Enough Sheds To Last A Lifetime
So we had the pre-Christmas greatest hits tour, so the logical follow up would be, the greatest hits album. With the band lined up for a festival appearance or two over the summer, this handy double CD set is there in your local record store (or online retailer if you’re now too lazy to venture into an actual shop), just waiting to give you the beginners guide to “that ‘Chasing Rainbows’ band”.
Shed 7 have taken some stick in their time, but there were plenty worse than them in the Brit Pop era. The December tour was billed as a chance for them to do the hits trek they never got the chance to do, and it was a total sell out and a damn fine night out while it lasted. They also have enough anthems in their armoury to be a firm favourite on the festival circuit this summer, nostalgia has it’s place as part of the festival package, and the band’s signature hit ‘Chasing Rainbows’ is sure to be belted out by thousands. Question is, do the same thousands really want a double CD containing thirty eight tracks, hits, misses and extra bits telling you everything you wanted to know about the career of Shed 7 but just hadn’t quite got round to thinking you might like to ask.
Aside from the obvious ‘Chasing Rainbows’ and ‘Going For Gold’, early single ‘Dolphin’, ‘Speakeasy’, ‘Ocean Pie’, ‘On Stand By’ and ‘Heroes’ are all indie classics worth a dust off. The anthemic ‘She Left Me On Friday’ and ‘Disco Down’ were hugely popular on the reunion tour, and they stand out on this set too. The prize for forgotten classic goes to arguably the most stereotypical Brit Pop anthem of them all ‘Bully Boy’.
The problem with this album is that, for somebody who just enjoyed the hits, there’s at least one CD too much, sadly for those people the B-sides just won’t have the same impact as the songs that featured as part of the soundtrack to their school or college years. For the completist, diehard fan, and this may surprise you if you’d forgotten all about Shed 7, there are more than a few of those knocking about, this will be a great way of looking back on their career. In short, if you loved the Sheds enough to still have a collection of CD singles in your room, get hold of this, for no other reason than it might create a bit more room on the shelf or under the bed. For those who just want the classics, ‘Going For Gold’ which came out in 1999 will be going cheap if you look hard enough.