Pablo Honey
| Radiohead
Pablo Honey
Pablo Honey is the debut studio album by English rock band Radiohead. It was released on 22 February 1993 in the United Kingdom by Parlophone and in the United States by Capitol Records. It was primarily produced by Sean Sladeand Paul Q. Kolderie and recorded at Chipping Norton Recording Studios in Oxfordshire from September to November 1992. The album’s title comes from a prank call skit by the Jerky Boys in which the prank caller says to his victim, “Pablo, honey? Please come to Florida!” -Wikipedia
Critic Reviews
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Rolling Stone
If they don’t implode from attitude overload, Radiohead warrant watching.
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Classic Rock Review
Through the album’s stretch run it settles into a nice groove with moderately interesting tunes.
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All Music
The band achieves a rare power that is both visceral and intelligent.
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Pitchfork
If you're curious or a completist, Pablo Honey is out there.
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BBC Music
This remains one of rock's most impressive debuts.
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Sputnik Music
Pablo Honey was Radiohead's first album and it was a great one.
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IGN
The second disc adds something real and deepens the overall musical experience.
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Consequence of Sound
England’s answer to grunge.
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NME
‘Pablo Honey’ is far too good to be seen as mere juvenilia.
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Medium
Pablo Honey is like a sandwich in which the bread parts are tight as hell, but the middle bit, with all the salad and the lettuce and maybe even some tomatoes if you’re feeling particularly adventurous, is pretty flaccid.
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The Top Tens
It is overall a mediocre album, but it still has a few standout tracks, such as Creep and Blow Out, but it is overall a fairly dull, occasionally awful experience, it really cannot be compared to Radiohead's later work in terms of quality.
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Alt Rock Chick
Their trajectory from Pablo Honey to Kid A was a near-vertical line that shot up like a rocket. Nonetheless, they started a lot stronger than many people realize, and I’ve learned over the years that my friend wasn’t the only Radiohead aficionado to ignore Pablo Honey.
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Vulture
It’s a reminder that there still remain possibilities for new pulses and progressions in rock — even if Radiohead, perhaps grasping itself too firmly, seems to be turning into a monument of the genre.
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Clash Music
Their debut album points towards everything that they would go on to be.
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The Guardian
Pablo Honey was anger, energy, hope, rage, angst, fear – all the things that I clung to with a weird masochistic adolescent pride.
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Aphoristic Album Reviews
Pablo Honey is an undistinguished debut; given Radiohead’s rich catalogue, it’s primarily an historical curiosity.
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Music KO
“Pablo Honey” will always be a good disc. Yet, whether you would like to listen to a good disc when the band was to release some of the most groundbreaking works of the decade is entirely up to you.
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Wired
Pablo Honey will always be best remembered for the weirdo hit single “Creep,” a snarling anti-love song anchored by Thom Yorke’s soaringly pissant voice, Johnny Greenwood’s distorted pre-chorus guitar gulp, and lyrics seemingly grifted from the most miserable yearbook quote of all time. The rest of the album, though, is generic mid-’90s alt-ness.
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Bored and Dangerous Blog
It’s straight forward guitar rock, written and performed way better than average. But it’s still straight forward guitar rock and is hardly breaking any new ground.
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SPIN
Loner anthem “Creep” still speaks to the disenchanted teen in all of us, with Thom Yorke’s wail cutting through distorted riffs like a beacon in the fog. Elsewhere, traces of future experimentation glimmer through in the Sonic Youth fuzz of “Anyone Can Play Guitar” and the dreamy lounge-pop meltdown “Blow Out.”
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Contact Music
Pablo Honey was the start of something great - even if it made people sceptical at first.
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4 out of 5 Reviews
This album is one of the few Radiohead releases that is incredibly easy to date, a product of 90s production and songwriting styles popularized by groups like Nirvana and Soundgarden. There were much brighter days ahead for the group.
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Modern Rock Review
It’s lumpy and uneven and often sounds like a band pulling in five different directions – but that last quality was, and occasionally remains, part of Radiohead’s appeal.
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Paragraph Album Reviews
Doesn't really stand out from the crowd.
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