Optimism and guilt-free enjoyment are in depressingly short supply in the modern world. This makes the bouncy pop duo The Boy Least Likely To (TBLLT) seem both impossibly anachronistic and totally precious. As they sing in Climbing Out Of Love, "Things always appear much brighter surrounded by darkness".
Many will dismiss TBLLT for crass superficiality but it's precisely the knowingly dumb but fun approach to English anorak pop that makes them so damn appealing.
Don't just take my word for it. They were in Rolling Stone's top ten bands of 2006 and their debut album, The Best Party Ever (2005), was in the Rough Trade shop top 10 albums as well as Pitchfork's top 50 albums of the year.
This joyful all-the-hits album includes a Christmas single George An Andrew, ends with A Fairytale Ending and draws upon 15 years of chart-bound sounds.
The 17 tracks are taken from their four albums as well as a studio version of their cover of George Michael’s Faith (complete with banjos!) and One Of These Days, the first single from their next album Follow Your Heart Somewhere.
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It Could’ve Been Me features ex-Pipette Gwenno but otherwise its all the work of Peter Hobbs and Jof Owen, school friends who grew up together in the small Buckinghamshire village of Wendover.
The blatant commerciality means that all this is perfect product placement music. This is evidenced by the fact that songs have featured of in Greys Anatomy, Juno and ...erm... Peter Rabbit. The feel good factor has also helped in advertising cars, Coca Cola and Apple iPhones.
Titles like I’m Glad I Hitched My Apple Wagon To Your Star, When Life Gives Me Lemons I Make Lemonade and I Box Up All The Butterflies indicate that they are not in the business of making socio-political statements and let us pray that they never try.
TBLLT's website
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