DATE | WEEKS |
October 30, 2004 | 3 |
Whenever an artist or artists come along to define a particular sound from a particular region, there's inevitably going to be a B-tier of artists behind them. Those artists aren't quite copying what that first artist did, but they're not differentiating themselves enough either.
Take grunge for example. Once Nirvana and Pearl Jam became huge, labels and radio stations were desperate for any band with crunchy guitars and sandpaper vocals. Thus, you end up with bands like Stone Temple Pilots, Candlebox, Bush, and Silverchair all getting heavy rotation on alternative radio, followed thereafter by bands like Days of the New, Creed, and Nickelback.
Coldplay may seem in retrospect like a unique entity from the first half of the 2000s, defining a somewhat introspective and decidedly British take on alt rock. It helped that they produced a ridiculously great album in A Rush of Blood to the Head, the first album ever to claim three #1's on my top 40. But by no means were they alone. Travis, Stereophonics, and Feeder all were contemporaries, and all of these bands were just chasing the Britpop legacy of groups like Oasis, Blur, Pulp, and The Verve. But Coldplay connected with the public in a way those other bands never really could.
Of all the bands below Coldplay in the post-Britpop hierarchy, Snow Patrol probably came the closest to reaching their level. They're still a going concern to this day. In 2004, they rode Coldplay's coattails with their breakthrough album Final Straw, a really solid record that was anchored by the amazing "Run". It's probably the best Coldplay song that isn't actually by Coldplay.
Gary Lightbody was born in 1976 in Northern Ireland in the city of Bangor, County Down. He wrote poetry while he was in school and moved to Scotland at age 18 to attend the University of Dundee. There he met Mark McClelland and Michael Morrison and the three formed a band called Shrug. When they realized there was an American band already called Shrug, they changed their name to Polarbear. They changed that name to avoid another conflict, this time with a band led by former Jane's Addiction member Eric Avery, and finally settled on Snow Patrol.
Morrison had left the group by this point and was replaced by Jonny Quinn on drums. They signed to the British indie label Jeepster in 1997. Snow Patrol released their debut album Songs for Polarbears in 1998. It got enough attention to reach the lower rungs of the UK album chart and spun off a few singles.
Snow Patrol followed that album up with When It's All Over We Still Have to Clear Up in 2001. Like its predecessor, it got critical praise but didn't sell especially well. Jeepster apparently wasn't doing much to promote the album, and dropped the band later in 2001. Though the band never considered breaking up at this point, they were desperate for cash while trying to find a new record label, and took up day jobs to get by.
They finally scored a deal with Fiction Records, a British subsidiary of Universal Music Group, and were introduced to producer Jacknife Lee, who would go on to produce all the band's work. Snow Patrol had plenty of songs ready to go when they went back into the studio with Lee for the album that would become Final Straw. Lee made the band's sound bigger, and in the process more mainstream.
Final Straw was released in the summer of 2003. It's a really strong album, grounded in Lightbody's maturity as a songwriter. Many of the songs deal with Lightbody's struggles in relationships. Nowhere is that more apparent than in "Spitting Games", the first single from the album.
"Spitting Games" was the first Snow Patrol song I had ever heard. I loved how bright and jangly the instruments are on the track. But Lightbody's lyrics are what kept me coming back to it. It's probably my favorite song ever about having a crush. Being infatuated with someone but not having the nerve to act on it can really fuck up your head. It's basically the story of my senior year of high school. Lightbody describes these emotions masterfully on the song. "Spitting Games" peaked at #6 on my chart in the summer of 2004.
"Run" was the second single from Final Straw. It's a grand power ballad, as Lightbody is carrying a torch for someone who appears to be breaking up with him. He seems to have resigned himself to the breakup. "I'll sing it one last time for you, then we really have to go. You've been the only thing that's right in all I've done." He feels like he'll still be in her thoughts long after they've said goodbye. "Even if you cannot hear my voice, I'll be right beside you dear."
Lightbody wrote the song after going on a bender one night in Glasgow and falling down a flight of stairs. Maybe that's why it feels like Lightbody's narrator is deluding himself by thinking his ex will still think about him. He claims the experience inspired the "light up, light up" part of the chorus, as if to summon a beacon.
Song like these always run the risk of coming off as treacly or lame. But the epicness of the chorus works well with Lightbody's understated voice. The song nails the emotional stakes of feeling like you're losing someone you feel like you're meant to be with.
Power ballads have always felt somewhat incongruous with alternative rock to me. Maybe that's because I associate them more with 1980s corporate rock and hair metal. And alternative radio in the early 2000s didn't have a whole lot of songs that relied on introspection. That tide may have turned somewhat in 2004. Indeed, one of the biggest hits on either alternative or pop radio that year was "The Reason", a power ballad by the nu metal-adjacent band Hoobastank. "The Reason" was somewhat out of left field for the band compared to their previous singles, but people seemed to fall for it whether they were familiar with the band's catalog or not. (On my chart, "The Reason" peaked at #8.)
"Run" only made it to #15 on the Modern Rock chart in the US, but proved to be a huge hit in the UK, peaking at #5 there. Another single from Final Straw, "Chocolate", caught enough of my attention to reach #23 on my chart. Final Straw did much more business in the United Kingdom than the United States, but it still did well enough here to establish a foothold for the band.
Snow Patrol went back to work with Jacknife Lee for their next album Eyes Open, which would be released in May 2006. The first single in the United States from that album was "Hands Open", a crunchy banger that I thought was going to launch the band to superstardom. (It was also the first time I became aware of Sufjan Stevens, who's name-checked in the song; I keep telling myself I'm supposed to like his music, but ultimately I never do.) "Hands Open" peaked at #2 on my chart, but only got to #21 on the alternative chart, getting kneecapped by the follow-up that became an out-of-nowhere smash.
"Chasing Cars" was one of the first examples of how a song's usage in popular media, combined with the advent of legal downloads (or later, streaming) could push it into becoming a bona fide hit. In this case, the song was featured on the second season finale of the ABC medical drama Grey's Anatomy. Over 22 million people tuned in to that episode and heard "Chasing Cars" for the first time.
I never understood the appeal of Grey's Anatomy back then, to say nothing of understanding how it's still airing today. I have a friend who's obsessed with the show, so maybe she can better explain how the song became a success. But "Chasing Cars" didn't do anything for me at the time, and I was kinda resentful how it undercut "Hands Open", so it missed my chart entirely. That was probably an overreaction at the time, but even now, it still feels like hollower copy of "Run".
"Hands Open" would be the last time Snow Patrol had a top 10 hit on my chart. Their last appearance on my chart at all was in 2012; the song "Called Out in the Dark" from the album Fallen Empires peaked at #34. But Snow Patrol are still plugging along. Their eighth album The Forest Is the Path is actually set to be released this week. I doubt we'll see them again in this column, though.
Snow Patrol may not have managed the same career trajectory as their contemporaries Coldplay, but the ironic thing for me is I probably wouldn't avoid a new Snow Patrol song if I heard it on the radio. And they're not using fucking emojis for song titles either. But I guess we'll deal with that later, since Coldplay will be in this column a bunch more times.
EXTRAS
In 2007, X-Factor winner Leona Lewis performed "Run" on an appearance on BBC Radio 1 promoting her debut album. She later recorded the cover and included it on a deluxe version of that album. Her version of "Run" went to #1 in the UK, outperforming Snow Patrol's version. Here's the cover:
(Leona Lewis will eventually appear in this column.)
THE NUMBER TWOS
Jimmy Eat World's sweaty emo jam "Pain" peaked at #2 behind "Run".
THE BEST OF THE REST
Avril Lavigne's wistful, melancholic hit "My Happy Ending" peaked at #9 behind "Run". It's everything, everything that I wanted.
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