Charlatans(UK) C/D

Most of the time you are happy – you're a weirdo.

Like the earliest two, LOVE the middle three, HATE everything that came after those.

I came to the realization a couple albums ago that The Charlatans haven't been any good at all since Rob Collins died. I don't know if that's a causal link, but it definitely makes sense.

― Johnny Fever, Tuesday, March 4, 2008 3:16 PM (2 years ago)

I still stand by this.

I think they were good through Up To Our Hips, then they went shit.

But I absolutely love the first 2 albums.

I consistently forget about the song "Weirdo", because I never got the second album.

"Then" is great too! I can do without two or three of the songs on it but o/w I like the album a lot.

I listened to the 2-disk Some Friendly recently, and the alt. tracks were nothing special. Also seems weird that there is a special edition of this album.

The second album is the only one I owned, and it's pretty colorless.

"Then" is a full-on monster

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=anHPUP7O6pc

"most shaggable band"

Really dug these guys a lot circa 97-01, and I would rep for all the albums up to Wonderland. I do think "Some Friendly" is underrated - I like it the most out of the first four records. "Tellin' Stories" is brilliant though. I once had "Rob's Theme" on loop for like a half-hour.

I'm by no means a huge fan of the band: love Some Friendly and Up To Our Hips. But you know, You Cross My Path is sneakily very very good. Easy to overlook, and doesn't break any new ground, but very solid.

Kind of wonder how the new one is? I never hear about them in the news, so have to remember to check websites...

Martin Blunt = incredibly underrated bass player. For all that's deservedly written about Rob Collins, it's Blunt and drummer Jon Brookes that I love most about the Charlatans.

i like to love their first six albums including Tellin' Stories. their self titled and debut album both have excellent singles and the best album tracks "Feeling Holy," "White Shirt," "Toothache" and "Sproston Green."

Not my favourite ever, but this band were always relegated to "second-tier drab Northern band" status by the British press when in fact they were a lot more exciting than this. I love "Weirdo" (especially that organ break), "Then", "The Only One I Know" and th Us & Us Only album which I really should dig out again soon.

this band were always relegated to "second-tier drab Northern band" status by the British press when in fact they were a lot more exciting than this.

nah, that's about right

New single sounds really promising (to me, at least).

y/n?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WwO6H9rTfMg

That new single is great, the best they've done since A Man Needs to be Told.

I always think I don't like this band that much but I always end getting their latest albums somehow. You Cross My Path was a bit over the top with the New Order influence but had a few great moments especially Bird/Reprise. Wonderland was their last really good album, I never get bored of him singing in that ridiculous high voice.

Overall The Charlatans is my favourite album of theirs, they've never come close to topping Crashin' in.

Yeah, I love the s/t one as well. It's probably a tie between that and Up to Our Hips for me.

that new song sounds like Sloan.

http://cdn0.virgin.com/uploads/images/story/The-Charlatans-album-review-Who-We-Touch-8740-cropped.jpg

From Amazon:
With a career that has already spanned two decades, The Charlatans - Martin Blunt (bass), Jon Brookes (drums), Tim Burgess (vocals), Mark Collins (guitar) and Tony Rogers (keyboards) - release their new album Who We Touch, on September 6th 2010. Their eleventh studio album, Who We Touch was produced by Youth (Paul McCartney, Primal Scream and The Verve) and was recorded at Britannia Row in London, on the desk that New Order's 'Blue Monday' was recorded on. Featuring eleven tracks, the album must surely rank as their boldest to date radically broadening, in places, their aesthetic remit. It is, says Burgess, "a soulful voyage", a journey through moods uplifting and profound, dark and delirious, ultimately concluding in blissful optimism. Its sound is inspired by many heroes, yet always sounds like no-one other than The Charlatans themselves. Opener, 'Love Is Ending', is the first single to be taken from the album, released on August 2nd. 'Oh!' is a beautiful song of reconciliation, as complex as its shifting time signatures (one section is in 3/4 waltz time), and then 'You Can Swim', an exquisite ooze of ambience, reminiscent of 'Another Green World'-era Eno, with whose creative ideas the album began. Lurking at the end of the album is hidden track 'I Sing The Body Eclectic' featuring Crass's Penny Rimbauld on vocals. Gee Vaucher who did the iconic artwork for all of Crass's releases, also provides Who We Touch with it's eerie collaged cover image.

Disc: 1
1. Love is Ending
2. My Foolish Pride
3. You're Pure Soul
4. Smash The System
5. Intimacy
6. Sincerity
7. Trust In Desire
8. When I Wonder
9. Oh
10. You Can Swim
11. On The Threshold (Hidden Track)
12. Sing The Body Electric (Hidden Track)

Disc: 2
1. Love Is Ending (Early Version)
2. Intimacy (Early Version)
3. Smash The System (Early Version)
4. These Things (Studio Out-take)
5. Your Pure Soul (Early Version)
6. Sincerity (Early Instrumental Version)
7. Trust In Desire (Alternate Take)
8. My Foolish Pride (Early Version)
9. Lips That Would Kiss (Early Version)
10. Who We Touch Don't Mind (Early Version)
11. Don't Know Where Or When (Studio Out-take)
12. Intimacy (Alternate Mix)
13. Throbbing Genesis (Studio Out-take)

this is actually going to come out in America one week later. it will be released on September 14, 2010 on The End Records, both the single and two disc set.

Is that a Durutti Column cover on disc 2?

Guessing the desk "Blue Monday" was recorded on is probably well-drained of hit-making nectar.

Listening to this now. Unexpectedly great... "Love Is Ending" could be a Prisoners/Thee Milkshakes track.

Yeah I just finished playing this, first impressions are this might be their best album in a very long time. I'm just addicted to Love is Ending but there isn't really a bad track.

I love the Crass connections going on -- I remember Burgess talking about being a fan of theirs back in interviews from 1990/91 so talk about flying the flag still!

Yeah, I love the s/t one as well. It's probably a tie between that and Up to Our Hips for me.

― Johnny Fever, Tuesday, 20 July 2010 05:20 (1 month ago) Bookmark

Yeah

It's been bugging me over the last 24 hours what the second track My Foolish Pride reminds me of and it just hit me, the verse where he sings "I wander streets belonging but to no one" sounds exactly like the verse of Open your heart by The Human League. Anyone else noticed this?

I have been playing this a lot and I can't help but think it might be their best album since the self titled one. I really didn't have much interest in this album until Johnny Fever put up the new single earlier in the thread but I'm so glad I bought it, great production, songs and Tim's voice has never sounded better.

Pete Salisbury fills in

The Verve drummer Pete Salisbury has joined The Charlatans as a temporary replacement for brain tumour victim Jon Brookes.

Brookes collapsed onstage during the band's Philadelphia gig earlier this month (September 15), and has now flown back to the UK to receive further treatment for a brain tumour.

Speaking to NME, frontman Tim Burgess said Brookes's ordeal had been "a lot to take in" for the band.

"We were having the best American tour we've done for a long, long time and it was going so well and then this happened," he explained.

The band play their first show with Salisbury to launch Oxfam's Oxjam festival on Monday (September 27) at a charity shop in London. He will also perform with them on their forthcoming UK tour.

Yeesh, sad news (but good guy to have fill in). Wanted to go to the Tuesday night show down here but a cold has tripped me up this week.

i almost went Tuesday night as well. the problem was i only found out about it on Tuesday and wasn't able to get everything organized and ready to go in time.

i do hope to see these guys soon as i have had fun at their gigs.

Yah, I was going to go to the Wednesday show at the El Rey. Hope they can reschedule the west coast dates eventually

http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5053/5533599301_f3a62cf5b5_z.jpg

Yes, that's Kevin Shields.

Cool.

That's Tim on the mic, right? My eyes are telling me that doesn't look a bit like him.

Yes, his hair was long and tied back. He came out on stage wearing sunglasses and looked disturbingly like late-stage Michael Jackson until he took them off.

The weirdest Charlatans-related story you'll read this week: http://www.adweek.com/adfreak/kellogg-creates-totes-amazeballs-cereal-response-single-tweet-138447

Meanwhile R. Stevie Moore just posted this photo:

https://fbcdn-sphotos-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-ash3/521979_3322458393280_1622962720_2755191_877804424_n.jpg

I listened to Up To Our Hips for the first time in at least ten years the other day.

http://news.bbcimg.co.uk/media/images/59751000/jpg/_59751041_burgess_getty.jpg

I'm definitely not digging David Cross's new wig.

Anyone hear Tim Burgess's version of Don't Talk (Put Your Head On My Shoulder)? He hits the notes pretty well IMO.

one for the sticker

hah

"one for the sticker" remains one of my favorite snarks of all-time, I don't think there's a context where it isn't hilarious

so, at last we begin to learn about the long-term effects of ecstasy

wait, is that last picture actually not David Cross in a wig? i swear i've only just realised

yeah the David Cross thing is kind of uncanny

odd, acoustic versions of North Country Boy and The only one I know

but with new tunes

on Sky's coverage on the IOW festival