The Verve - Little Gem (1995)

In 1994, The Verve released the album 'No Come Down' on Hut Records, a compilation of b-sides plus a live version of 'Gravity Grave' performed at Glastonbury Festival in 1993. It was the band's first release under the name "The Verve", following legal difficulties with jazz label Verve Records, which forced the band to change their name following a US court case. The band then played on the travelling US alternative rock festival, Lollapalooza, in the summer of 1994, and the tour became notorious for the events of 11 July – Richard Ashcroft was hospitalised for dehydration after a massive session of drinking, and Peter Salisbury was arrested for destroying a hotel room in Kansas in a drug-fueled delirium. The Verve's physical and mental turmoil continued into the chaotic recording sessions of their second album, 1995's 'A Northern Soul', produced by Owen Morris. The band departed from the experimental psychedelic sounds of 'A Storm In Heaven' and focused more on conventional alternative rock, with Ashcroft's vocals taking a more prominent role in the songs. Around this period, Oasis guitarist and friend of Ashcroft, Noel Gallagher, dedicated the song 'Cast No Shadow' to Ashcroft, who returned the gesture by dedicating the song 'A Northern Soul' to Gallagher. The band released the album's first single 'This Is Music' in May, and it reached No. 35, becomoing their first single to reach the Top 40. It was followed by 'On Your Own' in June which performed even better, reaching No. 28. The album reached the UK Top 20 upon its release in July, but Ashcroft broke up the band three months later, just before the release of the third single 'History', a prophetic title in hindsight. Ashcroft reunited with Simon Jones and Peter Salisbury just a few weeks after the break-up, but Nick McCabe did not rejoin them, and the new band hired former Suede guitarist Bernard Butler, although he spent only a couple of days with the band, and Simon Tong, a school friend credited with originally teaching Ashcroft and Jones to play guitar, became their permanent guitarist. The three singles from 'A Northern Soul' all had exclusive b-sides, and  the band also recorded a number of songs which didn't make the final cut for the album, so this collection of b-sides and out-takes rounds them all up into a companion album to the one which is generally credited as bringing the band the mainstream commercial success that they'd been craving for so long. 

Track listing

B-sides
01 Let The Damage Begin (b-side of 'This Is Music' 1995)
02 You And Me (b-side of 'This Is Music' 1995)
03 I See The Door (b-side of 'On Your Own' 1995)
04 Little Gem (b-side of 'On Your Own' 1995)
05 Dance On Your Bones (b-side of 'On Your Own' 1995)
06 Back On My Feet Again (b-side of 'History' 1995)
07 Monkey Magic (Brainstorm mix) (b-side of 'History' 1995)
08 Grey Skies (b-side of 'History' 1995)
09 Life's Not A Rehearsal (b-side of 'History' 1995)

Out-takes
10 Brake Lights (out-take 1995)
11 Mover (out-take 1995)
12 Funky Jam (AKA The Rolling People) (out-take 1995)
13 Echo Bass (out-take 1995)
14 Muhammad Ali (out-take 1995)
15 Come On (out-take 1995) 
16 King Riff (AKA This Is Music) (out-take 1995)

The Verve - Original Insanity (1997)

Even though there had been enough left-over music from the 'Urban Hymns' sessions to provide b-sides for all the singles taken from it (see previous post), back in 2017 some additional songs that weren't included in the deluxe 20th anniversary edition of 'Urban Hymns' made their way onto YouTube. All of the tracks (uploaded between September 2nd - 5th 2017) appear to have been recorded during the same sessions that resulted in 'Urban Hymns', and it was speculated that one of the band members didn't want them included. A note on one of the video's descriptions stated that the uploader 'got this a while back from a friend who works at distribution at UMC', the label that put out the reissue. There were 11 songs in total, many of them long-speculated unreleased songs including 'All Ways Are Maybes', 'Wednesday Madness', 'Jalfrezi', 'Original Insanity', 'King Riff 2', 'Tina Turner', and 'Sweet & Sour'. There’s also a studio version of 'Oh Sister', and alternate mixes and early demos of 'This Time', 'Neon Wilderness', and 'Sonnet'. I grabbed them as soon as I saw them, although I believe that they are still up on Youtube, but here they are compiled into an album for your listening pleasure.

Track listing 

01 Sweet & Sour
02 Wednesday Madness
03 Neon Wilderness (Idea)
04 Jalfrezi
05 This Time (BeatNick Mix)
06 Tina Turner
07 Oh Sister
08 Sonnet (Acoustic Demo)
09 Original Insanity
10 All Ways Are Maybes
11 King Riff 2

The Verve - Suburban Hymns (1997)

By 1997 The Verve seemed set for crossover success, with 'A Northern Soul' putting them in the spotlight, but the band were burnt out by the usual rock'n'roll symptoms of excess and exhaustion, and mainman Richard Ashcroft rashly split the group just before 'History' began climbing the charts. As events proved, however, the band’s split was only temporary, and within weeks The Verve were back in business, albeit minus guitarist Nick McCabe, but with the addition of new guitarist/keyboardist Simon Tong, an old school friend who’d originally taught Ashcroft and bassist Simon Jones to play guitar. The band already had working versions of some emotive new songs, including 'Sonnet' and 'The Drugs Don’t Work', and instead of the exploratory jams that produced The Verve’s earlier material, these vividly and finely-honed songs were the logical extension of 'A Northern Soul's plaintive ballads 'History' and 'On Your Own', and they reflected the direction the band were pursuing as they started work on what would become 'Urban Hymns'. Sessions were protracted, cutting demos at Peter Gabriel’s Real World studios in Bath, and then with 'A Northern Soul' producer Owen Morris, before the album sessions proper commenced with producers Youth and Chris Potter at London’s Olympic Studios in Barnes. At Ashcroft’s instigation, string arranger Wil Malone was brought in and his swirling scores added a further dimension to a number of the album’s key tracks, including 'The Drugs Don’t Work' and 'Lucky Man'. During the sessions, The Verve expanded to a quintet after the estranged Nick McCabe was welcomed back into the fold, adding his inimitable magic to the guitars already precisely layered by Simon Tong. Assisted further by what Ashcroft enthusiastically refers to as the 'loose discipline' of Youth’s production methods, the band emerged from the painstaking Olympic sessions knowing they had created something that would have a lasting impact, recording much more music than could be fitted onto the album that they were aiming to make. Many of these left-over tracks later appeared as b-sides to the singles lifted from the album, and there are in fact so many of them that they can make up an album in their own right. 'Urban Hymns' has since gone on to be regarded as one of the best albums ever made, and because this music was recorded at the same time, then 'Suburban Hymns' serves as a impressive complementary album to its parent record. 

 
Track listing

01 Country Song (b-side of 'Bittersweet Symphony' 1997)
02 Echo Bass (b-side of 'Sonnet' 1997)
03 Lord I Guess I'll Never Know (b-side of 'Bittersweet Symphony' 1997)
04 Never Wanna See You Cry (b-side of 'Lucky Man' 1997)
05 So Sister (b-side of 'Sonnet' 1997)
06 MSG (b-side of 'Lucky Man' 1997)
07 The Crab (b-side of 'The Drugs Don't Work' 12" single 1997)
08 Stamped (b-side of 'Sonnet' 1997)
09 The Longest Day (b-side of 'Lucky Man' 1997)
10 Three Steps (b-side of 'The Drugs Don't Work' 1997)
11 Monte Carlo (previously unreleased 1997)
12 This Could Be My Moment (previously unreleased 1997)

The Verve - One Way To Go (1993)

For a couple of years over 1997 and 1998 The Verve were one of the biggest band on the planet, with singles like 'Bittersweet Symphony' and 'The Drugs Don't Work' propelling them into the mainstream charts, and the 'Urban Hymns' albums becoming an instant indie classic. But it wasn't an overnight success for the band, who'd been slogging around the indie circuit since 1990, releasing singles and EP's to limited underground success, but never managing to break the mainstream. Their 1993 album 'A Storm In Heaven' had a distinctly psychedelic bent, and their live shows were well-received, especially Nick McCabe's  innovative guitar-work and Richard Ashcroft's unpredictable vocals. The band were originally called Verve, but after a legal dispute with the record label of the same named, they rechristened themselves The Verve in 1993, and released a flurry of new music. A few more singles in 1995 helped build their reputation, and two years later they'd hit the big time. This collection charts their slow build-up to mega-stardom, including all their non-album singles and b-sides from 1992 and 1993, as well as a couple of recently discovered out-takes from the 1993 album sessions. Early songs were often lengthy indie/psyche workouts, while later ones embraced the full indie sound, and pointed the way to their later success. Because of the length of some of the songs, this is one of the longest albums I've posted, clocking in at just under an hour and a quarter, but a 73-minute album was not unheard of in the CD age, and I just couldn't bring myself to leave off any of these tracks. 

Track listing

01 All In he Mind (single 1992)
02 One Way To Go (b-side of 'All In The Mind')
03 A Man Called Sun (b-side of 'All In The Mind')
04 She's A Superstar (single 1992)
05 Feel (b-side of 'She's A Superstar')
06 Shoeshine Girl (previously unreleased Sawmills session recording 1993)
07 Gravity Grave (single 1992)
08 Endless Life (b-side of 'Gravity Grave')
09 6 O'Clock (b-side of 'Slide Away' 7" single 1993)
10 South Pacific (previously unreleased Sawmills session recording 1993)
11 Where The Geese Go (b-side of 'Blue' 1993)
12 No Come Down (b-side of 'Blue' 1993)
13 Twilight (b-side of 'Blue' 1993)