Composition and Recording
Garbage began writing their second album, which would go under the working title of Sad Alcoholic Clowns, in March 1997 in the band's label-head Jerry Moss's Friday Harbor, Washington, vacation house. The group demoed and made rough outlines for new songs, of which "Bend Me" was one. When they felt they had made a good start, Garbage took the work they made in Washington back to their Madison, Wisconsin base at Smart Studios and begin fleshing out the ideas and rough sketches over the following year.
Garbage intended their second album to build upon the framework, music style and musical template laid down by their first release; to create a rapprochement between the "high-tech and low-down, the now sound and of golden memories" and wear musical references to the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s. Garbage recorded all of their work for the second album through a 48-track digital system digitally, direct to hard drives utilizing a 24bit Pro Tools rig: the production of "Bend Me" would feature almost 120 audio tracks.
Duke Erikson created the opening guitar riff and arranged the backing chords, over which Shirley Manson sang. Manson's vocal was manipulated in various parts of the song by running the feed to the mixing console through a filter or a stomp box to provide distortion and by using ProTools plug-ins to time-stretch the vocal take. Much of the percussion was recorded in a disused candy factory located in Madison; Butch Vig, Steve Marker and sound engineer Billy Bush set up a drum kit within the empty building and recorded various fills, utilising the favourable acoustics therein. Forced to stop after local police officers responded to complaints about the noise, some of the percussion was later incorporated into the chorus of "Bend Me" (and also found its way into "Temptation Waits" and "Hammering in My Head"). The intro section made use of many percussive loops of kick, snare and hi-hat sounds. Some loops were flipped backwards, filtered and ran through an amp to create some white noise effects. Garbage employed touring bassist Daniel Shulman to perform electric bass on on the song, while Vig approached a DJ he met in Los Angeles, Todd Malcolm Michelles, to provide a record scratching effect under the chorus.
Garbage completed recording, producing and mixing of their second album in mid-February 1998, and the album was given the title Version 2.0. "Bend Me", which had by now had its official title finalized as "I Think I'm Paranoid", was tracklisted as the album's second song. Version 2.0 was released worldwide on May 11 of that year; despite a slow start, Version 2.0 went on to equal its predecessor, selling over four million copies and achieving platinum-certification in many territories, including United States, Canada, United Kingdom, Europe and Australia.
Read more about this topic: I Think I'm Paranoid
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