I always feel bad calling Billy Joel one of my "guilty pleasures"...he's one of the most commercially and critically successful songwriters and musicians of the past fifty years and has written countless hit songs. Perhaps I shouldn't call him a "guilty pleasure" and instead say that he's one of my favorite musicians who most people who know me would be surprised I'm such a big fan of given when compared to everything else I listen to. But really, it should make perfect sense: he's a fantastic piano player, songwriter, singer, and can write hooks with the best of them (and as anyway who knows me know, I am and always have been a sucker for a well crafted song with an infectious hook). Over the course of his active career, Billy Joel released album after album full of great songs and became one of the most successful singer-songwriters of the 1970s and 1980s before retiring from popular music in the mid 1990s.
William Martin Joel was born in 1949 in Oyster Bay, Long Island to a German immigrant concert pianist and an English immigrant mother. He had a troubled childhood, with his parents divorcing in the mid 1950s and his father moving to Vienna, Austria. Reluctantly forced into classical piano lessons at a young age, Joel was captivated, as so many millions of others were, by the Beatles when he saw them on the Ed Sullivan show in 1964 and decided to drop out of high school in order to pursue a career in music full time. After playing on several demos and sessions with a few small-time groups, he joined a local band called The Hassles who released two albums. Following that, in 1970 he formed a short-lived heavy metal duo called Atilla with former Hassles drummer Jon Small. The duo released one unsuccessful album and split up when Joel's affair with Small's wife Elizabeth was revealed. She broke it off with both of them and, distraught, Joel attempted suicide by drinking furniture polish (in his own words, "it looked tastier than bleach"). Surviving the attempt to take his own life, Elizabeth reconciled with Joel and they eventually married.
Signing a terribly lopsided contract with a label called Family Productions, he released his debut album Cold Spring Harbor in 1971. The album sold poorly, much of it due to the mastering being too fast and the songs and vocals being too high-pitched, something which wasn't corrected until many years later. Realizing he'd been ripped off, Joel managed to sign with Columbia Records, who bought out his contract with Family. His second album, Piano Man, was his commercial breakthrough, led by the title track as well as underground radio stations in the northeast (especially in Philadelphia) playing the album's closing track, "Captain Jack." Relocating to Los Angeles, his follow-up album, Streetlife Serenade, is an underrated and overlooked one in his discography. Without any immediate hit singles apart from "The Entertainer," it's a bit darker and more melancholy, with tracks such as the title song, "Los Angelenos," "The Great Suburban Showdown," "Roberta," and the instrumental piano workout "Root Beer Rag" as definite highlights. Homesick for New York City, Joel moved back for good and his next album, Turnstiles, reflected his happiness at being home. Songs like "Say Goodbye to Hollywood," "New York State of Mind," and "Miami 2017 (I've Seen the Lights Go Out on Broadway)" reflect this, and are among the highlights of the album, as well as the classic "Prelude/Angry Young Man." By this point, Joel had a steady band behind him that would last for the next fifteen years and solidify his sound both in the studio and live on stage.
1977 saw the release of The Stranger, Joel's commercial and critical breakthrough album and the work that is still considered his magnum opus. The Stranger was packed with classic songs...almost the entire album has been in regular rotation on the radio since its release, with such songs as the title track, "Movin' Out," "Scenes From an Italian Restaurant," "Only the Good Die Young," "Just the Way You Are," "She's Always a Woman," and "Vienna" as classics. This album would also mark the beginning of a fruitful collaboration with producer Phil Ramone, who would produce all of Joel's albums up to and including 1986's The Bridge. The following albums 52nd Street ("My Life," "Big Shot," "Zanzibar"), Glass Houses ("You May Be Right," "Sometimes a Fantasy"), The Nylon Curtain ("Allentown," "Pressure," "Goodnight Saigon," "Laura") and his homage to 1950s and 1960s pop, An Innocent Man ("Uptown Girl," "The Longest Time," "Tell Her About It") continued a ridiculously strong run of albums and songs. It wasn't just the singles that were great...numerous album cuts were as good, or in some cases better than, the radio hits. There was a bit of a drop-off from here: 1986's The Bridge was very good but not great, but still had some excellent songs ("A Matter of Trust," "This is the Time") as did Joel's final two albums. 1989's Storm Front contained the hits "We Didn't Start the Fire" and "I Go to Extremes" while his final album, 1993's River of Dreams, had the title track and "Lullaby (Goodnight, My Angel)" as highlights. At this point, Joel decided to retire from writing and recording popular music, a surprising decision for someone of his talents. Since then, he's focused on writing classical piano pieces and has continued touring, both with his own band and in tandem with Elton John, playing his hits and entertaining millions of fans around the world. He's definitely on my bucket list of musicians I want to see, and seeing as how he's played Fenway Park in Boston the last two summers, I'm hoping that I have a really good chance of making it happen.
Billy Joel today, in 2015
As for my own fandom, I grew up listening to my parents' copies of The Stranger and 52nd Street on vinyl. My dad isn't a fan, but my mum is, so between those records and hearing all of his songs on the radio when I'd be listening with her, I became a fan at a very young age. Additionally, my best friend from elementary through high school was a huge fan. We sang many of Billy Joel's songs in the high school chorus and acapella groups I was in (including "The Longest Time," on which I performed the solo). From the beginning, I've been captivated by his fantastic songwriting...he writes melodies with the best of them and is also quite talented at writing songs that tell stories. His phenomenal piano playing has always been a highlight for me, as well as his singing voice. In fact, he's one of my favorite musicians to listen to and sing along with. The range of music he's produced goes from story songs like "Allentown," "Scenes From an Italian Restaurant," "Miami 2017 (I've seen the Lights Go Out on Broadway)," and "Captain Jack" to ballads like "Honesty," "She's Got a Way," and "And So it Goes." There are belting rockers like "You May Be Right," "Big Shot," "Movin' Out," and "Los Angelenos," pure pop singles like "Uptown Girl" and "My Life," and numerous great album cuts like "Laura" (the best Lennon/McCartney song of the 1980s that they never wrote), "Vienna," "Roberta," "Zanzibar," and countless others. For many years during my youth, I used to hide the fact that I was such a big fan because he wasn't considered too "cool" by my peers. He also doesn't fit the mold of most of the musicians I listen to and I'd find many of my friends and family members to be quite surprised when I mentioned how much I liked him. However, as I've gotten older, I don't feel the need to be so coy about my fandom. So many of Billy Joel's songs have meant a lot to me throughout the various stages of my life and continue to do so to this day. Whether it's been during tough times or happy times, reflective, depressing times or exciting times, I've always found that his songs have a way of speaking to me as a listener and conveying their message and emotion both through their music and their lyrics. He may not fit in easily alongside the majority of what I listen to, but I'm proud and glad to be a fan of Billy Joel's music...it's meant, and continues to mean, so much to me and brought me such enjoyment that I can't ever imagine not having it in my life.
The classic Suede line-up circa 1993, left to right: Simon Gilbert (drums), Bernard Butler (guitars, piano), Brett Anderson (vocals), Mat Osman (bass guitar)
Welcome to this next entry in my series of profiles on some of my favorite bands. Today's article is about Suede, a band that burst forth from the grimy underbelly of London in the early 1990s and became, for a short time, one of the finest British bands of the decade. Propelled by the exquisite songwriting team of Brett Anderson and Bernard Butler, along with Butler's equally impressive guitar playing and the great rhythm section of Mat Osman (bass guitar) and Simon Gilbert (drums), Suede explored a seedier, more haunting, and realistic urban vein of British rock than many of their peers in the 1990s BritPop scene. However, tensions within the band brought on by a variety of reasons led to the original line-up's implosion by the end of 1994. Regrouping with a new guitarist who also happened to be a 17 year old Suede superfan (Richard Oakes) and Simon Gilbert's cousin on keyboards (Neil Codling), Suede remade themselves and released a two more successful albums before quietly losing steam in the early 2000s and calling it a day. After solo albums and various side projects (including a surprise reunion between Anderson and Butler that led to the excellent, albeit short-lived band The Tears), Suede reformed in the late 2000s (with the Oakes/Codling configuration) and, with a great new album released two years ago, are again an active band producing great music. How they got to this point, as well as the excellent music they made along the way, will be the subject of the following profile now that you've read my potted Suede history, so read on and be enlightened...
The genesis of Suede was at University College London in 1989 when Brett Anderson met Justine Frischmann and, along with Brett's childhood friend Mat Osman, decided to form a band. After placing a now-famous ad for a guitarist in NME that read "Young guitar player needed by London based band. Smiths, Commotions, Bowie, Pet Shop Boys. No Musos. Some things are more important than ability. Call Brett," they received a response from a young guitarist named Bernard Butler. He was only 19 but even at the stage was an incredibly talented musician who was obsessed with Johnny Marr's work with the Smiths. Initially playing small club gigs with a drum machine, they eventually recorded a short demo with none other than former Smiths drummer Mike Joyce occupying the drum stool. Joyce declined to stay full time, not wanting to burden the young band (who were influenced by his former band) by staying on as a member (which is quite a gracious thing to do, actually!). Eventually they brought Simon Gilbert into the fold and, apart from Frischmann on rhythm guitar, the now classic Suede lineup of Brett Anderson (vocals), Bernard Butler (guitar, piano), Mat Osman (bass guitar), and Simon Gilbert (drums) was complete. This is where the great music (and later, the drama) really started...
By 1991, Brett and Justine had split as a couple but she was still in the band. Making matters worse, she then embarked upon what would eventually be a high-profile and extended relationship with Damon Albarn from Blur. Her tardiness or absences at Suede engagements, often because she was hanging around with Blur on video shoots, hurt and angered Brett enough that eventually she was sacked; according to all involved, it galvanized the band and crystallized their sound into what they would become famous for. (Justine would eventually go on to fame fronting Elastica). While their brand of dark, sweeping, and despairingly romantic music was out of step with the Madchester/baggy and shoegazing sounds then in vogue in the early 1990s UK, they continued to gig while the Anderson/Butler songwriting partnership began to bear real fruit. They began to attract the notice of the UK music press and even ended up on the front cover of Melody Maker with the headline "Suede: The Best New Band in Britain." Eventually signing with indie label Nude Records in 1992, they released a trio of singles that were stunning in quality and sound for such a young band: "The Drowners," "Metal Mickey," and "Animal Nitrate." Furthermore in what would become a Suede tradition these songs had B-sides that were as good as (or sometimes, better than) their A-sides. Suede's B-sides would continue to be of such high quality that many of them outshone album tracks and would eventually lead to a double-album release later in the 1990s.
Their self-titled debut album was released in 1993 and quickly went to #1 in the UK charts. It was full of incredible songs in addition to the first three singles, such as "So Young," "She's Not Dead," and "Pantomime Horse." The palpable sense of despair, longing, and doomed romanticism permeated every one of the album's songs and was so unique amidst what contemporaries like Blur, Pulp, and Oasis were doing. Even given the success of the album in the UK, as well as its respectable performance in the US (where it remains to this day Suede's biggest selling album), things were not well within the band. Bernard Butler was unhappy with producer Ed Buller while he and Brett, whose songwriting partnership had been so productive and successful, were moving in totally opposite directions. While Brett and the rest of the band were enjoying their fame and increasing their indulgences in drugs and alcohol, Butler was moving into writing and arranging more complex music. A grueling tour of the USA in support of their first album with the Cranberries as their opening band turned out to be the beginning of the end for Suede Mk. I as the two bands eventually swapped positions on the bill since the Cranberries were more popular with American audiences than Suede (there's no accounting for taste, I suppose). While the debauchery of the road was described years later as "wicked" by Mat Osman, Butler was dealing with the death of his father back in England and his recent engagement; he had no interest in partying with the rest of Suede and even took to riding on the Cranberries' tour bus between shows. Worst of all, they were sued by an obscure American smooth-jazz singer who had trademarked the name "Suede" in the USA; from then on the band have been legally forced to use the name "The London Suede" in the USA which not only sounds terrible but, as Brett said years later, is NOT the true name of the band. A standalone UK #3 single, "Stay Together" was released between the first two albums and while much loved by Suede fans, the song and its video have been disowned by the band (unfairly so, in my view). During their UK tour of early 1994 Bernard Butler played what would turn out to be his final show with Suede as work on their second album proved to be the final nail in the coffin for his tenure in the band. Brett Anderson had recently moved into an old, isolated Victorian mansion in Highgate and escalated his intake of hallucinogens in pursuit of artistic enlightenment and inspiration. He was also going through trying personal times in his romantic relationship while Butler took some swipes at him in the press. The major factors leading to his split from the band were Butler's presentation of longer and more elaborate songs and more critically, his dislike of Ed Buller's production: he felt it was lacking and that he could do a better job, while Brett, Mat, and Simon sided with the producer. Bernard gave them an ultimatum: Buller or me, and shockingly they called his bluff. The album, which would be released as Dog Man Star pate in 1994, was still some distance from completion and required overdubs from Butler which took place alone in a different studio, while Brett had to finish writing lyrics and replaced all of his guide vocals with proper tracks. One song, "The Power," didn't even have final guitar parts by Butler and was completed by a session guitarist who used Bernard's demo for reference. The end result was an album that, while a critical darling now considered Suede's masterpiece (an assessment I wholeheartedly agree with) which sold respectably and reached #3 in the UK album charts, was completely overshadowed in a year that was dominated by Blur's Parklife and Oasis' Definitely Maybe. It's a shame because from beginning to end it's a stunning record, from the striking album cover to the gloomy, romantic, and despairing music contained within. Such exquisite songs like "We Are the Pigs," "The Wild Ones," "Daddy's Speeding," "New Generation," and "The Asphalt World" stand up alongside anything anyone else in 1990s rock was producing. The album as a whole presents a look at England and relationships that is seedier, darker, more violent, and rougher than what was going on around them in the dayglo BritPop scene, making it out of step enough from the rest of the BritPop/Cool Britannia movement that it was never mainstream despite being as good artistically as anything else.
So there Suede found themselves at the end of 1994 with an album that deserved far better than its commercial fate and without their guitarist who also happened to co-write all of their songs. The latter issue was quickly resolved by bringing in Richard Oakes to fill the vacant spot. Oakes was a 17 year old Suede fan who had sent in a demo tape of himself playing Butler's parts note-for-note, much in the same way Butler had made tapes of himself doing the same to Johnny Marr's guitar parts from the Smiths a decade earlier. He even looked the part, with long black hair and a red Gibson ES-355 just like Butler played. Indeed, Bernard was less than impressed, criticizing his old band in the press as having replaced him with a "copy." The band toured Dog Man Star in 1995 but as it was an album recorded by an incarnation of the band that no longer existed, their hearts weren't really in it. Regrouping for their next album, Anderson decided the band would make a pop album where every track could be a single, similar to his and Osman's beloved 80s pop records. Bringing in Simon Gilbert's cousin Neil Codling on keyboards, the resulting album, Coming Up, was released in 1996 and was a bold and bracing statement from Suede Mk. II. Eschewing the dark, 70s glam sartorial style of the original lineup, the new version of the band favored of an all-jet black look (hair, leather jackets, t-shirts, jeans, and Dr. Martens) as they underwent a visual as well as a musical makeover. The resulting album showed that musically the band were as good as ever with Oakes a more than capable replacement for Butler while Codling's keyboards added a new texture to their sound. The album itself was a big success with Brett's prediction proven to be half correct; a whopping FIVE of the album's ten tracks were released as singles, all reaching the top 10. However, the following album would prove to be more problematic...
Suede Mk. II (1995-present), Left to Right: Gilbert, Richard Oakes, Osman, Anderson, Neil Codling
In between 1996's Coming Up and its follow up, 1999's Head Music, Suede released a double album compilation of their B-sides called Sci-Fi Lullabies. What this album did was show the rest of the world what Suede fans had known for years: that the band's B-sides were of a quality equal to or surpassing many other band's album cuts. Standouts like "My Insatiable One," "He's Dead," "To the Birds," "Together," and "Young Men" were just some of the riches to be found on this compilation. Focusing on new music, however, all was not well in the Suede camp during the making of Head Music. Brett had sunk even further into his drug habit, now becoming addicted to crack cocaine. In order to cope with the increasingly chaotic sessions, Richard Oakes began to drink heavily while Neil Codling began suffering from the effects of chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS). Coupled with a more electronic and experimental sound, it all added up to a recipe for disaster and while the resulting music wasn't terrible, it was inconsistent and contained the single worst song Suede ever recorded (the Neil Codling-penned "Elephant Man"). The album did, however, contain some absolute stunners like "Electricity," "She's In Fashion," "He's Gone," and "Everything Will Flow." It went to #1 in the UK album charts but there was a sinking feeling that Suede were a spent force as Brett's lyrics veered into self-referential self-parody and the experimental approach to the music didn't come off as well as hoped. Codling's CFS caused him to leave the band shortly thereafter, further upsetting Brett as he struggled to and finally succeeded in conquering his drug addictions. Feeling refreshed and rejuvenated, the band recruited former Strangelove member Alex Lee as Codling's replacement and recorded 2002's A New Morning. Vilified by the band and fans alike, the album proved to be Suede's nadir and while there are some decent songs ("Lost in TV," "Beautiful Loser," and "Astrogirl") overall it was an unsatisfying confection: Suede as toothless, middle of the road pop band. After playing some gigs where they performed each of their albums in full on successive nights and releasing a single compilation with two new tracks, the band quietly split up in 2003. Brett would go on to reunite with Bernard to form the band The Tears, who recorded and released an excellent album entitled Here Come the Tears. They played several gigs around the UK and Europe and even supposedly recorded a follow-up album that sadly remains unreleased as they quietly disbanded a short time after. In the immediate aftermath of his leaving Suede, Bernard had recorded two excellent albums with soul singer David McAlmont as well as two uneven but solid solo albums. Following the demise of the Tears, Brett released some low key solo albums that were quite good but sadly got little exposure. However, after years of rumors and clamoring from fans, Suede got back together (with Codling back in the fold) for a one-off show in 2010 for the Teenage Cancer Trust. They continued to play some festival shows and handfuls of gigs around the UK and Europe before the reunion finally became official. Their most recent album to date, 2013's Bloodsports, brought the band's sound up to date while still retaining all of their trademark touches...the result was a fantastic work that is among their best and stands up to any of their excellent 1990s work. The same goes for the B-sides associated with the album's singles. Suede are rumored to be working on a new album that will hopefully be released within the next year, showing that they are back for good as a creative force to be reckoned with; the music world and die-hard Suede fans are all the better for it.
Personally, Suede were a band I discovered relatively late in my musical development; it wasn't until I was around 20 or 21 years old when I finally bit the bullet and sought out some of their music to listen to. I'd been a Blur fan for several years by this time and had certainly heard of Suede but I'd never taken the time to listen to their stuff until I hit my early 20s. I can say without exaggeration that I was absolutely blown away from the very first listen. Beyond the great music and the mood and emotion they conveyed, the guitarist in me fell in love with Bernard Butler's playing and I added another huge influence to my pantheon of guitar heroes. His sound, his guitar tone, his songwriting, and his approach to playing all loomed very large in my own playing and he's a major influence on me to this day. Like another mutual hero of ours, Johnny Marr, Butler mastered and expounded upon the approach of playing chordal lead lines and rhythm parts at the same time. He even influenced some of the gear I now use: his red Gibson ES-355 (with a Bigsby vibrato arm) played through a Vox amp is a key component of his sound. While I've long been a lover of Vox amps, I hadn't ever used semi-hollow bodied electric guitars but after getting into Suede, in 2005 I bought an Epiphone ES-335 (a great guitar made by the Gibson company but for a quarter of the price!) and I installed a Bigsby vibrato on it. Since then, it's been my go-to guitar for the majority of my playing, a really versatile workhorse that not only affected my playing by my songwriting as well. I've also worked very hard at incorporating Bernard's technique into my own playing...while I'm not nearly as good as he is, I'm getting there! Musically they've given me a wealth of material to enjoy and are one of the bands where absolutely every track they release is essential to have. I've got all of their B-sides and oftentimes will listen to just those on their own, they're that good. Because I don't have personal experience with most, if not all, of the aspects touched on in the darker reaches of Suede's music, I can't personally relate to much of it even though I continue to enjoy the hell out of it. There still are, however, many, many of their songs that mean a lot to me for reasons having to do with love, loss, uncertainty, confusion, and yes, even happiness. Just like the Smiths, Suede are often unfairly labeled as a "depressing/gloomy" band, but they have their fair share of songs about the various joys of life, love, and music. Perhaps more than most bands from my own generation that I'm into, they've had the strongest impact on my own music-making and as such, deserve their lofty position in my hierarchy of favorite bands.
Blur: L to R Graham Coxon, Dave Rowntree, Damon Albarn, Alex James
The most surprising thing about this band profile you're about to read about Blur is that it's taken me as long as it has to finally write it. They are one of my most favorite bands in the world and probably the only band of the past twenty years that I hold in as high esteem as many of the legends from the 1960s. Let me rephrase that, actually: while many bands of the past twenty to thirty years can stand up to the legends of the 1960s and 1970s, in my opinion Blur are at the top of that heap. Better? My obsessive fandom of Blur is rivaled only by the way I feel about the Beatles, Who, and Kinks although I've spent more time and energy on channeling that love of Blur's music into something constructive than I have for any other band. I certainly didn't spend months and years of research on (insert shameless plug here) writing on two books for a band I don't care much about.
For those uninitiated in all things Blur, they are a band from London whose career spans 1988 to the present, although they've been in an on-again-off-again hiatus since 2003 (we'll get into this later on). Three of the band, Damon Albarn (vocals, songwriting, piano/keyboards/synthesizers, guitars, melodica), Graham Coxon (lead guitar, vocals), and Dave Rowntree (drums) grew up in Colchester while Alex James (bass guitar) is from Bournemouth. However, it wasn't until Alex and Graham met as classmates at Goldsmiths college that they decided to forma band, bringing Graham's childhood friend Damon and another fellow he'd played in bands with as a teenager (Dave) into the fold. They initially called themselves Seymour and rehearsed in a studio Damon was managing as they built up a repertoire of original material and got to know one another as musicians. Even at this early stage, musically they were a very tight and powerful outfit: Graham would soon emerge as one of the premier guitarists of the 1990s, Alex would emerge as one of the great British bass players of the 1990s with his endlessly inventive and melodically basslines, and Dave as a powerhouse drummer with plenty of chops who always played for the song. The wild card at this early stage was Damon, who was ambitious to the point of overconfidence but struggled to find his voice as a singer and songwriter.
Their early material was loud, discordant, dissonant, and played at breakneck speed: a cross between punk, ska, new wave, and noisy Syd Barrett-era Pink Floyd. Graham brought influences like the Who, Beatles, and King Crimson to the table, while Damon was into British Two-Tone ska and new wave. However, while Damon's lyrics at this stage were mostly rubbish, there was (usually) a strong melody lurking beneath the sonic assault. Eventually, via word of mouth from gigging in and around London, they caught the eyes and ears of Dave Balfe and Andy Ross, who owned and operated an indie label called Food Records that had the backing and distribution muscle of EMI Records behind it. Signed to the label in 1990 as Balfe's quest to find "the next Jesus Jones" (anyone my age or older will remember them), the first order of business was for the band, at Food's insistence, to change their name. They eventually settled on Blur and began recording their first single, which would be released later in the year. "She's So High" was a simple song with vague lyrics and a repetitive chord sequence, but it was saved by the band's high energy playing, sinewy guitar work from Graham, and the psychedelic and trippy atmosphere of both the song and the accompanying video. The song did respectably in the charts, but it wasn't until their second single, "There's No Other Way," released in 1991, that they had their first breakthrough into the mainstream. The song went top 10 and the band exploded onto the national scene. A debut album, Leisure, was recorded and released in 1991 as well. As far as debuts go it's not bad, but it's very uneven and not a true representation of what Blur would go on to sound like. It suffered on the one hand from too much record company interference (too many producers, Balfe's overbearing presence and personality clashes with Damon which I'll touch on in a bit) while on the other hand, the songs just weren't that good. For each gem like the aforementioned singles, the haunting "Sing," the bouncy and catchy "Bad Day," and the power pop of "Come Together" there was weaker fare like "Fool," the slight (but unfairly maligned) "Bang," and the vapidness of "I Know" and "High Cool." That's not to say I don't like the album...I do, and even the weaker songs have things to redeem them, usually a great bassline or a killer guitar lick. But the overall impact was a far cry from such powerful and fully realized debuts such as those by Blur's two biggest rivals and contemporaries in the 1990s British scene, Suede's self-titled debut from 1993 and Oasis' "Definitely Maybe" in 1994. However, one good thing to come out of this entire experience was the chance to work with former Smiths producer Stephen Street, who would go on to be the George Martin to Blur's Beatles for most of the decade.
Their initial success in 1991 began to erode as subsequent singles sold poorer than the last and the band's sound was seen as riding on the coattails of dying trends, in particular Madchester/baggy and shoegaze. Their 1992 one-off single "Popscene" was a abrupt musical about-face and is one of the great lost singles by any band...it sank without a trace and baffled the public, being too far ahead of its time to gain mass appeal although in the years since, it's been rightly hailed as a call to arms that British rock music, too often brushed aside in favor of the hair metal and grunge music being imported from America in the late 1980s and early 1990s, was finally worth noticing again. Their subsequently miserable American tour of 1992 and a legendarily drunken and embarrassing London charity gig in 1992 led to Food threatening to drop them if they didn't get their act together and their prodigious drinking under control. This seemed to be the wake-up call that was needed, the proverbial hitting of rock-bottom before beginning the climb to the top. Blur would spend the rest of the decade as the premier British band, comparisons to the Beatles being not mere hyperbole but apposite and warranted. Beginning with their second album, 1993's Modern Life is Rubbish and continuing through with 1999's 13, Blur released a series of albums and singles that helped to define their decade and that stand alongside any great British rock albums of the 1960s, 70s, or 80s. Initially rejected by Balfe for "not having enough singles," Albarn wrote two of the best songs of his career that eventually ended up on Modern Life. Opening track "For Tomorrow" is a despairing and beautiful portrait of a London on the decline complete with singalong "la la la la la" chorus, while "Chemical World" looks at the superficiality of modern life with a shimmering and spidery guitar riff that would make George Harrison proud. The rest of the album, a look at the crass consumerism of 1990s Britain in contrast with its decaying traditions, is no less powerful, from the bludgeoning Ray Davies-esque character studies of "Colin Zeal" and "Pressure on Julian" to the psychedelic 1960s English music hall revival of "Sunday Sunday," the proto-metal of "Oily Water," the gorgeous Lennon and McCartney-flavored "Starshaped" and "Blue Jeans," and contempt that is both sneering ("Advert") and wearily accepted ("Resigned"). In between, there are German-inspired punk interludes, boozy ballads, and the kitchen sink. In short, it is the greatest 1960s British rock album of the 1990s. While it wasn't a smash hit, it sold respectably, hung around the middle-reaches of the charts, and built momentum for the band's new musical manifesto that was enhanced by their relentless schedule of live performances. All of this set the stage for their breakthrough...
1994's Parklife has rightfully been called one of the defining albums of the 1990s and it's easy to hear why even 20 years later. It's a collection of songs that just bristles with energy and defines its era in a way that very few albums manage to do. From the opening sleazy synth-pop blast of "Girls and Boys" to the dark, shadowy, and majestic closer "This is a Low," the album runs the gamut of styles from Kinks-style character sketches to Euro-thrash punk, Beatle-esque melodies, noisy Husker Du power pop and everything in between. Combined with an instantly memorable and eye-catching album cover and superb production from Stephen Street, it marked Blur's ascension to the top of the mountain in British rock and made them megastars.
So how do you follow a masterpiece? Blur unleashed The Great Escape in 1995, another #1 album, and after winning a protracted and nasty singles chart battle against Oasis, they were the kings of British rock music. However, the mania surrounding the band nearly tore them apart and in particular led to some immense strain between Damon and Graham. Revisionist reviewing by the UK music press after the initially laudatory reviews of Blur's new album and their tepid reviews of Oasis' new album led to the former album being slated in subsequent years while the latter took on almost mythic status. The truth, as usual, lies somewhere in between. While The Great Escape overall was strong, it took Damon's character sketches to a darker, sneering extreme. Realizing the band's music and cohesion couldn't last if they continued down this path, they spent 1996 reinventing themselves and released what is probably the best album of their career, 1997's self-titled masterpiece.
Similar to the White Album, it's a sprawling yet cohesive work that is at times dark, humorous, despairing, and affirming as it covers a range of styles from perfect Beatle-esque rock ("Beetlebum" and "Look Inside America"), Bowie-ish psychedelia ("Strange News From Another Star), noisy thrash ("Song 2," "Chinese Bombs"), trip-hop ("I'm Just a Killer For Your Love," "Death of a Party"), and everything in between. They continued further in this direction with 1999's 13, this time breaking from Stephen Street and working with William Orbit. It's a much dirtier, noisier, and more harrowing album inspired in part by Damon's split from Justine Frischmann after nearly a decade as the premier power couple of 1990s British rock. Pieced together from Damon's demos and long, weird jams the band played in the studio, the album is as emotionally draining to listen to (check out "Battle" or "Caramel") as it was for the band to make, although there are also moments of fun ("Coffee and TV") and beauty ("Tender," "No Distance Left to Run," "Optigan 1"). However, when working on the follow-up in 2002, Graham left the band under mysterious circumstances. The resulting album, Blur's final album which was recorded as a three-piece with Damon taking over guitar duties, was 2003's eclectic Think Tank. Often called a Gorillaz album masquerading as a Blur album and drenched in Damon's ongoing fascination with world music and hip-hop, it's every bit as dark and dense an album as 13, from the uplifting opening track "Ambulance" to the despair of "On the Way to the Club" and the heartache of "Battery In Your Leg" (which is the only album track to feature Graham on guitar). After the tour to promote the album, the band went on a hiatus that, apart from some rumored activity in 2005 that never came to fruition, lasted all the way through Damon's worldwide success as the creative force behind Gorillaz and other various side-projects, until the end of 2008 when Damon and Graham repaired their friendship and got the band back together.
From 2009 through 2014, Blur toured around the world (although they inexplicably only played a mere two shows in America, where they have a large and dedicated cult following, including yours truly!) and released three new songs: 2010's one-off single "Fool's Day" on Record Store Day, and 2012's "Under the Westway" backed with "The Puritan." They showed that their live shows were as powerful and that the band were as tight as they ever were (more on their live performances in a bit), and the setlists were a nice cross section of their entire career, including quite a few rarities thrown in on the 2012 and 2013 set lists. However, while there were a few attempts to record a new album (most famously, sessions with William Orbit in early 2012 that ended in a public row in the musical papers, as well as some demo sessions in Hong Kong later in 2013 that came to naught), their final show in Tokyo in early 2014 has been the last we've heard from Blur as a band. Damon has been active, as usual, with an excellent debut solo album and a tour that started in 2014 that shows no signs of slowing down heading into 2015. However, for the foreseeable future (and in my gut feeling), Blur are finished. Besides Damon's solo career, Graham continues to record and release a series of interesting solo albums that he begun in 1998, Dave is a solicitor and radio/club DJ, and Alex is a writer and farmer.
I don't make the following comparisons lightly, but there are MANY parallels between Blur and the Beatles. Taking the Beatles' huge impact on pretty much every aspect of Western culture out of the equation and focusing solely on music, the two bands are much more similar than you probably think. As an obsessive fan of both bands, I've spent countless hours pondering these similarities, so here goes. First, both bands consist of four members and only those four members throughout their years of fame. Yes, the Beatles had Stuart Sutcliffe and Pete Best, as well as countless other transient members in their earlier years, while Blur had additional members who came and went before they settled on their classic line-up. But from the moment when both bands began their recording careers and started their career ascension, they both had stable line-ups that never changed. John, Paul, and George all grew up together and were best friends; Ringo, who they got to know years before he joined the band, fit right in and the band became known as a tight unit made up of four distinctive personalities. The same is true for Blur: Damon, Graham, and Dave were friends growing up and when Alex was brought into the fold later, the personalities meshed. Again, a band that looked like (and was) a gang of brothers, all with unique and instantly identifiable personalities. In both bands, every member was integral to their sound and image and each was 100% irreplaceable. Both were led by two dominant creative individuals, although in the Beatles' case it was collaborative (Lennon/McCartney) whereas in Blur there is one songwriter (Albarn) and his lieutenant who helps with arrangements (Coxon). Both bands have rock-solid rhythm sections led by incredibly melodic bass players (McCartney and James) and drummers who have the chops to stretch out when they need to but always play for the song (Starr and Rowntree). The Beatles were obviously more prolific, releasing 13 albums (one of which is a double album) and 14 non-album singles and b-sides over the course of their 8 year recording career, whereas Blur clock in with only 7 albums and 6 non-album singles over the course of their nearly 25 years of existence. However, what both have in common is that they always pushed forward and continually developed and evolved their sound, never releasing an album that sounded like anything before it. While the Beatles' and Blur's closest peers, the Rolling Stones and Oasis, respectively, made many great records and stood neck-and-neck with them in the charts, both had a tendency to not deviate much from their signature sounds. Not so for the Beatles and Blur: while the Beatles obviously made much larger leaps, going from Please Please Me to Revolver/Sgt. Pepper to Abbey Road in a span of 7 years, Blur's jumps from Modern Life is Rubbish/Parklife to Blur to 13 were no less dramatic in the 1990s.
Where the two bands differ significantly, however, is when live performances enter the equation. I realize it isn't an entirely fair comparison because the Beatles gigged relentlessly in their pre-fame days and were hampered by being famous during the infancy of the rock concert era, when amplification and PA equipment was woefully inadequate for the enormous venues and audiences they were playing. However, during their fame years, they only toured from 1962-1966 and by the end were only playing 20-30 minute sets that no one (including the band themselves) could hear anyway. By contrast, Blur undertook years of grueling, year-long world tours every year from 1990 to 1997 before scaling back, although their schedules in 1999, 2003, and 2012-13 were no less rigorous. And where the Beatles spent most of their touring years limited by their equipment as to what they could reproduce onstage, Blur were much more adventurous, throwing in a lot of deeper album cuts and b-sides into their set lists over the years. (You can, of course, read all about this in my two books on Blur's live performance history...sorry for the shameless plug but the segue was right there!).
As for what Blur's music means to me, they were the first band who were active during my lifetime that I followed absolutely religiously the way I obsessed over the Beatles, devouring every scrap of news and eagerly awaiting every new single and album. There were other bands I followed seriously during their careers while I was a teenager and into my 20s (notably R.E.M.) but I wasn't as fanatical about them the way I was with Blur. I first heard Blur's music without really knowing it in the early to mid 1990s when "There's No Other Way" and "Girls and Boys" were minor hits on the alternative rock and college radio stations I used to listen to. My first real exposure was in late 1996/early 1997 when I heard tracks from their self-titled album (which was released in February 1997) on the radio. "Song 2" and in particular "Beetlebum" just blew me away and led me to buy the album and devour it. Later on that year, my roommate happened to have a copy of The Great Escape that he didn't particularly care for. With that, I was on my way and I've been a rabid fan ever since. My only lament about my fandom is that I wasn't able to somehow be in the UK during all of it, because while they are huge in the UK and also hugely popular in Europe, Asia, and South America, they've always been a cult band here in the USA, darlings of Anglophiles and indie rock lovers in the know and all but ignored by mainstream music and radio. For perspective, while in the UK Damon is first and foremost the lead singer of Blur and Gorillaz is known to be his side project, in America the script is flipped: he's guy behind Gorillaz who also used to be in "that band that did that woo-hoo song." That being said, I am fortunate enough to have seen them in concert, once in 2003, and it was a fantastic show. I had a chance to see Blur in 1999 as well but passed on it due to scheduling conflicts with my exams, a decision I've regretted ever since. I've also seen Gorillaz (2010) and Damon (2014) and in all cases, Damon has proven that he is one of the most talented and diverse musicians of the past 25 years. Blur's music has not only soundtracked most of my life but has led me to write books on them and allowed me to connect with so many people around the world through the online fan community, some of whom I consider true friends (we will meet one day soon!). It's also been really gratifying when I've introduced my friends to their music over the years and converted them into big fans.
Blur now: Alex, Damon, Graham, Dave
While many bands have claimed to take up the mantle of the Beatles, I really do think that Blur are the closest anyone has gotten, checking off all of the relevant boxes: stable band membership, unique individual personalities, timeless music, and an ever-changing and developing sound. If you're still skeptical, I hope you'll dig a bit deeper than the overview I've presented here and discover their music for yourself. I bet you won't be disappointed!
Visionary. Genius. Iconoclast. Provocateur. Madman. Mad scientist. Guitar hero. These are just some of the ways Frank Zappa has been described since he first burst onto music scene and the public consciousness in the mid-1960s. Impossible to pigeonhole and ridiculously prolific, FZ has always defied categorization. His canon can be intimidating to the uninitiated, and he had so many phases of his career that people can and do like, all, some, or none of his work. The music of Frank Zappa can seem impenetrable to the outsider, and he's rightly been mischaracterized as someone who writes "comedy" or "novelty" songs, who was needlessly vulgar (he was, sometimes), and "dangerous," but those who have an open mind, a sense of humor, and are willing to really pay attention to the music will find that most of the above labels do apply to Frank, and they will be richly rewarded.
Frank Zappa was born on December 21, 1940 and, after moving around with his family for a while, grew up and graduated from high school in the Los Angeles area. From a young age, he developed an interest in music, but not the typical rock and roll that other teenagers in the 1950s were going crazy over. Instead, Zappa had an interest in classical, jazz, avant garde, blues, and doo-wop music, all of which would eventually find their way into his subsequent career. After initially starting off on drums, he moved to guitar as a teenager, which is the instrument he would become famous for. After high school, Frank started working at a studio, eventually taking it over and dubbing it "Studio Z" before it closed down. He finally got with a serious band in LA in 1965; calling themselves the Mothers (later changing it to the Mothers of Invention at the insistence of their record company), he embarked upon the career that we all know and love.
I think from here that it's most convenient to discuss Zappa's career by phase, starting with the first one. This is his classic Mothers phase that ran from 1965 through 1969. One thing to note is that throughout his career, Frank had numerous different band line-ups. All of them were comprised of incredible musicians; they had to be in order to play the complex music he wrote. Many of them went on to successful careers after their tenure with him, such as Steve Vai, Terry Bozzio, George Duke, Adrian Belew, Mike Kenneally, and many others. All of his bands had their own unique identity and sound, both of which neatly corresponded with the particular phase Zappa was in. So, getting back to the original Mothers, this was the lineup that announced to the world that this wasn't your run of the mill American rock group of the mid-to-late 1960s. They certainly couldn't have burst onto the scene with a better debut than 1966's Freak Out!, which was a double album showcasing Zappa's eclectic style, with songs ranging from pastiche and parody to social comment and scathing teardowns, all of which would remain a staple of his entire oeuvre. Songs like "Trouble Every Day" ruminated on the 1965 Watts Riots in LA while the more avant garde and musique concrete songs, especially "Return of the Son of Monster Magnet" predated the Beatles' own forays into this with "Carnival of Light," "What's the New Mary Jane?" and "Revolution 9." The album was, in fact, a favorite of Paul McCartney's and one of his inspirations when coming up with the concept for Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. Further albums such as Absolutely Free, Uncle Meat, and 1968's brilliant piss-take of Sgt. Pepper, hippies, and the commercialization of the Summer of Love, We're Only In It For the Money, showed that Zappa and the Mothers were a band to which attention must be paid. However, internal struggles and band members bristling against Zappa's dictatorial control led to the disbanding of the group in 1969, giving way to phase two of his career. Beginning with the excellent Hot Rats album in 1969, Zappa began stretching his instrumental chops and embarked on a more theatrical phase of his career. A new band, fronted by Flo & Eddie (really Mark Vollman and Howard Kaylan, formerly of the Turtles who had to assume stage names for legal reasons) recorded and toured their version of an rock and roll vaudeville troupe, with extended song suites that told stories, like "Billy the Mountain," the hilarious "Groupie Routine," culminating with the 1971 film and album "200 Motels," about life on the road in a "typical rock band" (which they certainly were not!). An incident in 1971 almost killed Frank, however, when a deranged fan who was paranoid that the band were going to steal his girlfriend away rushed onstage during show at the Rainbow Theatre in London and shoved Zappa off the front, into the concrete orchestra pit below. His injuries resulted in a broken back and leg and a crushed larynx. The broken bones led to him being confined to a wheelchair for a while and the incorrect healing of his leg led to it being shorter than the other, resulting in a lifetime of back pain. The crushed larynx resulted in his voice being lowered by a third for the rest of his life, which is most pronounced on his first non-instrumental album after the injury, 1973's Overnite Sensation (which we'll return to later...).
During his convalescence, Zappa and his band recorded two instrumental big band rock/jazz albums, both of which are excellent: Waka/Jawaka and The Grand Wazoo.
Once he was fully healed, the next (and my favorite) phase began, with the aforementioned Overnite Sensation. Starting with this album and running all the way through 1979's Sheik Yerbouti, this was the closest Frank came to mainstream success. This was due to a more accessible sound, where he pared down the avant garde leanings while still retaining the ridiculous musical complexity he was known for. This is also the stretch where he really began to flex his muscles as a guitarist, with a soloing style and tone that was wholly unique. The apotheosis of this prowess was three albums of instrumentals focusing on his various guitar solo styles: the albums Shut Up N' Play Yer Guitar, Guitar, and Trance-Fusion. There are so many great albums during this stretch of the 1970s (and Frank was so damn prolific) that it's almost impossible to cover them all in a reasonable-length post, but my favorites are Overnite Sensation, Apostrophe('), One Size Fits All, Zappa In New York, Sheik Yerbouti, and Lather.
After Sheik Yerbouti, Frank continued his prolific pace with some excellent albums, like the scathing rock opera Joe's Garage and the complex music contained on the albums Studio Tan, Sleep Dirt, and Orchestral Favorites. However, it was also around this time when he seemed to get unnecessarily vulgar and puerile, and while his lyrics still meant something, he was often saying it in ways that were so obscene and juvenile that it got tiresome. I'm certainly not someone who gets offended easily, and being offended is not the reason I feel this way; it's just there, whereas previously Frank did it sparingly and cleverly for maximum impact, by this point it was his default position and just got boring after a while. The nadir of this approach is 1984's ThingFish album, which I've only been able to listen to a handful of times. It was also during this phase where Frank scaled back his relentless touring and focused instead on composing his classical pieces, mainly on a new piece of technology called the Synclavier. Honestly, there is very little of this period of his music that I listen to on a regular basis. The lone bright spots (for me) are the live recordings released that come from his penultimate tour in 1984 and his final tour in 1988, both of which featured perhaps his most technically accomplished band. However, this tour ended abruptly in acrimony due to band infighting and FZ's worsening health. He had been diagnosed with inoperable prostate cancer in the mid-1980s, but he worked until he literally couldn't work anymore. Frank passed away surrounded by his wife and kids at the age of 53 in December 1994. However, he left behind mountains of recorded music (he recorded EVERYTHING), much of which has been released since his death and is quite good. A lot of this is live music, and on a good night, Frank and his band were unstoppable. He also encouraged audience participation, making the concerts truly interactive. They look and sound like they were a blast and it's one of my regrets that I was born too late to ever see him live.
Beyond his writing, guitar playing, and relentless productivity, FZ was also a pioneer as a producer, inventing and developing several studio techniques that led the way to wholly unique and interesting sounds and which are now taken for granted. His extensive use of overdubbing and varispeeding allowed him to make clarinets and saxophones sound like string symphonies and various percussion overdubs to sound like monstrous drum kits. He also created and developed a technique he called "xenochrony," where he would lift passages from live performances, drop them onto a reel of studio tape, and build entirely new songs around them. In most cases, it was a guitar solo from one of his songs that he would lift, put onto a new tape, and build an entirely new song around. If this sounds daunting, it is...think of the different time signatures and keys that a single guitar solo track would be played in. It's a testament not only to Frank's genius but the skill of his band members that they could play what he wrote so well that the songs sound fully formed and cohesive. Most of the Joe's Garage album was constructed this way, as well as the song "Rubber Shirt" from Sheik Yerbouti, which was put together by taking a drum track from one live song and a bass guitar track from a totally different song and blending them together. Different time signatures and rhythms, but it worked. FZ was also the master of introducing what he called Conceptual Continuity into all of his albums, where everything he ever recorded was somehow connected to what he'd done before and what he had yet to do. This was done via musical passages, vocal melodies, lyrics, in-jokes, and album artwork and has led fans to spend years digging for every link they can possibly find between songs and albums.
Despite the public perception of Frank Zappa as a musical mad scientist, from everything I've read and heard about him, he was a fairly normal guy (relatively speaking). A lifelong cigarette smoker, he hated drugs, having admitted to trying pot a few times in the 1960s but disliking it, and he never touched any illegal substances. He strongly discouraged his band members from doing drugs, although he certainly used some of their road exploits as fodder for his songs (see: 200 Motels). He was married to the love of his life, Gail Zappa, for nearly 30 years until his death, and they had four children (Moon, Dweezil, Ahmet, and Diva). He had an intense dislike of organized religion and the education system and politically, he was a hardcore libertarian. He hated both Democrats and Republicans equally and believed in small government, personal freedom, and self-sufficiency. He was also an ardent anti-censorship advocate, famously testifying before Congress in the mid-1980s.
So how did a normal middle-class kid in New England become such a big FZ fan? I had heard a few Zappa songs as a kid, such as "Montana" and "Don't Eat the Yellow Snow," but it wasn't until I started high school in 1993 and a friend of mine played me a tape of Overnite Sensation that I was hooked. It was also around this time when one of the guitar magazines I routinely read had a multi-page cover feature on FZ and his playing, which led me to explore his discography and start buying all of his albums. As a teenager learning guitar, playing trumpet in jazz and symphonic bands at school, and trying to absorb as much music of any genre as I could, it was a revelation. There was always something new to discover, and even now in my mid-30s, I find new musical quotations, conceptual continuity clues, and interesting aspects to his compositional and instrumental styles when I listen to his music. Certain songs that I must have heard hundreds, if not thousands of times still make me laugh out loud when I hear them now, and much of his social commentary has not only not dated, but is as applicable now as it was then. The targets of his words may no longer be with us, but the words themselves still resonate. People typically have two opinions on Frank Zappa: they either love him or hate him. All that I would ask is, if you want to give him a try, is to have an open mind and pay attention to the whole package...the music and the words. He bristled against the notion many held that he only wrote "comedy music" (even sending himself up on 200 Motels regarding this). He was funny, yes, but he was a true musical visionary, genius, and a one of a kind talent that the world sorely misses. He died too young, but he left such a staggering body of work, both in terms of quality and quantity, that those interested will continue to discover, explore, and enjoy it for decades to come.
If you're new to FZ and want any advice on where to start discovering his music, or if you're a big fan like me and want to talk about his music, let's talk in the comments section below!
The 1990s as a decade produced some of the greatest rock music of the 20th century, and while there have been great bands in all decades from the 1950s through 2000, only the 1990s can rival the 1960s in terms of the scope, breadth, and sheer number of seminal bands which emerged on both sides of the Atlantic. Indeed, the fertile and competitive scene of the 1990s is eclipsed only by the 1960s in both quality and impact, and as of 2014 it remains the last truly important scene in rock music. In both America and the UK, there were bands emerging that reacted against the slick, AOR dominance of hair metal and synth-pop. In the USA, it spawned grunge and alternative rock, while the UK gave rise to baggy, shoegaze, and ultimately indie rock. Both alternative and indie, which became the dominant genres of the decade, spawned some of the greatest bands and albums since the 1960s' golden age: in America, you had Nirvana, Soundgarden, Pearl Jam, R.E.M., Pavement, the Smashing Pumpkins, the Pixies, and more, while in the UK you had Blur, Suede, Oasis, Pulp, The Stone Roses, Elastica, Mansun, Radiohead, and the Bluetones, amongst others.
The subject of this latest band profile are, as you've gathered from the title, the Bluetones. They were a band from Hounslow, London, England and had a career that spanned the years 1994 until 2011. In that time, they released six albums (three of them Top 10 albums in the UK), countless singles and B-sides, and carved out a career as one of the greatest and most overlooked indie bands of the decade. They were, in the photo above; top row L-R: Eds Chesters (drums), Scott Morriss (bass guitar, backing vocals), bottom row L-R: Adam Devlin (guitars), Mark Morriss (lead vocals). The band were initially called the Bottlegarden before changing their name to the Bluetones, and they developed a rabidly loyal fanbase called "the Blue Army" that remained loyal to them until the end of the band.
Combining the sound of 1960s jangly psychedelia and 1990s Britpop, upon the success of their single "Slight Return" hitting #2 in the UK singles chart and their debut album Expecting to Fly hitting #1 in the UK album charts (both in 1996), they were lumped in with the rest of the Britpop movement that was then at the peak of its popularity in Great Britain. However, while they remained successful throughout their career, they never again equalled this initial surge of success, partly due to being labeled as "Britpop." Indeed, when their career is looked at in its entirety, they were more a traditional indie rock band. In this way, they suffered a similar fate to another great UK band of outsiders, Mansun, who were the antithesis of Britpop yet continued to be saddled with the label by the media and public perception. The 'Tones' debut album is a perfect blend of heavy psychedelic rock, as in the epic opening track "Talking to Clarry" and the caustic "Carn't Be Trusted," switchy then to the folksy "Vampire," the quietly intense "The Fountainhead" which explodes into a majestic finale, the sludgy rock of "Cut Some Rug," and the jangle-pop of "Slight Return" and "Bluetonic." Their second album, 1998's Return to the Last Chance Saloon, was a much heavier and darker affair, with an overall sound that echoed the sense of desperation and gloom that was shown in the old American west/southwest-themed album art. While Expecting to Fly showed the band to be fantastic musicians, their instrumental chops really came to the fore on the second album, with the guitars lines even more sinewy and complicated, the bass lines more melodic and rumbling, and the drumming more thunderous, dexterous, and driving. It's my favorite album of theirs, from the joyous "If..." to the dark humor of "Solomon Bites the Worm," the harrowing despair of "4-Day Weekend," "Ames," and "The Jub-Jub Bird," and the epically sweeping finale of "Broken Starr." 2000's follow-up album, Science and Nature, was a quieter but no less interesting affair, with a more acoustic based sound similar to how Led Zeppelin III sounded after Led Zeppelin II's bombast. Still, the unmistakably lush and beautiful songs and arrangements that were always a hallmark of the Bluetones were there: cheeky opening track "Zorrro" gives way to the intense beauty of "Tiger Lily" and "The Last of the Great Navigators." There were still some harrowing cuts, notably "The Basement Song" and "Keep the Home Fires Burning," culminating with the wistful "Slack Jaw" (about a love that got away) and the something-is-not-quite-right eeriness of "Emily's Pine."
From here until the end, it was a strange ride for the band, who continued to release excellent albums and play gigs for their loyal fanbase while their chart and sales numbers declined. In a way, these years are a textbook example of the "critically acclaimed/commercially failed" trap too many talented musicians fall into. 2003's Luxembourg was a stripped down, back-to-basics affair, from the stark cream-colored album art to the songs that were a bit more jagged and angular, slashing guitars and thumping drums augmented by driving bass guitar and harsh (in a good sense) synthesizer punctuations. In a way, it is their new-wave/80s pop album, and standout cuts include "Fast Boy," "Never Going Nowhere," "Liquid Lips," and "Here it Comes Again." 2005's self-titled album was a true return-to-ground-zero album and their best performing album since the debut. It was the perfect update of their trademark lush, jangly 90s sound with a more contemporary 2000s sound, and the range of styles on the album were impressive. The pure power pop of "My Neighbour's House," "Baby, Back Up," and "Head On a Spike" sat alongside the lilting "Surrendered," beautiful ballads like "The Last Song But One" and "Fade In/Fade Out," and sly humor like "Wasn't I Right About You?" Their final album, 2010's A New Athens, showed the band as strong as ever, with the absolutely gorgeous "Firefly" sharing space on the record with standout tracks like "Half the Size of Nothing," "Haunted By You," "Pranchestonelle," and darker tunes like "The Notes Between the Notes Between the Notes" and "Into the Red." However, despite strong critical reviews, the album failed to chart and rather than risk becoming a nostalgia act, the band decided to bow out gracefully with a farewell tour in 2011 that saw them playing in front of their devoted fans, who continue to lament the demise of the Bluetones to the present. Since the band split, Mark Morriss has embarked upon a successful solo career, Adam Devlin (I believe) continues to work as a musician, Scott Morriss is an illustrator and graphic designer, and Eds Chesters works as an osteopath.
In addition to their albums, the Bluetones were another in a tradition of 1990s British indie rock bands who had excellent singles, many of them standalone (ie non-album tracks) and with some great B-sides. Apart from those stemming from their final two albums, these are all collected on the triple-CD compilation A Rough Outline. An excellent standalone EP, the Serenity Now EP, was also released in 2005, as was a great live album Once Upon a Time in West Twelve (recorded in 2005), and a BBC Sessions compilation (both released in 2007). Overall, the band left a body of work of excellent quality that still sounds fresh and vital after their split. As for how and why I became such a huge fan of this band, who are virtually unknown in America (and as far as I know, only ever played one small tour here in their entire career), I first heard the Bluetones around 2000. I had signed up for one of the first online streaming radio services, the now-defunct LaunchCast by Yahoo, where bands and songs could be rated so that the service would recommend you new music based on your preference. Songs by the Bluetones (as well as Mansun...this is also how I fully discovered them) kept playing and the more I heard, the more I liked. This led me to explore their albums and the rest, as they say, is history.
There are several reasons why the band has resonated so deeply with me. First and foremost is that, simply put, the music is great. It's well written, catchy, interesting, melodically and harmonically lush, and encompasses the best of what I love of British rock music, which is the amalgamation of numerous influences and styles into a wholly unique sound. In addition, they are excellent musicians. Adam Devlin is, in my opinion, one of the finest British guitarists of his generation, on the same level of other titans such as Graham Coxon, Bernard Butler, Dominic Chad, Steve Craddock, John Squire, and Johnny Marr. Scott Morriss plays melodically inventive counterpoint melodies on bass in the vein of other excellent bass guitarists of his era such as Alex James, while Eds Chesters is a rock solid and powerful drummer who always plays for the song but has the chops to stretch out when it's necessary. Mark Morriss has a very melodic and pleasant voice with a tenor range, and the contrast of the musical backdrop, whether it's a pretty ballad or a bombastic harder rock song, and his vocals is one of the unique and wonderful things about the Bluetones' sound. For me, they hearken back to the jangly 1960s psychedelia of the Byrds and Buffalo Springfield and meld it with the best of 1960s British rock into something akin to what the Smiths started in the 1980s, fitting right in with their contemporaries in the 1990s Britpop scene. However, they rejected the Britpop label and I do, too...Britpop came to mean something derivative and commercial as pertaining to that specific scene, whereas the best bands of that era, of which the Bluetones were one, transcended that stifling label in order to survive and thrive beyond it. They may not have been the most commercially successful or critically acclaimed band of their era but they were certainly one of the best, and in the end it's the quality of the music and its impact on the listener that is most important. A back and forth on Twitter with a follower of mine resulted in the discussion that if Blur were the Beatles of the 1990s, Oasis were the Rolling Stones, and Supergrass were the Who, then the Bluetones were the Kinks...that is to say, the band that was quirky, popular (but not as much as the others) yet equally as valuable for their contribution to the music, and a band that was and still is held near to the hearts of their ever-loyal and passionate fanbase. I can certainly think of worse comparisons to be made, and in this case I think this one is completely accurate.
