The Hour Of Bewilderbeast

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Mr Shady released his third album, which included the mega-hit Stan, featuring Dido on vocals. Remember Dido?

a b Hoskyns, Barney (December 2000). "Badly Drawn Boy: The Hour of Bewilderbeast". Spin. 16 (12): 28. ISSN 0886-3032 . Retrieved 22 July 2011. Indie music is littered with obviously brilliant artists who undermined their own success with an overly ambitious approach. This phenomenon was especially common with albums from the indie boom of the early-21st century, when a "hipster mentality" transformed dozens of likely classics into semi-frustrating relics of their era. Although he was far less weird than many of his contemporaries, England's Badly Drawn Boy began his career within this paradigm. In fact, The Hour of Bewilderbeast is among the best examples of a potential indie pop classic that nearly collapses under its own weight. I'm still willing to classify it as one of the most significant indie debuts of its generation, and I can understand why it was a critical darling at the time of its release, but it has to be one of the most flawed records to receive that level of critical praise. Essential listening for anyone who's interested in early-21st century indie pop, even if most listeners are bound to be confused by a decent chunk of the album. Six years before, Britpop itself was crystalizing, with Blur’s Parklife and Pulp’s His ‘n’ Hers coming out right as Oasis went on their brash run of first singles leading up to Definitely Maybe . As summer arrived in 2000, Doves had just released their debut album, Lost Souls , Travis were promoted to the Pyramid stage at the Glastonbury Festival after a celebrated set on the Other stage the previous year, and both Coldplay and Badly Drawn Boy were about to put out their first full-lengths as well. The moment was propitious for sober, self-reflective guitar slingers. The Hour Of Bewilderbeast is an unrepeatable success story. We know this partially because Gough has never come close to repeating it. No subsequent Badly Drawn Boy release has recaptured its oddball mystique and homespun charm. Each one has fallen short of its impact and acclaim, too — though to be fair, he set a pretty high bar for himself by winning the Mercury Music Prize on his first try. That’s another aspect of the album that feels impossible to recreate: Would such an unpolished, willfully discursive collection with such humble stakes even have a shot at being honored as Britain’s album of the year anymore? Compared to its predecessors in Mercury Prize glory — a sleek and zeitgeisty cross-section of ’90s event albums from the likes of Primal Scream, Suede, Portishead, Pulp, and Roni Size — it’s remarkable that Gough even snagged a nomination, let alone took home the trophy.Hubbard, Michael (26 June 2000). "Badly Drawn Boy – The Hour Of Bewilderbeast". musicOMH . Retrieved 22 July 2011. a b Blashill, Pat (12 October 2000). "Badly Drawn Boy: The Hour Of Bewilderbeast". Rolling Stone. Archived from the original on 20 April 2001 . Retrieved 9 February 2015. Christgau, Robert (13 February 2001). "Pazz & Jop Preview". The Village Voice . Retrieved 22 July 2011.

Badly Drawn Boy (Damon Gough) – vocals, acoustic guitar, electric guitar, piano, lead guitar, bass guitar, keyboards, drum machine, tambourine, handclaps, whistling, slide guitar, harmonica, Wurlitzer electric piano, lead keyboards, organ solo, drum machine organs, percussion, crash cymbal, vibraphone, xylophone, harp, string arrangement, sound effects The trio released their debut album, which included The Cedar Room, Here It Comes and Catch The Sun. The increasing amount of polish on Have You Fed the Fish? in 2002 and One Plus One Is One in 2004 was welcomed by fans, and his following at home in the UK stood strong, but the air of professionalism was met in the US with some grumbling from those who preferred to see the stitching exposed and felt the new consistency was a shortcoming. Not only was this not exactly fair to those records, which have held up pretty well themselves, but it also placed on Badly Drawn Boy the kind of expectations that can put artists in an impossible bind. Gough couldn’t be truly spontaneous if he was trying to recapture the same spontaneity of Bewliderbeast . The new millennium gave us the year of Since I Left You, Rated R, The Hour Of Bewilderbeast and Kid A.But what I like most about Badly Drawn Boy is that he seems to treat normality or ordinariness as the construction it is, not by necessarily challenging it in an open way, but by just being who he is, which is, I suppose, about as authentic as you can get. For my sins, I listened to Elliott Smith’s 2000 LP, Figure 8, to get some perspective on this. It wasn’t as bad as I expected, but it did cement the point in my mind. Smith’s tragedy is his unrequited crush on convention, which you can hear in the song structures and the lyrics. Smith always seems to be buying into an ethos he’s not entirely equipped to live with. Where Gough wins through is in his ability to recognize the fallacy of convention, and to dare to flaunt it, but not by wanton provocation. a b Browne, David (23 October 2000). "The Hour of Bewilderbeast". Entertainment Weekly. Archived from the original on 13 July 2019 . Retrieved 9 February 2015.