Supergrass - Supergrass Is 10: The Best Of 1994-2004
Supergrass is 10 is a great place to get familiar with them, a truly worthwhile addition any way you look at it.
While Blur and Oasis were duking it out for Britpop supremacy in the mid-to-late 1990s, Supergrass played the role of the third wheel, achieving boatloads of critical success while the overwhelming commercial success of their feuding rivals eluded them. Their greatest detriment in a commercial sense, perhaps, was that they didn’t have a direct rival to stoke the fires of their popularity, as was the case between the galvanized camps of their blustery, pusillanimous peers. In the same sense, though, it may have worked to the band’s advantage that they operated beneath the massive shadow cast by those two bands, affording them the opportunity to rock out without the specter of media expectation hanging over their heads.
Their songs did chart in their homeland on a handful of occasions (“Lenny” reaching #10 and “Alright” #2 in 1995, “Going Out” getting to #5 in 1996, and “Moving” hitting #9 in 1999 were a few of their biggest hits), and their albums sold extremely well there to boot. As has been proven ad nauseam with fickle American audiences, however, their decidedly British inflections got the cold shoulder stateside. This unfortunate reality is exactly why Supergrass Is 10: The Best of 1994-2004 is the perfect place for the formerly uninitiated listener to start. As it goes, better late than never.
As Oasis and Blur hammered out their numerous differences in the British tabloids, garnering more attention for their day-to-day spats than their music, Supergrass sidestepped the British media’s viewfinder while jostling for position in Britpop’s second tier with the likes of Suede, Pulp, and the Boo Radleys. Guitarist/vocalist Gaz Coombes, bassist Mickey Quinn and drummer Danny Goffey created a sound that was equal parts the jumpy, hyperkinetic stylings of the Buzzcocks and the Jam, as well as the more classicist British offerings of the Kinks and the Who.
Their debut album, 1995’s I Should Coco, debuted in the top ten on the strength of the punkish single “Caught By The Fuzz.” Coco was a blindingly fast record, slowing down for next to nothing. 1997’s In It For The Money took a step back, fleshing out melodies and abating tempos, putting the sprawling craftsmanship of “Richard III” and “Late In The Day” on display. Their 1999 self-titled effort – known by some as the “X-ray album” for the cover art – was a scattershot affair, but featured a pair of the band’s finest singles, “Moving” and “Pumping On Your Stereo”, the latter of which scraped the lower end of American alternative charts. Their most recent album, 2002’s Life On Other Planets, was their best album to date, a fusion of their feverish early work and the tempered, nuanced tunes featured on In It For The Money and their self-titled record.
Supergrass Is 10 is not a chronological compilation, but does open appropriately with “Caught By The Fuzz,” and the song most likely to ring familiar with American listeners, “Pumping On Your Stereo.” As tends to be the case with many bands that have singular American hits, “Stereo” had a kitschy hook, the ambiguous verbal inflection on its chorus, which relegated the fantastic melody to second-string status. “Moving,” a paean to the numbing monotony of touring life, volleys back and forth in a cleverly orchestrated two-movement setup, the first a largely acoustic section representing the ride on the open road, and the second a stomp-heavy rave-up representing the performance. It’s a personal favorite. The compilation includes all of the band’s major chart hits as well as band selections, 21 tracks in all, all the way up to Life On Other Planets stalwarts “Grace,” “Rush Hour Soul” and “Seen The Light,” the last of which features Coombes’ nifty vocal nod to Elvis. Also included in the 21 is a pair of brand new bonus tracks, “Kiss of Life” and “Bullet,” as well as a second disc featuring a full live performance that the group gave earlier this year for British rock station Xfm.
Compilations and retrospectives can be a touchy business, especially for those already in the fan base willing to subjectively call into question minutiae like song selection and track order. For loyalists or soon-to-be converts alike though, this is a top-notch collection either way. For loyalists, it’s got all of their signature songs in one place, and for newbies, it provides a worthy snapshot of one of the more criminally overlooked classicist guitar pop bands of the last decade. While the former superstar Britpop outfits are now scuffling along through personnel changes and internal turmoil, Supergrass has stayed the course and shows no signs of slowing down anytime soon. Supergrass is 10 is a great place to get familiar with them, a truly worthwhile addition any way you look at it.
(Capitol Records)