‘Green’ by R.E.M.

R.E.M. A band I’ve consistently liked without ever quite managing to love. And yet, when I stop and make myself listen to an album, I always enjoy it. ‘Green’ is a particular pleasure to listen to. As the transition between their early cult success, and their later world domination, the album walks a fine line between artistry and commercialism, and it therefore manages a very fine balance.

‘Pop Song ‘89’, ‘Get Up’, ‘Stand’, ‘Orange Crush’ – all are great. Slightly disposable and possibly meaningless, perhaps, but still great. ‘World Leader Pretend’, whilst far more downbeat and introspective, is also great. Only a couple of tracks – ‘Turn You Inside Out’ and ‘I Remember California’ – are less successful. Since they’re the louder, more rock-heavy tracks on the album, that would suggest that, to my mind at least, R.E.M. are at their best when they’re writing pop songs and having a good time. This in turn suggests that when I reach their 90’s output, I’m not going to enjoy it quite so much.

‘Good Feeling’ by Travis

It’s a curious thing, Travis’ album number one. Like most people who own it, I bought it after ‘The Man Who’ had conquered the world, to see whether their debut had been similar. In some ways, it is. In others…

‘Good Feeling’ seems very much an album of two halves. The first half is very much the sound of a band flexing their muscles for the first time. ‘All I Want To Do Is Rock’, the opening track, is an exceptionally simple song, but shot through with a winning charm that somehow makes you overlook this. ‘U16 Girls’ is an extra-ordinary track about the dangers of relationships with underage girls. It’s almost impossible to imagine such a song being released today – was it really so different in 1997? The rest of the first half, from ‘The Line Is Fine’ to ‘Midsummer Night’s Dreaming’ is a continued collection of straightforward guitar indie.

In the second half, however, Travis as they would come to be begin to take shape. ‘Tied To The 90’s’, despite it’s lack of chorus, is the best-constructed track on the album up to that point, and ‘Happy’, whilst almost making a virtue of it’s simplicity, is infuriatingly catchy and loveable. It’s the last three tracks, however, that pave the way for Travis’ future career. ‘More Than Us’ in particular is delicate, tuneful and lovely.

After ‘The Man Who’ and ‘The Invisible Band’, there was a substantial amount of retrospective glory accorded to this album, a feeling amongst the worthy music press that Travis had abandoned their roots of greatness for a life in the middle of the road. Frankly, this is nonsense. There’s plenty to like about this album, but it’s ultimately a rough template, a first attempt at something they would go on to do much better.

‘Gold Against The Soul’ by The Manic Street Preachers

The second by The Manic Street Preachers wandered into my collection more or less by accident. As far as I can remember, I picked it up very cheaply in a sale somewhere around the time of ‘A Design For Life’, gave it a couple of cursory listens, and then ignored it forever. As a result, I’m listening properly now for more or less the first time. The surprise, for me at least, is how accessible quite a lot of it is. ‘La Tristesse Durera’ and ‘Roses In The Hospital’ especially are well written and orchestrated pop songs. Ironically, the band themselves dislike the album because of this approach, considering it some kind of corporate sell-out. Perhaps they’re right, but I’d rather listen to these tracks than the louder, angrier sounds of ‘Nostalgic Pushead’ or ‘Symphony of Tourette’.

It’s not an album I’m going to spend lots of time listening to – along this big listening process, I’ve confirmed to myself that I’m really not that fond of the Manics, but it has its qualities.

‘Glo’ by Delirious?

When Delirious? released Glo, I had high hopes. It was touted at the time as some sort of ‘Cutting Edge 5’, a return to the band’s routes after the moderate mainstream success of ‘King of Fools’ and ‘Mezzamorphis’. Ultimately, I remember finding the album something of a disappointment, and it’s not an album I’ve listened to much in the meantime.

I should be clear though – this is not a bad album. There are a number of very good songs on it, and nothing that’s worse than average. I think the album suffered, and still suffers, from high expectations, and a slight lack of direction. The idea of making an album more grounded in worship is hard to fault, but the albums preceding this one weren’t especially ambiguous, and the problem with ‘Glo’ is that it still isn’t written for a congregation. You couldn’t use these songs in a church, so all you really get is a slightly simpler version of what’s gone before. There’s no ‘Thank You For Saving Me’ on this record, no ‘Shout To The North’, not even a ‘Did You Feel The Mountains?’

‘God You Are My God’ is a case in point for the strengths and weaknesses of the album. It’s a confident performance with a solid production, and it has some lovely touches – the choir, and the chanting monks are both evidence of the band’s ambition, but there’s no real depth to the song, and it launches immediately into an improvised instrumental section that, for all its heart, doesn’t convey much of anything. ‘God’s Romance’ has more drive, and ‘Investigate’ more depth, though again, the extended musical outro is unnecessary. The middle of the album has some strong points. ‘My Glorious’ is the heart of the album, and a highlight track, but still a song that would sit awkwardly on the radio or in a church – the worst of both worlds, if you will. ‘Everything’ is a real standout, largely because it doesn’t try to straddle this line – it’s a song of worship, clearly, but it sounds like a mainstream hit until the end when the choir kicks in, but holding this trick back for the closing moments makes it work. ‘Hang On To You’ is a good listen, though it sounds like a closing track with six songs still to go. ‘Intimate Stranger’, in all honesty, is seven and a half minutes of tedium. ‘Awaken The Dawn’, on the other hand, is great – a classic Delirious anthem, and the only track from the album you could genuinely use in church. It would be a triumph, if not for the fact that it had been written several years before the rest of the album, and had already been released and made successful by Noel Richards. ‘Years Go By’ is Delirious by numbers, fine but unremarkable. ‘Jesus’ Blood’ is a brooding finisher, a kind of sequel to ‘Obsession’ from Cutting Edge 4.

So it really isn’t bad, but it was the first Delirious album not to represent a significant step forward, choosing instead to lurch sideways. Worse, the knock-on effect, in my opinion, had an impact on their next album, another attempt to break the mainstream market which was somewhat derailed by this. But out of context, and judged on its own merit, this was a decent listen.