After The Supergrass Split, Praise Be To The Average Bands!

Supergrass weren’t a great band. Sure they had a handful of great singles to their name and could fill that teatime main stage festival slot like no man’s business, but history is not going to rank their legacy alongside that of Led Zeppelin or Stevie Wonder. Theirs was the kind of split which few will have shed a tear for and most will have been surprised to hear that the three piece hadn’t called it a day already.

Such is the sad reality of the music industry, even if you’re one of the lucky few to grab a smash hit or two, as the Oxford born bunch did with ‘Caught By The Fuzz’ and ‘Alright’, then continued cult status or superstardom doesn’t necessarily beckon. Chances are you can drag out the decline with a greatest hits compilation, a classic album tour and a weak seal of approval from the NME before eventually the final big gig in the sky will beckon.

Now I’m not suggesting that we gang together to establish some sort of shelter for artists who couldn’t write a second album - or in Supergrass’s case, a seventh. The natural musical food chain requires The Clash and co to sit pretty at the top, Scouting For Girls and their formulaic chart fare to be at the bottom and a whole lot of bands who didn’t quite make the big time to sit in the middle. What I really want to do is use this blog as a tribute of sorts to those bands who were fun at the time but who’ve already begun to clog up the CD racks of your local Oxfam.

Few artists get the chance to ‘do a Green Day’ and grab the zeitgeist for the second time after their star has fallen. The world needs to be reminded that Ash, Elastica, New Radicals, The Magic Numbers and The Rakes once existed, and in some cases still continue to plunder mid to small sized venues up and down the country.

My personal pick from this forgotten lot would have to be The Hives, who are currently providing the bedding music to a plethora of Kick-Ass trailers with ‘Hey Little World’, a cut from their 2007 flop The Black & White Album. The last time I caught the Swedish punks in an under packed Bristol Academy their lead singer Howlin' Pelle Almqvist was still proclaiming his motley crew to be “the best band in the world”. Now that’s a level of self-delusion that you simply can’t argue with!

Naturally though, a whole host of acts will have slipped through the cracks of a limited scan through my iTunes catalogue. Make sure you comment below with your own prized selection and give that bunch of old-timers the further 30 seconds of fame they deserve...