THE BETA BAND – Music: The Best Of The Beta Band
Posted by AlMachine on Friday, October 7, 2005


They say that you don’t appreciate a good thing until it’s gone, and as epitaphs go that could quite easily sum up the non-career of The Beta Band.

Whilst it is probably fair to say that it was never their intention to become corporate whoring rock stars, their eccentric take on both the musical and visual art form has influenced everyone over the past eight years from Radiohead to the Doves and Oasis, and yet strangely enough their record sales never got close to exemplifying the impact their music has made.

When they called it a day at the end of last year, barely a sentence was written in the tabloid music press about their demise, a sad trait considering all someone like Pete Doherty has to do is buy a bottle of milk from his local shop and it’s front page news, and yet with this collection, their legacy is there for all to see, and more importantly, hear.

‘Music…’ is spread over 2 CDs, the first of which collects 16 studio recordings from various singles and albums, while the second one takes in one of their final live shows from Shepherd’s Bush Empire in December of last year.

Even now, the stoned, trip-hop-in-the-country roll-on-athon of ‘Dry The Rain’ sounds as fresh and innovative as it did upon it’s release in 1997, and more to the point, it still stands the test of time as quite possibly being one of the greatest debut singles of the past 25 years. Some might even suggest that it was the beginning of their downfall, because when you’ve released something as good as that so early on in your career, surely things can only go downhill hereon in, right?

Well not quite, as the majestic ‘Inner Meet Me’, sprawling ‘It’s Not Too Beautiful’ and U2 after a day of dried skunk and Kendal mint cake splurge of ‘Assessment’ all reach the giddy heights of ‘Dry The Rain’ in one way or another, while the dissipated, polished rhythms of ‘Human Being’ and ‘She’s The One’ should have been indie disco staples rather than manufactured gunk like Kasabian, but such is life.

On the live disc the band’s experimental side becomes more apparent, coming to the fore on the sporadic ‘Dog’s Got A Bone’ and clanging beats of ‘House Song’, which as it stands, proved to be a fitting finale as the lights finally went out.

Although the band allegedly had debts running into seven figures (their first album was recorded and scrapped before it’s release on several occasions, not to mention the elaborate video budgets), just a couple of hit singles would undoubtedly have gone some way towards paying a large chunk of them off, so the next time you’re in HMV spending your cash on Robbie or Blunt, think of the groundbreaking artists you’re probably putting out of a job in the meantime, you silly, silly people.

Dom Gourlay

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