Urban Hymns

There’s a tendency to brand everything that came out of the UK in the 1990s as “Britpop”. This album is a lot more than britpop. Orchestral and melodic in places, rocky in others.
I was only aware of the big 3 tracks, Symphony, Lucky Man and Drugs beforehand. I'll be adding this to my playlist. Good album

sweet gestartet, bitter weitergegangen, guter pun, danke

So boring man. First song is of course iconic, but even that’s boring

The most forward thinking moments from this record come when it delivers something removed from the Northern UK 1990s scene. I love accessible, expansive take on psych. As good as it is, I'm less mad about the more brit-pop-esque songs because it not unique to them. If you trimmed those moments out you'd have a healthier (and still full length!) LP. Having said that, if the takeaway is some of the 1990s most iconic rock singles, and some wonderful side alleys taken on album tracks, you can't say fairer than that.

Bittersweet Symphony and Lucky man are great. The rest of this album is kind of like a mix between U2 and and Oasis but sort of more bland than either. And remember when bands found out that they could put a 'secret song' on the end of a CD? That was dumb. Like why would I want to listen to 10 minutes of nothing just to hear the shitty 'song' (more often than not just a couple of minutes of random noises as is the case here) that you didn't deem good enough to actually be included on your record for real. I'm glad society moved passed that. It was kind of like the post-credits scenes that every movie seemed to have for a stretch of years more recently. We're kind of coming to the end of that fad too.
Anyway, I'd give this one a sold 3/5. It's not going to blow anyone away, there are a couple of good songs, some people will absolutely love it, but it is pretty bland and generic mid-90s Brit alt.

This is typical 90s indie rock that doesn’t really go anywhere. Highlights like Bittersweet, Sonnet and The Drugs Don’t Work show the best tendencies of the band’s sound, but this album drones on and on and never really hits the level of those tracks again.

This album would be better if it was 25 minutes shorter and the band had never listened to a Beatles album, as it seems they are trying to re-create a dreamy, ethereal quality reminiscent of the Liverpudlians’ best work. But all of their music is, ultimately, derivative of something, whether directly or stylistically and, therefore, forgettable.

The wikipedia entry for this album is insanely long (I guess in homage to the album?).

Strong memories of The Drugs Don't Work being everywhere around the time my gran died. Then Diana dying and getting all the attention.

Diana has an insanely long wikipedia too. And she was 36 when she died?! Seems mad to have outlived her. In my head she was at least 45.

I bought this on CD back when it was new. I feel the same way now as I did then - I wish I could have heard the rest of the album beyond the first track first. Bittersweet symphony is, and was, huge. Then the rest is just average Britpop of the era. Not bad, not good. Without that first track, none of us would know who this band is.

I got the urge for some reason to rate every song. Here we go

Bittersweet Symphony - 5/5. I already knew this song. It's nothing crazy, but it just works.

Sonnet - 5/5. Pleasantly surprised. I honestly liked it maybe slightly more than Bittersweet Symphony.

The Rolling People - 3/5. Not bad, but I couldn't get into it. Kinda bland.

The Drugs Don't Work - 5/5. This is a beautiful song. Very emotional and pleasant to listen to.

Catching the Butterfly - 4/5. The verses are amazing, the chorus is fine.

Neon Wilderness - ?/5. Can I really rate this with the others? It is good at what it does, just there to be an interlude/wind down. I like when an album does that.

Space and Time - 4/5. It was very calming.

Weeping Willow - 4/5. They're all starting to sound very similar. Of course it's a good similar, but I need more variety or the reviews are just going to say the same thing over and over.

Lucky Man - 5/5. Different enough, also really good and powerful. This is definitely the type of song I'd usually listen to.

One Day - 4/5. Another slow, deep and loud song. I still like it the 10th time, though.

This Time - 3/5. Fine, a little short and a little bland. At least it's different.

Velvet Morning - 4/5. Yeah.. it's good and loud and soft and the other things.

Come On / Deep Freeze (Hidden Track) - 3/5. Come On was not my favorite on the album. Let's see how the Hidden Track holds up. What da baby doin?

Overall, I thought for a while I would give this a 5/5. I liked all the songs early on and even later on in the album, the songs were still really good, just a lot of the same and it got boring over time. I would listen to each and every song again on its own though.

Is it Richard Ashcroft’s voice that makes this album eligible for the list (a singing style that was mimicked by myriads of mediocre bands that followed — looking at you, Mando Diao and co.)? Because other than that, I really can’t get my head around why this is considered a classic. It’s sprawling, it’s meandering — but Spiritualized did this far better (“The Rolling People” really doesn’t get to the point). When it gets anthemic, it borders on an annoying mess (“Bitter Sweet Symphony”) — Oasis did that better. And when it gets experimental, it doesn’t consequentially follow through on that direction (“Catching the Butterfly”) — Primal Scream and Spiritualized did that better, too. Neither is the songwriting particularly interesting, nor do the lyrics have much merit on their own. Was it solely the momentum of Britpop that propelled The Verve to the top? Perhaps I’ll understand it one day, but for now, I have no desire to sit through Urban Hymns again.

The opener is a classic. The rest is really good.

I feel like I'm being slowly bashed over the head with an inflatable mallet with 'Britpop' written on it: It doesn't hurt but it gets annoying after an hour and 15 minutes. Even Bitter Sweet Symphony sounds dull to me and I don't think anyone would remember it if not for the violin. Apparently BBC Radio 1 listeners voted it the third best song ever... in 1998, one year after its release. 'Whatever' by Oasis is a better use of violin and that's a largely forgotten song.

All in all, the album is fine. I think it could have been a low 4 if it was shorter, but there really aren't any songs that warrant that score.

Classic 90s Britpop. Swaggers between Rock and guitar ballads, lots of simple string samples/arrangements peppered in, the occasional 70s psychedelic guitar tones. You'll probably recognise at least one song on here. Bittersweet Symphony is an anthem of that era. The Drugs Don't Work has one of the most depressing lyrics ever ("like a cat in a bag waiting to drown.."). There is a definite dip in noteworthy songs after the opening few tracks with maybe the exception of Lucky Man. It sounds like the 90s.

It is, in fact, a bittersweet symphony, but that's life.

Mislila sam da ću ovo mrziti jer mrzim Bittersweet Symphony. E pa ne mrzim. Samo sam je preslušala previše puta, a nikad s razumijevanjem. Jedino što konkretno mogu kritikovati na albumu je dužina, i sveukupna i nekih pojedinačnih pjesama. Osim toga je baš fin.

Bloated, safe, and stuck in the shadow of its own biggest hit. 𝘜𝘳𝘣𝘢𝘯 𝘏𝘺𝘮𝘯𝘴 rides the emotional weight of 𝘉𝘪𝘵𝘵𝘦𝘳 𝘚𝘸𝘦𝘦𝘵 𝘚𝘺𝘮𝘱𝘩𝘰𝘯𝘺 so hard that nearly every track feels like a lesser rewrite. Richard Ashcroft delivers each vocal line with the same strained earnestness, as if chasing the same moment again and again.

The instrumentation is lush and polished, no doubt — but it lacks invention or urgency. Where others in 1997 pushed boundaries, The Verve chose to inflate familiar ideas. And the hidden track? Best left hidden.

A few good melodies can’t disguise the overall sense of missed opportunity.

Mediocre

The album starts strong with possibly one of the best songs ever recorded and also the only Verve song I know (or so I thought). Why have I never dug more into the Verve considering I actually really like Bittersweet Symphony?

Unfortunately, it’s kind of a step down in quality after Bittersweet Symphony. Nothing really stood out to me and a lot of the tracks just sounds like generic and derivative britpop (I genuinely thought Lucky Man was an Oasis song; the second Verve song I apparently knew). The tracks that did stand out just got annoying. For instance, Catching the Butterfly sounds interesting, but then he just keeps saying the same line about catching a butterfly in lucid dreams over and over for 7 minutes.

All that being said, this isn’t actually a bad album. It was enjoyable to listen to, it just didn’t live up to the expectations set by the first song and it ends up sounding like every other britpop album on the list.

This is very 90s! I always liked 'Bitter Sweet Symphony' (I mean, the entire Cruel Intentions soundtrack is perfect) but not enough to look into what else The Verve were cooking. Turns out they were cooking a banquet of orchestration! I really like pop with strings, and Ashcroft has just enough of that cello-y vocal timbre to interest me. But this album is long, and started to lose its luster as it went on. I was waffling between a 3 and 4 by the end, but revisiting the first few tracks convinced me it's a 4.

Highlights: 'Bitter Sweet Symphony', 'Sonnet', 'The Drugs Don't Work', 'Velvet Morning'

Lowlights: 'The Rolling People' (it's fine, just a little generic/loud/stringless), 'Catching the Butterfly' (yes, it does sound like the Beatleses 'Within You Without You' ! except longer and with less compelling lyrics), 'Neon Wilderness'

I liked this one more than the other The Verve album, and it has Bittersweet Symphony which I've always liked. But past that it's a fine album with some annoying parts.