The Bends

The Bends
Studio album by Radiohead
Released	13 March 1995
Recorded	1992 ("High and Dry") August – November 1994 at Abbey Road Studios, RAK Studios, London and The Manor, Oxfordshire
Genre	Alternative rock[1] indie rock[2]
Length	48:37
Label	Parlophone Capitol
Producer	John Leckie
Radiohead chronology
My Iron Lung (1994) The Bends (1995) OK Computer (1997)
Singles from The Bends
"My Iron Lung" Released: 24 October 1994 "High and Dry/Planet Telex" Released: 27 February 1995 "Fake Plastic Trees" Released: 15 May 1995 "Just" Released: 21 August 1995 "Street Spirit (Fade Out)" Released: 22 January 1996

The Bends is the second studio album by the English alternative rock band Radiohead, released on 13 March 1995 by Parlophone. The Bends was produced by John Leckie at EMI's studios in London, and engineered by Nigel Godrich, who would go on to produce all future albums by the band. Featuring five charting singles, the album also marked the beginning of a shift in aesthetics and themes for the band, with greater use of keyboards, and more abrasive guitar tracks balancing subtler ones. The introspective grunge-influenced style of Pablo Honey evolved into more multi-layered rock with cryptic lyrics and larger ideas, as the band and singer Thom Yorke reacted against the rigors of near-constant world tours.

My Iron Lung was released as an EP and later, "High and Dry" was released as an A-side with "Planet Telex" as the B-side. "Fake Plastic Trees" was released as the second single, with "Just" as the album's third. "Street Spirit (Fade Out)", the final single and last song on the album, became their first top five UK hit.

The album was subject to greater critical acclaim than their debut Pablo Honey (1993), receiving an enthusiastic critical reaction, and it reached number four in the UK Albums Chart.^[3] However, it failed to build on the commercial success of their single "Creep" outside the United Kingdom, and it peaked on the American charts at number 88.^[4] Although it lacked the instant success of later Radiohead albums, The Bends achieved triple platinum sales certifications in the UK and Canada and platinum sales in the United States and the European Union. In the years since its release, the album has frequently appeared in listener polls and critics' lists of the best albums of all time.

Background

By the time Radiohead began their first US tour in early 1993, their single "Creep" (1992) was in heavy rotation on MTV and had achieved top ten chart positions in the UK and the US when reissued in 1993.^[5] The grunge sound of their debut album Pablo Honey (1993) had led to the band being described as "Nirvana-lite",^[6] and neither the album nor the singles "Stop Whispering" and "Anyone Can Play Guitar" matched the chart success of "Creep".

Radiohead nearly broke up due to the pressure of sudden success as the tour extended into its second year.^[7] The band described the tour as a miserable experience, as towards its end they were "still playing the same songs that [they had] recorded two years previously... almost like being held in a time warp."^[8] Tensions were high, as the band felt smothered by both the success of "Creep" and the mounting expectations for a superior follow-up.^[9] The band sought a change of scenery, touring Australasia and the Far East in an attempt to reduce the pressure. However, confronted again by their popularity, Yorke became disenchanted at being "right at the sharp end of the sexy, sassy, MTV eye-candy lifestyle" he felt he was helping to sell to the world.^[10] The 1994 EP My Iron Lung, featuring the single of the same title, was Radiohead's reaction, marking a transition towards the greater depth they aimed for on their second album.^[11] The album is dedicated to the late comedian Bill Hicks.^[12]

Recording and production

Radiohead began working on arrangements for The Bends in early 1994. Sessions were due to begin at London's RAK Studio in January with Radiohead's producer of choice, John Leckie;^[13] however, fellow Oxford band Ride asked Leckie to perform some last-minute work on their forthcoming album Carnival of Light.^[14] Radiohead postponed the start of the album's recording to 24 February to accommodate, and used the extra time to practice their songs; Yorke said: "We had all of these songs and we really liked them, but we knew them almost too well . . . so we had to sort of learn to like them again before we could record them, which is odd."^[15]

The first two months of work on the album were difficult. While Radiohead were pleased with their work with Leckie and engineer Nigel Godrich, they felt pressured to follow up the success of Pablo Honey.^[15] The band's record label, EMI, set an October 1994 release date for the record, and suggested Radiohead should record the album's lead single first. No one could agree on what the lead single should be, so the band worked on four candidates: "Sulk", "The Bends", "Just", and "(Nice Dream)". The approach proved counter-productive; Leckie recalled, "Everyone was pulling their hair out saying, 'It's not good enough!' [. . .] We were trying too hard." The recording process slowed further as guitarist Jonny Greenwood experimented with several rented guitars and amplifiers in order to discover "a really special sound" for his instrument, despite Leckie's belief that Greenwood already had one. According to Leckie, whenever a record company representative or the group's management came to check on the album's progress, all the band would have to show them was "a drum sound or something".^[16]

In an attempt to defuse tensions between Yorke and the rest of the band over whether they should take a break that April, Leckie suggested to Yorke that he record some songs by himself on guitar. The group had a tour lined up for May until mid-June, which meant that the album would not be completed by October as planned. By the end of the sessions at RAK, Radiohead had recorded several songs that would appear on the album, as well as most of the tracks that would appear on My Iron Lung EP.^[17] They resumed recording on 16 June at Richard Branson's Oxfordshire studio complex, the Manor. Unlike the sessions at RAK, Radiohead recorded material quickly; Leckie felt the break for the tour gave the group "confidence" in the songs again. The band completed recording at Abbey Road Studios in London, where Leckie also mixed some of the songs.^[18]

Due to the poor commercial performance of the My Iron Lung EP, EMI decided Pablo Honey producers Sean Slade and Paul Q. Kolderie would remix the album tracks in the United States.^[19] Leckie did not realise what was happening until EMI asked him for copies of the multi-track tapes; Leckie said "EMI had been going on about trying to get an American sound for the record from the minute I got involved". Kolderie insisted he and Slade had not lobbied to remix the album, but EMI made the decision and the band supported it after hearing Pablo Honey play over a sound system during an in-store appearance. Leckie did not always like what Slade and Kolderie produced, but later said it was a sound decision to have others approach the music with a fresh approach.^[20]

Music

	"Just" "Just", Radiohead's fourth single from The Bends, reached number 19 in the UK charts in 1995. "Fake Plastic Trees" "Fake Plastic Trees" was partly inspired by the commercial development of Canary Wharf"
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According to the band, The Bends marked the start of a gradual turn in Yorke's songwriting from personal angst to the more cryptic lyrics and social and global themes that would come to dominate the band's later work. Most of the album was seen to continue the lyrical concerns of Pablo Honey, although in more mature fashion. The songs "My Iron Lung" and "Bullet Proof..I Wish I Was" have been compared to the band's later work, namely "Paranoid Android" and "Subterranean Homesick Alien", respectively.^[21] "Fake Plastic Trees" was partly inspired by the commercial development of Canary Wharf,^[22] while "Sulk" was written as a response to the Hungerford massacre.^[23] According to Yorke, "Street Spirit (Fade Out)" was inspired by the book The Famished Road by Ben Okri as well as the music of R.E.M.^[24]

The lyrics to the songs on The Bends, particularly those of "My Iron Lung", were cited in the British music press as an example of Yorke's alleged depression. Melody Maker ran an article during The Bends period which suggested Yorke would be the next "rock 'n roll martyr" or suicide.^[25]

Packaging

The Bends was the first of the band's full-length records with artwork by Stanley Donwood, in collaboration with Yorke, who went under the name "The White Chocolate Farm" (later shortened to Tchock). In an interview with NME, Donwood recalled taking on the album cover design in a time of poverty in his life. On creating the cover, Donwood remembered: "I got a CPR mannequin and filmed it on an old-fashioned video camera with a video cassette in it.".^[26] The booklet of The Bends was the last one to date which features photos of band members.

Reception and legacy

Professional ratings
Review scores
Source	Rating
AllMusic	[27]
Blender	[28]
Chicago Tribune	[29]
Entertainment Weekly	B+[30]
NME	9/10[2]
Record Collector	[31]
Rolling Stone	[32]
The Rolling Stone Album Guide	[33]
Spin	5/10[34]
The Village Voice	C[35]

In the United Kingdom, The Bends received rave reviews from critics.^[36] According to The Guardian's Caroline Sullivan, it elevated Radiohead from "indie one-hit-wonderville into the premier league of respected British rock bands."^[37] NME magazine's Mark Sutherland hailed it as a "classic" and "the consummate, all-encompassing, continent-straddling '90s rock record".^[2] The album was released during the height of the '90s Britpop movement; however, in the band's home country, Radiohead's music was rarely grouped with Blur, Pulp and other so-called "Britpop" acts, instead receiving some acclaim for diverging from the fashionable aspects of the scene.^[38] In Spin magazine, American critic Chuck Eddy was less impressed, deeming much of the album "nodded-out nonsense mumble, not enough concrete emotion",^[34] while Kevin McKeough from the Chicago Tribune panned Yorke's lyrics as "self-absorbed" and the music as overblown and pretentious.^[29] Village Voice critic Robert Christgau felt the band's guitar parts and expressions of angst come skillfully and naturally to them but nonetheless lack depth: "The words achieve precisely the same pitch of aesthetic necessity as the music, which is none at all."^[35]

In the US, The Bends got off to a slow start. While its American lead single "Fake Plastic Trees" fared relatively well (peaking at number 11 on Billboard's Modern Rock Tracks and number 65 on the Hot 100 Airplay chart), the album received a rather lukewarm commercial reception initially, entering the Billboard 200 at the very bottom position on the week of May 13, 1995,^[39] before peaking at number 147 on the week of June 24^[40] and dropping off the chart after a mere nine weeks. However, stateside reputation for the album steadily began to build as the band were performing as opening acts for both R.E.M. and Alanis Morissette and the much-talked about videos for singles "Just" and "Street Spirit (Fade Out)" drew attention, before the release of "High and Dry" (the album's original UK lead single) in early 1996 with a new, Quentin Tarantino-styled music video reignited interest in the album. "High and Dry" reached number 78 on the Billboard Hot 100, one of their highest chartings there,^[4] while The Bends re-entered the Billboard album chart on the week of February 17, 1996^[41] and eventually broke the Top 100 and reached its peak position at number 88 on April 20,^[42] almost exactly a year after the album's release and was certified Gold by the RIAA for sales of half a million copies on April 4.^[43] The Bends still remains Radiohead's lowest appearance on the US chart. In the UK, The Bends reached number four and stayed on the chart for 160 weeks.^[44] It was certified Triple Platinum in the UK^[45] and Platinum in the US.^[46] In mid-1995 Radiohead toured as an opening act for R.E.M., playing songs from The Bends and extending their popularity with a mass audience. Many bands, including Garbage, R.E.M., and k.d. lang began to cite Radiohead as their favourite band.^[38]

The Bends had an influence on the subsequent generation of British pop bands. In 2006, The Observer listed it as one of "the 50 albums that changed music", saying, "Radiohead's Thom Yorke popularised the angst-laden falsetto, a thoughtful opposite to the chest-beating lad-rock personified by Oasis's Liam Gallagher. Singing in a higher octave-range and falsetto voice to a backdrop of churning guitars became a much-copied idea, however, one that eventually coalesced into an entire decade of sound. Without this, Coldplay would not exist, nor Keane, nor James Blunt."^[47]

The Bends took second place behind Radiohead's OK Computer in both 1998 and 2006 reader polls of Q magazine for the best album of all time.^[48][49] In 2003, the album was ranked number 110 on Rolling Stone's list of the 500 greatest albums of all time. The Bends was the highest entry of three Radiohead albums to make the list (OK Computer and Kid A being the others), until the release of the updated version of the list in 2012, in which Kid A was moved to number 67.^[50] In 2000, Virgin's "Top 1000 Albums of All Time" ranked The Bends at number two, second only to Revolver by The Beatles.^[51] In 2006, British Hit Singles & Albums and NME organised a poll of which, 40,000 people worldwide voted for the 100 best albums ever and The Bends was placed at number 10 on the list.^[52] Paste ranked the album 11th on its list of the greatest albums of the 1990s.^[53]

Track listing

All songs written and composed by Radiohead (Colin Greenwood, Ed O'Brien, Jonny Greenwood, Philip Selway, Thom Yorke). 

Personnel

Chart history

References

Bibliography

• Randall, Mac. Exit Music: The Radiohead Story. Delta, 2000. ISBN 0-385-33393-5

External links

• Album online on Radio3Net a radio channel of Romanian Radio Broadcasting Company