I have written about this Manchester
band here somewhere in the blog
at least on six different occasions,
and a little better than ten years
ago, in a similar listening challenge,
but with the CD collection, where I
vowed not to listen to everything, but
to one full album by each artist,
I couldn’t help myself. I listened
at that point to every single Elbow album
in my possession at that time, which
amounted to six CDs. Since December
of 2015 I have continued to be an
enthusiastic fan, could unequivocally
claim that Elbow is hands down my
favorite band of the 21st century,
and can admit to adding on vinyl
to my collection everything they
have done since that last CD
I listened to from 2014, The Take Off And
Landing of Everything: a B-side collection,
a live record with the BBC Concert
Orchestra, and the five most recent
studio records. I think the only album
I don’t have is a greatest hits compilation.
For super fans such as myself, greatest
hits records seem almost sacrilegious.
The Elbow catalog is a rich one,
an embarrassment of riches. I don’t know
if I can gush any further about this band.
So I’ll just listen.
From the catalogs of most of my all-time
favorite bands, I can choose which albums
I love the best and which ones the least.
This is nearly impossible with Elbow. Nor
could I advise someone new to their music
about where to start. Start anywhere. At
the beginning, at the end, in the middle;
it really does not matter. No matter where
you start, if you like melody, great singing,
great lyricism, fantastic ensemble playing,
occasional strings and horns, an occasional
rocker, and tunes that will make you roll
into a ball weeping on the floor, you will be
blown away by the music of Elbow. I love
them so much, listening to them for me is
kind of like going to church, or at least,
some sacred space where there is no dogma,
no orthodoxy, where the liturgy consists of
nothing other than the greatest songs performed
with precision and tremendous aplomb.
That’s Elbow.
Notes on the vinyl editions:
- Elbow and the BBC Concert Orchestra: The Seldom Seen Kid Live At Abbey Road, Polydor Records, 2019 (recorded live in 2009), double black vinyl. Half Speed Mastering at Abbey Road Studios.
- Dead in the Boot, Polydor Records, 2012, double black vinyl. This is a B-side compilation of tracks from early in the band’s history. Some of these tracks are alt mixes from their first album, Asleep at the Back, but most are additional unreleased tracks from the same era, right at the turn of the century, 2001.
- Little Fictions, Polydor Records, 2017, pink vinyl.
- Giants Of All Sizes, Polydor Records, 2019, black vinyl.
- Flying Dream 1, Polydor Records, 2021, opaque green vinyl.
- Audio Vertigo, Polydor Records, 2024, black vinyl.
- Audio Vertigo Echo, Polydor Records, 2025, four song EP on white vinyl.
In case you don’t already know: I’m listening to almost everything in my vinyl collection, A to Z, and writing at least one, sometimes two or three long skinny poem-like-things in response for each artist, and on a few occasions, writing a long skinny poem-like-thing in response to more than one artist. As a poet and a student of poetry, I understand that these things look like poems, but they don’t really sound much like poetry, hence, I call them “poem-like-things.” I’ll admit that they’re just long, skinny essays that veer every now and then into the poetic or lyric.
michael jarmer 