Whack up the bunting and put the candles on the cake, because somebody very special just turned 30 this year.
Well, not so much a somebody as a something – Radiohead’s superlative sophomore effort The Bends just hit the big three-zero, and to celebrate the event right down to the very day (March 13th, 1995), Classic Album Sundays hosted a special anniversary event at the British Library commemorating the classic release. As one of 1995’s best records and one of my absolute favourite albums, attending was never even in question.
This wasn't just a routine playthrough on an iPod dock streaming tracks via Spotify, either. If a fancy venue and some adoring fans weren't enough to give The Bends the royal treatment, the iconic album was being played on the Bowers & Wilkins 801 D4 floorstanding speakers (connected to a Rega P9 turntable and powered by Classé amplification) used to help record the album during its latter sessions at Abbey Road.
If that wasn't enough, the album's producer John Leckie was interviewed by CAS's Colleen Murphy before the entire playthrough began, giving insights into the recording of each track and his experience working with Thom, Colin, Ed, Phil and Jonny. Basically, a music nerd's dream.
Note, by the way, that the system described above is all you’re getting. There are no beefy subs or wall-mounted surrounds sharing the load of what is one of Radiohead’s loudest and, in many ways, most taxing records to replicate across a large space.
In fairness to the Bowers towers, they make a good fist of things, bringing to life the general spirit of each subsequent track and gripping hold of the vital elements – wall-of-noise overdriven guitars, tumbling drums and Thom Yorke at full wail – with impressive cohesion.
There's the occasional hint of strain as the D4 push themselves to crank out a wailing guitar top note or tricky drum fill, but considering the size of the room and the weight of the task itself, they make an impressive account of themselves. Also, considering there was only a single amplifier powering a system at full crank, you can't put too much blame onto the speakers.
The excitement of such an event is getting to hear your favourite tracks brought to life by a set of speakers designed to have them firing at their finest. That being said, I was struck by how the experience elevated those more maligned or oft-skipped offerings, elevating the tunes that, to my shame, I’d often relegated to occasional run-throughs rather than endless repeats.
I’d never quite clicked with Street Spirit (Fade Out), for instance, yet hearing its arcing, soaring melancholy through a system that strove to do it justice, all while surrounded by adoring fans, set off a dormant lightbulb hiding somewhere in my dusty brain. Suddenly, it just made a lot more sense.
It’s an odd thing in this day and age to listen to an album all the way through, in the same way that a person generally sits down to watch a movie in its entirety rather than relying on chopped-up YouTube clips to replicate the experience of Anchorman or Avengers: Endgame.
Interestingly enough, John Leckie commented on The Bends as an exemplar of the necessity for proper album curation, and when you’re knocked over by the album’s title track almost straight out of the gate, lulled into peaceful melancholy in the middle by Fake Plastic Trees and then gently released by the ethereal Street Spirit (Fade Out) closer, it’s hard to disagree.
What the charming and insightful Mr. Leckie may not have appreciated, however, is that The Bends was, and remains, one of the few albums that I have listened to, if not through in one sitting, then often in a logical and sequential order.
A battered old copy on CD, adorned with that iconic image of a CPR practice dummy experiencing either elation or bewilderment, accompanied me on every car journey throughout my twenties, alongside a few choice cuts from the likes of The Killers, Muse and Linkin Park. I grew up in the 2000s, after all.
The rendition at the British Library, amplified by a more capable system than my old VW Polo’s primitive in-car radio, nevertheless went some way to replicating that old experience of knitting together tunes in a given order.
Picking out individual tracks to enjoy on Spotify or Tidal has never quite had the same effect on me, but hearing High And Dry fade directly into Fake Plastic Trees yanked me back to those bygone times.
It’s a cliché, I know, but nothing puts you back into those shoes, be they those of a 15, 20 or 30-year-old, quite like a whirling disc or a spinning record being played as the artist intended. Having a couple of £30,000 speakers doesn't hurt, either.
What an event such as this makes you realise is that so often we relegate music, even the stuff we love most in the world, to the background.
Whether it's playing out of your phone's poxy speakers, accompanying dull train journeys or wafting out of your laptop as you load up another lo-fi study playlist, music has become a thing that accompanies other activities rather than being the activity itself.
Much of my job relies on critical listening without distractions, but even then it's a professional, almost analytical process in which assessment and judgement come first.
To sit immersed in a single album from start to finish served as less of a demonstration of music's intoxicating power and more of a reminder of why we, as hi-fi devotees, do what we do – we understand that music isn't an accompaniment to life; it is the main event.
MORE:
These are the best albums from 1995 celebrating 30 years
7 tracks that have been on repeat in our test rooms
The 12 best Radiohead songs to test your hi-fi system
Radiohead’s most underrated album is one of my all-time favourite test records
