Elbow recently won a Brit award for being Britain's Best Group. I'm no proponent of the Brit awards, or indeed very much of the music that it features or glorifies.
For example, in my opinion it's a travesty that Duffy beat Radiohead to the best album award. Duffy's album is very middle of the road. She sounds like she has a cold throughout the entire recording, and the songs are overrated and overplayed. I do have a copy of Rockferry, so I'm not completely biased.
Conversely, Radiohead's album In Rainbows is one of the greatest albums of the past few years. It's beautifully composed, beautifully arranged and marks the return of Radiohead to the same planet Earth from which we watched as they took a tour of far away worlds in their past few albums, squinting our eyes and covering our ears as their confusion created sounds which distanced themselves from so many of the fans who had followed them from childhood.
Listening to In Rainbows gives me the same warm feeling you get when someone you have missed comes home, an inner satisfaction that Thom Yorke and friends have realised that their earliest recordings were in fact their greatest, and that to progress without taking steps backwards into their past, they should fuse their recent recording style with the magic of their grass roots.
So when comparing the likes of 'Nude' to 'Mercy', I struggle to see the merit in recognising Duffy as having produced the greatest album of the past year.
Finally, to the point. With this mistrust of the judgement of the voting public in mind, when I saw Elbow receiving the Best British Group award I was a bit perplexed, because I didn't really know much about them. But when they played back a montage of their songs, I immediately understood. So many of the tracks which Elbow have produced are songs which I've loved, and yet never known who they belonged to.
As a result, I've been listening to The Seldom Seen Kid, and it's absolutely brilliant.
For example, in my opinion it's a travesty that Duffy beat Radiohead to the best album award. Duffy's album is very middle of the road. She sounds like she has a cold throughout the entire recording, and the songs are overrated and overplayed. I do have a copy of Rockferry, so I'm not completely biased.
Conversely, Radiohead's album In Rainbows is one of the greatest albums of the past few years. It's beautifully composed, beautifully arranged and marks the return of Radiohead to the same planet Earth from which we watched as they took a tour of far away worlds in their past few albums, squinting our eyes and covering our ears as their confusion created sounds which distanced themselves from so many of the fans who had followed them from childhood.
Listening to In Rainbows gives me the same warm feeling you get when someone you have missed comes home, an inner satisfaction that Thom Yorke and friends have realised that their earliest recordings were in fact their greatest, and that to progress without taking steps backwards into their past, they should fuse their recent recording style with the magic of their grass roots.
So when comparing the likes of 'Nude' to 'Mercy', I struggle to see the merit in recognising Duffy as having produced the greatest album of the past year.
Finally, to the point. With this mistrust of the judgement of the voting public in mind, when I saw Elbow receiving the Best British Group award I was a bit perplexed, because I didn't really know much about them. But when they played back a montage of their songs, I immediately understood. So many of the tracks which Elbow have produced are songs which I've loved, and yet never known who they belonged to.
As a result, I've been listening to The Seldom Seen Kid, and it's absolutely brilliant.
It's aspirational and lyrically brilliant. So good that I can listen to certain songs from the album (Starlings, Mirrorball, One Day Like This), get shivers up my spine and immediately play them again. Parts of the album sound like a mix of Sigur Ros and (oddly enough) Crowded House, where others sound totally unique.
I think one of the things I like most about it is that it sounds 'pure', like it hasn't been too heavily interfered with in post-production, as if it will sound exactly the same when you hear it live.
I love those occasions when you listen to an album that's so good you can get a little excited about it, especially when you consider that there'll be more albums coming your way which are of a similar calibre.
So throw those curtains wide, get a copy of The Seldom Seen Kid, turn up the volume and let the Vino Di Vici flow like a river in spring, and sit back and enjoy the uplifting experience.
After all, it's perfect weather to fly.
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