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For a period of time, Razorlight were one of the biggest bands in the United Kingdom. Far eclipsing everyone else who had come out of the same East London indie rock scene, even though that scene brought the world everyone from The Libertines to Bloc Party. From 2004 to around 2007, they were only second to Arctic Monkeys themselves in terms of albums sales, fan devotion, radio play and sheer popularity. However, the crucial thing to remember about Razorlight is that no amount of success, no matter how all-encompassing it was, was ever going to be enough for their frontman, one Mr. Johnny Borrell. Borrell formed the band in 2002, after ditching a solo career that he'd spent as an intense, young singer/songwriter supporting bands like the aforementioned Libertines in Whitechapel bars. Once he'd put together the first line-up of the band, and recruited NME scribe Roger Morton as the band's manager, the band made their live debut supporting The Von Bondies at Camden's Dingwalls and recorded demo versions of their songs “Rock 'n' Roll Lies”, “Rip It Up” and “In The City” shortly afterwards.
Borrell soon became something of an indie rock celebrity, thanks to his pin-up looks and habit of saying things in the press that were alternately bonkers, brilliant, disgustingly arrogant or a hybrid of all three. As I said before, no amount of success would satisfy the ambitious young rocker, so the sheer amount of critical acclaim and commercial success that they enjoyed straight out of the gate is arguably the best and worst thing to happen to Razorlight in their entire career. After the band signed with Mercury Records, their debut album “Up All Night” was released in June 2004, and was an immediate top three hit. In 2005, after their single “Somewhere Else” had crashed into the singles chart at number two, the band solidified their place as the next big thing by performing to an audience of 200'000 people at that summer's Live 8 festival in Hyde Park.
Their self-titled second album saw them ascend into the stratosphere. After its release in 2006, the band secured their first number one single in the form of “America”, Borrell's co-writing effort with their drummer Andy Burrows, and support slots with Queen + Paul Rodgers, The Rolling Stones and Oasis followed in short order. In October, they embarked on a sold out tour of arenas in the UK and the following year, they capped off their imperial phase by headlining the Reading and Leeds festivals, the biggest gigs of their career by far. Ever since then, the band have remained one of the most beloved acts of the 2000's as much for their singer's eccentricities a for their titanic back catalogue of hits and their consummate live show. For remaining relevant well past a lot of their peers, Razorlight come highly recommended.
James is not a person. That’s the first fact we need to clear up. The second is that their best song is “Sit Down” (which was infamously beaten to the top of the charts by a certain Mr Chesney Hawkes).
The band has been recording and performing together for most of the last thirty years and has produced so broad a range of music with a fluctuating line-up that they are hard to categorise. Once they were folky, then they mastered late-‘80s jangly guitars, recorded an excellent live album and saw their record company go bust. Then their sound matured: they neatly side-stepped the Madchester scene while riding on its coat-tails to popular acclaim, became big on American college radio with “Laid” and recorded an album of experimental tunes with Brian Eno. They’ve worked with him since too.
I first saw the band perform live at the Leeds Town & Country Club in 1992. They could have filled bigger venues but they chose instead to perform an acoustic tour in preparation for their upcoming gigs with Neil Young. Stripped of their electric backing, some bands flounder. Not James. The band understands the importance of melody and in Tim Booth they have a singer whose lyrics poetically expose his vulnerabilities. Their 2011 tour with the Orchestra of the Swan and Manchester Consort Choir similarly demonstrated the strength and versatility of the band’s music.
Yet this band’s sound can just as easily fill arenas. In Manchester, their home, Booth will gladly walk among the audience of the Arena as he sings before returning to the stage for the band to unleash the full power of its art. In conclusion, this is a band which will adapt its sound to the venue and whose next step can never be predicted. See them at a venue near you.
I caught Razorlight in person earlier this year and those guys rocked the roof off of the house. Somehow I actually hadn’t listened to much of their work before going, even though they were such a huge hit in the early 2000s.
Lucky me, I got to experience all of their work for the first time live in concert, and I can’t imagine ever wanting to listen to recorded studio performances after seeing how amazing they were in person! Razorlight had the entire crowd captivated from the second they stepped on the stage until the club finally kicked everybody out so we couldn’t beg for yet another encore anymore.
They’ve got the whole package: hypnotic rhythms, driving basslines, and memorable hooks. On top of their immense talent, their passion for music is readily apparent in everything about the way they look and act. I could see any of the four grocery shopping and instantly know that they are rock stars; that’s how incredibly charismatic they are.
Razorlight is kind of on hiatus with some plans for a new album, but they are playing in several festivals this year so make sure to go check them out if you have the opportunity to.