Looking back, it seems hard to believe we were so mistrustful of THE CHARLATANS at the outset. Of course, they appeared in our midst just as the whole Madchester thing was becoming big business and their initial flares’n’sunhats image simply screamed ‘Stone Roses junior!” at us, perhaps not helping their case in the long run. This writer vividly recalls witnessing an early show at Manchester’s legendary International Club – they had ‘The Only One I Know’, ‘Sproston Green’ etc at this stage – and coming away thinking “hmm, these’ll do for 18 months until something more substantial comes along”. If you’d told me then I’d be penning a review celebrating a vast, career-spanning singles collection such as this 16 years on then…well, I doubt I would have believed it.
Bu then The Charlies really have made a career of proving the Doubting Thomases wrong and prevailing when prevailing seems an impossibility. Anyone remotely au fait with their story will tell you about the very real ‘curse’ of The Charlatans which – lest we forget – has included armed robbery and prison sentences (original keyboard player Rob Collins), sudden, untimely death (Collins once again), fraud and embezzlement (their former accountant) and serious illness (replacement keyboard player Tony Rogers’ cancer scare) as well as a series of more minor scuffles along the way. In every sense of the word, they are survivors who have repeatedly clung to the wreckage when lesser bands would have gone under.
And, somehow, it’s only served to make them stronger, as the wonderfully consistent 18-track ‘Forever – The Singles’ makes abundantly clear. Yes, in a way we’ve been here before, because there was a previous ‘best of’/ ‘career overview’ provided by the ‘Melting Pot’ compilation a few years back, but that finished abruptly with ‘North Country Boy’ and the passing of Rob Collins in 1996. ‘Forever’ brings to story up to date, culling all the singles from the albums ‘Tellin’ Stories’ (1997), ‘Us & Us Only’ (1999), ‘Wonderland’ (2001), ‘Up At The Lake’ (2004) and the recent ‘Simpatico’. If you’re quick enough, there’s also a limited edition 2CD set with rarities galore and a DVD with all the promos for completists.
Importantly, though, ‘Forever’ doesn’t simply replicate everything from ‘Melting Pot’ all over again. Yes, the robust indie-Motown bassline spine of the ‘baggy’ classic ‘The Only One I Know’, the fat and beautifully-weighted beat group pop of ‘Can’t Get Out Of Bed’ and the celebratory, Stones-y raunch of ‘Just When You’re Thinkin’ Things Over’ are all revisited (not that I have a problem with that), but – at last – the band’s hypnotic debut single ‘Indian Rope’ finally makes an appearance on CD. This writer recalls playing it every day when the 12” was released at the time and Rob Collins’ full-blooded Hammond organ lines and Jon Brookes’ powerfully funky drums are still gloriously intact.
Initial proof of The Charlatans’ staying power came, of course, via the Britpop heyday. The band released a back-to-back pair of fantastic albums in ‘The Charlatans’ (1995) and ‘Tellin’ Stories’ (1997) and though Rob Collins’ death cast a shadow over the latter, the music itself made for arguably the Charlatans’ most euphoric and resonant music to date. ‘North Country Boy’ is still fulsome and glorious rock’n’roll of the first water with a Dylan-ish twist or three, while the valedictory ‘Tellin’ Stories’ itself was the first indication that a more thoughtful and mature, but no less enduring Charlatans was formulating for the future.
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Although, for me, the album temporarily loses momentum with the lengthy, striving-to-be-epic ‘Forever’ and the rather slight ‘My Beautiful Friend’, we’re soon back on track again with the strident, semi-acoustic melancholy of ‘Impossible’ (which doffs its’ cap to The Band’s gorgeous proto-Americana) and the loping, low-key gem that is ‘A Man Needs To Be Told’ featuring no less than Daniel Lanois guesting on pedal steel and ghostly atmosphere.
In the home strait, ‘Love Is The Key’ (from ‘Wonderland’) finds the band rediscovering their sweaty, funky roots – and allows Tim Burgess to demonstrate a winning, new-found falsetto – while the chunky ‘Up At The Lake’ cheekily apes the melody from former Madchester rivals Happy Mondays’ ‘Donovan’; ‘Try Again Today’ is another of those chiming, tender beauties they’ve made their own these days and the edgy and epic ‘Blackened Blue Eyes’ features Tony Rogers laying down a classic Italo-house piano riff and launching the successor to the enduring ‘One To Another’. Finally, a new, Youth-endorsed remix of the single that never was, ‘You’re So Pretty, We’re So Pretty’ rounds things off nicely by re-connecting the band with their earlier, Chemical Brothers-inspired dance days, but then they never exactly disassociated themselves anyway, did they?
So it’s been quite a journey for The Charlatans, hasn’t it? OK, maybe it’s not quite up there with ‘Hammer Of The Gods’, but their story nonetheless has all the ingredients for a tragedy that would have finished many lesser mortals off long ago. That they have survived is reason enough to celebrate, but that they should continue to go from strength to strength speaks volumes in itself. ‘Forever’ provides the incontrovertible evidence that The Charlatans remain one of the finest bands the UK has provided over the past twenty years and I doubt very much we’ve heard the last of them yet.
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