The Bends
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- For the disease, see decompression sickness.
The Bends has a reputation as Radiohead's most rock-oriented album for such songs as "Just" and "My Iron Lung," though its songs range from loud guitar anthems to slow and melodic ballads. Songs like "Planet Telex" showed increased experimentation with keyboard textures, pointing to the band's future, while The Bends also brought the group a wider audience with singles like "High and Dry", "Fake Plastic Trees" and the hypnotic "Street Spirit (Fade Out)" — a surprise hit which earned Radiohead's highest UK chart placement to that date.
The band commissioned surreal music videos (including an award-winning clip for "Just") which received airplay worldwide. In summer 1995, they toured as opening band for R.E.M., one of Radiohead's earliest influences and by then one of the biggest bands in the world, playing songs from The Bends and extending their popularity with a mass audience.
The Bends also marked the start of a gradual turn in Thom Yorke's songwriting from personal angst to the cryptic lyrics and social and global themes which would come to dominate the band's later work. Although most of the album was seen to continue the lyrical concerns of Pablo Honey, albeit in more mature fashion (though one publication called it "music to slit your wrists to"), the songs "Fake Plastic Trees" and in particular "Street Spirit" (together with that single's popular, more experimental b-side "Talk Show Host"), are often seen as a prelude to their next album OK Computer.
The Bends was the first Radiohead album to include production assistance from Nigel Godrich, though its main producer was Abbey Road veteran John Leckie. It was the first Radiohead album (following the My Iron Lung EP) with artwork by Stanley Donwood, in collaboration with Thom Yorke. Originally Yorke had wanted to use an image of an iron lung as the cover, but he lost it. The eventual album cover was created at the last minute by morphing a Donwood photograph of a medical dummy with Yorke's own face. It is also the last Radiohead album whose liner notes and artwork include pictures of the band members.
Among the videos released to promote the album was an enigmatic clip for "Just," directed by filmmaker Jamie Thraves, which remains one of the most talked about rock videos of the '90s. Jonathan Glazer, who would go on to work with the band on "Karma Police," created a dreamlike and award winning black and white video for "Street Spirit." The band also worked with Jake Scott (REM's "Everybody Hurts") on "Fake Plastic Trees," a distinctive video that shows the band being pushed around a neon supermarket. These video clips, along with one for "High and Dry," were released later on the home video and DVD 7 Television Commercials, along with several taken from OK Computer.
"For their second album, Radiohead chose an extremely symbolic title... Radiohead rose too soon (due to the success of 'Creep', which they were hardly prepared for) and had to suffer the unpleasant consequences (critical backlash, record company pressure, general confusion and dismay about how to continue meaningfully)" (From Mac Randall's "Exit Music: The Radiohead Story" - Omnibus Press, 2000).
In 1997 The Bends was named the 4th greatest album of all time in a 'Music of the Millennium' poll conducted by HMV, Channel 4, The Guardian and Classic FM. In 2005 Q magazine readers placed it at number 2, just behind their 1997 acclaimed album, OK Computer. In 2003, the album was ranked number 110 on Rolling Stone magazine's list of the 500 greatest albums of all time.
Recording History and Trivia
- In the liner notes, the album is dedicated to the late stand-up comic Bill Hicks.
- "Planet Telex" was recorded when Thom was drunk after they had all gone out to a restaurant because the catering staff at RAK were having a day off. Thom was said to be slumping on the floor and a microphone was placed near his mouth. This also was the only song written in the recording studio.
- "High and Dry" was originally played by Thom's band in Exeter, the Headless Chickens. However, the Radiohead version came to being after drummer Phil Selway was testing his new bass drum.
- For "Fake Plastic Trees" Paul Kolderie missed a cue during the final verse (the distorted guitars were meant to come in at the beginning of the bar), but the result was so pleasing that the mistake was left on the final mix.
- The lead vocal take of "Fake Plastic Trees" was recorded immediately after the band had seen Jeff Buckley playing upstairs at The Garage in London. Thom went straight to the studio after the concert, recorded the take, then broke down in tears.
- Thom's long standing love for dance music which eventually came to the fore for Kid A and Amnesiac originated when he used to guest as a DJ on university campuses.
- Radiohead's record label have allegedly recently bought the rights to the On a Friday demos.
- Sulk, the penultimate track The Bends, was written as a response to the Hungerford massacre.
Track listing
- All tracks written by Radiohead.
- "Planet Telex" – 4:19
- "The Bends" – 4:04
- "High and Dry" – 4:20
- "Fake Plastic Trees" – 4:51
- "Bones" – 3:08
- "(Nice Dream)" – 3:54
- "Just" – 3:54
- "My Iron Lung" – 4:37
- "Bullet Proof... I Wish I Was" – 3:29
- "Black Star" – 4:07
- "Sulk" – 3:43
- "Street Spirit (Fade Out)" – 4:12
Clips
External links
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