CACrown ArchivesThe cinema collection
EN/FR
Search
Menu
Research dossier · Arts & Letters

Bend Me, Shape Me (album)

album by The American Breed

Manuscripts, fine bindings, an engraving plate and preserved performance ephemera
Arts and lettersInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionAug 30, 2025
Entity authorityQ4886988 ↗
Source-derived summary

Bend Me, Shape Me is the second album from the 1960s rock group The American Breed, released in February 1968.

Overview

The album peaked at No. 99 on Billboard's pop albums chart, and the title song, a cover of The Outsiders 1966 song, became the group's only Top 10 hit, reaching No. 5 on Billboard's pop singles chart in February 1968. The album and the single both went gold, and remains the group's biggest selling album to this day. The only other major hit single from this album was a cover of The Vulcanes 1966 song "Green Light" (No. 39).

Editorial summary

Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Bend Me, Shape Me (album)” is album by The American Breed. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Bend, Shape and album, not as a finished interpretation.

Editorial reviewA useful identification and reception guide that helps separate the work itself from editions, performances, ownership and later interpretation. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1968, 1966—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1968. For this dossier, Bend, Shape and album is the immediate research focus.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The phrase “album by The American Breed” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.

Evidence profile

Object files, edition statements, performance records and contemporary criticism preserve different stages of the work’s history. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 30, 2025. The linked authority identifier is Q4886988. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1968 and 1966.

Critical limits

Titles can refer to several editions, objects or performances, making precise identification essential before interpretation. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Separate the work, its editions or performances, and its later reception. Catalogue records, publication histories and object files often preserve different parts of that story.

Best used for
  • Identifying works and editions
  • Tracing reception history
  • Finding collection records
Verify next

The original object or edition, catalogue raisonné, performance record, rights file and holding institution.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Bend Me, Shape Me (album)”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Bend Me, Shape Me (album) primary sources, Bend Me, Shape Me (album) archive and Bend research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Bend Me, Shape Me (album)”?
  2. How did later circulation or interpretation alter the work’s reception?
  3. Which edition, object, performance or recording is being described?
Subject index

Search terms from this dossier

Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “Bend Me, Shape Me (album)” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.