The Bends

The Bends is the second studio album by Radiohead, released on 13 March 1995 on Parlophone.^[1] Produced primarily by John Leckie, with Nigel Godrich and Jim Warren contributing additional production, the album marked a dramatic departure from the band's debut and signalled a group in the process of remaking itself under enormous pressure.

The album's title is a metaphor for decompression sickness, the condition that strikes divers who ascend too quickly from deep water. It perfectly describes Radiohead's situation in 1993 and 1994: thrust into international fame by the unexpected global success of "Creep," the band found themselves struggling with identity, label pressure, and the fear of being permanently defined by a single song.^[2] Thom Yorke later said the band "came up too fast," and the period of recording was intense and strained, with the group vehemently rejecting comparisons to Nirvana and the weight of a record company demanding another pop crossover.

Recording began in February 1994 at RAK Studios in London and continued at Abbey Road and The Manor in Oxfordshire, wrapping in November 1994.^[1] The sessions introduced two lasting creative partnerships: Nigel Godrich, who would go on to produce every subsequent Radiohead album, and visual artist Stanley Donwood, who created the album art and has collaborated with the band ever since.

Thematically, the album explores alienation, anxiety, loss of identity, social rejection, faithlessness, and the corrosive effects of fame and consumerism. Songs range from the muscular guitar catharsis of "Just" and "My Iron Lung" (a direct critique of "Creep" itself) to the fragile lament of "Fake Plastic Trees" and the devastating closer "Street Spirit (Fade Out)." Critics at the time recognized it as a record of genuine emotional ambition: Q magazine called it "a powerful, bruised, majestically desperate record of frighteningly good songs."^[3]

The Bends reached number 4 on the UK Albums Chart and, after a slow start in the United States, eventually climbed to number 88 on the Billboard 200, aided by a tour supporting R.E.M. and a string of critically praised singles.^[1] It was named among the top ten albums of 1995 by both NME and Melody Maker, and in 2006 The Observer included it among "50 albums that changed music."^[3]