Introduction

TELLIN' STORIES (1997)
1) With No Shoes; 2) North Country Boy; 3) Tellin' Stories; 4) One To Another; 5) You're A Big Girl Now; 6) How Can You Leave Us; 7) Area 51; 8) How High; 9) Only Teethin'; 10) Get On It; 11) Title Fight; 12) Two Of Us; 13) Rob's Theme.
Rob Collins died in the middle of the recording sessions for this album — apparently, while drunk driving without a seatbelt, making him an honorable member of the «27 Club Latecomers» (he was 33, actually) along with Keith Moon and all those other crazy rebels who were given a mercyful deferment by Fate. This may have had something to do with Tellin' Stories going to #1 in the UK, but then the previous album also went to #1 — then again, Rob's wild antics, including involvement in armed robbery etc., may have contributed to that earlier just as well. Because, honestly speaking, the mid-Nineties were too full of excellent music to let somebody as deri­vative and clearly second-rate as The Charlatans rightfully enjoy major fame.
By now, the band has completed the transition to standard Britpop market, although echoes of the «baggy» sound still resonate throughout the record, and the rhythm section seems so addicted to funky swing that playing in 4/4 is to them what playing a right-handed guitar is to a left-handed person. But now they have themselves a new gimmick: they see themselves as some sort of post-modern heirs to classic pop/rock legacy, and the main point of nearly every one of their songs is to insert one or more musical and lyrical references to one or more of their idols. The little nibs that they took on Lennon and Dylan in the previous two records were judged tasty, and Tellin' Stories goes on an open rampage — it is as if the band has really discovered its purpose, and found a surefire way to establish its own «context-based» identity that would at least clearly sepa­rate them from Blur, Oasis, and the rest.
I will not even begin to pretend to having caught all these little bits — it's a great way to viciously and mercilessly kill your time — but there is no way a review of the album cannot center around some of them. Dylan is probably the most frequent reference point, although the references are not too trivial: the song titles ʽNorth Country Boyʼ and ʽYou're A Big Girl Nowʼ are the first ones to spring to attention, but melodically they are not Dylanish, or, at least, not Dylanish in the way you'd expect them to — ʽNorth Country Boyʼ is a loud, guitar-and-organ-blazing pop-rocker, and ʽYou're A Big Girl Nowʼ, though it is acoustic, sounds more like Donovan than Dylan. On the other hand, ʽOne To Anotherʼ, even if its main riff is closer to the Allmans' ʽMidnight Riderʼ than anything Dylan ever wrote, partially borrows the vocal melody and intonations from ʽMaggie's Farmʼ — making no secret of that once Tim gets to the line about "boxing up all our records and a head full of ideas". And ʽGet On Itʼ breaks in like some unknown outtake from Highway 61 Revisited, with the same triple-barrel guitar/organ/harmonica attack and a ʽQueen Janeʼ-like start-up: "When you're low and I'm feeling awry...". But so that you could feel all the depth of the penetration (sorry), the second part of the song breaks away from the first and evolves into a satanic ʽSympathy For The Devilʼ-like jam, replete with the obligatory woo-woos and stuff. Also, "I'm going to let you pass" (ʽHow Highʼ)? Ah cripes...
More Rolling Stones references: "You keep it under your thumb" (sung to the verse melody of ʽLoving Cupʼ) and "I could wait forever, love in vain yeah" on ʽTitle Fightʼ, a song otherwise completely undistinguishable from the average Charlatans funk-pop number. The pairwise question to ʽHow Can You Leave Usʼ is "how can you bleed on us?", sung to the vocal melody of ʽRocks Offʼ. The same song, however, once again returns us to Dylan territory with a line about "catchin' dinosaurs", and "darlin'... promise me you'll be home soon"... aw crap, John Sebastian? And the psychedelic vocal harmonies feeding off each other, that's ʽShe Said She Saidʼ, right? And a song called ʽTwo Of Usʼ... and an instrumental number called ʽArea 51ʼ, that's clearly a reference to ʽHighway 51ʼ... okay, enough already.
From a global and straightforward perspective, this is all nonsense. The Charlatans aren't really making much sense with all this appropriation — most of the lyrics sound as if they just assigned a smart computer algorithm to extract random references and mix them in with some new lines, and the melodic borrowings are grafted onto basic rhythmic structures that have not progressed all that much since 1990. But from another perspective, they are really doing the most honest thing possible: after all, Britpop is such a clearly derivative genre by definition that it makes total sense to acknowledge this unequivocally, and refrain from being too serious about it. That's one thing that totally separates them from the ghosts of the past — while there's a lot of sneering and jeering going on here, you never get that «character assassination» vibe that is predominant on classic Dylan records. It might be due to their unfortunate choice of words, or to the lack of the necessary color in Tim Burgess' voice, or maybe even to that «dance vibe» that most of the songs still have because of the rhythm section's never-ending funkiness, but the reality is such that I cannot perceive Tellin' Stories on its own emotional terms — I'm not even sure there were any of those set out to begin with.
They do care about their fallen comrade, ending the album with some serene nature sounds mor­phing into an acid organ-drenched trip-hop instrumental called ʽRob's Themeʼ; but even that one somehow seems a bit post-modern in nature. And it all makes the band sound dated — twenty years later, listening to a bunch of guys churning out typically mid-Nineties send-ups of heroes from the Sixties makes you feel more like an archivist than a music lover. Although, of course, there's nothing wrong with the noble work of the archivist as such.
US AND US ONLY (1999)
1) Forever; 2) Good Witch / Bad Witch 1; 3) Impossible; 4) The Blonde Waltz; 5) A House Is Not A Home; 6) Senses; 7) My Beautiful Friend; 8) I Don't Care Where You Live; 9) The Blind Stagger; 10) Good Witch / Bad Witch 2; 11) Watching You; 12*) Your Precious Love; 13*) Sleepy Little Sunshine Boy; 14*) Good Witch / Bad Witch 3.
Well, not quite us and us only, because by this time it seems as if Tim Burgess simply cannot get a good night's sleep without a little Bob Dylan effigy under his pillow, or without the air lightly perfumed with Beatles, Stones, and even Beach Boys spirits. Honestly, this is getting a bit annoy­ing, because it is one thing to enjoy a quotation from one of your idols from time to time, and quite another one to beat this principle into the ground, as if Bob Dylan were one of those name­less «stock phrase generators» that kept supplying blues songwriters for decades. At least if Bur­gess and Co. were truly great melody writers on their own, this melding could work; the fact of the matter, however, is that many of these songs are fairly mediocre on their own, and the most easily noticeable thing about them is the reference — and this, in turn, makes it look like they are simply plundering their betters to mask their own incompetence, which would be unjust, but hey, never underestimate the effect of first impressions.
At least ʽForeverʼ, the lead-in track and the first single is relatively autonomous (even if I still can't help mentioning that the psychedelic Mellotron part on this thing sounds very close to the arrangement on the Stones' ʽ2000 Light Years From Homeʼ). The «baggiest» song on the record, it relies on a heavy funky bassline and this hazy Mellotron coating to get its acid point across rather than Burgess' convoluted love lyrics and predictably mediocre vocal delivery. The sound is interesting, but the usual problem persists: there's a little too much psychedelia and pretense here for the song to qualify as straightforward pop, yet not nearly enough for it to qualify as an attrac­tive work of art, either. It comes, pretends to make a point, goes, and while the memory of that bassline still lingers on for a bit, that is definitely not a case of «forever».
The second single was ʽMy Beautiful Friendʼ, and since it rhymes with "don't say this is the end", we will have to assume that Jim Morrison just happened to take a short stroll through Burgess' front courtyard, too. The melody sounds like it's been written by some Byrds member circa 1967, though; we also have the same foggy Mellotron, and only the funky drums, as if still controlled against their will by the Madchester vibe, indicate that we are more than twenty years removed from that date. Well, that, and also the lyrics, too ambiguous and post-whatever for their own good. It's a strange vibe, but again, feels more like an admirably lost opportunity than a predic­tably accomplished goal.
It does look like the opposite sex has finally occupied Burgess' mind more densely than ever before, what with the third single, ʽImpossibleʼ, beginning with the lines "Impossible raw women, I know you're all too hard to please" — unless he managed to accidentally confuse them with sashimi, this is a Lennon / Dylan mash-up (with a brief lyrical nod to ʽEvery Hungry Womanʼ as well) with Al Kooper-ish organs and Zimmerman-style harmonica. The words are bad, the vocals are devoid of impression (and it is particularly pathetic when Burgess begins to precisely mimic Bob's or John's intonations), but the song still gets by as a curio. As does ʽThe Blonde Waltzʼ (blonde waltz... get it... blonde!), with its references to "my darling young son"; as does ʽA House Is Not A Homeʼ, which borrows its title from a Love song, but lifts its guitar riff directly from ʽI Don't Believe You (She Acts Like We Never Have Met)ʼ — only the first half, though, because, you see, the Charlatans would never pretend they could be more than half as good as Dylan; as does ʽSenses (Angel On My Shoulder)ʼ, borrowing its harmonica parts and its opening line ("you're my sweet black angel") from another Stones song; as does ʽWatching Youʼ, a slow blues-rock vamp that still finds an opportunity to slip in the line "don't cry, put your head on my shoulder"... aw shucks, enough already.
Honestly, I would not need to concentrate on all these references so much if I knew what exactly would make its own sense about these songs. But they just do not seem to make sense on their own: the majority of the instrumental lines sound as if I'd already heard them many times (some­times, as you can see above, you can easily pinpoint the direct source), the vocal deliveries are consistently boring, and while I can understand how it may be possible to build up your own identity by scavenging off fallen heroes, I do not sense much identity here. What The Charlatans are doing is fun, and they might be doing it better than anybody else (provided anybody else was actually doing it at the time), but the entire album, like its predecessors, is ultimately devoid of meaning. The songs do not rock all that hard, the songs do not convey a sharp sense of humor or irony, and, frankly, this schtick of «let's take modern alt-rock and back-cross-breed it with ele­ments from the classic age ripped out of their context» is getting stale.
Maybe this is why my favorite piece on the album is the three-part (two-part, actually; the third part is a reprise of the second, added as a bonus) mini-suite ʽGood Witch / Bad Witchʼ, the only composition here that sounds thoroughly modern — a dark piece of trip-hop that pins an evil bassline (bad witch?) against a pretty chime part (good witch?) and distorts Burgess' vocals into what sounds like a rheumatic rant from the illegitimate son of Tom Waits and the 21st Century Schizoid Man. (Okay, this might actually make the song more intriguing than it is). At least on this track, they never rip off anybody in particular, and succeed in creating a creepy atmosphere where the different elements complement each other (angelically-diabolically) instead of neute­ring each other. Perhaps if there was more stuff like this on the album, it would not give off this uneasy impression of an empty / unfunny exercise in post-modernism.
WONDERLAND (2001)
1) You're So Pretty — We're So Pretty; 2) Judas; 3) Love Is The Key; 4) A Man Needs To Be Told; 5) I Just Can't Get Over Losing You; 6) The Bell And The Butterfly; 7) And If I Fall; 8) Wake Up; 9) Is It In You?; 10) Ballad Of The Band; 11) Right On; 12) Love To You.
On this album, the spot-that-reference game takes on a spot-that-reference-for-dummies flavor: "Searching for the very souls who already have been sold / Go on your way accordingly my son / I will privately accept you and together we will fly away..." is such an obvious gift for John Wesley Harding fans that I almost feel corny for having been refused the choice to not privately accept it. Nevertheless, at the very same time The Charlatans also take a very sharp turn away from the musical stylistics of the last two albums, and unless you pay really, really serious atten­tion to the band's lyrics, Wonderland cannot be perceived as a part of some trilogy.
The lead-in track, ʽYou're So Pretty — We're So Prettyʼ, lays the bass on so thick, funky layer after funky layer, that it immediately becomes clear — there have to be some changes made, in­cluding a return to dance-oriented stylistics, what with the last two albums inclining so much in a pure-pop direction. The guitar sound turns to nasty and sleazy, the bass groove goes through near-pornographic girations, and even the lead singer develops a mocking nasal tone, one that is, you know, good for making fun of your ego and inflating it at the same time. As usual, the only thing missing is a sort of magic touch that could really make you shiver as the song's nastiness trickles all over you in ripples and streams. But it is a welcome change of pace and style.
As the songs come and go, you slowly realize that The Charlatans have decided to become an R&B band — a modernized R&B band, but with a heavy touch of classic soul all the same. The rhythmic base of the album is neither straightforward pop-rock nor the old Madchester, but rather the electrofunk of Prince-like performers, sometimes rolled back all the way to old Atlantic and Motown records. In addition, Tim Burgess has taken a liking to singing falsetto — more than half of the songs are either delivered completely in his high range or feature significant chunks deli­vered in a Barry Gibb-inspired manner. Like almost everything that Tim Burgess does, this new vocal style is not bad, but neither is it too stunning.
Strangely, Wonderland has a somewhat more accessible feel to it because, for the first time ever, this transition to a different musical genre has resulted in the band's message feeling simple and straightforward — ʽLove Is The Keyʼ is as direct a title as you could ask for, and no matter how many ad hoc lyrical references to Dylan or anybody else there are in the lyrics, Wonderland is just that: a dance-oriented record about loving, living, and getting it on. This also makes a com­prehensive review of the album particularly challenging — on one hand, it is awful long (the complete edition consists of 15 tracks stretched over more than an hour), on the other hand, most of the songs are thematically similar and do not stretch over any vast expanse of emotional range.
As a duty check, I'll just quickly run over a few relative highlights: ʽI Just Can't Get Over Losing Youʼ — a bit of a bleeding heart touch here, as the singer rushes from moments of breakup panic to visions of lovers' bliss, making it the most emotionally complex number on the album (and quite nice to shake your butt to, as well); ʽAnd If I Fallʼ — the flute adds an irresistibly gentle touch to this little prayer to the power of love; and ʽBallad Of The Bandʼ — the darkest and sleaziest number of 'em all, a hellish picture of hi-style social life that culminates in a musical orgy, replete with wild psychedelic guitar solos and orgasmic vocal overdubs.
Overall, it's a fun listen — the style change works well, and the decision to be more emotionally straightforward and invest more effort into the expression of their feelings works even better. It does not solve the issue of mediocre lead vocals or oh-so-slowly working musical hooks, but it makes the band somewhat more empathetic and endearing; in a way, it is not until Wonderland that The Charlatans truly begin to belie their moniker, so cheers to that and a thumbs up.
LIVE IT LIKE YOU LOVE IT (2002)
1) Love Is The Key; 2) Judas; 3) Tellin' Stories; 4) A Man Needs To Be Told; 5) One To Another; 6) The Only One I Know; 7) Impossible; 8) North Country Boy; 9) You're So Pretty, We're So Pretty; 10) Weirdo; 11) How High; 12) Forever; 13) And I Fall; 14) Sproston Green.
One of the last things this world needs is a live album by The Charlatans. Actually, let us cast the net wider: few things in this world make less sense than any live album by any Britpop band — all these guys live for the studio experience, and their concerts are mainly an excuse for the fans to go wild, which is the obvious reason why they very, very rarely come out with official live recordings (even Blur, I think, had to wait until their reunion solidified their legendary status, and even then, made sure that the audio experience would be inseparable from the video image). Why The Charlatans, a band that was rarely perfect in the studio, decided to follow up the Wonder­land tour with a live album, I have no idea.
Quick question: Is this stuff any good? Quick answer: Absolutely not. If you are tepid about The Charlatans, stay away from it — life is too short. If you are rabid about The Charlatans... just go see The Charlatans in concert — life is too short. Here is everything about Live It Like You Love It that you need to know: (1) It is heavily biased towards Wonderland and post-Rob Col­lins material in general, which is understandable, given that it was recorded in Manchester on December 14, 2001, but also means that the album cannot really function as a «greatest hits live» type of package; (2) Most of the songs are played as close to the original version as possible, but the musicians sound sluggish, and the power of the original grooves is seriously reduced, also because (3) the sound quality is mediocre at best, all the guitars reduced to brown mush and the bass melodies barely noticeable. And Tim Burgess is Tim Burgess — just add some bum notes and slurred phrasings that are forgivable during an actual live show, but not really on a live re­cord. And now, think whether you really want to have this.
At one point, they give the fans a pleasant surprise and bring out none other than Johnny Marr himself to play guitar on ʽWeirdoʼ — nice, but since the guitar stays deep in the mix most of the time, you'd probably never notice in the first place, had they not pompously announced Johnny's arrival at the beginning. Another surprise is the last track of the encore, ʽSproston Greenʼ, which is stretched out to almost twice its original length with a huge jam; yet somehow, Tony Rogers just fails, I think, to generate the excitement that Rob Collins managed to produce on the original version. I don't want to say that the band plays all this stuff without any inspiration or deep invol­vement, but it does come across that way. Since I have not heard any examples of their stage performances in the Rob Collins days, there is nothing to compare with, but the conclusion re­mains the same: just stick to the studio records, as there is absolutely no way these guys can make their stuff more exciting, more energetic, more rocking, or at least more different onstage. Totally a thumbs down here, and the title of the album reeks of self-irony — if this is truly how they live it, I'm embarrassed to think of how they really love it.
UP AT THE LAKE (2004)
1) Up At The Lake; 2) Feel The Pressure; 3) As I Watch You In Disbelief; 4) Cry Yourself To Sleep; 5) Bona Fide Treasure; 6) High Up Your Tree; 7) Blue For You; 8) Loving You Is Easy; 9) Try Again Today; 10) Apples And Oranges; 11) Dead Love.
This is, I think, the first ever Charlatans album that is totally neutral — at long last, they just give up trying to impress you with their mastery of a certain style or with their cool and not-so-subtle appropriation of classic motives and tropes, and simply make an album of music, in whatever shades and under whichever sauces it happens to come to them at the moment. This results in no miracles — even humility and simplicity cannot make up for lack of genius — but it cures some of the itchy irritation I often get when listening to their quotation-infused rewrites or to the more stylistically monotonous albums in their catalog. Compared to those, Up At The Lake at least seems artistically healthy and wholesome.
They do not abandon the neo-electro-pop-funk-whatever vibe of the last album, but now it is only one integral part in a properly reassembled stylistic kaleidoscope, along with elements of music hall, classic power pop, distorted alt-rock, and acoustic folk. The title track that opens the album seems more influenced by Todd Rundgren and Cheap Trick than Prince, and sets the proper tone for much, if not most, of what is to come: steady, reliable, professional, but not tremendously exciting pop-rock. Not tremendously exciting, because once again The Charlatans hesitantly me­ander on the threshold of completing the achievement — ʽUp At The Lakeʼ is a study in love­struck desperation that only gets the bronze prize because neither the guitar work of Mark Collins nor the vocals of Tim Burgess truly convey that desperation. Cool fast tempo, nice vocal hooks, but everything stops just short of greatness — not the first and far from the last time in Charlatan history, might I add.
They even turn to a form of pub rock on ʽAs I Watch You In Disbeliefʼ, where Burgess concocts a character-asassinating story with a Dylanesque twist (but, fortunately, no more direct lifts from Dylan lyrics) and narrates it in strings of lengthy verses to the grind of a thick-heavy pop riff; and here, too, you feel the whole thing could be more fun if... if... well, either if it had been written and recorded in 1965, or if they'd handed it over to Cheap Trick. Preferably in 1977. Still, even in this version it is fun, and I would rather have the Charlatans doing power pop than sentimen­tal power balladry: ʽCry Yourself To Sleepʼ is slow, dreary mope balladry in alt-rock format that should probably be featured on Coldplay rather than Charlatans albums.
The toned-down funky vibe still resurges on ʽFeel The Pressureʼ, the album's most openly moder­nistic number and, ironically, also the one where they can't help slipping in another lyrical refe­rence: "Am I old enough, am I young enough, am I tough enough... to feel the pressure?" swiftly brings to mind the Stones' ʽBeast Of Burdenʼ, especially coupled with the same overall message of getting out of your other's suffocating grip. At the end of the day, the song's danceable chorus might be the single most memorable moment on the album — meaning that, no matter how much they get out of their skin to recreate the dashing pop vibes of the Sixties and Seventies, they are still, by their very nature, a dance-oriented Madchester-bred outfit, and that the falsetto-laced R&B spirit of Wonderland was no fluke, but should, perhaps, have been nurtured and developed to a far higher degree on Up At The Lake.
Although the record is surprisingly short for a band that liked to take its time in the Nineties, the last bunch of songs just passes me by without a trace — way too formulaic and even, I'd say, sim­plistic, so that I actually find myself missing their traditional streams of borrowing (at least those gave some food for the starving reviewer). All of it is listenable, though, and I guess that hardened fans of the band will not be disappointed in the end; but ultimately, there is simply nothing to write about.