Description

 Music : Indie : MP3/Variable






Athlete - Singles 01-10 (2CD)(2010)






Athlete are an Ivor Novello Award winning English indie rock band formed in Deptford, London, comprising Joel Pott (lead vocals and guitar), Carey Willetts (bass and backing vocals), Stephen Roberts (drums and backing vocals) and Tim Wanstall (keyboards and backing vocals). Recently, the quartet have recruited Jonny Pilcher of Weevil as a live guitarist.

Friends since the age of fourteen, Athlete took their wide ranging influences such as Grandaddy and The Flaming Lips and started jamming and practicing in the basement of The Bear, a pub which was converted into a church and sandwich bar, on Deptford High Street in 1999. They began recording there, before sending demos out.

The band had a brief period of high-profile domestic success in which their debut album Vehicles and Animals was a platinum seller in 2005 after a 2003 release and Mercury Music Prize nomination, with this followed up by Tourist which reached #1 and sold over 500,000 copies allowing this album to also go platinum.
 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Athlete_%28band%29





Much maligned by critics and connoisseurs alike, Athlete have always been subject to a certain degree of snobbery when it comes to their music. Since the start of their career in 1999, despite a Mercury Music Prize nomination and an Ivor Novello Award in 2006 ΓΓé¼ΓÇ£ or perhaps because of these things ΓΓé¼ΓÇ£ the Deptford quartet have struggled to turn their commercial success into critical acclaim. Instead, after the release of first album, Vehicles & Animals, they found themselves lumped in with the numerous purveyors of British mediocrity ΓΓé¼ΓÇ£ Turin Brakes, Starsailor, Keane et al ΓΓé¼ΓÇ£ and have struggled to break free ever since.

ItΓΓé¼Γäós easy to see how that happened. The catchy, hook-filled YouΓΓé¼Γäóve Got the Style aside, the three other songs from that first album included on this retrospective ΓΓé¼ΓÇ£ El Salvador, Beautiful and Westside ΓΓé¼ΓÇ£ do little more than confirm AthleteΓΓé¼Γäós place amongst the slurry of dreary indie-pop that the UK seems so fond of producing. These songs are not awful, but do sit quite happily alongside those other bland, middle-of-the-road bands.

Yet, when the band released second album, Tourist, there was a slight shift. They embraced their mainstream, commercially viable status and used it to somehow craft an album that, actually, was a remarkable improvement on their debut. Wires and Tourist, for example, are both fragile lullabies that glow with a previously unheard soulful tenderness. The anthemic torch-bearing of Half Light and Twenty Four Hours might have been aimed for the top of the charts (where this album debuted on its week of release), but thereΓΓé¼Γäós nothing wrong with that if itΓΓé¼Γäós done, as it is here, with passion and a sense of integrity.

From their next two albums, the shimmering, spectral, almost Radiohead-esqe lament of The Outsiders stands out on this collection, while Black Swan SongΓΓé¼Γäós gently-plodding balladry is genuinely affecting. On the flipside, though, the disco bounce of Superhuman Touch and the Nintendo musicality of new song Back Track fall flat.

Still, this compilation is evidence that Athlete probably deserve more credit than they often get, that their repertoire is more than just a few diamonds in the rough. TheyΓΓé¼Γäóre certainly not a groundbreaking band, but, as even the second disc of B sides and oddsΓΓé¼ΓäónΓΓé¼Γäósods demonstrates, their ability to write an uplifting, life-affirming tune is a skill that should not be undermined or overlooked.
 http://www.bbc.co.uk/music/reviews/jb28





Tracklist:

CD1:

01 ΓΓé¼ΓÇ£ El Salvador
02 ΓΓé¼ΓÇ£ Beautiful
03 ΓΓé¼ΓÇ£ Wires
04 ΓΓé¼ΓÇ£ Hurricane
05 ΓΓé¼ΓÇ£ You Got The Style
06 ΓΓé¼ΓÇ£ Half Light
07 ΓΓé¼ΓÇ£ Superhuman Touch
08 ΓΓé¼ΓÇ£ Tourist
09 ΓΓé¼ΓÇ£ Twenty Four Hours
10 ΓΓé¼ΓÇ£ The Outsiders
11 ΓΓé¼ΓÇ£ Black Swan Song
12 ΓΓé¼ΓÇ£ Tokyo
13 ΓΓé¼ΓÇ£ The Getaway
14 ΓΓé¼ΓÇ£ Westside
15 ΓΓé¼ΓÇ£ Back Track

CD2:

01 ΓΓé¼ΓÇ£ A Few Differences
02 ΓΓé¼ΓÇ£ Stand In The Sun
03 ΓΓé¼ΓÇ£ Summer Sun
04 ΓΓé¼ΓÇ£ Loose Change
05 ΓΓé¼ΓÇ£ You Got The Style (Weevil Remix)
06 ΓΓé¼ΓÇ£ Corner Of My BabyΓΓé¼Γäós Eyes
07 ΓΓé¼ΓÇ£ Hurricaned (Dub Mix)
08 ΓΓé¼ΓÇ£ Best Not To Think About It
09 ΓΓé¼ΓÇ£ Forest Fire
10 ΓΓé¼ΓÇ£ Accidents Happen
11 ΓΓé¼ΓÇ£ With You I Never Lose
12 ΓΓé¼ΓÇ£ Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds
13 ΓΓé¼ΓÇ£ Wild Wolves
14 ΓΓé¼ΓÇ£ Lay Your Head
15 ΓΓé¼ΓÇ£ Shades On
16 ΓΓé¼ΓÇ£ Never Running Out
17 ΓΓé¼ΓÇ£ Plain English





More info:




 http://www.athlete.mu/home






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