(Credits: Far Out / Paramount Pictures)
Tue 20 May 2025 11:13, UK
Since becoming a cultural icon with the hit 2003 movie School of Rock, Jack Black has been inextricable from the eponymous genre. Yet, even before then, thanks to his role as the vocalist of Tenacious D and his performance as the sneering record store hipster Barry in High Fidelity, he and the world of rock have been closely intertwined.
Regardless of the fictional parameters of his characters in High Fidelity and School of Rock, they have a tangible nature thanks to Black’s real-life position as a lover of good music. Outside of his work as an actor and running concurrently with his celebrated efforts in Tenacious D, he has continued to effuse about a host of different musicians.
Showing just how far his understanding of great music goes, he once recalled witnessing Nirvana live. After praising the world-changing efforts of Kurt Cobain and his band, Black outlined the role an audience has in making a show a memorable experience. He commented: “Ever since then, I know that it’s the crowd that’s just as important as the band in making a show incredible, ‘coz as good as Nirvana was, if they were in front of a bunch of stiffs, that show wouldn’t have been so great. It takes two to tango.”
This is just one of many accounts Jack Black has provided that confirm the extent of his taste in good music. When discussing Led Zeppelin at the Kennedy Center, Balck said: “Led Zeppelin…the greatest rock and roll band of all time. Better than the Beatles, better than The Stones. And if you don’t agree with me, that’s because you haven’t done the Zeppelin marathon. It’s when you sit your ass down and listen to all nine Zeppelin albums in a row. The jams of Led Zeppelin are second to none”. However, while he may think they are the greatest rock and roll band ever, there was one record that turned his attention toward another icon of music.
When speaking to Entertainment in 2000, he offered one of his most enlightening by listing his favourite albums of all time, a list that included titles by everyone from Liz Phair to Black Sabbath. However, the most eye-catching reading he gave in the collection concerned The Bends, the 1995 sophomore album by Radiohead. It saw them break off from their mostly forgettable alternative rock blueprint of Pablo Honey and move into a much more distinctive area.
In an informed account, Black summarised how most people thought when the record arrived – that they just didn’t get it. However, it wasn’t long before Black, like the rest of the world, realised the brilliance of Thom Yorke and the quintet. He even called them “the best band in the history of rock!”
“If you want concept,” he told the publication, “You go OK Computer. But if you wanna rock — if you want straight-up fuckin’ songs — you go The Bends. The first few listens, I was like, ‘I don’t understand…. My brain’s not computing….’ Then it clicked in: ‘Ohhhh, I see! It’s the best band in the history of rock!’”
There’s plenty of grungey angst on this album, but it was The Bends when Radiohead really set themselves apart from the rest of the growing alternative rock scene. While those bands tended to focus on the banality of life and the brutality of having to live under such circumstances, the Oxfordshire group did it all with an educated flourish that made other groups look like soapbox screamers and Radiohead as professors.
It captured the heart and soul of Jack Black and even though it might still be a two-way fight for who is the greatest in his eyes, this record certainly pushed Radiohead further into contention.
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