Verve

No change, I can change

I can change, I can change

But I’m here in my mould

I am here in my mould

It hardly matters that by 1997 the quintessential non-genre of the 90s was already fading: if I had to explain to a newcomer what Britpop is, I'd fire up YouTube and click on that video, ideally one ripped straight from TV, with the MTV logo proudly on display (just to further cement the nostalgia, framing those years with another glorious symbol). Because Britpop is the straight-line trajectory of Richard Ashcroft shoving his way past passers-by on Hoxton Street, his leather jacket and his scowling, working-class son-of-a-bitch expression (father shut away in an office, mother a hairdresser). It's the string sample paid for at great cost to the Stones, because if I want something I'll take it, no matter the price (in this case, an extremely steep one, settled over twenty-plus years of disputes and royalties). It's the relentless, almost obsessive rotation of "Bitter Sweet Symphony" on the music stations of the day, its obscenely exorbitant sales figures ("Urban Hymns" has sold over ten million copies worldwide, and in Britain ranks among the twenty best-selling albums of all time).

Within "Urban Hymns", however, "Bitter Sweet Symphony" is merely the grand, Victorian-style front door. The elegant, lavish mouth of a black hole that swallows up dozens of subgenres and variations of brit-rock, gives them a dazzling new coat of paint, and then spits Britpop back out in one of its cockiest, most full-blooded forms. Fittingly, it's one of the last. There are traces of shoegaze in it, a scene the Verve had been shy but enlightened exponents of before their stunning transformation; there's the mod movement, the Stones but above all the Who, and a touch of Madchester: yet the result is a unique, multifaceted blend, muscular and magnetic, sentimental and seductive. It wouldn't spawn imitators, because pop and rock that truly mattered would go on to follow the path laid down by other masters instead (Radiohead, for instance, who that same year would point toward new, cybernetic, existentialist coordinates), but it was destined for everlasting memory, standing tall — alongside three or four other records — as the defining symbol of an entire, hugely rich movement.

"Urban Hymns" is a record that, at least at the start, goes all-out. So right after the grand bittersweet symphony comes "Sonnet", another formidable hit that, with sheer swagger, and a divine smirk on its face, carried sophisticated orchestral soul motifs and guitar textures as light as morning dew onto every radio station of the era.

No sooner have you tuned into pop frequencies than the Wigan (Greater Manchester) quintet, without sacrificing an ounce of coolness, muddy the waters with the first of the two most experimental tracks on the record. "The Rolling People": pure acid, spreading and darting to the rhythm of a kraut bassline (Simon Jones has learned the Can lesson by heart), spilling now into metallic, Madchester-flavoured singalongs, now into guitar squalls smeared with alt-blues grit. It all ends with Ashcroft turning into a shaman who can no longer enunciate words, lapsing into mumbles and other lysergic vocalizations amid a thousand guitar swoons.

The other unforgettable journey is "Catching The Butterfly". Six and a half minutes that dematerialise everything, leaving the listener with no points of reference. Elusive sounds, in which Simon Tong and Nick McCabe's ever-restless guitar whirlwinds sinisterly evoke the band's shoegaze past (both of the Verve's previous albums hold gems that would earn a place in any anthology of the genre), amplifying its most distorted, thunderous side as well as its most deviant, psychedelic undertones.

The greatness of the guitar parts on these two songs lies precisely in the combination of styles between Tong, more pop and crisp, and McCabe, more slithering and devoted to psychedelia. An alchemy we very nearly lost, since after the release of "A Northern Soul", McCabe had left the band, replaced by none other than Tong (chosen only after Suede's Bernard Butler, who lasted just a couple of days in the notoriously difficult band). It took Richard Ashcroft's sheer insistence — convinced he could not realise the sound he had in mind without McCabe's contribution — to bring the guitarist to reconsider and thus complete the peerless five-piece line-up.

"Neon Wilderness" is almost a natural coda to "Catching The Butterfly", with Ashcroft's voice and Peter Salisbury's slow drum rolls dragging themselves through the trails left by the guitarists. It's another rarefied, experimental moment underlining just how far "Urban Hymns" is from being a simple pop record, whatever anyone thinks, and how the band's alternative past was far from dormant.

Sandwiched between "The Rolling People" and "Catching The Butterfly", almost to defuse their fury, sits the most moving song Richard Ashcroft ever wrote: "The Drugs Don't Work" (the band's first number-one single). An utterly liquid, forlorn ballad, with a two-faced lyric that blends and blurs two levels of meaning. On one level, Ashcroft admits to drug dependency; on the other, the singer confides the despair he felt watching his father's agonising hospital decline. In both cases, the drugs, the medicine, don't work. What works beautifully, though, is the melody and melancholy of what stands as one of the most beloved, most-played ballads in all of Britpop.

Equally famous, but diametrically opposite in mood, is "Lucky Man", which opens as a modest piece of psychedelic folk before unfurling like a fan into one of the most dazzling choruses in the history of pop made in the UK, amid lush blooms of violins and guitars: an explosion of sunshine, a torrential downpour of positive energy, a Vivaldi-esque spring of the soul: "Happiness/ Something in my own place/ I'm stood here naked/ Smile and I feel no disgrace/ With who I am".

The acoustic delicacy of this track, a clear descendant of Nick Drake, resurfaces in several other moments (the achingly languid "One Day" above all) that serve as interludes between the various heavy-hitters. Among these, still worth mentioning is the sturdy "Space And Time" — sturdy thanks to its rough guitars and the sharp punctuation of the piano. A song that offers yet another testament to the state of grace Ashcroft's songwriting was in at that point in his career, capable of churning out great ballads the way a baker turns out morning bread rolls. Comparing his later work to the songs from this golden period, one can't help but feel a genuine pang of embarrassment.

The finale, entrusted to “Come On”, once again cranks up the guitars, which erupt in wah wah and lightning-fast solos during a foul-mouthed triumph of fuck yous, screamed or slurred by Ashcroft as he writhes and thrashes like some tarantula-bitten hybrid of Mick Jagger and Bobby Gillespie; while the hidden track “Deep Freeze” is a fleeting return to the crystals and dim lights of the cave on the cover of their debut, “A Storm In Heaven”.

The stark discontinuity in tone (as well as genre) across the songs on “Urban Hymns”, now grandiloquent and swaggering, now timid and introspective, makes it a musical object that is more than simply grandiose: ambiguous and beguiling, capable of spurring the listener's curiosity and driving them to dig through its layers for new levels of meaning with every listen. It's an effect we're used to expecting from more experimental bands or seasoned singer-songwriters, certainly not from the chart-toppers of half the world, at least not in the 90s. Once again, then, Verve prove to be an effective metaphor for an entire movement, one in which sequins and blinding colours often concealed meanings and sufferings deeper than those hidden behind grunge's ripped jeans and flannel shirts.

Already close to splitting in the aftermath of “A Northern Soul” (which indeed happened, albeit briefly), Verve disbanded in 1998, in the middle of a triumphant tour supporting the album that had allowed them to conquer the world, bringing them close in fame and numbers to their friends Oasis – Ashcroft and the Gallaghers dedicated albums (“A Northern Soul”) and songs (“Cast No Shadow”) to each other.

Following numerous tensions, after a live date in Düsseldorf, Richard and Nick came to blows; the latter ended up with a broken hand and the firm resolve to leave the band for good, no longer willing to put up with the strain and pressure of a rockstar life. The band tried to finish the tour by hiring a session player (B.J. Cole) to cover McCabe's guitar parts, but ultimately fell apart in August of that year after a disastrous show in Ireland.

‘Cause it’s a bitter sweet symphony that’s life

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19/01/2020