Verve - defining everything wrong about english music?

Is Verve the worst band ever?

i'd have to care about them at all for them to be the worst band ever

Sort've agree with Jim here. The Verve don't inspire any hatred in me....they're just sort've yawnsome and innocuous. If I had to define the worst English band ever, I'd more likely cite someone like, say, Culture Club or Flowered Up or Teenage Fanclub or someone.

No.

However, Urban Hymns is one of the most disappointing albums ever.

the first three eps and storm in heaven are genius. the rest is nonsense and irredeemable. i remember hearing 'storm in heaven' and thinking it was like spiritualized meeting the stone roses, but then they went oasis.

ashcroft is in love, can't you feel the love?

"If I had to define the worst English band ever, I'd more likely cite someone like, say, Culture Club or Flowered Up or Teenage Fanclub"

Can I be pedantic and point out that Teenage Fanclub are Scottish, not English? Sorry.

As for The Verve, I like Urban Hymns and A Northern Soul quite a bit. Ashcroft's solo stuff is awful, though. They worked best when they found the mid-point between Ashcroft's songwriting and McCabe's beautiful noise-making. They're not so good without each other.

damn, yer right, kilian.

Alright, scratch Teenage Fanclub and replace them with....ummmmmmmm.....Northern Uproar.

huh? Culture Club == classic!

They're crap.

its all horrible garbage that makes me wanna kill.

Julio....that's more like it!

All the albums are fantastic in different ways. But their truest glory was 1992 through 1994 or so. Debate with me as you choose, I shall not be moved (recently relistened to Urban Hymns for the first time in many moons and was taken with how well it held up and how rich it sounded, really).

Ashcroft solo just makes me cry, though.

A Storm in Heaven is timeless and epic. Didn't care for the second LP as Ashcroft sung like Bono without any Unforgettable Fire sounding music to justify it. Third album was basically Bittersweet Symphony with 12 b-sides.

A Storm in Heaven does a Spiritualized feel to it. But I find Spiritualized getting a bit silly as I grow older while the Storm in Heaven still sounds just as forlorn and majestic. I guess Kate Radley felt the same way.

flowered up were fantastic alex

Oh dear. Blinkered ballderdash from the Verve haters. I would make more of an effort to defend them if anyone had actually said anything other than "they're not very good" but to suggest they are the worst band ever is the warbling of a dullard. What's odd is certain music aficionados seem unable (or parhaps unwilling is nearer the mark) to give the band (without Ashcroft) their dues. These guys write incredible melodies and interweave some incredible motifs, even without Richie-boy's cod-philosophy splashed all over it. You gotta see past Richie's ego (which admittedly is gargantuan) to get what The Verve is about. 'Storm in Heaven' is haunting, wasted, trip-out headfuck soundtracking, 'A Northern Soul' is full flow poetry, hypnotic, shamanic meditations, 'Urban Hymns' is a cash-in/launch pad for a solo career and sounds like it, and the Ashcroft solo stuff is risable rubbish in too many ways to go into here.

welcome back julio!

oh, I see you're not actually back, just cannot stay away ;)

Didn't we do a Verve C or D a short while ago?

This thread is just another C or D rather than answering the question of whether they define what is wrong with English music.

The answer is obviously no. Partly because they made some great stuff, but also I don't there's anything definitively English about them. Surely they're as influenced by American psychedlia as English? There's nothing 'whimsical' about them.

And Roger's right as well - they were far from Ashcroft + backing band.

hrmmmmm...

i was about to protest "but I LOVE the first album..." but then realised that this crystallises into being everything that i hate about english music.

-born of frustration and isolation, start with a good idea, start with a beautiful and refreshing new take on a tired and traditional formula

-release a startlingly promising first few eps/debut album

-set hypometer to kill

-have some high profile relationships/celebrity fans/intra-band feuds

-add or remove a definite article

-become pompous and redundant. calcify inspiration into routine and formula. abandon beautiful dionysian abandonment in favour of stodgy retrofetishistic rock cliche. talk about the word "classic" a lot. aspire to becoming canon. start to suck.

-become massively popular

-get rid of the truly creative nucleus of your band and concentrate on being a personality/solo artiste.

hrmmmm... yes, i am seeing your point utterly.

Sounds like you hate Ashcroft, rather than the Verve.

I thought the Bluetones defined all that was wrong about English music?

They're rubbish, but their biggest crime is all that noise-scape crap they did before their five minutes of fame. Much better to have done Bittersweet and nothing else.

That post hurts Doc.

Great band.