Charmed Life - The Best of the Divine Comedy (Feb 2022)

Maybe I'm weird, but unlike "proper" albums (where I never skip tracks) I'm happy to merrily skip my way through a compilation. It's just someone's arbitrary choice about what should be on there (and probably not even the artist's most of the time, although no doubt they give final approval) and so if something is not up to scratch or I'm short of time then I'm happy to move straight onto the track. And you're right, 75 mins is a long time for a single sitting, although to look at it another way it's perfect for a long car journey or an airplane flight. So all things considered I'd rather have 80 mins of songs I can skip my way through if necessary rather than 45 mins that are missing loads of songs that I would rather were there. Maybe it's just me. But has anyone really stood in a record shop and thought "well, this looks like it could've been a good CD but I'm gonna put it back in the rack because there's too many songs on there"? I'm not convinced (On the other hand, when it comes to "proper" albums, the fewer the tracks the better as far as I'm concerned. But that's because with those I feel like I have to listen to it all every time.)

 

I guess it fell foul of the apparent “no covers” rule when it came to the boxset! (Ok, there are a few, but so so many are missing…)

Other missing A-sides from this new best of:

Lucy
A Drinking Song (live)
The Frog Princess
I’ve Been to a Marvellous Party
Pop Singer’s Fear (99)
Gin-soaked Boy
Love What You Do
No-One Knows
Diva Lady
To Die a Virgin
I Like
Catherine the Great
Queuejumper
Infernal Machines

Anyone gutted about any of these?

 

I can see your point, but I'm delighted to see Southampton Guildhall on the list of venues as I haven't seen Neil live for ages and there was no way of making the Barbican gigs practical. The question now is whether or not to take the kids...

 

This one. But we haven't got to it in the other thread yet, so I'll say no more...

 

To Die A Virgin is great. That’s a bit of an oversight.

 

Was a bigger hit than Becoming More Like Alfie! Quite surprised about that omission, but maybe that's my nostalgia as that whole era is when I discovered TDC.

Also undecided whether to get tickets for the London gig yet. Fully expecting ticket prices to be £40/£50+

 

Maybe not gutted, but certainly surprised at a few from an objective standpoint (i.e., imagining I was in Neil's shoes planning the track list), such as To Die A Virgin, and Queuejumper. Also surprised he left a couple other Bang tracks off this comp. Not surprised Lucy and Frog Princess fell short. I like them, but they may not play well for a general comp to a wide audience. Personally, I'm most disappointed that Commuter Love is absent.

Got a little chuckle over the inclusion of Te Amo España. Makes me wonder about the tone of the rest of the unknown bonus tracks.

 

The Frog Princess was always something of an oddball single for me, although I love the song to bits (especially live). Not remotely sorry to see I've Been To A Marvellous Party is missing from the new compilation.

From what I remember, To Die a Virgin, Catherine the Great and Queuejumper were all lead singles (or advance tracks) for their respective albums, so their omission is a maybe a little surprising.

 

I can't get used to this idea...!

Umm, yes... (although due to a lack of record shops nearby it's usually online). If I'm not that familiar with an artist I don't want 3 or 4 CDs of fairly random stuff - I just want one as a taster and if I like it I'll get a couple of their albums.
I can't even recall the last time I listened to A Secret History...

 

Crikey, I’m glad to have this place as a little refuge of sanity today…

The DC Central Facebook group has gone totally bonkers.

 

In what way? Are there complaints?

 

Ordered the triple CD and black vinyl. Shipping to the states is OUCH! I'll be happy to have an official version of "Don't Make Me Go Outside". Hoping some of the unreleased stuff is interesting.

 

Ordered the triple CD, but saving the rest of my money for booking gig tickets - definitely going to aim for Newcastle, obviously, but may also aim for York too

 

No, not at all- quite the opposite! Seems like every single person has started their own thread about what gig they’re going to, multiple threads about the track list of the album, at least one on how hot Neil looks on the cover…

 

It’s entirely possible one of those ‘hot’ posts might be my Mrs

 

Yeah, it is a bit much... I think Facebook tends to go that way though. You can't have a proper critical discussion of anything in that format, so everything instead becomes just a flood of instant responses. And given it's a fan page, they're mostly going to be of the gushing variety. It does remind me though how some people's lives revolve around TDC far more than mine does. All I see is a very average compilation CD with some bonus tracks that I'm likely to find interesting, and a tour that is going to give all his most over-exposed songs even more exposure. It's certainly not something to get massively excited about.

 

Haha, well I mean… she’s not exactly WRONG per se

 

Haha! He looks very pretty and good on him (American Beauty was my first thought as well!), but this type of thing is why I will never join a fan Facebook group - it's his music I'm interested in
I do find it quite pleasing that the cover uses the lettering from A Short Album About Love, but am not overly keen on the cover design otherwise, although the colours are nice and vibrant and there is a snail.

 

I'm coming from exactly the same place as you drykid - especially having breathlessly taken delivery of the stunning Venus, Cupid, Folly & Time box set last year which has been a massive treat. Not sure I can manage to get excited about this compilation, even with a 3 disc version with some further rarities...oh well - probably my loss!

 

Given how many well-known TDC songs are missing, I'm slightly surprised that they included Becoming More Like Alfie. *Not* because I dislike the song or think it shouldn't be on there (the opposite, in fact) but because I kind of would've expected someone on the marketing side of things to hear a chorus that begins "Everybody knows that no means yes" and thought that maybe this isn't the best way to win over younger fans who aren't familiar with Neil's music or his sense of irony. Which in turn makes me think that the target audience for this compilation is older people who know National Express and some of the other better-known 90s songs from first-time around, but are interested in a compilation that gives them those as well as some of the stuff he's done since, which - in all probability - they're completely unfamiliar with. Rather than younger people who absolutely don't know anything about The Divine Comedy at all.

 

Actually, The Best Mistakes would have made a pretty original title for a compilation, though I'm not sure what kind of songs would qualify.

And only the most predictable (and overrated) tracks in "Your Daddy's Car" and "Tonight We Fly".

I'm not excited by the three "new" tracks mentioned, but I hope the other new and unreleased songs will be worthwhile. In any case, we'll have a new era to discuss after Office Politics.

Well, sales-wise the primary physical format is actually still CD, which was sold more than five times more than vinyl in 2019, but the industry wants you to think otherwise because they can charge so much more for vinyl. See this interesting article from SDE on the subject.

Yes, the following should have made it:
Lucy
Love What You Do
Diva Lady
To Die a Virgin

These would have been nice, too:
Queuejumper
Infernal Machines
(especially since "You'll Never Work In This Town Again" is included, see below)

Also, I can understand why the other songs were picked, but I'm baffled that "Have You Ever Been In Love" and "You'll Never Work In This Town Again" made the cut. The former is pretty generic and nondescript, the latter works so much better on Office Politics juxtaposed with the preceding "Infernal Machines".

 

Personally I think it’s a pretty good tracklist for a Best Of.

After Venus, Cupid, Folly and Time was announced I was sure a mass market compilation would accompany it (I suppose the benefit of the big delay is that they get two PR campaigns). So I had a crack at compiling what I thought it would be. I presumed it would be 1 CD and capped out at 20 tracks - so Neil has sneaked an extra 4 in by opting for the double disc. But, digging out my list from deep in my phone's Notes, I got 14 right. The other tracks I chose and am surprised are not here were Lucy, The Summerhouse, The Frog Princess and I Like. I’d also gone for I’m All You Need and Funny Peculiar, which I thought were sufficiently commercial deep cuts to justify inclusion (in a way Neil’s chosen Charmed Life and Have You Ever Been In Love to fill a similar two roles).

I guess my tastes are more commercial than some of you! Well, as commercial as the tastes of a Hannon-Fan(non) will ever be…

 

I was down on this at first glance - of my top 30 or so rated tracks from the Timewatching thread, only 9 are here; the track listing looked weird (Charmed Life first? One Promenade song?), vinyl-first is annoying, enticing long-term fans with bonus tracks is gross etc. But - first of all, long-term fans have been very well served by the box set and by the Barbican gigs, and a full eleven 'new and unreleased' tracks is much better than the one or two we might have expected - if the new tracks alone had been released as a 'box set bonus bonus disc' for £13 I wouldn't hesitate.

And I agree there is a gap in the market. Neil should have a best of to sell in Tesco next to Will Young and George Michael - there are surely a decent number of fans there who are never going to pick up a reissue of Fin or Bang. In that light, the 'hotness' is interesting - the first time we've had a conventionally attractive cover shot since Casanova, and that was a joke. Even Secret History is aloof, behind sunglasses. This photo is qualitatively different to any other cover - the suit is not the suit from the 90s albums. (Did the desire to tour come first, requiring new product? Or is he trying to broaden his audience with the compilation, to be promoted by the tour?)

So I got over my grumbling and listened to the track order a few times today, treating it as four vinyl sides as apparently intended - and it really works quite well. Lots of lovely segues by key or rhythm or mood, a very smooth, enjoyable listen - nothing to trouble the horses, but a pleasure to do the dishes to. Charmed Life first is interesting - like a fairground overture, welcoming us into Neil's Disneyworld and inviting us to look back on his life; it puts the exuberant 90s tracks in their place, as moments of youthful passion, while giving breathing space to the more mature tracks. There are a few interesting shifts from widescreen to intimate - National Express to Norman and Norma getting off the bus; At The Indie Disco followed by the DJ playing Bad Ambassador; Generation Sex into How Can You Leave Me On My Own?. And the last side is superb; Certainty of Chance into Sunrise is great, but even better is the hope of Sunrise, 23 years later, being tempered by the more tentative, grounded ruminations of the first verse of To The Rescue.

I would be interested to know what Neil's real favourite 24 songs were, but he's clearly put a lot of thought into how to present these - it's a lot more than a random ordering of Radio 2 playlist songs, and what looks weird on paper actually sounds really good. Who knew, Neil knows what he's doing!

 

I admire the dedication of road-testing the running order before it's even released Probably because it would take me several hours just to figure out how to even put together an alternative tracklisting like that; it's a struggle for me just to get the albums I've ripped from CD to show up on my phone with the right artwork and not say "unknown artist" for no obvious reason I can think of. Never mind trying to make a new album from tracks taken from existing ones *sigh*

 

Yeah, that was interesting thanks. It seems some of the articles I've read recently (which admittedly I'm guilty of skimming through without questioning the headlines too much) aren't really giving the full picture. Personally I buy a mix of both vinyl and CDs, but if I'm buying something that I'm likely to listen to repeatedly and / or pick out specific tracks then I'd definitely go for the CD every time.