Timewatching: The Divine Comedy Album-by-album thread

Discussion in 'Music Corner' started by LivingForever, Nov 5, 2020.

  1. jon-senior

    jon-senior Forum Resident

    Location:
    Eastleigh
    Yes! Hard to know if my recollection is a combination of nostalgia and the naivety of youth at the time, but it genuinely felt like a community in the best sense of the word.
     
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  2. LivingForever

    LivingForever Forum Arachibutyrophobic Thread Starter

    Divine Comedy History Lesson, Part 16

    As always, brought to you by the Chronology at ashortsite.com!

    The recording of "Regeneration" with Nigel Godrich begins on July 3rd, 2000 at RAK studios in North London, and continues until October (!), though presumably not continuously...

    It sounds from Neil's liner notes, interviews and video footage from the sessions, that it was quite a relaxed and enjoyable experience, with PlayStation and Table Tennis seemingly keeping everyone happy when not busy working!

    The recording sessions coincide with the very first UK series of "Big Brother" which Neil confesses to watching in several interviews from around this time - and perhaps the interactive online element of the show inspires someone in the TDC camp to offer a real online experience during the recording sessions, since videos, photos and diaries from each band member are made available on the DC website for fans starved of new content. (I can only wish that I knew about this at the time and had had some way to save it all, as it is presumably no longer available anywhere online... :( )

    These online clips and diaries offer us actual recording dates for some of the tracks, as listed on ashortsite - for example we know that "Lost Property" gets re-recorded on the 9th-10th of August - (this is the sort of detail that people like me and @Hazey John II live for !)

    As well as all this online content, Bryan Mills makes a 21-minute film about the recording of the album called "A Visual Record", which gets shown at the Edinburgh Film Festival in August 2001. It also sees a release on a couple of different CDs - albeit in a cut-down 10 minute version and albeit in glorious 2001-era CD-ROM Video quality.

    Still, that 10 minute version is available on Youtube, and here it is - well worth a watch to get a general idea of the vibe! Enjoy Neil recording vocals to "Eye of the Needle" whilst wearing a South Park Cartman t-shirt (another reminder of something that was new and huge at the time!)



    On November 1st, there's a brief diversion as Neil appears at The Magnetic Fields' London gig, where he sings "The Dead Only Quickly", and then it's back to mixing the album and starting to plan for the tour.

    Between the 20th and 25th of January 2001, almost a year after the tryout gigs, the band do a small tour to play the new finished versions of the songs for an audience for the first time. Taking in Londonderry, Belfast, Dublin and two nights at London's Riverside Studios, the band play the whole of the new album and a tiny handful of old favourites; and if the reviews are anything to go by then the crowd, intitially unsure, are soon won over. What's more, even some reviewers who have previously found Neil and their songs supremely annoying seem to be somewhat converted.
    Weirdly, there's still a month to go before even the lead single is released, but the band play a fair few more UK gigs (and one in Paris) to punters who haven't heard a note of the new stuff over the course of those 4 weeks, as well as popping up on just about every UK TV show that will have them. And then, finally, first single "Love What You Do" is released on the 26th of February, 2001. It reaches number 26 on the UK charts, an inauspicious start for this new phase of TDC, not helped by the fact that BBC Radio 1 have stopped putting the band on their playlist, although they do for the first time get played on BBC Radio 2, a station at that time very much associated with middle aged listeners, safe playlists and cosy presenters. (Neil remains a staple of that station's playlist to this day, so perhaps he just found his true home a bit earlier than expected? ;) )

    A ton of radio promo appearances and newspaper interviews later, "Regeneration" is finally released on the 7th of March in Japan, 12th of March in Ireland and the 13th of March in the UK, where it is preceded the day before by a free promo CD given away by The Independent newspaper with some exclusive tracks on it. More about that after we deal with the main event...

    To be continued...


     
  3. Vagabone

    Vagabone Forum Resident

    Location:
    UK
    Well, to be honest the reason I didn't score The Good Life or other recent songs under discussion is that I'm not familiar enough with them enough to rate. You yourself have rated songs at the last minute, which suggests you also like to Get It Right and give a considered opinion when you do provide a scoring. Some tracks that I'm hearing for the first time jump out at me immediately as a definite 1, 2, 3, 4, or 5 but sometimes I just don't know. The less familiar I am with the genre the harder it is. With some songs I need to listen to them repeatedly. and if it's a Tony Bennett style thing, I frankly don't want to do that. Life is too short. I would make more of an effort if we were talking an official Divine Comedy single or album track, but some of the obscurities I'm happy to leave as obscurities.
     
  4. ericthegardener

    ericthegardener Forum Resident

    Location:
    Dallas, TX
    Regeneration was the first album that I bought as it was released. Being in the US, my access to press and videos and the like was limited, so I don't think I had a fully formed idea of what the band was or should be. Obviously, I could recognize that Regeneration was a departure from the previously established sound of the band, but at the time it just seemed to be the kind of evolution that lots of bands make. All this to say that I probably wasn't really disappointed like many long term fans were at the time, and found lots to like about the album. From a different perspective now, I see it as a necessary palate cleanser that still has lots going for it. Looking forward to discussing this album.
     
    Last edited: Apr 6, 2021
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  5. The Booklover

    The Booklover Forum Resident

    Location:
    Germany
    I totally see where you're coming from. I think I listened to some of these recent songs too often (definitely according to the protests of my daughter) just to arrive at a justifiable score.
     
  6. Vagabone

    Vagabone Forum Resident

    Location:
    UK
    I have been trying to reconstruct how big a Divine Comedy fan I was at the different time periods we've been discussing. I think my fandom might have reached some kind of high plateau around the time of A Secret History, though I still wasn't at the same level of as some of you: I never bought the CD singles or went out of my home town to see them live.

    I first heard of them circa Liberation, then a couple of years later Casanova was the first album I heard and I liked most of it. It was a slow, gradual thing for me, the way they grew on me the next few years. It's hard to chart the graph. I saw them live, aquired the first two Setanta albums. Particularly fell for Promenade, then reassessed Casanova as the second of a pair of masterpieces.

    I was a young avid reader of the music press and listener to Radio 1's evening shows, and there was so much music I loved coming out every week that at first the DC were just another one of many great artists that were around in a very crowded field. What ended up separating the wheat from the chaff was which bands were able to consistently deliver great album after album, and which fell foul of difficult second album syndrome and fell by the wayside. By the turn of the century Neil Hannon had passed the test. He had delivered five very solid albums in a row. I didn't like every song, but I could happily listen to them all all the way through. And A Secret History was the cherry on top with that fine bonus disc. I think it's fair to say I never liked them more.

    Regeneration. Well. As ever when we discuss a new album I'm unsure how much to say at the outset, and how much to save till we've got through the whole album and it's time to sum up. I will say now that though I love a lot of the songs on it, it's rare I want to listen to the whole thing. I resented a lot about it. I seriously resented one song in particular (I also have a 0/5 up my sleeve I do believe), I resented the producer, I resented the marketing strategy, and I hated the cover. And it is the first of many DC albums that I see primarily as an album that has some great songs on it, as opposed to a great album.
     
  7. Dalav

    Dalav Forum Resident

    Location:
    New Jersey
    I have a similar experience, also from a US perspective. Although jumping at Casanova, I too thought Regeneration was more evolution than anything else. Without that media coverage I was oblivious to Neil's change in appearance which, had I known, might have suggested the Regeneration changes were deeper and broader in origin. I'm still not sure if Regeneration was meant to be a new road for Neil or a temporary diversion, but I assume the upcoming discussion will provide some answers. Then, as today, I find the album somewhat spotty and at times difficult to navigate, yet yielding some fine moments.
     
    Last edited: Apr 6, 2021
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  8. jon-senior

    jon-senior Forum Resident

    Location:
    Eastleigh
    I love the cover! Even after everything 8 said earlier, I wouldn't necessarily describe Regeneration as the best Divine Comedy album, but its cover is my favourite by some distance.
     
  9. The Turning Year

    The Turning Year Lowering average scores since 2021

    Location:
    London, UK
    Its funny, I got the impression, particularly from the notes, of it being a bit tense for Neil, and he seemed a bit defensive in the video (but them I think he may have seemed a bit like this in the Victory... videos too, so maybe he's just like that). Although it's a band album, so the rest of them looked fairly relaxed!

    Ah I watched this earlier and did wonder where he was. Explained!:D

    I'd forgotten this! I remember excitedly going to buy this at the local newsagent, feeling very grown up and sophisticated to be buying the Independent :agree: (my second newspaper purchase - my 1st was something like The Express :sigh: because it had an interview with Jon Culshaw in it :laugh:).

    Yes I felt the same. Being relatively new to TDC, even though I had all the albums at this point I don't recall being surprised at the different sound. Besides, half the bands around seemed to sound a bit like this at the time... ;)

    Edit: @jon-senior it's also my favourite TDC cover :D (toss up between this and Bang Goes the Knighthood...
    ...
    ...
    JOKE! o_Oo_O)
     
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  10. The Turning Year

    The Turning Year Lowering average scores since 2021

    Location:
    London, UK
    Since I've enjoyed reading others' stories of arriving at this album, I'll join in!

    I haven't listened to Regeneration in probably 15 years. I loved it when it came out, and played it to death, but its since placed itself in a bucket in my head in company of other early 2000s wafty, lethargic guitar albums (Athlete, Travis, some whiney dirge album by Thom Yorke, Snow Patrol, early Coldplay etc..!), some of which I liked back then (never Coldplay...) but I don't ever get an urge to listen to them now.

    This may be in part because, while Regeneration reminds @jon-senior of a lovely time in his life, for me it was part of the soundtrack to an unhappy relationship which lost me my new uni friends, cost me my degree, alienated my parents and made me feel I'd completely wasted my youth... It would only take me a further 8 years to figure out that it wasn't working!
    But if I'd worked that out any sooner I wouldn't have ended up where I am now, which I wouldn't change for the world, so I see it all now as part of the journey here ('Other People'-style, blah blah blah...!).

    As I'm an album person I listened to the whole thing this morning, and was pleasantly surprised and I got more from it than I expected. However, I did find some songs have blurred together as the palette of sounds is quite uniform throughout (e.g. there's a little echoey sort of combo maracas/clap/glock sound that keeps cropping up!).
    As a general thought without getting too far into it, it feels a bit 'limp' and washed out to me.
    If it were possible to shake hands with an album, this one would be like one of those dead fish handshakes compared to Fin de Siecle, which would crush your hand.
     
  11. ericthegardener

    ericthegardener Forum Resident

    Location:
    Dallas, TX
    I agree that Neil didn't do himself any favors by throwing himself in with that lot. He had something unique going, and traded it for a stab at larger success. But even having said that, the songs are just better than those groups. Divine Comedy became a bit more generic on Regeneration, but never as generic as those groups.
     
  12. LivingForever

    LivingForever Forum Arachibutyrophobic Thread Starter

    Alright then, time to hear from Neil what he has to say about "Regeneration" in 2020. (With thanks to @The Turning Year for OCR assistance!)

    Neil says:
    With these notes I'll try to answer the vexed question of why Regeneration sounds the way it does. Why it seems so different from all the other Divine Comedy albums. Not whether it's better or worse - that's not for me to say - but why it is.

    We left Setanta and signed to Parlophone in 2000. There were a couple of reasons for this. The first was that I simply had to get away from Setanta. Our relationship had gone from dysfunctional to non-functional, and they looked like they might go out of business any moment. The second reason (the one I tell journalists) was that a larger, more established company would help bring our music to a wider audience. That always makes it sound dreadfully laudable; like you're spreading the gospel, or distributing a life-saving vaccine. At the end of the day there's only one reason for changing record labels: you want to sell more records. Nothing inherently wrong with that of course, as long as you retain your soul in the attempt.

    Natalie and I made a point of having dinner with several record companies. They were always such splendid dinners. My heart, however, had been set on Parlophone from the outset. I was elated when we eventually sealed the deal. To have that name on my records. Of course, there was the obvious Beatles affiliation to set the heart a-flutter, but it was also the home of Blur, Radiohead, Supergrass, and a host of-other notables. It was the hip and happening place to be at the turn of the 21st century. [...]

    Nobody from my new record label was asking me to do things differently. Even if they wanted to, the contract forbade it. The only person insisting on an abrupt change of direction was me. If I remember correctly, even some of my bandmates weren't entirely sold on the idea. Ironic, as they were half the reason I was doing it. Despite my eccentricities, I'm actually a boringly logical person. Even my madder ideas have a kind of internal logic. Divine Comedy had developed over the previous four years into an excellent live outfit. Each member was, in their own way, an accomplished and creative musician. Logic dictated, therefore, that I should make more use of this. I wanted everyone to arrange their own parts, or come up with ideas for the sound as a whole. Why I was trying to fix something that didn't appear to be broken, I'm not sure.

    I suppose I've always had a fear of creative atrophy. That if I stood still for any length of time, people would get bored and wander off. After all, every album up to this point had had its own very specific personality, and that had worked out all right. People liked the sensitive quartet stuff, so I made a lusty crooner album. People liked the lusty crooner album, so I made a Wagnerian epic about society. And then there was I've Been To A Marvellous Party. I rest my case. It all led me to believe I could do just about anything and my audience would come along for the ride. The era of Britpop had been a very accepting musical arena, but Britpop was past its sell-by date. I wasn't willing to go down with the ship; forever labelled as merely an amusing '90s cameo. Like Noél Coward in The Italian Job.

    There was another, more prosaic reason for not doing the arrangements for this album myself. Orla and I, freshly wedded, had moved into a new flat in leafy north London. So long south London, and thanks for all the fish and chips! We proceeded to rip the place apart and rebuild it in our own image.[...] I'd end up writing cross-legged on the grass at the bottom of the garden. All very Donovan. Not very me. And because it was just guitar and vocal, I very quickly amassed a large body of material. To bring it straight to the band in its raw state seemed like an interesting thing to do.

    Parlophone were remarkably anxious to lavish their wealth upon us. And I was quite willing to spend it for them. Keith Wozencroft (label boss) and Miles Leonard (ASR) would say lovely things like "whatever you need" and "as long as you want". Things every artist wants to hear. I took them at their word and asked for a meeting with Nigel Godrich. Nigel, with the success of Radiohead's OK Computer, had recently rocketed to the position of 'world's number one producer'. I did love that record, but I was equally impressed with his work with Beck and Travis. We met at The Engineer pub in Primrose Hill and got on really well. He said he liked my records. I said I liked his. He said he didn't particularly like the way mine sounded though. I laughed and said that that was why I needed him. I suppose to be a good producer/engineer you often have to be brutally honest with rock 'n' roll divas like me. And Nigel was quite capable of speaking truth to power. Even poor old Paul McCartney would eventually feel the wrath of Godrich.

    [...]Unlike all our previous records, I had no clear idea of how this one should sound. That, to me, was the whole point. I wanted to hear how other people would interpret my songs for a change. Why, I asked myself, must The Divine Comedy always be an exact reproduction of my crazy brain? We rehearsed, as ever, in John Henry's studios off the Caledonian Road. Everyone did their best to work up the new material; vintage keyboards and tape delay pedals making their presence felt. But a distinctive new sound stubbornly refused to appear. The songs were good, if a little lacking in joie de vivre. But then, so was I. It occurs to me now that I was probably just really tired. Burnt-out even. My twenties had been full-on to say the least. Perhaps this album really was regenerative in a way. Blowing away the cobwebs. And it ultimately enabled me to see very clearly what I wanted from my own music. But that's a story for another album.

    Soon enough we found ourselves in the wonderfully old school, slightly motheaten surroundings of RAK Studios, St John's Wood. Nigel had cut his teeth here as an assistant engineer and knew it inside out. For such a warm, friendly guy, Mr Godrich had quite an intense sort of personality. And, although I'm a year older, I always felt a little in awe of him. Because of this - and also because I genuinely wanted to see what everyone would do without me breathing down their necks - I didn't hang out in the control room to begin with. In fact I mostly played Colin McRae Rally for the first week. Reading the room is not my strong suit, so when Nigel came to me and said: 'this is your record too, y'know!', I was slightly shellshocked. I remained studiously by his side for the rest of the sessions.[...]

    There's a lot of serious stuff on Regeneration. No gags, only the occasional wry aside. I suppose I was trying to be more profound. Digging for deeper truths. In the two decades since then, I have concluded that deeper truths only tend to appear when you're not looking for them. Still, you don't know till you don't try. [...]

    Recently Frank Arkwright has been brilliantly remastering all these albums in Abbey Road for us. When he got to Regeneration, he said: 'that's a great record', not having passed comment on any of the others. It's always been a bit like that. Generally this album has been regarded as something of an outlier in the catalogue. The gloomy, guitar-laden one. Then, when I'm least expecting it, someone will suddenly express their undying love for it. Interestingly they're often people who wouldn't class themselves as huge Divine Comedy fans. It's like I always say there's a Divine Comedy album for everyone. Even for people who don't like The Divine Comedy!
     
  13. The Turning Year

    The Turning Year Lowering average scores since 2021

    Location:
    London, UK
    Oh I completely agree, which is why I've kept following Neil while the others fell by the wayside. It's more my own mis-categorisation of this album with that lot that I was commenting on! ;)
     
  14. LivingForever

    LivingForever Forum Arachibutyrophobic Thread Starter

    And, as always, here are the album's details before we kick off discussion tomorrow with the first track.

    Regeneration (The Divine Comedy album)

    Regeneration
    [​IMG]
    Studio album by
    The Divine Comedy
    Released
    12 March 2001
    Recorded 2000
    Studio RAK Studio
    Genre Alternative rock
    Length 49:53
    Label Parlophone
    Producer Nigel Godrich

    Singles from Regeneration
    1. "Love What You Do"
      Released: 26 February 2001
    2. "Bad Ambassador"
      Released: 14 May 2001
    3. "Perfect Lovesong"
      Released: 29 October 2001
    Regeneration is the seventh studio album by Irish chamber pop band the Divine Comedy, released in 2001 by Parlophone/EMI (their first for the label). Three singles were released from the album: "Love What You Do", "Bad Ambassador" and "Perfect Lovesong", the latter failing to make the top 40.

    Production[edit]
    Produced by Nigel Godrich, known for his work with Radiohead, this album is distinctly different from frontman Neil Hannon's other work and was darker in tone than what the Divine Comedy's listeners had come to expect.[4] It eschewed the orchestral-driven chamber pop the band was known for in favor of a more stripped down, guitar-focused style, slightly reminiscent of the band's debut album Fanfare for the Comic Muse. It is a more group-concentrated effort, hence the more organic sound.

    Track listing[edit]
    All tracks are written by Neil Hannon.

    No. Title Length
    1.
    "Timestretched" 2:48
    2. "Bad Ambassador" 3:45
    3. "Perfect Lovesong" 3:10
    4. "Note to Self" 5:59
    5. "Lost Property" 4:39
    6. "Eye of the Needle" 5:33
    7. "Love What You Do" 3:52
    8. "Dumb It Down" 3:56
    9. "Mastermind" 5:21
    10. "Regeneration" 5:33
    11. "The Beauty Regime" 5:11

    Personnel[edit]

    Personnel adapted from liner notes included in Venus, Folly, Cupid & Time - Thirty Years of the Divine Comedy.

    Musicians

    • Neil Hannon - vocals, guitar, additional keyboards
    • Miggy Barradas - drums, percussion
    • Stuart 'Pinkie' Bates - organ, synthesizer, recorder
    • Rob Farrer - percussion, additional drums
    • Bryan Mills - bass, additional guitar
    • Ivor Talbot - guitar, additional bass
    • Joby Talbot - piano, synthesizer, recorder, string arrangements
    • Philip Sheppard - cello (track 3)
    • Millennia Strings - strings (tracks 2, 5, 9 and 11)
    • London TeleFilmonic Orchestra - various (track 4)
    Production

     
  15. a paul

    a paul Forum Resident

    Location:
    London
    Just having a listen to it on vinyl now, after having listened to it for the first time in ages a month or two ago.
    I also remember the slightly conflicting opinions of the album from the DC bulleting board. I was definitely in the pro-Regeneration camp, but can definitely understand why some fans wouldn't like it.
    I think it even became my favourite Divine Comedy for a while back then. I don't think it had my favourite songs, but I just loved the overall feel of it (and that was without being a Radiohead/Travis/Coldplay fan). It's almost a bit strange listening to it now. I'm not even sure I like the production of it after all. Neil sounds a bit too muted I think, or he even sounds different to how I remember his vocals sounding on the album. Will be interesting trying to rate the songs on an individual basis anyway.
     
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  16. a paul

    a paul Forum Resident

    Location:
    London
    And I'm not sure of a recording of it surfaced online or not, or if I possibly still have an old VHS of it, but I won/claimed a bunch of free tickets to see The Divine Comedy perform (all/most of?) the Regeneration songs in a TV studio in Glasgow on 6th April 2001, so I brought a bunch of my university flatmates with me, as that was an exciting experience to be in a TV studio, so they were all happy to come along. It then must have been aired on Scottish television some time later that year. I feel like I remember spotting myself in the audience on TV and feeling equal parts happy and embarrassed!
     
  17. a paul

    a paul Forum Resident

    Location:
    London
    Also: it's strange/nice/different hearing Eye Of The Needle end properly on the vinyl without merging into Love What You Do.
     
  18. LivingForever

    LivingForever Forum Arachibutyrophobic Thread Starter

    Oh wow; that’s cool- I didn’t even know about that.

    Pretty sure it’s not on YouTube. If you still have the VHS, maybe we can find a way to get it transferred and posted up!
     
  19. Radiophonic_

    Radiophonic_ Electrosonic

    Location:
    Royal Oak MI
    He sounds half asleep or narcotized for most of the record, which is one of my criticisms of it.

    I think I mentioned a couple pages ago that I was excited for the record, but I didn't hear a ton about it being out of any UK news loop, aside from reading the monthlies we got at the time. My other main musical interests at the time were bands like Broadcast, Stereolab, Saint Etienne, Pizzicato Five, and "older" artists like Bowie, Elvis Costello, Scott Walker, and various other bands. I was into Radiohead, but not hardcore into them, so the Godrich news wouldn't have meant much. Plus, I didn't really care about details like who the producer was at the time. Picked up the first CD single soon as my local import-heavy record store got it in, and after hearing "Love What You Do," thought if this is the new direction, it wasn't for me. I hoped it was just a case of picking a dud single. I was around this time relatively new at my first 'adult' job after several years of grad school/record store work, and my wife and I were getting ready to start a family, so it was a time of growing up I suppose. Regeneration didn't figure into any of that, really. A handful of disappointed listens and I sold it at some point not too long after. I picked it up again years later in a dollar bin, "for the collection." Collector's mentality...
     
  20. christian42

    christian42 Forum Resident

    Location:
    Lund, Sweden
    Unlike my first meeting with the Divine Comedy, I don't remember all that much about how I received Regeneration. It was, of course, my first "new" album with the band, though I think I had already heard the other albums by then - as has been pointed out, there was quite some time between the Best Of album and this one, so I had plenty of time to find the other records.

    The things I knew beforehand was that it was supposed to be a bit more of a band album, and I think I had also managed to find out that Nigel Godrich was going to be the producer, which sort of pleased me, as I had heard his work with Travis.

    And then when I finally listened to the album, I don't think I saw it as all that different. I am fairly sure that I thought it was much LESS of a band album than I'd been led to believe - I mean, it was still all Neil's songs, all Neil's vocals, and the backing band could really have been anyone. So all I took from it was that it was recorded in a different style from the last album, and I didn't find it all that strange, seeing as he had changed styles between the first two albums and the later ones as well. Artists - at least great artists - go through phases, and I just thought this might be another one of those.

    What was obvious was that the subject matter and arrangements was much more morose and melancholy. I had not yet become the melancholy fiend that I am nowadays, but perhaps this could be seen as one of the things that turned me into such a beast...

    I was greatly pleased by the "Beatles and Beach Boys" line in "Perfect Lovesong" - already at that time, those were my favourite two bands - and while the sound was a bit samey, I could find several songs that hooked me. So overall I didn't have any particularly deep thoughts about the album, I simply took it as it came, and as always, went for the songs I liked.
     
  21. a paul

    a paul Forum Resident

    Location:
    London
    Yep, I still have it! It's called Boxed Set, which I quickly found out wasn't the most googleable of titles along with The Divine Comedy now! :D

    I can see it is mentioned on A Short Site, and I can get this snippet from Google before it tries to get me to login:

    "06/04/2001, BBC Scotland Boxed Set. Location : Glasgow, Scottish Television Studio The Divine Comedy plays the gig for STV. Neil Hannon and Ivor Talbot are ..."


    I have an old VCR machine stored away, which might still somehow work?? And a slightly less old HDD/dvd machine, but I'm not entirely sure what wires I would need to record from one to another and/or to something else that could be shared? Will dig out the VCR machine and have another go, although I'm sure the last time I attempted it a few years ago I ended up being thwarted somehow.
     
  22. Hazey John II

    Hazey John II The lyrics are fine, there's no problem there

    Really enjoying everyone's stories. Here's my 2p: A few days ago Chris O'Leary posted some grim Billboard rock charts from April 2001: "if there's such a thing as counter-nostalgia, it applies for me in this case". That's my memory of early 2001: not sure what I was doing, a lot of things changing around me, a definite sense of things going wrong, and music at that time was tied up in that. I was still reading the magazines, but I stopped some time that year (I don't remember reading much about the White Stripes/Strokes/Libertines era; Q giving Semisonic's All About Chemistry 5 stars might have been my breaking point). Not only did I not like the wave of dull rock (Coldplay, Elbow, Oasis 4, Mr-Writer-Stereophonics etc) but so many artists I did like took vaguely disappointing turns - I remember desperately trying to convince myself that I liked Kid A more than OK Computer, or the Gorillaz album was great, or Reveal was a return to form. The albums I remember liking that year were things like Rings Around The World, The Rainbow Children, Vespertine, Love and Theft - ambitious, sprawling, funny records - you know, like The Divine Comedy.

    So my perception of Regeneration is coloured by all of that, and I'd like to re-evaluate it out of that context in the next few weeks. But I have some good memories of it - a few good friends were really into it, and we saw (I think) the Newcastle gig, my only DC gig; got the T shirt, barely remember anything else about it, except that Neil was fairly quiet and withdrawn. I had physical singles of at least Love What You Do and Bad Ambassador, so I was paying attention. But...
    I don't remember visiting the forums at all, which is weird because I was definitely on similar forums at the time, and I did lurk on the DC forums later on. Maybe I was there and I've forgotten? I don't know.

    But also... did Regeneration leak? I remember downloading several big albums from Audiogalaxy that year, but not Regeneration.
    What happened to the first version?!
    OK, here's my speculation for today: although Neil says Parlophone gave him as long as he wanted, is it possible the Regeneration sessions were truncated? We know they were heavily delayed by Radiohead making two albums instead of one, but were they also cut short because of Travis? The Invisible Band sessions began in November 2000, produced by Godrich, partly in LA (if Wikipedia is to be believed, can't find a better source). And also, we know at least some of Travis were hanging around the Regeneration sessions - also recording? Just rehearsing? To what extent was Godrich's mind elsewhere? Did Neil actually get the time and attention he wanted?

    He seems much more burnt out in this video than the Victory one. It's something that nags at me about Regeneration: what was Neil depressed about? He was writing these songs on his honeymoon, looking forward to making his first record on a major record label with his excellent band. His plan for the whole decade worked! So... what was the problem? How did he end up writing, say, Note to Self?
     
  23. LivingForever

    LivingForever Forum Arachibutyrophobic Thread Starter

    I have a very similar “origin story” with Regeneration. After being at uni during the ASAAL / Fin / Secret History years, I moved back home to live with my parents in 2000 and ended up in a relationship which affected me in a very similar way to what you describe. Although it would take me until 2007 to get out of it, I was always faintly aware that it wasn’t right. And to cap that off, I was in a town with limited employment options, doing a dead-end job I didn’t enjoy that much - and with limited opportunities to engage with the music I loved in any way (at home, on the move, and especially not at any gigs...)

    It was into this background that “Regeneration” arrived - I seem to remember buying it and Ash’s “Free All Angels” in a very close timeframe and given my limited music time, the more cheerful of the two albums got most of the airplay.

    I can only imagine that if I’d been able to make it to the tour, I’d have been swept up in the excitement, but as things were, that really wasn’t an option. I have very different feelings about the music than I did then, but it still evokes some not-too-great memories of where I was when I heard it first.
     
  24. LivingForever

    LivingForever Forum Arachibutyrophobic Thread Starter

    I think as he says in the liner notes, he really was burned out and unhappy. He’d worked solidly for nearly 10 years to get to where he wanted to be, and found he was sick of it before he could even enjoy it. It’s notable looking at interviews from the time of the album’s release how he talks about being happy that he could finally let someone else work out how the album was going to sound - and then how by November when the split was announced, that he was already talking in interviews about how he wanted to get back to making records on his own in his parents’ bedroom. It’s amazing how quickly he realised he actually hated this new “band” he’d spent ages bigging up, and had to escape in the same way he’d felt he needed to escape the “Fanfare” band.
     
  25. Vagabone

    Vagabone Forum Resident

    Location:
    UK
    The context everyone is providing is great: By 2001 I had moved on from reading the music press (my once-favourite mag Melody Maker had first jumped the shark then folded) and my music listening was dominated by what my friends were into and what bands I was discovered at small local gigs. After feeling that music was at some kind of exciting peak in roughly '94-'96 - by which I suppose I mean the music that was written about and played on evening Radio 1 - it had steadily deteriorated. Music was still great, but I felt one had to go out and search harder for it, it wans't going to just pop up on TV. Hazey John II's description of "the wave of dull rock" is spot on. I really couldn't see the appeal of the tepid faded shades of Travis and Coldplay on the one hand, and the hoary bluesy, blokey bleatings of Stereophonics and their ilk on the other.

    I liked Radiohead's "The Bends" when it first came out- particularly the poppier numbers - but I was alarmed by the po-faced reverence some critics afforded it and I soon wearied of it. When "OK Computer" came along and all the singles promised more of the same but even whiner and gloomier I was officially off the bus. To this day I'm not sure if I've ever listened to the whole album. I was steering towards more fun albums, not less fun albums. So I was certainly no admirer of Nigel Godrich and I felt it was beneath the Divine Comedy. He was from a different world: a more prosaic, humdrum, dreary one. Not that I was militantly anti the new regime: I awaited results with interest, but scepticism.

    As people have said they love the album cover, I had better say why I hate it: I find the colour scheme boring, the painting technically poor, and the subject matter reminds me of Robbie Williams's flayed skin in that video ("Rock DJ"?). It looks like an "A" level art project.
     

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