The Verve: This Is Music: The Singles (2LP, coke bottle clear & red vinyl) [USM]

Why you'll love it

This 2LP set splits the hits across one coke bottle clear disc and one transparent red disc. It runs from the band's psychedelic early singles through Urban Hymns to the 2008 comeback single "Love Is Noise," and "The Drugs Don't Work" was a UK No. 1.

This edition

• 2LP set
• Coke bottle clear & red vinyl
• Pressed in the EU
• Stereo mix

About the album

The Verve began as a band that seemed to want each song to float off into the sky, and ended up writing some of the biggest, most anthemic singles of the 90s. Richard Ashcroft's voice, Nick McCabe's swirling guitar, and the steady engine of Simon Jones and Peter Salisbury are the thread through all fourteen of these songs.

"This Is Music," "On Your Own" and "History" come from A Northern Soul, the record where the shoegaze haze gave way to big, open-hearted songs. Then the Urban Hymns run: "Lucky Man," "Sonnet," "The Drugs Don't Work" and the strings-and-swagger of "Bitter Sweet Symphony." Early singles "She's a Superstar," "Blue" and "Gravity Grave" show where it all started, and "Love Is Noise" and "Rather Be" bring in the 2008 reunion album Forth. Heard in one sitting, it's a neat map of how a cult psychedelic band became one of the biggest acts in Britain.

Few bands have walked down a street in a music video quite so memorably. We've tried it on Queen West, and frankly people moved out of the way far less obligingly.

Also at Kops: more The Verve on vinyl · browse Alternative

Tracklist

Listen

On Virgin / EMI (cat# 6580364).