0364. Radiohead
The Bends

Third time's the charm, ey? After '00's Kid A and '03's Hail To The Thief we go back to the mid-nineties and The Bends, the follow up to their massive breakthrough. After nearly breaking up due to the stress of constant touring, Yorke and the gang finally got time to start writing again and eagerly got into the studio - only to find that their producer got snatched away by Ride for two months. What to do? Rehearse the songs until you tire and almost don't want to record them. Couple it with a label hounding you for an even greater (i.e. more moneymaḱing) album than the last one, and presto! you have a band without gusto.

What to do? Go on a short tour and then back into the studio to record something that's very good indeed (even though there's a couple of tracks that seems to be made for stadium rocking out and they're of course not that great, just like stadium rock usually is), and very well deserving of getting the hit singles in the form of Just as well as of course the last track, Street Spirit (Fade Out), an absolutely beautiful song that may very well be one of the two best they've written (the other one has yet to debut on this list).
A little bit less deserving was the hit High And Dry, which lost its charms kinda quickly.