Ride are a British rock band that formed in 1988 in Oxford, England, consisting of Andy Bell, Mark Gardener, Laurence "Loz" Colbert, and Steve Queralt. The band were initially part of the "shoegazing" scene that emerged in England during the early 1990s. Following the break-up of the band in 1996, members moved on to various other projects, most notably Bell who became the bassist for Oasis. In 2001, the band briefly reunited for a one-off performance for a television show.

Ride released three EPs between January and September 1990, entitled Ride, Play and Fall. All three EPs made it into the UK top 75, with Play and Fall reaching the top 40. Ride's top-75 placing was a first for Creation Records. The first two EPs were released together as Smile in the USA in July 1990 (and later released in the UK in 1992), while the Fall EP was incorporated into the CD version of their first album, Nowhere, released in October 1990. The band were often labelled as part of the "shoegazing" scene, but the band rejected this, Bell stating "my first reaction was like, this is another boring tag. These days...that's pretty much still my reaction". Gardener said of the band's influences "We liked the noisy bands of the time. When we were at art college we went to see My Bloody Valentine, House of Love, Stone Roses and Sonic Youth. I think these all had a lot of influence on us in the early days as they were great gigs".  The band recorded two sessions for John Peel's BBC Radio 1 show in 1990, and their popularity with the show's listeners saw them with three tracks in the Festive Fifty that year, with "Dreams Burn Down" and "Like a Daydream" at numbers 3 and 4 respectively, and "Taste" at number 25.  Nowhere was a critical and commercial success, reaching No. 11 in the UK, and the media dubbed Ride "The brightest hope" for 1991. Demand for new material was high, and the band recorded another EP, Today Forever, released in March 1991. The EP marked a change in direction for the group away from the noisier early style. Ride made their first international tour to Japan, Australia and France later on that year. Tickets for the performances in Japan sold out within minutes.  In February 1992 the band broke into the UK top 10 with "Leave Them All Behind", and the following month saw the release of the band's second album Going Blank Again. The strain within the band was already apparent, Bell stating "By the time the second album came out we were touring too much. We were tired. We then took time off, but it was too much time off".

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