Baby, you've been going so crazy - lately nothing seems to be going right

Continuing my trip back through the 2001 album charts.

15/07/01 : The Invisible Band - Travis

Another one we owned (five for the year) and I remember liking it but I haven't listened to it in many a long year, so it will be interesting to see what I think about it now.

Yeah, I thought this was decent enough, hasn't dated and, at a tight 45 minutes, doesn't outstay its welcome. Travis haven't exactly gone down in history as the most exciting band and this is, at least on a surface listen, a "nice" melodic indie pop album which doesn't have anything to frighten the horses. with tracks like "Sing", "Dear Diary" and "Flowers In The Window" doing exactly what's expected of them. But it never, for me, strays into bland territory and there are certainly depths to explore there if you're so inclined. I'd say there are hints of Bowie or Radiohead throughout - Travis have definitely not chosen to take the songs in the direction those artists would have done, but it would be interesting to see what others might do/have done with them. It's certainly been one of the better albums we've had this year - it was an enjoyable revisit and it's also got a nice album cover!

We're at #3 in the chart this week on their fifth week of an impressive 54 week run, with it having incredibly spent its first four weeks at #1 (I'm not sure it's quite that good). The rest of the top five were Usher (a new entry), Destiny's Child, D12 and Dido with the next highest new entry being, quite obviously, a Beach Boys best-of (#31). 

Wikipedia doesn't have loads on the album - it's their third album and "the title referred to the band's status of having famous songs, but not being famous themselves", which shows a nice line in self-awareness. I also learned that Fran Healy wrote all the songs (lyrics and music) which shows an impressive level of talent - although I remember him telling Adam Buxton on his podcast that "Sing" was originally going to be called "Swing" until other band members pointed out that a track extolling the virtues of swinging might not be quite the look he was going for. 

The album was produced by Nigel Godrich who came to this after having done Radiohead's Kid A and Amnesiac and was apparently in a foul mood to start with - and who can blame him? Critically, the reviews were decent enough with Q getting it right for me with "while the wheel remains un-reinvented, The Invisible Band finds its mark with unerring accuracy" and commercially it did well in Europe getting to #3 in Germany, #2 in Austria and #1 in Ireland and Norway. It only managed #39 in the US, but it still managed to sell three million copies globally, which is a decent haul for an album I imagine very few people think about these days. 

Given its popularity, it's somewhat unsurprising that discogs.com tells us this is a fifty pence album but plain old original vinyl pressings must be rare because one of those is going to set you back £130. I'd struggle to say it's worth that level of expenditure, but this is a decent album which reflects the period nicely yet hasn't dated - it's worth checking out if you've forgotten about it or have never even been aware of it.

20/07/01 - Not for me