anyone half as much as their deluded creators themselves… with the odd exception of course.
A One of 2009’s unexpected delights was The Duckworth
Lewis Method’s eponymously-titled cricket concept album, a totally unheralded gem that was all the more delicious for
having been dreamt up by two Irishmen, Neil Hannon and Thomas Walsh. At this time they were both artists being devoured by their own cult status.
After a few hits and many more misses, Neil’s band The Divine Comedy had been treading water sales-wise since their 1994 album, Promenade. Meanwhile, Walsh’s much-admired outfit Pugwash had
just released Eleven Modern Antiquities, another acclaimed but largely un-bought record that followed their previous albums Almond Tea (’99), Almanac (2002) and Jollity (2005).
It’s hard to pinpoint why The Duckworth Lewis Method suddenly stand out, other than it was fortuitously released just before the 2009 Ashes series (that’s our big cricket tournament, foreign readers). OK, so it’s also bloody good, but how often had that made a difference in the past? Almost instantly, the cobbled together group became a genuine word-of-mouth phenomenon – the album’s humour, summery optimism and pop loveliness falling somewhere between The Village Green Preservation Society, The White Album and Skylarking.
One of the first to spot their potential was former XTC and The Dukes Of The Stratosphear member Dave Gregory, who’d worked with Thomas on-and-off since 2004, when Pugwash asked him to score string arrangements for two songs on Jollity.
“Thomas had been a bit quiet following the release of [ fourth album] Eleven Modern Antiquities, but in June ’09 I received out of the blue this promo single, ‘The Age Of Revolution’, with what appeared to be Thomas and Neil Hannon dressed as soviet revolutionaries on one side, and some flower- patterned cricket stumps on the other!” Dave explained. “I put the disc on and just flipped – genius! A week later Thomas sent me the album, and I couldn’t believe these guys had completed an entire record based around the theme of cricket. Brilliant minds at work again, and probably the freshest, best music released by anybody that year.”
After the bouncy ‘Age Of Revolution’ became an airplay hit, the album bowled the public over. It’s first mid-week chart position was #28. Then Michael Jackson inconsiderately popped his clogs… “He got 12 albums in the charts in three days, so we got pushed down into the 40s,” Thomas ruminates. “We were still the highest non-Michael Jackson entry. I was so proud.”
Indeed, The Duckworth Lewis Method retained their “legs”. They were nominated alongside Paolo Nuttini and Dizee Rascal for best album in the prestigious 2010 Ivor Novello Awards (Nuttini eventually stole it, but gave a gracious acceptance speech acknowledging the cricket lover’s “genius”] and sales topped a respectable 40,000. The renewed interest and respect it gained for Hannon and Walsh was the album’s most enduring legacy, however.
A reinvigorated Hannon released Divine Comedy’s strongest album Bang Goes The Knighthood later in the year, and we can now hear the results of Walsh’s post- Duckworth labours, with the newly-released Pugwash album, The Olympus Sound.
h, the dreaded rock star vanity project. What world-weary music fan hasn’t learnt to approach these indulgences with extreme caution? After all, they seldom entertain
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74 |
Page 75 |
Page 76 |
Page 77 |
Page 78 |
Page 79 |
Page 80 |
Page 81 |
Page 82 |
Page 83 |
Page 84 |
Page 85 |
Page 86 |
Page 87 |
Page 88 |
Page 89 |
Page 90 |
Page 91 |
Page 92 |
Page 93 |
Page 94 |
Page 95 |
Page 96 |
Page 97 |
Page 98 |
Page 99 |
Page 100