The Bends by Radiohead

The Bends, Radiohead's second album, came out on Parlophone with John Leckie producing, and it's the record where the band that made "Creep" became something far stranger and more beautiful. Where Pablo Honey (1993) was all fuzz and angst, The Bends sets rockers beside ballads, reins in the arrangements and makes the words far more cryptic. Radiohead, Nigel Godrich and Jim Warren added extra production, and it marked the start of the band's long partnerships with both Godrich and artist Stanley Donwood.

It wasn't an easy birth. Sessions began at RAK Studios in London in February 1994 under heavy pressure from the label to repeat the sales of "Creep", and the going was slow. After an international tour in May and June, the band regrouped at Abbey Road and the Manor in Oxfordshire. What came out is gorgeous and anxious: "Planet Telex" warps and throbs, the title track snarls, "High and Dry" and "Fake Plastic Trees" are aching, wide-open ballads, "Just" is a riot of wiry guitars, and "Street Spirit (Fade Out)" drifts off in a bleak, spiraling hush; it became Radiohead's first top-five hit on the UK singles chart.

The album reached number four in the UK, and in the US it sold slowly, building on word of mouth, good reviews and striking videos until it went platinum; in the UK it reached quadruple platinum. It earned a Best British Album nomination at the Brit Awards 1996, lifted the band out of one-hit-wonder territory, and has been credited with shaping a generation of post-Britpop acts including Coldplay, Muse and Travis.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.