It's the year 2000. Someone must have trod on the Millennium Bug, or blasted it with a sonic screwdriver, or something, because we're all still here. The world's still spinning, the human race is lurching on, and my music tastes are maturing nicely. The gateway rock drugs of Travis, Stereophonics and Semisonic have been digested - they've saved me from a Westlife prison sentence, given me a taste of an alternative, hinted at possibilities, and now I'm looking for something else. Something stronger, something with more meaning.
I've heard "Yellow" by Coldplay and can't wait to get my hands on their soon-to-be-released album Parachutes. Flickering through the newspaper one wet day during the school hols, I notice the golden globe of the Parachutes cover lined up alongside eleven other pictures: the twelve nominees for the Mercury Music Prize, the award for British album of the year. I'm intrigued by the exotic names of the artists, many I've never heard of before (Goldfrapp, Death In Vegas, Nitin Sawney) and some I'll never hear of again (Helicopter Girl, anyone?), and decide to buy as many of the records as I can afford. First it's Parachutes, The Great Eastern by The Delgados (hooked in by the ever under-stated NME's claim that it contains "the greatest songs in the history of recorded sound". To be fair, they weren't THAT far wide of the mark on this occasion) and Dove's gorgeous, brooding Lost Souls.
Then it's The Hour Of Bewilderbeast by ex-Dove, Badly Drawn Boy - a mysteriously scruffy Northerner, real name Damon Gough. A one-man-band in a woolly hat. I put on the CD and sit in front of the fire, listening intently on earphones, flicking feverishly through the booklet. I can't wait for it to stop, so I can press 'play' again. I listen to nothing else for weeks, drinking in the songs and their rich details.
The orchestral cabin-folk of opener "The Shining", a glowing hymn to the sun; "Fall In A River", which sounds like it was recorded underwater; "Another Pearl", an appropriately named glam-pop gem; "Magic In The Air", in my opinion, one of the most romantic songs ever written ("You left your shoes in the tree, with me. I'll wear them to your house tonight"); the queasy psychedelia of "Cause A Landslide" with its bad-trip outro; and "Epitaph", the duet with his wife and perfect closer, feels like a late-night home recording, the wide-eyed wonder of "The Shining"'s "warm sun" replaced by a simple candle-lit declaration of love ("I hope you never die, there's no need to say why, just promise that you'll try").
So many different sounds, moods, and textures, woven and smudged together in a lo-fi way to create a disorientating and beautiful 60 minute "journey": The Hour Of Bewilderbeast. (Remember, this is in a more innocent, pre-Pop Idol time so you're not allowed to punch me for talking about a "journey" or a "roller-coaster of emotions"). It's the first listening experience to make me understand the importance and the power of "the album" - a body of work rather than just a collection of songs, something greater than the sum of its parts - an experience familiar to those who discovered Pet Sounds in the 60s, Dark Side Of The Moon in the 70s, or Daydream Nation in the 80s. In 2000, I have all those particular pleasures ahead of me.
The LP deservedly wins the Mercury, Damon getting so drunk on the night of the ceremony that he loses his winner's cheque. He writes a highly successful Hollywood soundtrack and dashes off sparkling pop songs for breakfast, but, hard as he tries, is unable to recapture the otherworldly magic of that debut. He shouldn't beat himself up about it though: with each passing year, Bewilderbeast feels more and more like a wonderful one-off.
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