Happy Weekend: The Bends Edition

Yesterday was the twenty year anniversary of one of the greatest albums of all time: Radiohead’s sophomore album The Bends! 1993’s Pablo Honey saw the band teetering at the brink of Britpop and The Bends not only pushed them far away from it, it laid the groundwork for the band’s nonconformist mentality. It was also during the recording of The Bends that they met longtime producer, collaborator, and all-around sixth-band-member, Nigel Godrich, who was an engineer at RAK Studios where the record was made. The artwork for the album was also the first designed by Stanley Donwood, who has designed all subsequent artwork.

Pretty much every publication and blog has done a 20 anniversary something or other. Billboard did a great track by track review, which you can find HERE, and the NME wrote a pretty nice piece on it as well, which you can find HERE.

You don’t need us to share another retrospective or track by track analysis, we try to shy away from doing what everyone else does. On a personal note I will say that some of the greatest memories of my life have this record as the soundtrack. 1995 and 1996 were pretty carefree college days and my best friend, Selena, and I would walk around the Riverwalk, listening to Just, Fake Plastic Trees, and High and Dry repeatedly; our biggest concerns being when the latest issue of Q Magazine was released and which of us could scrape together enough money for tacos. The greatest of days accompanied by the greatest of records. A very happy anniversary to The Bends, and congratulations to Radiohead for making a record which still has such an impact two decades later.