The Bends

Frequently ranked among the greatest albums of all time, The Bends signified the beginning of an aesthetic and thematic shift in Radiohead’s discography.

The band’s critically acclaimed second album welcomed a more prominent use of keyboards, as well as greater balance between delicate and abrasive guitar tracks. The Bends also marked an evolution to multi-layered song arrangements, and increasingly mysterious lyricism which moved away from Yorke’s previous themes of personal angst.

Under pressure to match the success of Pablo Honey, Radiohead’s first two months working on the album proved to be a great challenge. Matched with a slow recording process, the band found it counterproductive to record several hit singles in succession, with producer John Leckie recalling:

Everyone was pulling their hair out saying, ‘It’s not good enough!’… We were trying too hard.

The album’s title references decompression sickness (the bends), experienced when deep-sea divers ascend to the surface too quickly. The condition which arises from leaving a high-pressure environment, could also allude to the band’s sudden rise to fame during the early 1990s.

Among the more mature themes, Yorke’s songwriting addresses the Hungerford massacre (“Sulk”), mass consumption and the commercial development of London’s Canary Wharf (Fake Plastic Trees”), and Ben Okri’s 1991 novel, The Famished Road (“Street Spirit (Fade Out)”).