by Brandon Carter
Coastal Journal staff

It was right around the summer of 2002 that I embraced my love of British music.  Before then, it never occurred to me that the records I gravitated towards were a) mostly from the UK and b) were recorded between 1997 and 2000, roughly.  OK Computer, Urban Hymns, The Man Who . . . the post Brit Pop records that exploited the sad sap mentality to gorgeous, astronomical effects.  I credit The Music with putting an end to my exclusive indulgence in rainy day records.

I discovered them just as I was about to make an underwhelming purchase from Bull Moose.  Justin, kindred Anglophile and enthusiastic employee, loaded a CD that, to my ears, sounded like U2 on steroids.  Playing disco.  And trance.  What?

I inevitably approached Justin and asked what we were listening to, and he informed me that we were listening to a band from Leeds, England, called The Music.  No one in The Music was above the age of 18.

Impossible, I thought.  For one, the band was unnaturally muscular, seamlessly welding the electronic aesthetic pronounced dead at the end of the 90s with a sound from the beginning of that decade ala Jane's Addiction with a brashness that indicated they didn’t know any better.  The singer, one Robert Harvey, was performing acrobatics with a voice aimed somewhere between Perry Farrell and Robert Plant, but you wouldn't mistake him for either, thanks to his northern accent.  Plus, they had named themselves The Music; I chose to see this move as an expression of unbound optimism, a noble and worthy statement of purpose that would set the bar high instead of ham-fisted hubris.  Which it probably was.

Their eponymous debut soundtracked that summer.  Listening to primal bust-ups like “The Dance,” “Take the Long Road and Walk It,” and “Disco” made mowing the lawn go much faster.

The euphoria wouldn't last long, however.  2004 brought in a host of follow-up records I found to be lacking, including the Music's second release Welcome to the North.  It was the classic case of a young band trying to assert its importance with hollowed-out anthems, trite lyrics (you could never understand what Harvey was saying on the debut, and this was a plus), and furtive forays into the most vague of political musings.  The instruments were mixed at such deafening levels that it was impossible to enjoy on a pair of good headphones.  The worst offence, however, was the inclusion of power ballads of the hair-metal sort.  Seriously?

Speaking of hair, Harvey's was too long.  The band looked like a grunge outfit from the 90s, a crime just as unacceptable in 2004 as it was in 1994.  No wonder Dave Grohl was so enthusiastic about them.  They probably reminded him of his heyday.

The Music then disappeared from the earth, their brand of bombast the farthest from cool one could get at the time.  A band that the late great Tony Wilson said he would have loved to sign was on a shortlist of bands we loved to hate.

Ultimately, this is what has made them appealing once more.  Surfacing earlier this year with a handful of very small, local shows, the Music seem to have embraced newfound humility, and nothing makes an artist more endearing than humility.  It's one thing to make bad music, it's another to get on a soap box and try to convince the rest of us that it's good (Oasis).  This can be a hard lesson to learn, as R.E.M., Ryan Adams, or Coldplay would tell you, but ultimately the perception of a group of artists accepting the criticism, embracing their limitations, and then striving to be better (not bigger) can go a long way in making them less . . . insufferable.  For perhaps the first time ever in their distinguished careers, they might appear human as opposed to “great” or “important” or whatever, and it is this generosity of human spirit that audiences can often detect in successful “comeback” releases.

The first thing the Music have done correctly is cut off Rob Harvey's hair, revealing a perfectly shaped dome that will allow him to be taken a little more seriously.

The music isn't bad, either.  Comeback single “Strength in Numbers” is economical in ways no song was on either of their previous records, and “Fire” is as elemental as it sounds.  All news I am happy to report for myself more than anyone else.  I hadn't realized how much I had missed them.