17 November 2008 Elbow - Biography

‘The longest surviving uncorrupt democracy in history’. This is how Elbow style themselves and that phrase gives a particularly keen insight into the 18 year history of this remarkable band. Formed whilst all the members were at college, Elbow have weathered innumerable storms to reach this particular high point in their careers, remaining a tight unit of five friends whose collaborative powers are stronger with each passing year and each album release and who are now celebrating a double platinum sales award for their latest album, ‘The Seldom Seen Kid’.

 

The trials of the band have been well documented. How many bands can say that they have held record deals with three labels and yet remain not just together but increasingly secure and successful? Indeed, in the breakneck pace and obsession with the new that is the UK music scene, how many bands can point to their fourth studio album being their biggest selling and highest profile release? To understand this is to understand Elbow, a unique musical force that is built on the traditions, (and seemingly destined to emulate), the grand points of progressive music with such touchstones as REM, Massive Attack and Pink Floyd.

 

That Elbow’s debut award was The Nationwide Mercury Music Prize, more widely known as ‘The Mercury’, is apt given that the prize is awarded to the most accomplished and musically valid record of the year. Given that previous winners of the prize have been the subject of heated debate as to their merits (or lack of them), it says much about the perception of Elbow that there was a universal chorus of approval for their triumph. Coming as it did some five months after the release of ‘The Seldom Seen Kid’, the award catapulted Elbow into the big leagues and the album back into the UK Top 5. The October UK tour became the biggest lap of honour in recent memory, with critics joining in the celebrations and the NME going so far as rejoicing in finally seeing ‘Elbow reaping the rewards they deserve’. The more astute observer would have seen this coming though, as tracks from the album spent the summer soundtracking both the Olympics and the European Football Championships whilst ‘Grounds For Divorce’ trailed ‘Burn After Reading’, the recent Coen Brothers release, on cinema and television screens across the globe. That this was then followed by a BRIT Award for Best British Band and an NME Award for Outstanding Contribution To British Music that were applauded from all corners and, once again, propelled ‘The Seldom Seen Kid’ into the UK Top 5 serves to demonstrate the depth of affection for this most unique of bands.

 

Elbow have always believed that music has a redemptive power, that their compositions should affect people in the deepest way possible, that their music will achieve if it touches their audience. The five have seldom if ever been concerned about sales patterns and chart placings, preferring the evidence of the public and critical reaction to their releases over the well worn road of hits and column inches. Elbow remain the only band in NME history to secure four consecutive 9/10 album reviews, another unique achievement and a further testament to their ability to transcend the vagaries of musical fashion and trends.

 

‘The Seldom Seen Kid’ is a distillation of what makes Elbow such a musical force. The strength of Mark Potter’s guitar and the rhythmic muscle of Richard Jupp’s drums shine through ‘Grounds For Divorce’, producer and keyboard player Craig Potter’s widescreen delicacy illuminates ‘The Loneliness of a Tower Crane Driver’ and the playful yet experimental mindset of all five delivers the trumpet stabs that arrest the listener on album opener ‘Starlings’. This is a band unencumbered by genre, that can accommodate the Bacharach and David like ‘The Fix’ and the hyper anthemic ‘One Day Like This’ on the same album and make a beautiful whole out of such diverse pieces. Throughout, Guy’s sometime brutal, sometime heartfelt sincerity flows through the lyrics of the likes of ‘Weather To Fly’ (about the band’s beginnings) and ‘Friend Of Ours’ (dedicated, as is the album, to much missed Manchester singer / songwriter Bryan Glancy). To the band’s mind, ‘The Seldom Seen Kid’ is a distillation (and improvement) on those albums that preceded it. Recorded and produced by Craig Potter at the band’s own studios in Salford and made without a record deal in place, the band having left previous home V2 following 2005’s ‘Leaders Of The Free World’, ‘The Seldom Seen Kid’ represents the entirety of Elbow’s musical vision and was met on release by new home Fiction Records with blanket critical acclaim.

 

On the release of their debut EP ‘Newborn’ in 1999, singer Guy Garvey surmised Elbow’s approach thus:

"Both lyrically and musically it has to be sincere," – and it is testament to the strength of belief within the group that this central pillar of what constitutes Elbow remains unchanged. The world’s longest surviving uncorrupt democracy has many years still to run.