'Turn on the Bright Lights' by Interpol
Trotter’s Top Ten position : 1 in 2003
UK Chart high : 101 in 2002
So with the 21st century came my unhealthy adoration of Interpol (unhealthy in the sense that I kept putting their albums in first place on my year end countdowns whether they really deserved it or not). For the most part they absolutely did - particularly this, their debut, even if I did purchase it a little too late to make it into the 2002 chart when it was released. Sometimes reading the music press about a band can be useful, to get you interested in someone you might not have picked up on, and sometimes it does more harm than good. I really didn't want to give much time to a bunch of gloomy New Yorkers trying to copy Joy Division, but then I actually heard their music. These chaps really seemed to get what being in a rock band was all about - carefully crafted music, oblique lyrics that could have many meanings or no meaning at all, arty videos and a fantastic image. And Paul Banks made school jumpers trendy, he really did. Four albums in and I can't really see where all the Joy Division comparisons came from - other than it just being 'the thing to say'. Yes, 'NYC' is rather gloomy and atmospheric and Paul's vocal style often verges into the tone of Ian Curtis but other than that they've really made their sound their own. I guess the single and album artwork didn't help, just adding the colour red to what could have come straight from Joy Division/early New Order's back catalogue but I didn't really hear that mentioned at all. They also kept up a bit of mystery around themselves which was refreshing in the 'tell all' days we were heading into and had that essential mystique that made you want to find out what they were really like backstage - drugs, booze and supermodels and the works. But strip away all the image and media malarky and you're left with an intriguing debut album that rewards with repeated plays - that wasn't instantly catchy and then forgettable - and that has aged surprisingly well. And yes I know it's only from 2002, but this is in the age where Xfm call Artic Monkeys' debut 'from the archive'. So we have moody, late night observations about their hometown ('NYC' - where the subway is a porno apparently), tales of butchers with sixteen knives called Roland and divers called Stella who was always down and an ode to the first European purportedly to land in North America ('Leif Erikson'). Couple that with a broad range of styles from melancholic to downright pounding and you've got the first top ten entry on the list. I'm pleased to say it also did pretty well in a load of much more legit countdowns too - making it to eight in the NME's top fifty of the decade. So if both Trotter and the NME tell you to buy it I bloomin' well hope you will.
Look at Obstacle 1 ; NYC ; PDA ;
Listen to a sampling of the Top Fifty on Spotify as we go or the 'one from each album' version
No comments:
Post a Comment