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Travis -- Travis (2007) (Neil CDs) (Harrison Reviews 2015 #69)

Prior to listening to this album, I'm not sure I'd ever heard a Travis song, but I did have an opinion of them. Opinion is probably the wrong word. It was more like an impression, and of course an entirely unfair one given my likely total lack of awareness of their work. There's a particular brand of indie musician that thrives on atmospheric mid-tempo guitar pop, and a lot of those who gain acclaim for that don't really seem to earn it. And it bothers me because, fundamentally, what they seem to be trying to do is what I like: intelligent, well-crafted pop/rock. But a lot of the bands that remain indie do so not because they're too artistic and/or misunderstood, as their followers might suggest, but rather because they lack the craft and melodicism to take their songs to the next level. (Of course that's not to say that bands that do break through necessarily have that. Most don't either way.) And this was the impression of Travis I had based on whatever passing knowledge I've absorbed over the last however many years. Completely unfair. The truth of the matter is that Travis isn't even an indie band. I didn't know this until the research that followed my listen, but it turns out that Travis has been a legitimately commercially successful band in the U.K., scoring fourteen top forty hits in the span of just over a decade. In the U.S. they never broke through at all, only twice reaching (and just barely) the top forty on the alternative charts exclusively, but clearly globally they're more mainstream than I'd imagined. So to sum up, I prejudged Travis without having any actual idea of who they were and what they'd done. And yet--somehow--I think I judged them right. Travis, released in 2007, is another of those Mail on Sunday compilations, pulling five tracks from a live album and the rest from several Travis albums. The organization is a bit random but the focus is largely, though not entirely, on the singles, so as Mail on Sunday compilations go it's reasonably sensible. But sensible only takes you so far. The album opens live with "Why Does It Always Rain On Me?," a laid-back 6/8 track that represents the band's first top ten hit. And it's not terrible by any stretch, played with competence and delivered well in singer/songwriter Fran Healey's imperfect, but pretty enough voice. The problem is that it doesn't really go anywhere, repeating its predictable progression through to the end. The live version includes a bit of singalong, and complex singalong at that--more offbeat lyrics than an audience is usually expected to remember--and maybe that speaks to the devotion of the fanbase, but fundamentally the problem is that this is an entirely unremarkable piece of work. This is pretty much how things go through the early tracks. The second track, the studio version of "Re-Offender" (another U.K. top ten single), is a bit hookier, but it falls into exactly the same trap I anticipated: predictable, indistinct, atmospheric acoustic guitar-driven pop. I've read that Travis is considered a forerunner for bands like Coldplay, and I can absolutely hear that. "Re-Offender" is exactly that kind of dull. And "Sing," another live track, is very similar. I've wondered recently if it's better to be bad or to be boring. Travis aren't bad, but in the first three tracks of this self-titled compilation, they're definitely boring. Healey is the mastermind here, co-writing with a bandmate only once (lead guitarist Andy Dunlop on "3 Times and You Lose"), so it's really his work I find myself criticizing. Even setting the music aside, Healey doesn't have much to offer as a lyricist--he avoids cliches, but doesn't do much more. But Healey is not without some ability, and the truth is that, once those first three tracks are out of the way, things turn around for this compilation--not entirely by any stretch, but enough to move things from unpleasant to uneven. "All I Want to Do is Rock," for example, is a reasonably enjoyable mid-tempo electric guitar number, featuring a genuinely unexpected and engaging progression at the end of its verses. "Somewhere Else" has a compelling chorus to save its predictable verses, and the introduction of bells elevates the material. I'd suggest that the best song here, though, is "My Eyes," which was the new single at the time of this release. Clearly a song about Healey discovering that he's going to be a father, "My Eyes" utilizes some interesting strings and a solid pop construction on its way to some genuinely pretty sounds. The chorus, in fact, is very nearly lovely, which suggests to me that Healey, while not a stellar songwriter to begin with, improved over time. But I'd be remiss not to single out "Slide Show" also--not a single at all, and released on 1999 album The Man Who. The verses aren't great, but the chorus definitely has its moments, and the strings make it work. It's all relative, though. The good songs on this album stand out by virtue of not being as dull as most of these tracks are. I understand why Travis has some fans, but I'm not sure how generic tracks like "Turn" and "Side" made the mark they did. "Side" has its moments too, its hook a lot more in the rhythm than the melody, but it still all has the air of a decidedly lesser version of the kind of music I like. The arrangements don't help either--Travis is sterile and modern in the way of much current production, and I find myself wondering if their sound played a role in influencing that style. It's not dissimilar in that way from, say, U2's Songs of Innocence (2014), which also bored the hell out of me. I was wrong to prejudge Travis, but now that I know who they really are I can't say I see them any differently. There's not a lot more to say. I'm glad now to be properly informed, but I can't really see myself ever picking up a Travis album, and I can't really recommend anyone picking up this one. "My Eyes":

#travis #fran healey #my eyes #music review

Tom Chaplin's Voice

"I watched the whole Keane show tonight. I hadn’t seen them play for some time. They were great. The thing which blew me away the most was Toms singing. He’s “the voice”. He can travel to places in full throat most of us can only dream of in falsetto. It’s quite a display. I remembered when we played together in 2003 and he was late for soundcheck, i tried to fill in. I thought “I can do that” so i jumped on stage while the band were running through an instrumental of “Everybody’s Changing” and grabbed the mic only to quickly realise i’d stepped off the deep end and was thrashing for my life in a cruel sea of flatness like some drunk kareoke singer who chose the wrong tune. It was very funny especially as Tom had walked into the venue in the middle of this and was observing this display from the shadows. It all came back to me tonight. That voice. Those songs."

- Excerpt from Fran Healey.com newsletter 22/07/10

Lovely words from a great artist!

#Fran Healey #tom chaplin #travis #keane