A short two years later meanwhile, and "The Bends" blew everything out of the water. At the time of release, Radiohead were largely seen as also rans. On the verge of being a second-rate pre-Menswear scrabbling for some kind of relevancy, they returned with an album that smashed your preconceptions of their abilities as also-rans, and gave an assured, brave do-or-die second album. In all probability, EMI were going to drop them shortly anyway, so they went for broke and did whatever they wanted. And what an album. Timeless, even now, "The Bends" is half a set of fragile and beautiful ballads that soundtracked a million exhausted commutes, and angry ennui rock songs. Some of them - "Bones" and "Sulk" were only slight progressions beyond the debut - but overall, the album hung together with a fluency.
The second CD captures all the bands b-sides from the time : many of the songs as good as anything they recorded for the main album, songs such as "The Trickster" and "Permanent Daylight" are the type of songs other bands would base whole careers on. Particular mention has to go to "You Never Wash Up After Yourself" (the best song title ever), and the glorious gem that is "Talk Show Host".There are 22 songs here from Radioheads golden era most people have not really heard, and if you have any interest in Radiohead, these are songs you should climb inside and live with forever.
The BBC Sessions are fabulous alternate versions of the well known songs, dispatched with passion. Sadly, the audio CD is incomplete : lacking the alternate versions, demos, and remix versions of "Talk Show Host", "Planet Telex" and "The Bends" as well as about 15 live songs issued on b-sides of weird format CD singles across the world. (Close EMI, but no cigar).
Most baffling is the absence of the 'Mogadon' version of the b-side "Killer Cars". This song, one of the most important in their canon to date, explicitly pulls together all the influences, adds a dash of the direction they were about to go into, and easily the equal of most of "OK Computer". At the very least it should be included on some of the unused space on the "Ok Computer" bonus disc. This song is far too good, important, and essential to be left to rot on a 15 year old CD single.
The DVD meanwhile is a further triumph. The rest of the Astoria concert is here (between this and "Pablo Honey" you get the whole concert), alongside two TV sessions for BBC and Holland, and a slew of promo videos and other appearances. As a compendium, it is pretty damn definitive. Aside from the missing songs, EMI have done themselves proud with a 57 song package across three discs.