
Alternative rock is a genre of rock music and a term used to describe a diverse musical movement that emerged from the independent music underground of the 1980s and became widely popular by the 1990s...
band Radiohead
Radiohead
Radiohead are an English rock band from Abingdon, Oxfordshire, formed in 1985. The band consists of Thom Yorke , Jonny Greenwood , Ed O'Brien , Colin Greenwood and Phil Selway .Radiohead released their debut single "Creep" in 1992...
, released in February 1993. The album was produced by Sean Slade
Sean Slade
Sean Slade is a record producer, engineer, and mixer. He has worked with artists including Hole, Radiohead, Warren Zevon, Juliana Hatfield, Dinosaur Jr., Uncle Tupelo, the Mighty Mighty Bosstones, The Boo Radleys, Sebadoh, Lush, the Go-Go's, and The Dictators among others. In 2005 he produced The...
and Paul Q. Kolderie
Paul Q. Kolderie
Paul Q. Kolderie is a record producer, engineer, and mixer. He has worked with Pixies, Radiohead, Orangutang, Hole, Dinosaur Jr., Juliana Hatfield, Wax, Warren Zevon, Uncle Tupelo, Throwing Muses, Morphine, The Mighty Mighty Bosstones, Abandoned Pools, and The Go-Go's...
and was recorded at Chipping Norton Studio and Courtyard Studio, Oxfordshire
Oxfordshire
Oxfordshire is a county in the South East region of England, bordering on Warwickshire and Northamptonshire , Buckinghamshire , Berkshire , Wiltshire and Gloucestershire ....
from September to November 1992. It features three charting singles: "Anyone Can Play Guitar
Anyone Can Play Guitar
"Anyone Can Play Guitar" is a single taken from Radiohead's first album Pablo Honey, released just in advance of the album. It is the band's second single, and their first to receive a wide hearing...
", "Stop Whispering
Stop Whispering
"Stop Whispering" is a single from English alternative rock band Radiohead, released as the band's fourth single in 1993. It is the fourth track of their first album, Pablo Honey . It reached #23 on the US Modern Rock Tracks chart.-Background:...
" and perhaps the band's most well-known hit on mainstream radio, "Creep". Pablo Honey peaked at #22 in the United Kingdom charts and went platinum there and in other countries. The album title comes from a Jerky Boys
Jerky Boys
The Jerky Boys are an American comedy duo from Queens, New York, whose routine consists of prank telephone calls and other related skits. Formed in 1989, The Jerky Boys were made up of childhood friends Johnny Brennan and Kamal Ahmed...
prank call skit in which the prank caller says, "Pablo, honey? Please come to Florida!" to his victim. This snippet is sampled by the band on the track "How Do You?".
Following the release of Pablo Honey, Radiohead would digress from its introspective, grunge
Grunge
Grunge is a subgenre of alternative rock that emerged during the mid-1980s in the American state of Washington, particularly in the Seattle area. Inspired by hardcore punk, heavy metal, and indie rock, grunge is generally characterized by heavily distorted electric guitars, contrasting song...
-influenced style and self-deprecating lyrical themes toward more expansive and experimental works. The album received a generally favourable critical reaction, but was criticised for its derisive sound and inclusion of underdeveloped songs, and has been unfavourably compared to the band's subsequent albums. It has, nonetheless, been cited by listeners and critics as one of the best debut albums of recent years.
Recording
After a long dormancy while the members attended university, the band On a Friday reconvened in the early 1990s, becoming fixtures on the local Oxford scene with a series of demo recordings and well attended live gigs, finally signing with EMIEMI
The EMI Group, also known as EMI Music or simply EMI, is a multinational music company headquartered in London, United Kingdom. It is the fourth-largest business group and family of record labels in the recording industry and one of the "big four" record companies. EMI Group also has a major...
/Parlophone
Parlophone
Parlophone is a record label that was founded in Germany in 1896 by the Carl Lindström Company as Parlophon. The British branch was formed in 1923 as "Parlophone" which developed a reputation in the 1920s as a leading jazz label. It was acquired in 1927 by the Columbia Graphophone Company which...
and changing their name to Radiohead. The band's first official release, the Drill EP, was produced by their managers Chris Hufford and Bryce Edge, and sold poorly. For their debut album the band sought the production skills of Massachusetts
Massachusetts
The Commonwealth of Massachusetts is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States of America. It is bordered by Rhode Island and Connecticut to the south, New York to the west, and Vermont and New Hampshire to the north; at its east lies the Atlantic Ocean. As of the 2010...
-based Paul Kolderie and Sean Slade, responsible for Dinosaur Jr. and Buffalo Tom
Buffalo Tom
Buffalo Tom is an alternative rock band from Boston, Massachusetts, formed in 1986. Its principal members are guitarist Bill Janovitz, bassist Chris Colbourn, and drummer Tom Maginnis. The band's name is derived from the band Buffalo Springfield and the first name of the drummer.-Career:Dinosaur Jr...
albums of which they were fans.
Several months in advance of the album, the band came out with their debut single "Creep". According to bassist Colin Greenwood
Colin Greenwood
Colin Charles Greenwood , is an English musician and composer, best known as the bassist of the rock band Radiohead. Apart from bass, Colin plays keyboards, synthesizers and works on sampling on the electronic side of Radiohead...
, "Creep" had been written by singer/rhythm guitarist Thom Yorke
Thom Yorke
Thomas "Thom" Edward Yorke is an English musician who is the lead vocalist and principal songwriter for Radiohead. He mainly plays guitar and piano, but he has also played drums and bass guitar...
sometime in the late 1980s, while he was at Exeter University, and was shared with other members of the band, who were mostly very enthusiastic, citing the song as a reason to continue making music together. However, it was not included on any of their early '90s demo tapes and had not been a part of their live set. At the time, "Inside My Head" (which would later be released as a b-side to "Creep") was considered a good candidate for the band's lead single.
Sometime in 1992 the band began an impromptu performance of "Creep" at a recording session, referring to it as their "Scott Walker
Scott Walker (singer)
Scott Walker, born Noel Scott Engel on January 9, 1943 is an American singer-songwriter, musician, record producer, and the former lead singer of The Walker Brothers. Despite being American born, Walker's chart success has largely come in the United Kingdom, where his first four solo albums...
song" because it reminded them of one of their musical idols. Rumour states that Jonny Greenwood
Jonny Greenwood
Jonathan Richard Guy "Jonny" Greenwood is an English musician and composer, best known as a member of the English rock band Radiohead. Greenwood is a multi-instrumentalist, but serves mainly as lead guitarist and keyboard player. In addition to guitar and keyboard, he plays viola, harmonica,...
's famous guitar crunches in the chorus were supposedly an attempt to ruin a song he did not like. But "Jonny played the piano at the end of the song and it was gorgeous," stated producer Paul Kolderie (though the piano was mixed in at the wrong time, the band decided to keep the take complete with mistake, not for the last time). "Everyone who heard 'Creep' just started going insane. So that's what got us the job doing the album." As soon as their managers and producers realised the song was an original (not a Walker cover), other plans were put on the back burner, to the band's surprise, and "Creep" was released as a limited single to the public in late 1992. However, the single initially went nowhere. It was even blacklisted from BBC Radio 1
BBC Radio 1
BBC Radio 1 is a British national radio station operated by the British Broadcasting Corporation which also broadcasts internationally, specialising in current popular music and chart hits throughout the day. Radio 1 provides alternative genres after 7:00pm including electronic dance, hip hop, rock...
for being too depressing.
In the meantime the bulk of the album was recorded, in autumn 1992. Recording sessions were completed very quickly, as the band had been playing many of these songs for years. However, what ended up on Pablo Honey represents only a fraction of their On a Friday-era recorded material, with very little overlap with earlier demos. The album was once described by a Radiohead member as 'Our greatest hits as an unsigned band', with smooth sonic textures, anthemic vocals and walls of guitar noise. "Prove Yourself", which had led off Drill
Drill (EP)
Drill is the debut extended play by English alternative rock group Radiohead, released in May 1992. It is the first-ever commercial release by the band, debuting on the UK charts at number 101...
, reappears however in a different recording, as do "You" and "Thinking About You" in reworked versions.
Reception
In the heady alternativeAlternative rock
Alternative rock is a genre of rock music and a term used to describe a diverse musical movement that emerged from the independent music underground of the 1980s and became widely popular by the 1990s...
musical climate of 1993, Pablo Honey did not receive particular attention. Several critics, however, were enthusiastic about the band's forthcoming debut release. NME
NME
The New Musical Express is a popular music publication in the United Kingdom, published weekly since March 1952. It started as a music newspaper, and gradually moved toward a magazine format during the 1980s, changing from newsprint in 1998. It was the first British paper to include a singles...
referred to the band as "one of rock's brightest hopes." In the United States, their debut single, "Creep", prompted industry observers and fans to draw parallels between Radiohead and Nirvana
Nirvana (band)
Nirvana was an American rock band that was formed by singer/guitarist Kurt Cobain and bassist Krist Novoselic in Aberdeen, Washington in 1987...
, with some even touting Radiohead as the "British Nirvana". Pablo Honey would not garner the widespread acclaim of Radiohead's subsequent releases, but received a generally favourable critical reaction. NME awarded the album 7/10, foreshadowing the band's future success by describing it as "one of those flawed but satisfying debuts that suggests Radiohead's talents will really blossom later on." The magazine heavily criticised the track "How Do You?", writing that it "breaks the momentum of Pablo Honey horribly, throwing all of Radiohead's tortured sensitivity out of the window and leaving them sounding like beer-gutted losers from the class of '76". Q magazine
Q (magazine)
Q is a popular music magazine published monthly in the United Kingdom.Founders Mark Ellen and David Hepworth were dismayed by the music press of the time, which they felt was ignoring a generation of older music buyers who were buying CDs — then still a new technology...
, who also drew comparisons with Nirvana, awarded the album 3 out of 5 stars, equating to a "good" album, and wrote, "British teenagerhood has never been grumpier... the best bits rival Nirvana, Dinosaur Jr. and even the mighty Sugar." Record Collector
Record Collector
Record Collector is the United Kingdom's longest-running monthly music magazine. It distributes both within the UK and worldwide. It started in 1979.-The early years:...
also awarded the album 3 out of 5 stars, describing it as a "promising debut record", and commending its lead single, "It contains their 'biggest' single in 'Creep.' A 12-bar blues jam with added crunch." A consistent theme in British reviews was that the album's first half (where its three singles are placed), with the exception of "How Do You?", outweighed that of the second half, which often descended into banal post-grunge
Post-grunge
Post-grunge is a subgenre of alternative rock that emerged in the mid-1990s as a derivative of grunge, using the sounds and aesthetic of grunge, but with a more commercially acceptable tone...
stylings.
Stateside, several music publications gave the album positive reviews. Rolling Stone
Rolling Stone
Rolling Stone is a US-based magazine devoted to music, liberal politics, and popular culture that is published every two weeks. Rolling Stone was founded in San Francisco in 1967 by Jann Wenner and music critic Ralph J...
wrote in its year-end review, "What elevates them to fab charm is not only the feedback and strumming fury of their guitarwork and the dynamism of their whisper-to-a-scream song structures, which recall the Who by way of the early Jam, but the way their solid melodies and sing-along choruses resonate pop appeal." Billboard
Billboard (magazine)
Billboard is a weekly American magazine devoted to the music industry, and is one of the oldest trade magazines in the world. It maintains several internationally recognized music charts that track the most popular songs and albums in various categories on a weekly basis...
said of the album, "This U.K. quintet is primed to blast onto the American scene with initial modern rock track "Creep," a tense, guitar-dominated number that appears in unexpurgated form on this debut album. Certain tracks here may remind listeners of U2 (thanks largely to Thom E. Yorke's vocal mannerisms and overall guitar texturing), but lyrics have enough bite to make it on their own. "Ripcord," "I Can't," and "Blow Out" all contain excitement enough to heat up at target radio markets." Entertainment Weekly
Entertainment Weekly
Entertainment Weekly is an American magazine, published by the Time division of Time Warner, that covers film, television, music, broadway theatre, books and popular culture...
gave the album a "B" rating, opining that it "mates Smiths-type self-consciousness with dramatic U2-like vocals and guitar, with Cure-style heavy but crunchy pop." Stephen Thomas Erlewine of Allmusic also drew comparisons with U2
U2
U2 are an Irish rock band from Dublin. Formed in 1976, the group consists of Bono , The Edge , Adam Clayton , and Larry Mullen, Jr. . U2's early sound was rooted in post-punk but eventually grew to incorporate influences from many genres of popular music...
, writing, "Radiohead's debut album, Pablo Honey, is a promising collection that blends U2's anthemic rock with long, atmospheric instrumental passages and an enthralling triple-guitar attack that is alternately gentle and bracingly noisy. The group has difficulty writing a set of songs that are as compelling as their sound, but when they do hit the mark -- such as on "Anyone Can Play Guitar," "Blow Out," and the self-loathing breakthrough single "Creep" -- the band achieves a rare power that is both visceral and intelligent." Erlewine named singles "Creep" and "Stop Whispering", along with acoustic ballad "Thinking About You", as the best tracks on the album. Mario Mundoz of the Los Angeles Times
Los Angeles Times
The Los Angeles Times is a daily newspaper published in Los Angeles, California, since 1881. It was the second-largest metropolitan newspaper in circulation in the United States in 2008 and the fourth most widely distributed newspaper in the country....
wrote, "This English quintet's debut doesn't really deliver anything you haven't heard before, steering too close to Smiths-like melodies and trying ever so hard to be depressed in the way the Cure popularized. Occasionally, though, it does offer clever lyrics and good hooks." Robert Christgau
Robert Christgau
Robert Christgau is an American essayist, music journalist, and self-proclaimed "Dean of American Rock Critics".One of the earliest professional rock critics, Christgau is known for his terse capsule reviews, published since 1969 in his Consumer Guide columns...
did not recommend the album, but named "Creep" as a "choice cut".
Legacy
Although the release of Pablo Honey was not met with the critical fervour of later Radiohead albums, it has received significant praise in retrospective press coverage. Lead guitarist Jonny GreenwoodJonny Greenwood
Jonathan Richard Guy "Jonny" Greenwood is an English musician and composer, best known as a member of the English rock band Radiohead. Greenwood is a multi-instrumentalist, but serves mainly as lead guitarist and keyboard player. In addition to guitar and keyboard, he plays viola, harmonica,...
has expressed the opinion that the album has been somewhat underrated since release. NME
NME
The New Musical Express is a popular music publication in the United Kingdom, published weekly since March 1952. It started as a music newspaper, and gradually moved toward a magazine format during the 1980s, changing from newsprint in 1998. It was the first British paper to include a singles...
placed the album 35th of the 50 albums to appear in the magazine's end-of-year list for 1993, describing it as "a throwback to a homegrown tradition of great guitar-band albums. In 1998, Q magazine
Q (magazine)
Q is a popular music magazine published monthly in the United Kingdom.Founders Mark Ellen and David Hepworth were dismayed by the music press of the time, which they felt was ignoring a generation of older music buyers who were buying CDs — then still a new technology...
readers voted Pablo Honey the 61st greatest album of all time. A Virgin
Virgin Group
Virgin Group Limited is a British branded venture capital conglomerate organisation founded by business tycoon Richard Branson. The core business areas are travel, entertainment and lifestyle. Virgin Group's date of incorporation is listed as 1989 by Companies House, who class it as a holding...
poll saw Pablo Honey voted 100th in the all-time top 1000 albums. In 2004, Q included "Lurgee" and "Blow Out" a list of twenty essential, lesser-known Radiohead songs as part of their "1010 Songs You Must Own". In 2006, Classic Rock
Classic Rock (magazine)
Classic Rock is a British magazine dedicated to the radio format of classic rock, published by Future Publishing, who are also responsible for its "sister" publication Metal Hammer. Although firmly focusing on key bands from the 1960s through early 1990s, it also includes articles and reviews of...
recognised the importance of Pablo Honeys contribution to popular music in the 1990s by including the album in their "200 Greatest Albums of the 90's" (also featured in sister publication, Metal Hammer
Metal Hammer
Metal Hammer is a monthly heavy metal music magazine published in the United Kingdom by Future Publishing, and in several other countries by different publishers. Metal Hammer articles feature both mainstream bands and more unusual acts from the whole spectrum of heavy metal music...
) as one of the 20 greatest albums of 1993. In a 2008 review, the BBC
BBC
The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...
described the album as Radiohead's "exploration of suburban, adolescent self-awareness", concluding, "It all resulted in a stunning blend that combined the best aspects of prog rock (challenging lyrics, deft chord changes, novelty time signatures and so forth) with the plaintiveness of bedsit singer song-writing and the sound of expensive equipment thrashed at by experts. Though later albums were better received, this remains one of rock's most impressive debuts." The same year, Blender
Blender (magazine)
Blender was an American music magazine that billed itself as "the ultimate guide to music and more". It was also known for sometimes steamy pictorials of celebrities....
placed the album 82nd in a feature entitled "100 Albums You Must Own", writing, "Self hate couldn't have found a better British exemplification with this band's debut single, which hit the world as part of an album that constructed walls of crunchy guitar tones amidst the dark lyrical content." British music critic, Louis Pattison, in a review for Amazon
Amazon.com
Amazon.com, Inc. is a multinational electronic commerce company headquartered in Seattle, Washington, United States. It is the world's largest online retailer. Amazon has separate websites for the following countries: United States, Canada, United Kingdom, Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Japan, and...
, said of the album, "Pablo Honey... is much more than filler. "Anyone Can Play Guitar" is certainly as good as "Creep"; swathed in walls of feedback, it races blindly into an apocalyptic chorus, frontman Thom Yorke singing "As the world turns and as London burns, I'll be standing on the beach with my guitar." Certainly, indie-rock seldom got better than this"; in 2009, Amazon editors ranked Pablo Honey 26th in their "The 100 Greatest Debut Albums of All Time". IGN Music
IGN
IGN is an entertainment website that focuses on video games, films, music and other media. IGN's main website comprises several specialty sites or "channels", each occupying a subdomain and covering a specific area of entertainment...
, in a 2010 article, ranked the often-maligned Pablo Honey as the 5th best of Radiohead's seven studio albums, writing, "Is it a classic? Yes. But when you consider that Radiohead would become one of the most innovative bands of the decade, Pablo Honey feels somewhat conventional. That doesn't make it any less awesome, however." Over time, the band began to drop many of the songs on the album from live setlists. However, since the turn of the millennium, "You", "Creep", "Lurgee" and "Blow Out" have all received live airings.
Track listing
All songs written by Radiohead, except "Creep", written by Radiohead, Albert HammondAlbert Hammond
Albert Hammond OBE is a British singer, songwriter and record producer from Gibraltar.-Birth and early success:Hammond was born in London, England, where his family had been evacuated to from Gibraltar during World War II. His family returned to Gibraltar shortly after his birth, and there he grew...
and Mike Hazlewood
2009 Collector's Edition (2 CDs)
Disc 2 of the collector's edition contains tracks from the Drill EP, B-sides from the album's singles, as well as tracks from a BBC Radio One Session:- "Prove Yourself" (demo) – 2:33
- "Stupid Car" (demo) – 2:26
- "You" (demo) – 3:24
- "Thinking About You" (demo) – 2:16
- "Inside My Head" – 3:12
- "Million Dollar Question" – 3:18
- "Yes I Am" – 4:26
- "Blow Out" (remix) – 4:19
- "Inside My Head" (live) – 3:06
- "Creep" (acoustic/live) – 4:19
- "Vegetable" (live) – 3:09
- "Killer Cars" – 2:15
- "Faithless the Wonderboy" – 4:14
- "Coke Babies" – 3:00
- "Pop is Dead" – 2:13
- "Banana Co." (acoustic) – 2:27
- "Ripcord" (live) – 3:15
- "Stop Whispering" (US version) – 4:11
- "Prove Yourself" (BBC Radio 1 One Session, 22 June 1992) – 2:28
- "Creep" (BBC Radio 1 One Session, 22 June 1992) – 4:02
- "I Can't" (BBC Radio 1 One Session, 22 June 1992) – 3:55
- "Nothing Touches Me" (BBC Radio 1 One Session, 22 June 1992) – 3:50
2009 Special Collector's Edition (2 CDs + DVD)
Disc 3 [DVD]:- Creep [Promo video]
- Anyone Can Play Guitar [Promo video]
- Pop Is Dead [Promo video]
- Stop Whispering [Promo video]
- Creep [Top Of The Pops (16 September 1993)]
- You [The Astoria, London Live (27 May 1994)]
- Ripcord [The Astoria, London Live (27 May 1994)]
- Creep [The Astoria, London Live (27 May 1994)]
- Prove Yourself [The Astoria, London Live (27 May 1994)]
- Vegetable [The Astoria, London Live (27 May 1994)]
- Stop Whispering [The Astoria, London Live (27 May 1994)]
- Anyone Can Play Guitar [The Astoria, London Live (27 May 1994)]
- Pop Is Dead [The Astoria, London Live (27 May 1994)]
- Blow Out [The Astoria, London Live (27 May 1994)]
Personnel
- Thom YorkeThom YorkeThomas "Thom" Edward Yorke is an English musician who is the lead vocalist and principal songwriter for Radiohead. He mainly plays guitar and piano, but he has also played drums and bass guitar...
– vocals, guitar - Jonny GreenwoodJonny GreenwoodJonathan Richard Guy "Jonny" Greenwood is an English musician and composer, best known as a member of the English rock band Radiohead. Greenwood is a multi-instrumentalist, but serves mainly as lead guitarist and keyboard player. In addition to guitar and keyboard, he plays viola, harmonica,...
– guitar, piano, organ - Ed O'BrienEd O'BrienEdward John O'Brien is an English musician, songwriter and guitarist for the rock band Radiohead. He is also responsible for harmony vocals during live concerts and on many tracks from the band's albums...
– guitar, backing vocals - Colin GreenwoodColin GreenwoodColin Charles Greenwood , is an English musician and composer, best known as the bassist of the rock band Radiohead. Apart from bass, Colin plays keyboards, synthesizers and works on sampling on the electronic side of Radiohead...
– bass guitar - Phil SelwayPhil SelwayPhilip James "Phil" "The Graf" Selway is an English musician and songwriter, best known as the drummer of English rock group Radiohead. He also drums and provides backing vocals, along with occasional guitar and lead vocals, for 7 Worlds Collide...
– drums