Neil Hannon, aka
The Divine Comedy, has both annoyed and charmed critics (often within the same song).
Reviews of his
most recent album, Bang Goes The Knighthood (released in Europe last May, now released in the US but only via
iTunes) have described the split like this:
"Divine Comedy albums are always an arm-wrestle between two incompatible personas. One is the elegant and witty balladeer, a precocious hybrid of Scott Walker and Randy Newman, heard on such commanding cuts as The Dogs & the Horses and Sunrise. The other is the insufferably bumptious japester queasily evocative of Gilbert O'Sullivan, most notably culpable for the enragingly jaunty sing-along National Express (which, rather depressingly, remains The Divine Comedy's biggest hit)."
"And so it goes, a series of songs ping ponging, in (Noel) Coward's tradition, between cheapness and potency."
But while occasionally irritating critics Neil Hannon has been able to carve out a twenty year career that has outlasted & outclassed most of his contemporaries from the
Britpop era and fans remain dedicated as he continues to produce his literate and singular brand of baroque pop music.
Standout tracks from Bang Goes The Knighthood:
Down In The Streets Below,
The Complete Banker,
Bang Goes The Knighthood,
Assume The Perpendicular, and
When A Man Cries.
From his back catalog:
The Wreck of the Beautiful,
Geronimo (solo) (and with Yann Tiersen),
The Booklovers,
When The Lights Go Out All Over Europe,
Charge,
Songs Of Love,
Becoming More Like Alfie,
Sunrise, two interesting fan-made videos of Sweden (
one &
two),
Eric The Gardener, a credible fan cover of
Timestretched,
Bad Ambassador,
Perfect Lovesong,
Tonight We Fly,
Something for the Weekend, Mastermind (
studio &
live),
Our Mutual Friend,
A Lady Of A Certain Age,
Certainty of Chance, The Plough (
studio &
live), Snowball In Negative (
studio &
live),
The Dogs And The Horses.
Many of Neil's best songs (such as
London Irish,
Elaine,
Birds of Paradise Farms and
Get Me To The Monastery) have appeared only as b-sides.
Collaborations have played a large part in his career. Last year Neil sang the song
Cathy on Portuguese composer Rodrigo Leão's most recent album and in the past Neil has either written for or sung on releases by everyone from
Air,
Ute Lemper and
Charlotte Gainsbourg to
God Help The Girl (Stuart Murdoch of Belle & Sebastian's side project) and
Yann Tiersen not to mention many others including
Tom Jones.
Besides writing and performing the theme songs for the beloved TV series
Father Ted &
The IT Crowd Neil's given Eurovision a go with his song
Trafalgar. Quite a
catalog of
cover songs too.
Sometime after the release of Victory for the Comic Muse in 2006 Neil was released from his contract with Parlaphone who had released his last three albums. Hannon then started his own label, Divine Comedy Records, to release his new music as well as to reissue the portion of his back catalog originally released by
Setanta. The first release from the label was last year's surprise "hit" from
The Duckworth Lewis Method, (Hannon's side project with Thomas Walsh from
Pugwash) a self-titled concept album about
cricket. DLM songs include
Jiggery Pokery,
The Nightwatchman,
Gentlemen and Players and
Meeting Mr. Miandad.
The video for The Divine Comedy's next single,
I Like, was released last week.
on the National Express theres a jolly hostess serving criiiisps aaaand teeee
posted by The Whelk at 12:14 PM on July 28, 2010