Travis - The Man Who

Too bad it’s not been reissued on vinyl, though the cassette dub I digitized soulds pretty good.

“Why Does It Always Rain On Me” always sounded to me like the one great Kinks song not written by either Ray or Dave Davies.

 

Great band, it saddens me Coldplay is more popular. Fran Healy’s solo disc is worth hearing also.

 

Yep! What a great album from a criminally underrated band in the USA.

After The Man Who they kept winning awards and playing for big crowds in the UK and Europe.

In fact, in a NME reader's poll, Travis was named the #2 in the greatest Scottish bands of all time, only behind Belle & Sebastian who took the #1 spot.

Paul McCartney is a big fan of Fran Healy's songwriting.

I would say that 2007's The Boy With No Name and 2013's Where You Stand is probably better than The Man Who, which probably runs equal with The Invisible Band (2001) & 12 Memories (2003).

This is all to say that the only semi-"bad" album of theirs in Ode to J. Smith (2008), but that one is also an album where they went into the studio with no songs, writing and recording on the spot.

Even their last one, Everything At Once (2016), is probably on par with 1997's Good Feeling.

 

It was Coldplay who said they owe everything to Travis.

Well, regardless, Travis is not hurting for money. They still sell albums.

 

as Jeffrey mentioned above, this is a great album too if your diggin' 'Travis',
Fran's solo album:

another great listen if your a hardcore fan, is this one if you can find a copy.
it's enjoyable and has funny dialogue between tracks:

 

I love Travis - caught them in a small club in Redondo Beach CA in 1996. My interest in Travis runs deep as my Glaswegian family all went to the same school as Fran... that being said the boys peaked with The Man Who in my opinion and it’s been a downhill slide ever since. Flowers in the window is a stellar tune and there are a few choice cuts off of each album but they haven’t recorded a solid collection of songs in nearly 20 years and I’m not sure why that is

 

I bought this CD at a time in college when I had almost no disposable income. I liked the song “Why Does It Always Rain On Me?” pretty well and I had a handful of friends whose opinion I trusted tell me it was great. The UK magazines like NME were hyping it too. I was super into Britpop a few years prior so I used those magazines to stay abreast of new bands.

I thought this album was okay at first but every listen I liked it less. It felt kind of generic to me. It was like listening to CCM rock bands. I recognized elements I appreciated but it didn’t resonate. Other than “...Rain...” and “Turn” this album left me as cold as the cover.

During the period between 1999-2001 I was recommended this, The Strokes “Is This It?”, White Stripes “White Blood Cells”, The Hives “Veni Vidi Vicious” and Coldplay’s “Parachutes”. I didn’t like any of these albums and stopped taking advice from those friends (and the likes of NME and Melody Maker).

Having said that, in retrospect I think my views were being tainted by a gradual change in taste.

 

as everyone has mentioned, the singles that supported the albums were great with
surprises too. I pretty well have most of them now, but it took years to hunt them down.
a long of the singles also had 2 versions of each single, but including a couple of different songs
to it's counterpart. as a collector, it's a challenge, because different country releases mixed
up the track arrangements again for their own releases.

 

Perception is a beautiful thing. We each have our own. These days, if I want to hear Travis, the last albums I reach for are Good Feeling, The Man Who and Ode to J.Smith.

Personally, I think they are all more solid than Belle & Sebastian.

 

I rank their albums as follows:
1. The Man Who
2. The Invisible Band
3. The Boy With No Name
4. 12 Memories
5. Good Feeling
6. Everything At Once
7. Where You Stand
8. Ode To J. Smith

 

My ranking of their albums:

1. The Man Who - hard to escape, singles are great, album tracks are great
2. Where You Stand - a wonderful late career comeback
3. The Invisible Band - still riding high from "The Man Who". I get goosebumps from the strings during the middle 8 of "Indefinitely".
4. 12 Memories - their first comeback after drummer's near fatal accident. There's perhaps nothing awesome on here, but everything is still good to great.
5. Everything at Once - continues the high quality stuff from "Where You Stand"
6. The Boy With No Name - starts off great but tapers off badly towards the end - but then the final, hidden track "Sailing Away" elevates it again.
7. Good Feeling - the best tracks are the ones towards the end where they begin to sound like the band from "The Man Who" ("I Love You Anyways", "Falling Down", "More than Us"). I don't particularly think they rock very convincingly.
8. Ode to J. Smith - some of the tracks also try to rawk here, which doesn't work. Quite a spotty album, to be honest.

And as many have said, they have tons of good B-sides and bonus tracks. As time went on, I think they benefited from having Dougie Payne joining in with some songwriting.

 

When I bought the single Why Does It Always Rain I remember asking the guy in the record shop what the rest of their stuff was like he said "WDIAROM is good but the rest is sh*te", I'm glad I ignored him. Just bought tickets to go and see them this summer, haven't seen them live before so looking forward to this one.

My kid really liked the Baby One More Time cover. Had a spare copy of Invisible Man so I let her have it, she might play it.

 

Maybe not hurting but still nowhere near Coldplay level which btw I can’t stand.

 

I liked this album when it came out. Driftwood, Turn, Writing To Reach You, Why Does It Always Rain On Me, they were all good songs. I haven't listened to it in about 15 years, I should give it another listen.

 

I think they could and should have sold a lot more

 

Travis are a band who had some promise, but turned incredibly boring and forgettable quite quickly. Most of their albums just bleed into one another, but I found it funny that someone earlier up the thread criticised the one album that veered off their path of bordom - Ode To J Smith. Not an amazing album in itself, but far more interesting that any of their other post-Man Who albums. Francis Healy isn't some great lost songwriter - more, he lost whatever he had after a couple of albums. They're musically pedestrian too. I can thinks of tens of bands from that time period who deserved greater commercial success. I don't recognise the Coldplay quote about Travis, but they've said similar things about Embrace.... and Coldplay's debut album pisses over anything Travis produced.

 

Now I know how Syd Barrett fans must feel when I take an unnecessary dig at him.

I will never disparage Syd Barrett again.

 

I had a couple listens to Good Feeling the other day, and it was far better than I remembered it. Well, maybe not far better, but better. I was going to get rid of it, but think I'll hold on to that cd for now.

 

I bought 'invisible band' on vinyl as soon as it came out, and glad to say now.
Haven't played it in years, but it was a great quality press.
I was looking to see if it had been re-released, but apparently not.
Gosh! look at the prices eBay is commanding now! Crazy!

 

I always kind of preferred it to The Man Who. Had more of an edge to it, even if the lyrics might not have been as good. More Than Us aside.

I think Travis and Coldplay have a lot in common. Coldplay became far bigger of course however 2 great live bands who’s albums declined rapidly over the years apart from the odd single. Both became very bland in terms of new material

 

I still enjoy the new albums as they come out, I think '12 memories' is probably the most
disjointed of them all, just kind of a distant album, and seems 'tired' by the performances.
I still like some of it just the same, but I thought it was a notch down for Travis.

 

Found some of my Travis collection from back in the day, the rest of the singles are in a storage box somewhere or other. I have everything up until 12 memories.

 

hell yeah! those are all familiar to me...if I had a working camera I'd post my bunch.
I see you got the 2 versions of Turn there. Good stuff!

 

I always preferred Invisible Band to this album, but they are like two sides of a coin and both are excellent. I saw them on a later tour and they were a lot of fun live, but I lost track after the album that has Selfish Jean.

 

Coldplay homogenized their sound and became a machine of recycled rhythms and hooks. To me Travis always maintained that melancholy that made both bands' early work great, and the loss of which made Coldplay's later work just boring.