What does it sound like?:
In Richard Ashcroft’s mind, he performed stratospheric anthems to enraptured stadiums, lighters aloft, even when playing to three figure audiences in a town hall. You can’t fault his ambition, his self belief and his ego. For a brief period of time, with the release of Urban Hymns in 1997, his vision was realised. The Verve’s third album replaced Oasis’s third at number one in the UK and threatened to supplant them altogether. The comparisons were uncanny. Both bands were from greater Manchester, the friction between singer and guitarist was often unbearable, and the songs churned away at the same steady beat. In September, The Verve were the support for Oasis at Earl’s Court, but the success of Bittersweet Symphony and The Drugs Don’t Work made it into a battle of the bands event that many thought The Verve won. For the first two albums, Nick McCabe’s guitar was relied upon to light up the music. But, he left in a huff and the replacement, a much easier going gentleman called Simon Tong, was handy for keyboards as well. McCabe returned to help record Urban Hymns, by which time Ashcroft had discovered it was much easier to reach the stars as a balladeer swept heavenwards on a magic carpet of strings. His monochrome whine, incapable of Liam malevolence, was tolerable with a hint of romance. It was unfortunate that for his most successful and break through song, he chose to steal the string riff from the notoriously ruthless litigator, Allen Klein.
This is a reissue, on double vinyl, also available in red or blue, of a CD released in 2004 including all the singles and two previously unreleased outtakes. By the time it hit the shelves, their moment had passed, the band splitting up in 1998. It was designed as a reminder of the back catalogue, arranged in a non-chronological sequence to give the feel of a live set and to demonstrate they were more than just Urban Hymns, despite six of its fourteen tracks being recorded for that album. Now, the two outtakes are replaced with singles from the 2008 comeback album, Forth. In addition, their second single, She’s A Superstar is presented in full, rather than as edit. This Is Music has become a much better career spanning introduction to the band. The adjustments prevent it from being a collection of singles without zing, all proceeding at a funereal pace, reflecting Ashcroft’s miserable lyrics obsessed with death. McCabe adds an occasional bit of excitement but has a tendency to drift aimlessly in search of a hook. Credit must go to bassist Simon Jones and drummer Peter Salisbury for their valiant efforts in attempting to put a spring into a very plodding step. The truth is early Verve does not suit the single format. They were at their best enjoying a hazy, hippy freakout, as they are for eight minutes and twenty-one seconds on Gravity Grave and the now extended She’s A Superstar. All four Urban Hymns songs, History, arguably their prototype, laden as it is with strings, and the refreshing energy of Love Is Noise are a different matter entirely, tight, focussed and purposeful.
Back in 2004, you would have spent your money more wisely buying the Urban Hymns CD instead. Today, this set is significantly improved and has become the essential first purchase that it was always meant to be. Its timing is said to be in celebration of its 20th anniversary. However, Oasis have announced a return to the world stage. They need a support act. The Verve would be perfect.
What does it all *mean*?
If you want to revisit The Verve or are a young hipster who missed out on Britpop, This Is Music is for you.
Goes well with…
A Vinly Collection
Release Date:
24th January 2025
Might suit people who like…
Nostalgia. These days, the nineties feel further away than the sixties.
She’s A Superstar
It’s funny you’ve posted this, Tigger, because I was thinking about The Verve the other day. What a strange old arc they had.
In 1993 they deliver that still wonderful performance of Gravity Grave at Glastobury, and seem a band completely out of time, lost in the transition from Grunge to Britpop. The peak of the Mad Richard era, all howling guitars and transcendental messiah vibes.
Two years later they come back with A Northern Soul, and it’s surprising how much they’ve calmed things down. This Is Music, in particular, shows that by this point they’d learned to take the sprawl of the early songs and compress it way down while retaining much of the energy.
It was clear what had happened to them in the gap between albums: Oasis. But in History they brought with them what is still probably the single best use of strings in an era simply drowning in them; I still remember the thrill it sent down the spine on first listen, and then the realisation that they were lifting lyrics from Blake.
Two years after that, they complete the transformation. Listening to it now, Urban Hymns is a very odd collision between the band’s retained instinct to lengthy jams (The Rolling People, Come On) and what is a very clear MOR sensibility in all but name (Sonnet, Space and Time, The Drugs Don’t Work). In that regard, perhaps one of the strangest albums of the period to truly capture the zeitgeist, and I have to admit that while the latter group of songs are obviously filler, I loved them at the time. The guitar wig outs smuggled in with them the tasteful muzak.
I have a few thoughts about this latter period of the band’s work, a couple of common misconceptions I’d like to dispel.
Firstly, the video to Bittersweet Symphony; I frequently hear it bemoaned as an oik crashing into people, or a display of aggression, and that’s interesting because at the time I remember it landing the precise opposite way. The Verve were a band who owed a debt to Oasis, and Richard Ashcroft obviously owed a debt to Liam Gallagher, but for a certain breed of teenage boy who never quite got comfortable with Liam’s leery, beery persona, the Bittersweet Symphony video represented the other side of the coin, and a more relatable side at that.
Our hero is resolute, focused, but he’s also scrawny and unkempt – his leather jacket hangs off his shoulders, he looks in need of a good meal and a mother’s love, and – the critical detail so many seem to miss – he’s not simply barrelling through people, he’s frequently being knocked aside by them. In fact, at the end of the video he passes two larger men between whom he is forced to squeeze and who turn to laugh at him. He isn’t happening to the world, the world is happening to him as he moves through it.
Bittersweet Symphony didn’t resonate with me as a performance of machismo; quite the opposite. It was an outsider refusing to budge, no matter what collision might occur. That’s what made Ashcroft appealing in that moment – he felt fragile, but full of power. He felt stoic. And of course, the video was also a lift from a beloved classic: Unfinished Sympathy, Ashcroft’s walk recalling Shara Nelson’s.
Which brings us to the other often misunderstood aspect of The Verve’s legacy: the blatant thievery. Yes, they stole those glorious strings on Bittersweet Symphony from the Stones. Yes, the strings on History are very clearly filched from Lennon’s Mind Games. But no one I knew at the time cared – if anything it was a bonus. For a generation raised on sampling, the whole aim of the game was to take what came before and spin it, to remix the past to meet the needs of the present. It’s the same reason we didn’t care at all when Noel Gallagher raided T.Rex, the same reason Britpop worked at all – music history was a playground, not a museum.
I will always have a soft spot for The Verve. They were a preposterous, deeply uncool band who never quite fit what was going on around them, even when they attempted to do so. In their early phase they produced some glorious guitar sounds (big fan of Slide Away), in their late phase they flared bright and then vanished.
Simply Red and Phil Collins came up on the blog a couple of times this week, examples of artists for whom no one will speak. Well, I’ll speak for them – there are plenty of bands I love who have never brought me as much joy as For Your Babies or Against All Odds. These are artists I would have abhorred as a snooty teen, but time has taught me that there’s nothing wrong with a bit of MOR, it’s all just music in the end. And looking back, that’s a lesson that quite probably began for me with the Verve and Urban Hymns, and what a weird legacy that is for a gang of Wigan drug goblins who began their journey influenced by Dr John and free Jazz, and ended it sounding (at times) like Chris De Burgh.
You are much better placed to review this release. I’m from St. Helens and have an inbred prejudice against whinging Wiganers (😉). For me, they overdo the guitar wigouts on their early EPs, but just two, as on here, are actually impressive. They became much more successful when Ashcroft tried to do without McCabe. In the end, he couldn’t, but the band benefited from the discipline.
When I listen to Urban Hymns today, I hear a lot of bloat. Bands of the nineties seemed to think they were contractually obliged to fill a whole CD. Forty minutes would have been outstanding.
In a way, it’s sad that such an interesting band’s whole career can be boiled down to one double LP. But, here we are. If I was starting again, this is the only Verve I’d buy.
Yeah, that’s all fair. Urban Hymns is certainly a bloated record and the early stuff similarly has a lot of filler. They suffered from Be Here Now-itis right from the start.
I don’t think I’d listen to any of their albums in their entirety these days, but then I’m not really one for albums. They made 8 or 9 really great tunes, a couple of which really seized the moment, and that’s good enough for me.
Bittersweet Symphony has been absorbed into our cultural fabric and freighted with all sorts of baggage. But when it first came out I was 18 years old, it was Summertime and it sounded fucking fantastic, plus it came with that added joy of watching a band you like take a sudden and unexpected quantum leap forward.
Re: the thievery.
They took something from Aphrodites Child too…I’ll try and find it
They took Four Horsemen and turned it into Rolling People.
@podicle
That’s the one! Blatant!
Time for my regular signalling a need to hear any of the soundboards from the US tour McCabe jumped ship immediately prior to, he being replaced, for that duration, by the left field choice of BJ Cole and his pedal steel guitar. No joy yet, umpteen years on……….
Agree about Urban Hymns, a pretty patchy album. The Drugs Don’t Work for me is a towering masterpiece though. Believe Mick and Keith stopped claiming or handed back royalties for BSS a while back.
Ten years after Klein died! 2019, I believe.
It was a very odd situation. Jagger and Richards were awarded the whole writing credit, yet had nothing to do with the string arrangement and recording that was sampled. It was Klein that had the beef, not The Stones.
I agree with you. Drugs is the song that has endured. It’s a perfect vehicle for Ashcroft’s voice. Wonderful record. The best Britpop single? Though, it came out during the dying embers.
Either that or Common People for me. Not including Manics or Radiohead as I don’t think they were part of that movement.
Yes, it was a very odd situation. The sampled part sounds nothing like the original Stones song
Common People or Live Forever.
Drugs Don’t Work arguably came after Britpop had imploded – I wouldn’t consider it a Britpop record personally. It is a brilliant and enduring song though.
Yeah Live Forever is up there too
Those two probably capture Britpop better but I love the aftermath feel of Drugs.
I’d imagine you would…
The Verve had some great singles, albums were a bit patchy.
And I never did subscribe to the “Richard Ashcroft is a genius” thing that was trotted out.
I bought She’s A Superstar and Gravity Grave, bought A Northern Soul cheap, borrowed Urban Hymns and gave it back. I did see their 1993 Glasto set and it was great.
I’m tempted by this but know that I would rarely play it. Maybe if I see it cheap.
No mention of The Verve and Richard Ashcroft is complete without this local Wiltshire news story:
https://www.wiltshiretimes.co.uk/news/806587.rock-star-fined-for-disorderly-behaviour/
Never mind what does it sound like – what does it look like? That is a shockingly ugly album cover.
It could be worse. At least you can’t see the band’s faces.
The great Verve album was A Northern Soul. They had perfected the swirling cathedrals of sound vibe and McCabe’s guitar playing was extraordinary. Ashcroft’s. voice is just one instrument among many. Urban Hymns has some good stuff, but it was very much a step towards the centre of the road.and became more a vehicle for Ashcroft. It was as if McCabe had been put on a leash.
I would feel short-changed just to have the singles. Contrary to the consensus, I am most fond of the ‘filler’ rambling wigouts, especially those on ‘the Thor’s Cave album’ aka Storm in Heaven. But then, what do I know? I have always liked Tales from Topographic Oceans.
That makes sense. If you like Topographic Oceans, you’ll love Storm In Heaven…