Bittersweet Symphony is fucking shit

[buzby]

Was that Walliams in there too?

Yes - Lucas & Walliams' early incarnation Mash and Peas were in all the Fat Les videos, as were Roland Rivron, Eddie Tudor-Pole, Ricky 'Bulla' Grover, Malcolm Hardee, Sara Stocksbridge and Lily Allen,. There is also the large-chested drunken lady (who fell out of her dress on the TOTP performance) whose ID remained unconfirmed in this CaB thread

[mikeyg27]

I saw the video for this for the first time in a while recently, and as someone who walks down that road quite often I only just noticed that he starts walking down one side of the street and then switches to the other side. He ends up on the opposite side of the street to where he started.

[buzby]

I saw the video for this for the first time in a while recently, and as someone who walks down that road quite often I only just noticed that he starts walking down one side of the street and then switches to the other side. He ends up on the opposite side of the street to where he started.

Presumably because they could only get one block of Hoxton St. closed off for filming. The Vindaloo video starts off at the same place, but carries on going past Hoxton Gardens instead of crossing over (however it does keep inserting shots that jump back to outside the flats on the corner of Sheffield St).

[Jockice]

Jesus, Allen in that Vindaloo shit. What a cunt.

What, you mean the Welsh public schoolboy who supports England? How can you possibly call him a cunt?

[kngen]

I never understood the thinking behind the Bittersweet Symphony video: 'I want it to look like Unfinished Sympathy but not as good, and I act like a cunt!'

So the song is a inferior version of another person's work, and so is the video. Set the controls for the heart of the mediocre!

[a duncandisorderly]

I never understood the thinking behind the Bittersweet Symphony video: 'I want it to look like Unfinished Sympathy but not as good, and I act like a cunt!'

So the song is a inferior version of another person's work, and so is the video. Set the controls for the heart of the mediocre!

amazed there isn't some sort of awful mash of the two things anywhere. I'm not going to do it though. fuck that.

[Icehaven]

I never understood the thinking behind the Bittersweet Symphony video: 'I want it to look like Unfinished Sympathy but not as good, and I act like a cunt!'

Well that's me off to the Obvious Things thread. Ffs, even the titles are....Christ I'm thick.

[popcorn]

Yes - Lucas & Walliams' early incarnation Mash and Peas were in all the Fat Les videos, as were Roland Rivron, Eddie Tudor-Pole, Ricky 'Bulla' Grover, Malcolm Hardee, Sara Stocksbridge and Lily Allen,. There is also the large-chested drunken lady (who fell out of her dress on the TOTP performance) whose ID remained unconfirmed in this CaB thread

What a tease.

[samadriel]

Christ, so many English people... is that vindaloo video some sort of football thing? I don't understand.

[Brundle-Fly]

What a tease.

She can't remember because she's clearly not the woman in the leopard print in the Vindaloo promo.

[dontpaintyourteeth]

the verve were only good before they had to have the "the"

[idunnosomename]

Now this thread has been bumped I can say video would be better if it was one unbroken shot. It seems obvious it was concieved as one but they couldnt be arsed. The reverse shots add nothing except an obvious opportunity to hide the cuts

Also the song is shit. Like a cat in a bag.

[badaids]

Just as long as we can all agree that Nick McCabe is an incredible guitarist and was horribly treated by Ashcroft.  It was horrible seeing him sell his guitars on Youtube, dressed in his student Physiotherapist gear.

Only the first two records count, it was obvious from first listen that Urban Hymns was a Itchard Rashcroft solo album.  I remember being so excited when the Verve reformed and before BS got overplayed to death and became cunts anthem of the 90s, but hearing the album record was a total embarrassment, utter disappointment.

Has anyone bothered to actually listen to Forth?

[popcorn]

Now this thread has been bumped I can say video would be better if it was one unbroken shot. It seems obvious it was concieved as one but they couldnt be arsed. The reverse shots add nothing except an obvious opportunity to hide the cuts

Exactly the conclusion I came to on watching it yesterday.

[popcorn]

Just as long as we can all agree that Nick McCabe is an incredible guitarist and was horribly treated by Ashcroft.  It was horrible seeing him sell his guitars on Youtube, dressed in his student Physiotherapist gear.

Did he actually become a physiotherapist? Like how one of the Mansun guys became a personal trainer? (I think? Was that a joke?)

[The Mollusk]

the verve were only good before they had to have the "the"

What about The The? They had plenty of verve.

[Wacky Homemade Badges]

I'd always bought into the story that Ashcroft was cruelly treated by the Stones publishers. But it's bollocks, isn't it? Even if you ignore the lift of the string sample, the whole melody of the verse is The Last Time slowed down. Jagger/Richards well within their rights which weren't their rights any more due to shenanigans etc.

[iamcoop]

That video where a bag of cocaine falls out of Ashcroft's shoe on Soccer AM is only bested by the little video he posted on Twitter shortly afterwards having a hissy fit and denying it.

Anyway Bittersweet Symphony was the first single I ever bought (HMV, Sheffield, I also bought Tubthumping on cassette in the same spree) so it will always have a special place etc etc.

[popcorn]

I'd always bought into the story that Ashcroft was cruelly treated by the Stones publishers. But it's bollocks, isn't it? Even if you ignore the lift of the string sample, the whole melody of the verse is The Last Time slowed down. Jagger/Richards well within their rights which weren't their rights any more due to shenanigans etc.

Yes, the melody is the same... but actually the melody just mirrors the four main notes of the string sample. Which makes sense, because the string sample was written to mimic the melody of The Last Time in the first place. (Though there seems to be some debate about whether the Stones are even the authors of The Last Time anyway, it seemingly being based to some degree on an earlier song - as I'm sure Buzby can educate us all on.)

Nonetheless the lyrics at the very least are original, and the song was greatly embellished with extra parts, so really for the Stones to have walked away with 100% of everything seems unfair to me. And the Stones had nothing to do with the recording or arranging of the thing that was actually sampled, so it does make the whole thing a bit stupid if you're really making an argument for moral ownership (as opposed to arguing on purely legal grounds I mean).

[bgmnts]

Don't actively hate it but that's because it's so nothingy to me. I think this is worse.

[Wacky Homemade Badges]

I think that's all fair, but would simply wish to underline that Ashcroft is a chancer and Bittersweet Symphony is a lift. I guess he wrote the three note chorus, so well done there Richard.

[popcorn]

I think that's all fair, but would simply wish to underline that Ashcroft is a chancer and Bittersweet Symphony is a lift. I guess he wrote the three note chorus, so well done there Richard.

Personally I think there's a fine and healthy tradition of nicking stuff in music. It just so often goes the wrong way when the credits are carved up. A fascinating area. And it's not like Ashcroft ever denied that it was based on a sample - I don't think there was any indication that was the plan at any point, since they did go through at least some of the usual channels to get clearance before the song came out.

A 50-50 split between Ashcroft and the rest would have been about right imo, and apparently this is what the Verve were originally hoping for, before Klein took them to court. I mean, if the whole song had actually been written from scratch by two blokes in a band, one who wrote the string part and the other who wrote the lyrics and extra melodies, you'd call 50-50 about right, wouldn't you?

[buzby]

Now this thread has been bumped I can say video would be better if it was one unbroken shot. It seems obvious it was concieved as one but they couldnt be arsed. The reverse shots add nothing except an obvious opportunity to hide the cuts

As I said 3 years ago (blimey), they could only afford to get one block of Hoxton St closed off for the shoot (Ashcroft walks up one side and back dow nthe other, with the crossing over covered by one of the cuts).

Did he actually become a physiotherapist? Like how one of the Mansun guys became a personal trainer? (I think? Was that a joke?)

Dominic Chad became a paramedic in London, then qualified as a massage therapist and is a volunteer crewmember of the Farnham lifeboat and worked in brain injury rehab.
See here
He currently works as an area manager working with people with learning difficulties.

Though there seems to be some debate about whether the Stones are even the authors of The Last Time anyway, it seemingly being based to some degree on an earlier song - as I'm sure Buzby can educate us all on.

The Staple Singers - This May Be My Last Time (released in 1960)

The Stones' The Last Time was allegedly the Glimmer Twins' first original composition to be released as a single. How much of it was original is up for debate. Richards said "We came up with 'The Last Time', which was basically re-adapting a traditional gospel song that had been sung by the Staple Singers, but luckily the song itself goes back into the mists of time.". Richards is correct in that it was a gospel standard and out of copyright, which made it easier to nick and put their name on.

[popcorn]

Dominic Chad became a paramedic in London, then qualified as a massage therapist and is a volunteer crewmember of the Farnham lifeboat and worked in brain injury rehab.
See here
He currently works as an area manager working with people with learning difficulties.

This sort of thing always blows my mind for some reason. Like how Saffron from Republica is now a mental health carer in Brighton.

[Ray Travez]

I'm always intrigued by it as well. Might start a thread

[dontpaintyourteeth]

Has anyone bothered to actually listen to Forth?

I vaguely recall listening to the little 30 second iTunes previews when it came out, does that count

[The Mollusk]

Don't actively hate it but that's because it's so nothingy to me. I think this is worse.

I like the open-endedness of this post. "This" could be anything but I am choosing to interpret it as "all this" and then gesturing around vaguely. "Existence."

[badaids]

This sort of thing always blows my mind for some reason. Like how Saffron from Republica is now a mental health carer in Brighton.

Hang on, hang on, the article, from Feb 2022, they are just about to release their second album?

Assuming they true, and it eventually comes out, will there ever be a longer gap between first and second records.

[The Culture Bunker]

Now this thread has been bumped I can say video would be better if it was one unbroken shot. It seems obvious it was concieved as one but they couldnt be arsed. The reverse shots add nothing except an obvious opportunity to hide the cuts

Also the song is shit. Like a cat in a bag.

By the way Ashcroft's mop gets more and more greasy as the video goes on, I wonder if they had to spend days on it.

[Kankurette]

Lucky Man was better. And I used to think Ashcroft was singing 'I am here in my mome' and wondering what a mome was.