James Joyce boasted of his novel Ulysses that you could recreate early 20th Century Dublin exactly from its pages. Singer Jake Shillingford could make the same claim about 90s London and My Life Story’s back catalogue.
Following on from a surprisingly triumphant sell out reunion gig at London’s Astoria in May last year, and a well-received best of, MLS have dug into the vaults and come up with 40 rare tracks. The silly song titles and clever-clever wordplay is so Britpop it hurts, but this is more than just a time capsule.
Their dandyish chamber pop, similar to The Divine Comedy, distanced itself disdainfully from Oasis’ lad rock with lush orchestral arrangements (the band had 13 members at one point) and vulnerable, witty lyrics. Sadly, their indie symphonies were often let down by Shillingford’s voice. There was a certain bathetic gormlessness about his nasal Essex tones fatally at odds with his rakish exterior: like Billy Bragg in a feather boa. Still, his sharp cultural eye on gems such as the glammy Stuck Up Your Own Era and The History Of The World On Ice (a dig at the commercialisation of the Millenium celebrations) mark him out as one of Britpop’s better frontmen. Definitely worth a re-reading.
