Artist of the Week - Elbow

This weeks Artist of this week is another award winning band, this time from Manchester. None other than the band Elbow. They represent all that is good about bands that have grown in stature from working hard and forming a loyal fan base rather than being manufactured by the pop machine. In fact if anything it was the pop machine that prevented them becoming well known sooner.

I came across Elbow while listening to BBC 6 Music a couple of summers ago. When I heard the song "Station Approach" I instantly fell in love with the sound of the band. At the time they were becoming more widely known on radio after receiving a lot of coverage in the music press. This was later followed by a one off special on the long running ITV arts program "The South Bank Show".

There roots go back over twenty years, with members of the band Elbow first playing together back in 1990 in a local pub in the suburbs of Manchester while the they were studying at college together. Originally called "Mr Soft", and then just "Soft" they didn't become Elbow until 1997 when they decided to rename the band. The same year they signed their first record deal with Island Records and recorded their first album that was never released after Island Records brought out  by the major label Universal. However, after being dropped by Universal they didn't give up and after recording a number of EP's, which got some national air play, they eventually released their first album in 2001. For many years after this they toiled away on the fringe of the music business releasing a number of albums before finally receiving the recognition by winning the Mercury Music Prize for the album "The Seldom Seen Kid", which was followed by more awards in 2009. Slowly the band has a developed a strong fan base and released four albums to date with fifth due out in March.

They are well worth checking out on YouTube and if you like them then why not seek out their albums. I have had them on my iPod for a while and I'm really looking forward to spending a week listening to their music while I go to work. I hope you enjoy them too.