There’s reason for music critics to want to get to know UK-based group Charlatans, and that is mostly because they were unofficially part of the famous Manchester scene back in the 80s. The now-famous Steve Coogan movie 24 Hour Party People helped bring about a resurgence of early New Wave music initiated by the likes of Ian Curtis and Joy Division, and though groups like The Happy Mondays and The Stone Roses got a lot of credit for solidifying the sound, The Charlatans shouldn’t be overlooked: they’re amazingly talented. Here’s a band that grouped elements of English alt-rock, progressive rock, and the poppier, more mainstream sound of UK bands like Squeeze and Split Ens with their own straightforward rock sound, and was ahead of their time in doing it. At times, Tim, Mark, and the band seems about to channel Gospel, then new wave, then they’re genre-jumping to the next sound already. There’s the pseudo-industrial vibe of “Weirdo”, and then there’s the poppy sound of “The Only One I Know”; if The Charlatans have stolen from anyone, they wisely selected from a lot of different sounds and bands, so many in fact that their sound becomes meshed into one bizarre and multi-headed monster that is all their own. Get a taste of the thievery on Red Bull Music Academy Radio.
