The Seldom Seen Kid
by Elbow

Personal favorite Elbow album. Most consistent right through with no weak points.

They sound a lot like Coldplay and Sting. The album has good production, and the singing and music are nice but it's pretty boring, maybe I'd like it more if I can past the Coldplay/Sting thing.

From Brad1770 10/24/2022 07:11 | #290757

I’ve never understood the Elbow thing finding various albums in their catalogue competent enough but ultimately a bit of a snooze feast, however this one actually has some interesting moments and in particular the Un-Elbow (which is probably why I dig it) track “The Fix”

Album Rating: 75.18
(827/11)


1. "Starlings" 5:05 - 69
2. "The Bones of You" (contains elements of "Summertime" by George Gershwin, Dubose Heyward, Dorothy Heyward & Ira Gershwin) 4:49 - 70
3. "Mirrorball" 5:50 - 71
4. "Grounds for Divorce" 3:39 - 86
5. "An Audience with the Pope" 4:27 - 69
6. "Weather to Fly" 4:29 - 64
7. "The Loneliness of a Tower Crane Driver" 5:14 - 89
8. "The Fix" (Elbow, Richard Hawley) 4:27 - 69
9. "Some Riot" 5:23 - 82
10. "One Day Like This" 6:34 - 80
11. "Friend of Ours" 4:38 - 78

Bonus Track (UK)
12. "We're Away" (UK bonus track) 1:59 (N/A - 66 - N/A)

Elbow are one of my favourite bands, and the best live band I've seen by far. This album has a few filler tracks in the middle, but the fact that even with these I still give it a 100/100 rating says a lot. Highlights are One Day Like This, Grounds for Divorce, The Bones of You and the final track Friends of Ours which is just a beautiful track, especially when you find out who the subject of the song is and the story behind it. I love Guy Garvey's lyrics and this album has a few gems - my favourite being "You are the only thing in any room you're ever in" from Starlings. And love the lyrics on An Audience with the Pope - "I have an audience with the pope and I'm saving the world at 8, but if she says she needs me everybody's gonna have to wait". I'm quite surprised this album isn't higher up on the overall chart.

Whenever someone using the adjective "mature" to describe music I cringe. Yet I also think of this album

From Boltzmann 03/15/2020 10:36 | #248752

He sounds a bit like Damon Albarn, but other than that the first three songs are really well-written, calming and soulful. Then he comes with a macho, arena rock-ish track, which confused me a lot and sounds like shit. But after that he goes back to what he's good at. Overall, a great experience, but one song needs to be amputated (but that doesn't influence my rating though). Not often do my opinions on songs change so wildly from track to track on the same album.

Elbow have always been a bit arty, but they give this aspect of their music a full flourish on this album. It is a great album, but just suffers a little from being a little too earnest in places. It's not that music shouldn't be heartfelt - it should - it's just that sometimes it can seem a little forced. The strings are great, the songwriting is excellent, and the playing matches it all... just dial down the boy-band emotion a little.

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From planetneutral 01/28/2018 21:31 | #206716

Approachable enough, but it's not immediately apparent to me why it's so highly regarded.