Perhaps I do too much of asking why that's the case. The fact is I drift if I listen to Richard Hawley for too long. That's just how it is. Lots of people love music they can drift to, but I'd rather be regularly hooked back in.
I've found the same thing listening back to the album now. Fine, but I'm drifting. Listening back to everything he's done that I own, though, I'm reminded what a pleasure it is, and also I'm impressed that there clearly is a significant development in songwriting, that he's attempted to break out a little from his box.
What's the box? I first heard Richard Hawley on a free CD in 2001, instantly liked it, and thought I was listening to some old-school American making a comeback. It was the song 'Coming Home' and I suppose I was reminded of Ricky Nelson's 'Lonesome Town'.
I was shocked, however, to discover that Hawley wasn't some US old crooner, he was that guy who was in the Longpigs. Not that guy, but, you know, the other guy. The guitarist. Here, perhaps, is the reason I chose Richard Hawley for 2007, because I saw it as an opportunity to mention the Longpigs, "the band that Radiohead could have been" as I indie-Partridgesquely describe them.
The Longpigs were one of those "Britpop"-no-"Britrock" bands who were a little different, had real promise but just blew themselves up and out through poor timing and hedonism. You wouldn't find anything that sounds much more different from Richard Hawley the solo artist. They were a grandstanding, yelping, epic rock band, the singer Crispin Hunt was like Thom Yorke's Kevin the Teenager little brother, his voice flying off in all kinds of unlikely directions. Not to everyone's taste.
There was talent in the band. Various of them have gone on to further musical careers, either as high-ranking bandmates for hire or, as Hunt now is, as a damn successful songwriter for hire, co-writing the Jake Bugg album and that song 'Dream Catch Me' by Newton Faulkner, amongst many others.
There was never any doubt about the songwriting really. Go back and listen to their biggest hit, 'On and On'. That's just a lovely song. Any era, any singer. You'd expect, having written that, to be made for life.
Their second album came out well after the Britpop bubble burst and I remember them incongruously appearing on CD:UK with a certain sense of doon and doing press interviews with frankly fairly disturbing intimations of dark excess. The second album was not a success. It's actually really good, I think. Try 'Free Toy'.
Anyway, Hawley went away, played with Pulp, played on All Saints hits, then went solo when people told him just how good his voice was. As for Hunt, he somewhat disappeared (I think he even did some work in politics) before his recent songwriting comeback. I once happened to espy him bumping into fellow Britpop survivor/casualty Brett Anderson at the bar of the Royal Festival Hall when Brian Wilson was doing 'Pet Sounds' there. I can exclusively reveal the conversation went "Hey, Brett!" "...Crispin. How're you doing?" "Yeah, good." I'd like to think this epochal rock meeting was directly responsible for the comeback of sorts that both men have made. Magic dust ...
Safe to say it's Richard Hawley who's gone on to the greatest things though, as one of the most consistently revered men in the British music industry. Twice nominated for the Mercury Prize, when fellow Sheffield band Arctic Monkeys won ahead of them they famously said "Call 999. Richard Hawley's been robbed". So, some people must think he can do a good album ...
He's played with Pulp, started a band with Jarvis Cocker, duetted with the Manics, with Elbow, he's all together at the centre of that generation of Brit indieishness. A fine generation, if you ask me.
Michael Parkinson was not a fan though. Observer Music Monthly (a fine supplement, though not hitting the heights of Observer Sport Monthly, remember, back in the time when newspapers were good) used to do a thing called 'Record Doctor' where folk would get recommendations according to their own taste. Parkinson, slighty erroneously, was recommended Richard Hawley's 'Cole's Corner' as he was a fan of Frank Sinatra. Not impressed. He may not have exactly said this, but I'll recreate roughly what he said (please read this in our very own Parkinson impression, it'll make more sense) "No, no, no. Sinatra was a stylist, you see, a stylist. This guy's not in the same league. No, he doesn't have the phrasing. Now, Ladies and Gentlemen, one of the most talented young musicians in Britain, Mr Jamie Cullum ..." you see, Michael Parkinson has never knowingly had a correct or worthwhile opinion ... I choose my targets well, don't I ... today, I will lambast a dignified and intelligent elderly gentleman ... still, Parkinson's always done my head in.
To be fair, Parky was sold a bum steer there, Richard Hawley's less like Frank Sinatra than the Longpigs. His croon is still, on repeated exposure, recognisably that of an English tough guy, his sound includes rockabilly, chansonery, touches of epic rock atmospherics, and in later years, even a hint of psychedelia.
I have struggled with him over the long format, perhaps because of repeated lyrical motifs, the slightly soporific nature of his voice, perhaps simply because each album seems reliably to contain two or three crackers but a fair bit which is just more of the same. His most successful (artistically, certainly not comercially) LP was probably the motorbike-themed 'Lowedges', the first of five in a row to be named after locations in his hometown of Sheffield - Lowedges, Cole's Corner, Lady's Bridge and Truelove's Gutter and Standing on the Sky's Edge (which is actually, apparently, a huge departure into more adventurous territory, so perhaps I should reconsider).
Some of his songs are really great, and with varying degrees of simplicity. I once saw him play 'Baby You're My Light' at Benicassim whilst overhearing an English girl trying to persuade her boyfriend that this was the most beautiful song of all time. His shrug of indifference told its own story. [gosh, i'm doing a lot of eavesdropping in this post!]. That's a simple song, but the likes of 'The Ocean' and 'Open Up Your Door' are far more expansive.
I suddenly have the urge to compare Richard Hawley to Jamie Carragher ... I'm just going to leave that there, and let you join the dots yourselves, it works almost perfectly.
Anyway, as with Regina Spektor, a Richard Hawley 'compilation' is a perfect showcase for his talents, more so than any one album. Couldn't resist throwing in a bit of Longpigs too, because it's my game and my rules ...
Coming Home
Run for Me
Cole's Corner
Baby You're My Light
On and On - The Longpigs
The Ocean
Lost Myself - The Longpigs
Free Toy - The Longpigs
For Your Lover Give Some Time
Tonight the Streets are Ours
Something Is...!
Open Up Your Door
Gangstas - The Longpigs
Oh my Love
Blue Skies - The Longpigs
Seek It
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