I was going through an old c.d. book from high school, and was looking at how my music taste had changed so much in 8 years time, gosh that makes me feel old! When I happened to come upon a couple Travis c.d.’s and I thought to myself, I think it is time to take a listen and make sure I am no longer interested in this band. What happened when I put on the first album was pure surprise, not only was I still interested in the band, but I quickly got on the internet to see if they had any new albums come out.Travis is a Scottish band from Glasgow, comprised of Fran Healy (lead vocals, guitar, piano, banjo), Dougie Payne (bass guitar, backing vocals), Andy Dunlop (lead guitar, banjo, keyboards, backing vocals) and Neil Primrose (drums, percussion).As quoted from Wikipedia. If you go to Wikipedia you will actually find out that they were not always known as Travis, and that in the beginning they actually had a female singer. The first song I ever heard of theirs was, “Why does it always rain on me” which I had heard on the radio at some point and really liked it, I then went out and bought the album and was not disappointed. When you are listening to Travis, keep in mind that they were out before the likes of Coldplay, or Keane. In this first album I can definately see where wither of those bands could have been influenced by them.
In their next album, “The Invisible Band” you may see that it is a good follow up to their previous album. However, in the next album, “12 Memories” quite a few things happened in between these two albums. The lead singers grandfather, whom he was very close to passed away, and Neil Primrose (the drummer), broke his back and was almost killed from diving into a shallow pool. The lead singer during this time was going through a depression, and thus named the album for the 12 stages to get him to his depressed state. This album is one of my favorites just because of the meaning behind it, and the fact that they actually take a different turn as a band.
The follow up to this album, “The boy with no name,” is almost a step back to the familiar Travis sound. Is this a good thing or a bad thing in your opinion? Then to finish up this artist, their most recent album, “Ode to J. Smith,” which to me is stepping back to the “12 memories” type of sound. This album was in the December 2008 issue of Q Magazine ( a U.K. music magazine), and appeared at number 28 on a list of the Readers' Best Albums Of 2008.
The main reason I wanted to do Travis this week is because I thought this was a band that everyone could find some enjoyment out of. I really just want to know what everyone thinks about them, and what your favorite tracks and/or album was and why. On the other hand, if you find that you do not like them just explain your reason why.
Travis is also known for doing a number of cover songs, I am going to post a couple at the bottom of the page, one in particular just for Laura, and I am sure she will know which one I am talking about.
Album Order:
1) The Man Who
2) The Invisible Band
3) 12 Memories
4) The Boy With No Name
5) Ode to J. Smith
If anyone is interested in my favorite songs here are a few…
- The Man Who- Writing to Reach You, Why does it always rain on me
- The Invisible Band- Side, Follow the Light
- 12 Memories- Walking Down the Hill, Beautiful Occupation, Happy to Hang Around
- The Boy With no Name- 3 times and you lose, Big Chair, My Eyes, Colder
- Ode to J. Smith- Chinese Blues, J. Smith, Quite Free
I enjoyed “The Man Who.” What first struck me about the album was that it was pretty easy listening. It’s definitely something I could have playing at work without distracting me or anyone else in the office. I like the singer’s voice, and Travis seems like I band I could really grow to like with some more time. I slightly remember hearing “Why Does It Always Rain On Me” before, so that one stood out to me on the album. The whole thing sounds to me like a lighter version of a Remy Zero album. (Ever heard “Save Me” from the Smallville soundtrack?) Maybe not as weird. Wikipedia fact I found interesting: This album was co-dedicated to director Stanley Kubrick. Brian and David love Stanley Kubrick ;) I’d like to read why if anyone knows or can find it.
ReplyDeleteThis is the first artist we've done that I have had zero exposure to, I've heard of these guys but can't recall a single song I've heard from them. "The Man Who" gives a very melancholy vibe, seeing that these guys are from Scottland I can imagine it's overcast and rainy frequently, much like here in Cincy today. I can immediately draw comparisons to Keane with the way Fran sings, Writing to Reach You could have easily been on an Oasis album. Why Does it Always Rain On Me has an alt-country feel that I would have enjoyed more with a steel guitar in the mix. I can't immediately pick out something that distinguishes them but I have 4 more albums to figure it out.
ReplyDeleteI chuckled listening to Beautiful off "Invisible Band" as Fran uses the word cuticle and it's not in reference to the skin on your fingernail. Apparently I have heard these guys before as Slide is very familiar, maybe I played it on the River or maybe in Beth's car. Their music is not bad, but I don't here them taking many chances with their sound. Sometimes I feel Fran would be better suited with just himself and an acoustic guitar. Flowers in The Window is a more upbeat track that is welcome amidst songs of loss such as The Cage. I feel Travis is quite aware of their sound as Invisible Band is very fitting name, seeing that their music could easily blend in with other contemporaries like Coldplay or even The Verve.
I'm going to stop here and continue with "12 Memories" in the next post.
Whaddya know, I liked “The Invisible Band” as well. I wouldn’t necessarily say I liked it more, but the album, I think, shows off more of the singer’s vocal chops (check me out, I’m Paula Abdul from her “American Idol” days). And after all, that’s mostly what attracts me to this band. I was surprised to see “Flowers in the Window,” which I really like, on the track list, which got me pumped for my listening experience. The song was featured in the movie “Saved,” which is forever on Comedy Central, and it’s stuck with me since. Apparently the single included a cover version of George Harrison’s “Here Comes the Sun,” which I might be interested in hearing. Speaking of the Beatles, I’m seeing a lot here that points to the guys being huge, huge Beatles fans. I liked their version of my favorite Beatles song, “You’ve Got to Hide Your Love Away” – not as much as the original but that would be asking a lot. I appreciate that they didn’t stray too much from the original song’s structure, otherwise I probably wouldn’t have felt the same way. Another interesting thing I read – the band’s original name was “Glass Onion,” which of course is the name of a Beatles song. Weird.
ReplyDeleteWith “Quicksand,” I could already tell Travis’s sound on “12 Memories” had taken a turn away from so much easy listening Britpop toward being more rock-oriented, which was a good thing for me. I really enjoyed the song “How Many Hearts” because of the keyboard/piano. Other songs didn’t stand out to me in particular but I think I could get into this album a little more than the previous two. My favorite track on this album was “Walking Down the Hill,” for its moodiness, although that seemed to be a bit of a theme on “12 Memories.”
ReplyDeleteOn “The Boy With No Name” – the song “One, Two, Three Times You Lose” made me think of “Once, Twice, Three Times a Lady,” and then it got stuck in my head for about an hour. For real though, I liked this album as well. Definitely more than the first two, probably more than the second, though the two had numerous similarities. Here, Travis is starting to sound a little more like Coldplay to me, in a good way.
ReplyDeleteTravis was one of the first in a long line of late '90s/early 2000's Britpop bands that included the likes of Coldplay, Doves, Elbow and Keane, among others. These bands were largely influenced by Radiohead's album "The Bends", and the mostly guitar driven, moody style that the album contained. Fran Healy definitely sounds as if he was well-versed in the Thom Yorke/Jeff Buckley school of melodramatic singing, as well. For me, three of the five albums contained a song or two that I enjoyed and really stood out, but for the most part I thought the rest of the music on those albums was fairly bland.
ReplyDeleteThe first album (the band's second), "The Man Who" was one of the three albums that, for me, only had a couple of standout tracks. The first two tracks, actually, were my two favorite of the entire album. Like Justin said, 'Writing to Reach You' does sound as if it could have possibly been written by Oasis, and I think Fran's voice sounds better on these two songs (with 'The Fear' being the other) than on just about any others. The rest of the album just sounds like pretty standard-fare gloomy Britpop though to me, as the band just doesn't really experiment with their sound at all.
The title 'The Invisible Band' I also think was fairly fitting for the band, but I think it's mostly because to this point, I don't think that Travis was doing anything at all to make themselves really noticeable in the music world. Everything that they had released to this point was pretty generic, and listening to it I just thought that there was some potential there, but I was just waiting for them to become a lot more adventurous than what they'd been so far. Honestly, after having listened to "The Invisible Band" twice, the only thing that has stood out to me has been the orchestration on 'The Humpty Dumpty Song', and that's really only in the song for a short time during the chorus and at the end of the song. The rest of the music is nice, and I'd call it pretty, but it just sort of slides by....I'd consider it mostly just decent background music.
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ReplyDeleteFirst off, I've noticed that the song labeled 'Quicksand', the first track on "12 Memories" is not correct on Grooveshark....the song they have is something different. With that out of the way, I'll just say that this album was by FAR FAR my favorite of the five. The things that I'd been hoping they'd change in their sound, while not entirely going all the way with what they could have done, went a long way towards making them something fairly unique in the world of music. It seems that with the depression that Fran was going through, he was not only gloomy as was per usual with Travis' music, but he was also a little pissed off, and this led to the writing off some darker songs that I think suits the band very well. In my opinion, every single song on this album was better than any other song on any other album that the band has released. The second half of the album, especially, is outstanding. Starting with the song 'Somewhere Else', up through the final track on the album 'Walking Down the Hill' the band really shines. I can hear strong Radiohead influences on a few of these songs, whether it's the guitar stabs on 'Somewhere Else', the dourness that is the entirety of 'Happy to Hang Around' as well as it's loud guitar section near the end, or the glitchy electronic drumbeat that propels 'Walking Down the Hill'. This is all good stuff, and while not being entirely perfect, I still feel as if this is one of the more underrated and overlooked albums of the decade
ReplyDeleteAfter enjoying "12 Memories" as much as I did, it was really disappointing to listen to "The Boy With No Name." While I'm happy that it seems as if Fran had gotten over his depression by this point, it seemed to have taken with it his ability to write a great song. Due to this disappointment, this is probably my least favorite album of the bunch, as I was anticipating it being a step forward from what had preceded it. Instead, it just seems to be a retread of ideas that the band had tried out on their first two albums, which I didn't overly enjoy the first time around. On this album, the song 'Big Chair' was the only one that seemed to be a true follow-up to what they had just accomplished, and as such is the only song I really like.....and I do quite enjoy this song, I just wish the rest had gone along with the same vibe.
ReplyDelete"Ode to J. Smith" was the other of the albums that I really did enjoy, obviously. Once again, Fran seemed to be a little angry, only this time instead of creating really dour, moody music like on "12 Memories", this anger translated into more aggressive, harder rocking music. The album seems to have been produced with more of an edge, and Fran Healy sings some of the lyrics with what seems like a bit of a snarl at times. I really like this side of the band. 'Chinese Blues' is a great way to start the album off, and it sounds like nothing else that the band had written prior to it. 'J. Smith' is my favorite track on the album (probably due to it's sounding the most like a Radiohead song), and the guitar lines on the song are great, and at times really in your face. I really like this harder version of the band, and I'm interested to see if this is just a phase or if it's something that continue onto the band's future work.
In all, this was an up-and-down week for me, as a few of the albums were on the weaker side, but "12 Memories" and "Ode to J. Smith" seemed to hit the spot very nicely. In closing, I also think it's interesting to note how the location of a band's hometown can have such a profound effect on the music that the band creates. Being from Scotland, which is often thought of as being mostly gloomy and rainy, Travis create music which fits the weather very well. For that reason, Beth picked a very good week for us to listen to this band, as the weather here (and in Cincinnati I assume) has been very Scottish.
Peace the Fuck Out, did he just say shit? This band is edgy as hell, just kidding. On "12 Memories" Travis is starting to grow on me. Beautiful Occupation has a Strokes feel with the drumming and Re-Offender had playback value with a Thom Yorke-esque vocal via The Bends. The theme of broken hearts is starting to wear a little thin with me, I skipped over How Many Hearts after the first few stanzas. Happy Hang Around is my favorite track on the album, as they enjoy a late 90's alt-rock guitar break down.
ReplyDelete"The Boy With No Name" came out 7 years after "The Man Who" but I feel most of these songs could have came off of any previous album. Fellow brit-poppers Keane had the same problem after their first couple of albums which they aleviated with a synth/80's sound. The only track that stood out was New Amsterdam, which has Fran singing about artist Jean Michel Basquiat, Robert Zimmerman(a.k.a. Bob Dylan), and Bob DeNiro's love of New York over sparse instrumentation.
"Ode to J Smith" is their most experimental album; they step away from their woozy formula momentarily on Something Anything and it feels like everyone is enjoying playing their instruments. Last Words is the band exitting out of a haze after the dreary Broken Mirror, the crunchy electric guitar on Last Words was a welcome addition. This album was my favorite as it took the steps the band should have taken long ago, but better late than never. Although it's easy to mistake them for Snow Patrol or Keane they're not bad, they just need to keep experimenting.
The reason I love music is the way that it makes me feel when listening to it. The tracks that I enjoy most are those that trigger some form of emotion. I have used that word in almost all of my write-ups so far and that is because it is the main thing I am looking for. While listening to a song, I love it when I can make that connection that either makes me laugh, cry, smile, get pumped up for the task at hand or reminds me of something in my past. At the very least, I can appreciate lyrics that are either sarcastic or create a clever analogy. With Travis, there seem to be two types of tracks across all 5 of their albums; either happy go lucky sunshine on my shoulders, or depressed as hell. Perhaps I am not a very cheerful person, but I have absolutely no connection with the happy go lucky tracks. I can certainly see why Beth loves them and why others may, but for me, it is just a talented group going through the motions. I am not currently depressed, but I have had several down times throughout my life that were difficult to get through. The downer songs have something in them that I can relate to and apply to those past situations and they spark the emotions both during those tough times and those that occurred during the healing process. To me this is when Travis is as their best.
ReplyDeleteOn the first album, The Man Who, my favorite track is “Why does it always Rain on Me.” In particular, I really like the lyric “I can’t stand by myself, I’m being held up by invisible men.” With this I can picture those down times and remember wondering, how the hell am I still getting through the day? There is just that something that keeps you going and Travis’ interpretation is invisible men. From here, I interpret their album title The Invisible Band to say that they help lonely people get through their day and this is a good example of the clever analogies that I mentioned before. The other track I enjoy on this album is ‘Writing to Reach You.”
With the exception of the title, The Invisible Band really didn’t do too much for me. Most of the tracks were the happy go lucky songs, however I did really like ‘Side.’ This group is just really strange for me because I either really like a song, or really dislike it. On a scale of 1-10, there are no songs that I would rank between 3 and 8.
ReplyDelete12 memories was by far the best album. This one clearly had a lot of meaning to the Fran Healey and you could easily sense that through the tracks. I could place this album on repeat all day long and do not feel that there is a low moment. My favorite track is Happy to Hang Around.
After listening to The Boy with No Name, I was very disappointed. I thought that perhaps 12 memories would take them in a new direction. Instead it was right back to the same material of their first two albums. This did have my favorite Travis song in Eyes Wide Open, but my least favorite track in Battleships. I also enjoyed Colder along with 3 Times and you lose.
Ode to J Smith was my second favorite album of theirs. The material isn’t drastically different from The Boy with no name, but it does seem to have better production and the tempo has sped up. Once again, I lack that connection with a lot of these tracks. My favorite track on this was Long Way Down.
Overall, I could easily make a 16-track compilation of their songs that I would absolutely love, however I do not feel that that album would be a good representation of their portfolio. They have a few high points with me, but unfortunately a lot more low points. I can say that I like them more than Coldplay (spoiler alert for the week of April 3rd), but not as much as Keane. I can definitely hear the influences that they have had on both of those groups however. This was a nice choice and I have found several tracks that I really like.
Also on an unrelated note, we went to two Half Price Books stores today and they had all of the Allman Brothers albums. Laura, we may need to take you there if you are interested in owning them. It is pretty cool to notice these albums that I have just glazed over for the last 3 years in those bins and now recognize them.
Also, I wrote this before reading everyone’s comments and I appear to be repeating a lot of David’s opinions. I was not just copying his sentences, I swear.
Alright, last album. I had to let my computer recharge...
ReplyDeleteI did not like Ode to J Smith very much at all. Seems fitting, since everyone else says it's their second favorite album. Upon further review, it was "12 Memories" that I liked the best, not the one that came after, although I did like that one as well even though no one else did.
In summary, I kind of agree with what Thomas said about the band being very happy go lucky or super depressed and not a lot in between. Although that would be a criticism from someone else, it's not necessarily one coming from me. My FAVORITE music, like Thomas, is the stuff that overwhelms me with emotion - but on a regular basis, something David has given me crap about before, I like to listen to music that's pretty but that doesn't require a lot of thinking or feeling. Thus why I listen to Z107.7 when I'm not into a particular band. I'm not trying to say Travis is stupid or mindless like most of that stuff, but when I talked about easy listening (especially in those first two album reviews) I mean it's something I can enjoy on the surface without having to go too deep and that's a welcome vacation from a hectic life sometimes.
That being said, except the song "Flowers in the Window," which I mentioned was familiar from a movie I like, none of these songs really stood out to me as anything SUPER special. I didn't dislike the band - though I didn't love it either, I like it more than I dislike it. Does that make any sense?
From now on I'm going to rate these artists 1-5 stars. 1 star means I loathe the band and would never listen to them again. 2 that I can possibly see why someone else might like them but I'm not a fan at all. 3 that I neither like nor dislike the band and could go either way. 4 that I like the band and think I could really learn to like them more with more time. 5 that I love them/like them a lot and will definitely listen to them again.
I'd give Travis a 3.5 because I definitely did not DISlike them, but at the time nothing about them stood out to me as being super special. However, as a general fan of Brit-pop, I think I will give them some more listening because I think they have potential for me to like them more over time. Thanks for introducing them to me, Beth! It's interesting to, if nothing else, hear the roots of bands I really love.