After that stunning array of punctuation in the subject header, I suppose that I’d better get on with it. My top ten of this year was fairly easy to decide upon in terms of pretty much who was going to be in it, the tricky bit was (and still is – it’s a bit fluid) working out in which order to place them. I’d better get a shift on then with this before I change my mind again…
At number 10 then, we have this gem from a band who are increasingly becoming Global Ambassadors For The North, with an album that has found itself just as much at home in stadia as it is in the pub. Quite handily, this ties in nicely with their own rather splendid brand of ale – a marketing coup that is setting a trend of its own, as Motörhead’s Red Wine and the awfully-punned “MmmHops” beer from Hanson, which shocked me to the core and made me feel suddenly ancient when I realised that most of that band are probably now old enough to drink it.
The second and third tracks on Elbow’s latest are the keys to the record, Lippy Kids and With Love being paeans to miscreancy in youth and dotage respectively, both songs containing and radiating the same cheerful warmth indicating that this long-player is all about people and the community that they inhabit – and it’s this sense of community throughout Build a Rocket Boys! that is its greatest strength and what has brought me back to it time and time again during this year. It brings an importance to the subject not by pushing the concept as if trying to sell it, but by simply inviting you into theirs for fifty minutes; enough time for a brew and a pint and a ciggie or two.
It’s not hard to see why this model is so enticing, many of us are all too busy nowadays to chat with our neighbours, let alone drag them off to the pub for no reason other than it’s a Thursday. This is a call to slow down a bit and take in your surroundings and the people who are in it, and comes across as a more genuine attempt to garner a collective spirit than all the “Big Society” cobblers that the Parliamentary PR departmental leaflets try to hoist upon us in order to do their job for them.
It’s an important album because it is written and performed by people who understand what importance actually is and where it can be found, sung to us by a vocalist in Guy Garvey who has that rare gift of being able to sing to thousands of people at a time while seemingly addressing everyone individually. Build a Rocket Boys! brings people together by doing little more than showing what a good idea bringing people together actually is, presented with a huge heart and great songs. And the beer’s nice too.
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