| The top 40 bands in Britain today |
| 20: Broadcast Broadcast's music could be beamed in from another galaxy - you can imagine Barbarella dancing about her space pod to their latest album, Haha Sound. Using 1960s equipment, Broadcast create songs with the texture of scudding clouds and calm seas, topped with lyrics as calmly beautiful as they are fraught with confusion and tension. It is this atmosphere of longing and searching that gives their music warmth - that, and their ability to write cheeky melodies that radiate an infectious sense of joy. Rarely is electronic music so much fun. Sound:19 Songs:15 Gigs: 8 Style:12 Attitude: 12 Total: 66 Broadcast | |||
| 19. Beth Gibbons Glaciers move quicker than the career of hip-hop torch singer turned folk siren Gibbons, but it was always worth the wait. With Portishead, she was a goosebump-raising voice in the dark. She reappeared last year in tandem with former Talk Talk member Paul Webb on the extraordinarily beautiful Out of Season, a record with the autumnal tang of bonfire smoke. Foolishly underrated, Gibbons's voice and songs will be cherished years from now. Sound: 16 Songs:18 Gigs:14 Style:8 Attitude:11 Total: 67 Beth Gibbons | |||
| 18. Coldplay They have been much criticised, but Coldplay are arguably one of Britain's premier post-millennial rock bands. Influenced by the likes of Jeff Buckley and Echo and the Bunnymen, they have combined guitar transcendence with traditional songwriting to create what are fast becoming modern standards. Keeping matters fairly safe and anthemic up to now, singer Chris Martin recently revealed that the band are taking some time out to "reinvent themselves". If this means following the wayward career paths of stadium peers Radiohead and U2, we might just see a shift into left field. Sound:15 Songs: 18 Gigs:19 Style:5 Attitude:10 Total: 67 Coldplay | |||
| 17. Robert Wyatt Semi-paralysed since an accident in 1973, the former Soft Machine drummer has become one of British pop's most recognisable, haunting voices. Hugely influential and musically varied, Wyatt is synonymous with uncompromising poignancy: his 1983 version of Elvis Costello's Shipbuilding, released during the Falklands war, remains one of pop's most powerful political statements. He has recorded with everyone from Peter Gabriel to Namibia's Swapo singers, and his recent Cuckooland album finds him on typically vital form. Wyatt can be as personal as he is political, and is able to sing equally movingly about love, brandy, and the joys of mustard. Sound:16 Songs:15 Gigs:11 Style:10 Attitude:17 Total: 69 | |||
| 16. Goldfrapp There is plenty of sex in pop, but precious little sensuality. After a few years in the shadows as a guest vocalist for the likes of Orbital and Tricky, Alison Goldfrapp (aided by collaborator Will Gregory) emerged to remedy that shortage with a cocktail of ripe carnality and sinister beauty. The duo's albums, Felt Mountain and Black Cherry, are exotic middle-European fantasias co-scripted by Christopher Isherwood and Hans Christian Andersen: music for black forests and red light districts. Sound:16 Songs:10 Gigs:10 Style:18 Attitude:16 Total: 70 Goldfrapp | |||
| 15. Basement Jaxx Brixton duo Felix Buxton and Simon Ratcliffe began their career trying to imitate US house producers before introducing a very British irreverence to their music. The secret of their multicultural melee is not seamless merging, but worlds colliding: Latin rhythms and Jamaican chants ricochet off American house and R&B, which in turn clash with punk and rave. That their new album makes neighbours of Dizzee Rascal, Siouxsie Sioux and a former member of N'Sync says it all. Sound:16 Songs:14 Gigs:17 Style:11 Attitude:13 Total: 71 Basement Jaxx | |||
| 14. Sugababes Every generation produces a girl or boy act that even indie types grudgingly admire - and at the moment, the teenage Sugababes are it. Their languid sound is unique, as is their involvement in songwriting and production, and if there are puppeteers behind the scenes, they are subtle about it. The Sugas have enough of a DIY mentality to excite anoraks ("We just assumed everyone always wrote their own songs"), the pop sensibility to score a string of hits and an apparent ban on smiling. Sound:17 Songs:17 Gigs: 13 Style:11 Attitude:14 Total: 72 Sugababes | |||
| 13. Chemical Brothers As dance music's creative biorhythms hit a low, it's worth remembering the duo who did so much to define the genre's glory days. From the start, Tom Rowlands and Ed Simons saw the connections between the records they loved: the stampeding energy that yoked hip-hop to acid house and the rapturous overload that joined techno to 1960s psychedelia. And they are still joining those dots, ever alert to the endless alchemical possibilities of the sampler and sequencer. Sound:20 Songs:16 Gigs:15 Style:7 Attitude:16 Total: 74 Chemical Brothers | |||
| 12. Super Furry Animals When SFA emerged in the mid-1990s, British pop had never seen anything like them. With a line-up including politico/poet Gruff Rhys and disgraced former schoolteacher "Bunf" Bunford, they offered a kaleidoscopic vision of pop possibilities. Their 1996 debut Fuzzy Logic took in marxism, Welsh nationalism, dole culture, drug smugglers, unicorns and more. However, their fondness for a jape should not overshadow the enormous thought that underpins their music. Six albums down the line, the band have achieved a level of consistency matched by few British outfits since the Beatles. The recent Phantom Power was their second to chart in the top five, and they remain one of Britain's best-loved live bands, often turning up at gigs with tanks and furry costumes. Sound:17 Songs:15 Gigs:16 Style:10 Attitude:16 Total: 74 Super Furry Animals | |||
| 11. Dizzee Rascal Last month, 19-year-old Dylan Mills won the Mercury prize. The reponse from the music industry was muted, possibly because no matter how many awards he wins, Mills's music is likely to remain unpalatable to the mainstream. However, a lack of commercial potential doesn't make his work any less vital. His lyrics offer a witty, disconcerting skewering of teenage life in inner-city Britain, while his noisy, uncomfortable sound is as close to the cutting edge as British urban music gets in 2003. Sound:20 Songs:20 Gigs:- Style:15 Attitude:20 Total: 75 Dizzee Rascal | |||
| 10. David Bowie One of rock's pivotal style icons and innovators, Bowie's major achievements (Ziggy Stardust, Young Americans, Low, Heroes et al) have involved remodelling fringe ideas for the mainstream. By the 1980s, having explored glam rock, androgyny, astral travel, "plastic soul", synthesisers and cocaine, he was exhausted, and by the 90s he had panicked into following trends (notably drum'n'bass for 1997's Earthling). Recently, however, Heathen (2002) and Reality (2003) received glowing reviews. Fans have speculated whether the twin-colour-eyed genius is an alien life-form, a theory given credence by the fact that, at 56, he looks better than he did in 1975. Sound:16 Songs:14 Gigs:18 Style:15 Attitude:13 Total: 76 David Bowie | |||
| 9. The Streets He looks like a naughty schoolboy and sounds like a rascal, his days one long blur of PlayStation, dope and too much brandy. But in putting that lackadaisical life to a soundtrack of cheap bleeps and Casio melodies, Mike Skinner pushed UK garage to a whole new level. Last year's debut, Original Pirate Material, exuded wit as it chronicled the warts-and-all life of one cocky, unreliable, skint, very British lad. It will be thrilling to see where this cheeky, utterly engaging geezer goes next. Sound:20 Songs:17 Gigs:11 Style:10 Attitude:19 Total: 77 The Streets | |||
| 8. The Darkness Proving, as Adam Ant said, that ridicule is nothing to be scared of, the Darkness sashayed out of Lowestoft to give glam-metal a 21st-century voice. Though their spandex leotards and high-decibel pounding appear to be a style magazine's idea of a prank, they are serious enough about it to have sold 450,000 copies of debut album Permission to Land in three months. They may last only until Justin Hawkins's hysterical falsetto gives out, but every ludicrous bite should be savoured. Sound:10 Songs:14 Gigs:15 Style:19 Attitude:20 Total: 78 The Darkness | |||
| 7. Mis-Teeq Britain's answer to Destiny's Child (albeit with a penchant for PVC jerkins), Mis-Teeq have long since outpaced the garage scene that created them. It's hard to believe this primped and polished - but utterly cool - trio were raised in south and west London. There's a Gothic eeriness to hits like Scandalous and One Night Stand that differentiates them from their US counterparts. Until they start hankering for solo careers, the future is shiny. Sound:15 Songs:16 Gigs: 16 Style:17 Attitude:15 Total: 79 Mis-Teeq | |||
| 6. Blur Their name may have been picked under duress from a record company shortlist of meaningless epithets, but it suits them. Blur are all about velocity. Whether you consider Damon Albarn a mercurial genius or a dexterous dilettante, he never sits still, the only constant being a passionate belief that pop and art are not mutually exclusive. A full decade after they drew Britpop's battle lines, Blur are immersed in playful junk-shop funk and plaintive ballads on a seventh album, Think Tank, which may be their finest yet. Sound:15 Songs:18 Gigs: 18 Style:15 Attitude:15 Total: 81 Blur | |||
| 5. Roots Manuva British rap has often been in awe of its American forebear, but Roots Manuva has changed that. Roots - Rodney Smith to his mum - claims that Ian Dury and Chas and Dave have influenced his rap as much as Public Enemy, while his backing tracks mix Brixton reggae with Depeche Mode. So far, he has only grazed the charts (with 2001's Dreamy Days), but his influence is incalculable and he opened the doors for the Streets, Dizzee Rascal et al. Simply, Roots has demonstrated that singing in a British accent isn't uncool. Equally, he has shown rap a subject-matter away from US ghettos, sex and guns. His brilliant flows make everything from drug culture to vagrancy, religion, beans on toast and "10 pints ah bitta" sound as exotic and entrancing as anything from the US. Sound:18 Songs:17 Gigs: 13 Style:15 Attitude:19 Total: 82 Roots Manuva | |||
| 4. The Coral In terms of looks, there is little to differentiate the Coral from any of the innumerable bands of young lads that Britain churns out. Musically, however, the Liverpool sextet are worlds apart. Last year's self-titled debut album revelled in the kind of invention most bands find frightening: doo-wop harmonies bounced against Captain Beefheart growls, jagged punk guitars and lyrics that veer from the strange to the surreal. Where they truly excel is on stage: seeing the Coral live is an exhilarating experience, offering a rare glimpse of the passion and pop nous that drove the British invasion all those years ago. Sound:20 Songs:19 Gigs: 20 Style:10 Attitude:15 Total: 84 The Coral | |||
| 3. P J Harvey It has been Polly Jean Harvey's ambition, throughout her career, to be considered not a great female musician but a great rock musician. Of course, in her contrary way, she has also spent a lot of those years flaunting her femininity, donning slinky catsuits and spiky high heels, singing of sex and dresses and bad-hair days. While in the late 1990s her music was influenced by the masculine sound of US producer Steve Albini, more recently she has taken her cues from another queen of rock, Patti Smith. So yes, Harvey is a woman in a man's world - but listen to her passionate, angry songs, full of hammer-headed riffs and glacial melodies, and you realise that she is simply a fantastic, inspiring musician, all on her own terms. Sound : 17 Songs: 16 Gigs: 19 Style:17 Attitude:18 Total: 87 P J Harvey | |||
| 2. Radiohead The sight of 100,000 people twitching wildly to Idioteque at Glastonbury this year was testament to how far Radiohead have come. After OK Computer launched a wave of hyperbole big enough to drown them, the relatively obtuse Kid A seemed like a retreat to higher ground - but it only increased its creators' mystique. Radiohead have become emblematic of all that a world-class rock band can be, balancing success with integrity, size with intimacy, and always finding a way to escape the long shadow of their prior achievements. Helmed by Thom Yorke, the quintessential anti-star, they become more unique and valuable with each passing year. Sound:19 Songs:17 Gigs:20 Style:13 Attitude:19 Total: 88 Radiohead | |||
| 1. The Libertines The Libertines have had a turbulent 12 months since the release of their debut album, Up the Bracket. Co-frontman Pete Doherty was awol from the band when he was arrested for burgling bandmate Carl Barat's flat, and subsequently jailed. But that's beside the point (except for those still foolish enough to equate drug addiction and petty crime with bona fide rock'n'roll credentials). All the credentials the Libertines need are there on Up the Bracket. Like the Kinks, the Jam, the Smiths and the arty, questioning wing of Britpop, the Libertines view Britain afresh. Theirs is an eccentric collage of island life - Boadicea and Chas and Dave, Sherlock Holmes and Sid James - in which wry cynicism competes with romantic idealism. It's an assertion of cultural identity that is witty and vibrant rather than dim and bullish, and it's best captured on the raucously stirring Time for Heroes: "There's few more distressing sights than that of an Englishman in a baseball cap. We'll die in the class we were born, that's a class of our own." The Libertines' strength - and their weakness - is a sense of barely contained chaos. Their boozy, last-orders punk thunders along the thin line between swagger and stagger, and the latter often hobbles their live shows. Whether they become greats or just one of those great what-ifs that Britain specialises in depends on whether they regroup, but they have the talent and the belief. Shamelessly intelligent, stylish, wayward and complex, if they don't shoot themselves in the foot, they can shoot for the stars. Sound:19 Songs:19 Gigs:13 Style:19 Attitude:20 Total: 90 The Libertines | |||
| The 40 greatest British bands today (part one - 40 to 21) | |||
Want to comment on our choices? Email friday.review@guardian.co.uk | |||
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