"Bitter Sweet Symphony"

Verve
(Virgin, 1997)

Breaking up a half-dozen times or so didn't stop these British shoegazers from making a brilliant third album, Urban Hymns, and accomplishing what countless other UK boys with great cheekbones had tried and failed to do during the '90's by scoring a smash single on these shores. Liberally sampling an obscure, mostly forgotten recording (forgotten, that is, until "Bitter Sweet Symphony" began climbing the charts) of the Andrew Oldham Orchestra's symphonic treatment of the Rolling Stones' "The Last Time," the Verve assembled one of the most grandly majestic pop songs of the decade. Atop a billowy bed of strings, singer Richard Ashcroft's fitful desire to "hear some sounds that recognize the pain in me" is ennui at its most glamorous. Those cheekbones didn't exactly hurt either.

-- Jonathan Perry