Maps of Music

The Bends (1994)

Where the lyrics of The Bends take you, and where it was really made.

Radiohead's second album was made under heavy label pressure to match the sales of 'Creep', and the sessions were tense enough that each member looked at options for leaving their contracts.

Key places

Where the sessions began (1994)

Recording site RAK Studios — Work on The Bends began at RAK Studios in London in February 1994. Nigel Godrich engineered these sessions. Google Maps · Apple Maps

How to get there: See the map for directions.

Where the recording ended (1994)

Recording site Abbey Road Studios — Recording of The Bends ended at Abbey Road Studios in London in November 1994. Leckie also mixed the album there. Google Maps · Apple Maps

How to get there: Jubilee line to St John's Wood station, then about a 5-minute walk.

Oxfordshire studio sessions (1994)

Recording site The Manor — After the May and June tour, the band returned to the Manor studio in Oxfordshire in July 1994 to finish songs for the album. Google Maps · Apple Maps

How to get there: See the map for directions.

Album story

Overview

• The Bends: second studio album by the English rock band Radiohead
• Released 13 March 1995 by Parlophone in the UK
• Produced by John Leckie, with extra production by Radiohead, Nigel Godrich and Jim Warren
• Combines guitar songs and ballads, with more restrained arrangements and cryptic lyrics than the debut Pablo Honey (1993)
• Dedicated to the American comedian Bill Hicks
• Title is a term for decompression sickness, referencing the band's rapid rise to fame with 'Creep'

Background

• The success of 'Creep' brought the band significant pressure and mounting expectations
• Singer Thom Yorke became ill after the Pablo Honey world tour, and the band cancelled an appearance at the 1993 Reading Festival
• EMI wanted a follow-up to 'Creep' for the American market
• John Leckie was chosen as producer; he had worked with acts the band admired, such as Magazine
• Recording was postponed so Leckie could work on Carnival of Light by Ride
• In January 1994 the band rehearsed in a disused barn on an Oxfordshire fruit farm

Recording

• EMI gave the band nine weeks to record the album, planning an October 1994 release
• Work began at RAK Studios in London in February 1994
• After a tour in May and June, the band resumed work at Abbey Road in London and at The Manor in Oxfordshire
• Recording ended in November 1994 at Abbey Road Studios
• Only three of Leckie's mixes were used after EMI brought in Sean Slade and Paul Q. Kolderie
• The first Radiohead album recorded with Nigel Godrich and the artist Stanley Donwood, who have worked on every Radiohead album since

Cover

• The first Radiohead album with artwork by Stanley Donwood
• The image came from footage of a CPR mannequin shown on a television, photographed, then stretched to distort it

Sources: en.wikipedia.org

Tracklist

Sources: musicbrainz.org

Artist

Formation

• Radiohead are an English rock band formed in Abingdon, Oxfordshire, in 1985.
• The members met while attending Abingdon School, a private boys' school in Abingdon.
• The band was first called On a Friday, and signed to EMI in December 1991 under the name Radiohead.

Members

• Thom Yorke (vocals, guitar, keyboards), Jonny Greenwood (guitar, keyboards), Colin Greenwood (bass), Ed O'Brien (guitar, backing vocals), Philip Selway (drums).
• Nigel Godrich (producer) and Stanley Donwood (cover artist) have worked with the band since 1994.

Career

• Debut album Pablo Honey (1993); The Bends (1995); OK Computer (1997) is considered a landmark record.
• Kid A (2000) marked a dramatic change in style, incorporating electronic music, jazz and krautrock.
• In Rainbows (2007) was self-released as a pay-what-you-want download.
• Over 30 million albums sold by 2011; six Grammy Awards, four Ivor Novello Awards.
• Inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2019.

Sources: en.wikipedia.org

Reception

At release

• Q: The Bends described as a powerful, bruised and majestically desperate record of frighteningly good songs
• Rolling Stone: a mix of sonic guitar anthems and striking ballads, with lyrics evoking a haunted landscape of sickness, consumerism, jealousy and longing
• NME critic Mark Sutherland: described it as the consummate, all-encompassing, continent-straddling 90s rock record
• Select critic Dave Morrison: said it captures a much wider range of moods than Pablo Honey and praised the band as one of the UK's big-league rock assets
• NME and Melody Maker: named it among the top ten albums of the year
• Spin critic Chuck Eddy: deemed much of the album nodded-out nonsense mumble lacking concrete emotion
• Chicago Tribune critic Kevin McKeough: panned Yorke's lyrics as self-absorbed and the music as overblown
• The Village Voice critic Robert Christgau: found the guitar parts skilful but the lyrics lacking depth
• Los Angeles Times critic Sandy Morris: praised Yorke as enticingly enigmatic

Reappraisal

• Pitchfork in 2017: named it the third-greatest Britpop album
• The Independent in 2020: named it the best album of 1995
• Paste in 2025: ranked it fifteenth-best, saying it nearly perfected the psychedelic alt rock the band had once idealised
• The Observer in 2006: included it among the 50 albums that changed music

Records

• UK Albums Chart: peaked at number four and spent 16 weeks on the chart
• US Billboard 200: debuted at the bottom, reached number 147, then re-entered in 1996 and peaked at number 88
• US: certified gold for sales of half a million copies, then platinum in January 1999 for one million
• UK: certified platinum in February 1996 for over 300,000, then quadruple platinum in July 2013
• Nominated for Best British Album at the Brit Awards 1996
• By the end of 1996, sales reached around two million copies worldwide

Sources: en.wikipedia.org

Trivia

• Radiohead's live video Live at the Astoria, which includes several tracks from the album, was released on VHS on the same day as the UK release.
• 'Fake Plastic Trees' was used in the 1995 film Clueless and introduced Radiohead to a larger American audience.
• Yorke gave the MTV host Matt Pinfield a gold record of the album as thanks for his support.
• In November 1995, Yorke collapsed on stage at a show in Munich, and NME covered the incident in a story titled 'Thommy's Temper Tantrum'.
• Before a show in Denver, the tour van was stolen along with the band's equipment; Jonny Greenwood was reunited with his stolen Fender Telecaster Plus in 2015.

Sources: en.wikipedia.org

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