Razorblade Suitcase
album by Bush
Razorblade Suitcase is the second studio album by English rock band Bush. It was released on 19 November 1996 by Trauma and Interscope Records in the United States and Europe and on 20 January 1997 in the United Kingdom. The follow-up to their 1994 debut Sixteen Stone, it was recorded at Abbey Road Studios in London with engineer and producer Steve Albini. Its sound is more raw than that of its predecessor and has frequently been compared to Nirvana's In Utero (1993), which was also produced and engineered by Albini.
Razorblade Suitcase debuted at number one on the US Billboard 200, selling 293,000 copies in its first week of sales in the United States. To date, it remains the only Bush album to top the Billboard 200. The twentieth anniversary of the album was marked with a reissue officially titled Razorblade Suitcase (In Addition) on 16 December 2016, including the remastered album and four rare bonus tracks: "Broken TV", "Old", "Sleeper" and "Bubbles".
In 2025, Lauryn Schaffner of Loudwire named the album the best post-grunge release of 1996.
Recording and production
Gavin Rossdale wrote most of the songs for Razorblade Suitcase in under one month. "Swallowed", along with others from the album, were written while on the road.
This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Razorblade Suitcase” as album by Bush. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.
Why this record matters
The subject matters to the arts & letters register because the source frames it as album by Bush. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.
Object files, edition statements, performance records and contemporary criticism preserve different stages of the work’s history. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 1, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q641451. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1996, 1997, 1994 and 1993.
Rights, attribution and provenance may remain disputed even when a general reference summary presents a stable account. 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.
- Identifying works and editions
- Tracing reception history
- Finding collection records
The original object or edition, catalogue raisonné, performance record, rights file and holding institution.
Three-step research path
- Establish the record: confirm the title “Razorblade Suitcase”, its source revision and the description used here.
- Expand the search: follow Razorblade Suitcase primary sources, Razorblade Suitcase archive and Razorblade research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
- Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Razorblade Suitcase”?
- Which edition, object, performance or recording is being described?
- Where is authorship, date or provenance documented?
Search terms from this dossier
This entry incorporates text from “Razorblade Suitcase” 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.