Morrissey
Steven Patrick Morrissey, known mononymously as Morrissey, is an English singer and author. He came to prominence as the frontman of the Smiths, a rock band active from 1982 to 1987. Since he has pursued a commercially successful solo career. Morrissey's music is characterised by his baritone voice and distinctive lyrical content featuring recurring themes of emotional isolation and sexual longing, self-deprecating and black humour, anti-establishment stances. Born in Davyhulme, Lancashire, to a working-class Irish migrant family, Morrissey grew up in Manchester; as a child he developed a love of literature, kitchen sink realism, pop music. In the late 1970s, he fronted punk rock band the Nosebleeds with little success before beginning a career in music journalism and authoring several books on music and film in the early 1980s. With Johnny Marr he formed the Smiths in 1982, soon attracting national recognition for their eponymous debut album; as the band's frontman, Morrissey attracted attention for his trademark quiff and witty and sardonic lyrics.
Deliberately avoiding rock machismo, he cultivated the aesthetic of a sexually ambiguous social outsider who embraced celibacy. The Smiths released three further studio albums—Meat Is Murder, The Queen Is Dead, Strangeways, Here We Come—and had a string of hit singles; the band attracted a cult following. Personal differences between Morrissey and Marr resulted in the separation of the Smiths in 1987. In 1988, Morrissey launched his solo career with Viva Hate; this album and its follow-ups—Kill Uncle, Your Arsenal, Vauxhall and I—all did well on the UK Albums Chart and spawned multiple hit singles. Replacing Marr, he took on Boz Boorer as his primary co-writers. During this time his image began to shift into that of a burlier figure, who toyed with patriotic imagery and working-class masculinity. In the mid-to-late 1990s, his albums Southpaw Grammar and Maladjusted charted but were less well received. Relocating to Los Angeles, he took a musical hiatus from 1998 to 2003 before releasing a successful comeback album, You Are the Quarry, in 2004.
Ensuing years saw the release of albums Ringleader of the Tormentors, Years of Refusal, World Peace Is None of Your Business, Low in High School, as well as an autobiography and a novel. Influential, Morrissey has been credited as a seminal figure in the emergence of indie rock and Britpop. Regarded as one of the greatest lyricists in British history, his lyrics have become the subject of academic study, he has courted controversy since early on in his music career with his forthright opinions—endorsing vegetarianism and animal rights, criticising royalty and prominent politicians, defending a particular vision of English national identity. In a 2006 poll for the BBC's The Culture Show, Morrissey was voted the second-greatest living British cultural icon. Steven Patrick Morrissey was born on 22 May 1959, at Park Hospital, Lancashire, his parents—Elizabeth and Peter Morrissey—were working-class Irish Catholics. They had emigrated to Manchester from Dublin with his only sibling, elder sister Jacqueline, a year prior to his birth.
They had given him the forename of Steven after the American actor Steve Cochran. His earliest home was a council house at 17 Harper Street in the Hulme area of inner Manchester. Living in that area, as a child he was affected by the Moors murders in which a number of local children were murdered by Ian Brady and Myra Hindley, he became aware of the anti-Irish sentiment in British society against Irish migrants to Britain. In 1970 the family relocated to another council house at Stretford. Following an early education at St. Wilfred's Primary School, Morrissey failed his 11-plus exam, proceeded to St. Mary's Technical Modern School, an experience that he found unpleasant, he excelled at athletics. He has been critical of his formal education stating that "the education I received was so evil and brutal. All I learnt was to have no self-esteem and to feel ashamed without knowing why", he left school in 1975. He continued his education at Stretford Technical College, there gained three O-levels in English Literature and the General Paper.
In 1975 he travelled to the United States to visit an aunt. The relationship between Morrissey's parents was strained, they separated in December 1976, with his father moving out of the family home. Morrissey's librarian mother encouraged her son's interest in reading, he took an interest in feminist literature, adored the Irish author Oscar Wilde, whom he came to idolise. The young Morrissey was a keen fan of the television soap opera Coronation Street, which focused around working-class communities in Manchester, he was a fan of Shelagh Delaney's A Taste of Honey and its 1961 film adaptation, a kitchen sink drama focusing around working-class life in Salford. Many of his songs directly quoted from A Taste of Honey. Of his youth, Morrissey said, "Pop music was all I had, it was entwined with the image of the pop star. I remember feeling the person singing was with me and understood me and my predicament." He revealed that the first record he purchased was Marianne Faithfull's 1964 single "Come and Stay With Me".
During the 1970s he became a glam rock fan, enjoying the work of English artists
Bob Geldof
Robert Frederick Zenon Geldof, is an Irish singer-songwriter, political activist and occasional actor. He rose to prominence as the lead singer of the Irish rock band The Boomtown Rats in the late 1970s and early 1980s, alongside the punk rock movement; the band had Number One hits with his compositions "Rat Trap" and "I Don't Like Mondays". Geldof co-wrote "Do They Know It's Christmas?", one of the best-selling singles of all time, starred in Pink Floyd's 1982 film Pink Floyd – The Wall as "Pink". Geldof is recognised for his activism anti-poverty efforts concerning Africa. In 1984 he and Midge Ure founded the charity supergroup Band Aid to raise money for famine relief in Ethiopia, they went on to organise the charity super-concert Live Aid the following year and the Live 8 concerts in 2005. Geldof serves as an adviser to the ONE Campaign, founded by fellow Irishman Bono, is a member of the Africa Progress Panel, a group of ten distinguished individuals who advocate at the highest levels for equitable and sustainable development in Africa.
A single father, Geldof has been outspoken for the fathers' rights movement. Geldof was appointed Honorary Knight Commander of the Order of the British Empire by Elizabeth II, is a recipient of the Man of Peace title which recognises individuals who have made "an outstanding contribution to international social justice and peace", among numerous other awards and nominations. In 2005 he received the Brit Award for Outstanding Contribution to Music. Geldof was brought up in Dún Laoghaire, Ireland, a son of Robert and Evelyn Geldof, his paternal grandfather, Zenon Geldof, was a hotel chef. His paternal grandmother, Amelia Falk, was a British Jew from London; when Geldof was six or seven, his mother, Evelyn, 41, died of a cerebral haemorrhage. Geldof attended Blackrock College, where he was bullied for being a poor rugby player and for his middle name, Zenon. After work as a slaughterman, a road navvy and pea canner in Wisbech, he was hired as a music journalist in Vancouver, British Columbia, for The Georgia Straight.
He guest hosted the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation children's program Switchback. Returning to Ireland in 1975, he became lead singer of the Boomtown Rats, a rock group linked with the punk movement. In 1978, The Boomtown Rats had their first No. 1 single in the UK with "Rat Trap", the first new wave chart-topper in Britain. In 1979, they gained international attention with their second UK No. 1, "I Don't Like Mondays". This was both controversial. Geldof had written it in the aftermath of Brenda Ann Spencer's attempted massacre at an elementary school in San Diego, California in 1979. In 1980, The Boomtown Rats released the album Mondo Bongo, its single "Up All Night" was a huge hit in the U. S. and its video was played on MTV. Geldof became known as a colourful interview subject; the Boomtown Rats' first appearance on Ireland's The Late Late Show saw Geldof as deliberately brusque to host Gay Byrne and during his interview he attacked Irish politicians and the Catholic Church, which he blamed for many of the country's problems.
He responded to nuns in the audience who tried to shout him down by saying they had "an easy life with no material worries in return for which they gave themselves body and soul to the church". He criticised Blackrock College; the interview caused uproar. In January 2013, Geldof announced The Boomtown Rats would be reforming to play together for the first time since 1986 at that year's Isle of Wight Festival in June, they have subsequently announced further tour dates and released a new CD Back to Boomtown: Classic Rats Hits. Geldof left the Boomtown Rats in 1986, to launch a solo career and publish his autobiography, Is That It?, a UK best-seller. His first solo records sold reasonably well and spawned the hit singles "This Is The World Calling" and "The Great Song of Indifference", he occasionally performed with other artists, such as David Gilmour and Thin Lizzy. A performance of "Comfortably Numb" with Gilmour is documented in the 2002 DVD David Gilmour in Concert. In 1992, he performed at the Freddie Mercury Tribute Concert with the surviving members of Queen at the old Wembley Stadium, singing a song he jokingly claimed to have co-written with Mercury, called "Too Late God".
The song was co-written by Karl Hyde. Geldof has worked as a DJ for XFM radio. In 1998, he erroneously announced Ian Dury's death from cancer due to hoax information from a listener, disgruntled at the station's change of ownership; the event caused music paper NME to call Geldof "the world's worst DJ". Along with U2's Bono, he has devoted much time since 2000 to campaigning for debt relief for developing countries, his commitments in this field, including the organisation of the Live 8 concerts, kept Geldof from producing any more musical output since 2001's Sex, Age & Death album. In 2002, he was listed as one of the 100 Greatest Britons in a poll conducted among the general public, despite the fact that he is not British. After Live 8, Geldof returned to his career as a musician by releasing a box set containing all of his solo albums entitled Great Songs of Indifference – The Anthology 1986–2001 in late 2005. Following that release, Geldof toured, albeit with mixed success. In July 2006, Geldof arrived at Milan's Arena Civica, a venue capable of holding 12,000 people, to play a scheduled concert to find that the organisers had not put the tickets on general sale and
ITV (TV network)
ITV is a British free-to-air television network with its headquarters in London, it was launched in 1955 as Independent Television under the auspices of the Independent Television Authority to provide competition to BBC Television, established in 1932. ITV is the oldest commercial network in the UK. Since the passing of the Broadcasting Act 1990, its legal name has been Channel 3, to distinguish it from the other analogue channels at the time, namely BBC 1, BBC 2 and Channel 4. In part, the number 3 was assigned because television sets would be tuned so that the regional ITV station would be on the third button, with the other stations being allocated to the number within their name. ITV is a network of television channels that operate regional television services as well as sharing programmes between each other to be displayed on the entire network. In recent years, several of these companies have merged, so the fifteen franchises are in the hands of two companies; the ITV network is to be distinguished from ITV plc, the company that resulted from the merger of Granada plc and Carlton Communications in 2004 and which holds the Channel 3 broadcasting licences in England, southern Scotland, the Isle of Man, the Channel Islands and Northern Ireland.
With the exception of Northern Ireland, the ITV brand is the brand used by ITV plc for the Channel 3 service in these areas. In Northern Ireland, ITV plc uses the brand name UTV. STV Group plc uses the STV brand for its two franchises of northern Scotland; the origins of ITV lie in the passing of the Television Act 1954, designed to break the monopoly on television held by the BBC Television Service. The act created the Independent Television Authority to regulate the industry and to award franchises; the first six franchises were awarded in 1954 for London, the Midlands and the North of England, with separate franchises for Weekdays and Weekends. The first ITV network to launch was London's Associated-Rediffusion on 22 September 1955, with the Midlands and North services launching in February 1956 and May 1956 respectively. Following these launches, the ITA awarded more franchises until the whole country was covered by fourteen regional stations, all launched by 1962; the network has been modified several times through franchise reviews that have taken place in 1963, 1967, 1974, 1980 and 1991, during which broadcast regions have changed and service operators have been replaced.
Only one service operator has been declared bankrupt, WWN in 1963, with all other operators leaving the network as a result of a franchise review. Separate weekend franchises were removed in 1968 and over the years more services were added; the Broadcasting Act 1990 changed the nature of ITV. This criticised part of the review saw four operators replaced, the operators facing different annual payments to the Treasury: Central Television, for example, paid only £2000—despite holding a lucrative and large region—because it was unopposed, while Yorkshire Television paid £37.7 million for a region of the same size and status, owing to heavy competition. Following the 1993 changes, ITV as a network began to consolidate with several companies doing so to save money by ceasing the duplication of services present when they were all separate companies. By 2004, ITV was owned by five companies, of which two and Granada had become major players by owning between them all the franchises in England, the Scottish borders and the Isle of Man.
That same year, the two merged to form ITV plc with the only subsequent acquisitions being the takeover of Channel Television, the Channel Islands franchise, in 2011. and UTV, the franchise for Northern Ireland, in 2015. The ITV network is not owned or operated by one company, but by a number of licensees, which provide regional services while broadcasting programmes across the network. Since 2016, the fifteen licences are held by two companies, with the majority held by ITV Broadcasting Limited, part of ITV plc; the network is regulated by the media regulator Ofcom, responsible for awarding the broadcast licences. The last major review of the Channel 3 franchises was in 1991, with all operators' licences having been renewed between 1999 and 2002 and again from 2014 without a further contest. While this has been the longest period that the ITV Network has gone without a major review of its licence holders, Ofcom announced that it would split the Wales and West licence from 1 January 2014, creating a national licence for Wales and joining the newly separated West region to Westcountry Television, to form a new licence for the enlarged South West of England region.
All companies holding a licence were part of the non-profit body ITV Network Limited, which commissioned and scheduled network programming, with compliance handled by ITV plc and Channel Television. However, due to amalgamation of several of these companies since the creation of ITV Network Limited, it has been replaced by an affiliation system. Approved by Ofcom, this results in ITV plc commissioning and funding the network schedule, with STV and UTV paying a fee to broadcast it. All licensees have the right to opt out of network programming (except fo
The Guardian
The Guardian is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as The Manchester Guardian, changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers The Observer and The Guardian Weekly, the Guardian is part of the Guardian Media Group, owned by the Scott Trust; the trust was created in 1936 to "secure the financial and editorial independence of the Guardian in perpetuity and to safeguard the journalistic freedom and liberal values of the Guardian free from commercial or political interference". The trust was converted into a limited company in 2008, with a constitution written so as to maintain for The Guardian the same protections as were built into the structure of the Scott Trust by its creators. Profits are reinvested in journalism rather than distributed to shareholders; the current editor is Katharine Viner: she succeeded Alan Rusbridger in 2015. Since 2018, the paper's main newsprint sections have been published in tabloid format; as of November that year, its print edition had a daily circulation of 136,834.
The newspaper has an online edition, TheGuardian.com, as well as two international websites, Guardian Australia and Guardian US. The paper's readership is on the mainstream left of British political opinion, its reputation as a platform for liberal and left-wing editorial has led to the use of the "Guardian reader" and "Guardianista" as often-pejorative epithets for those of left-leaning or "politically correct" tendencies. Frequent typographical errors in the paper led Private Eye magazine to dub it the "Grauniad" in the 1960s, a nickname still used today. In an Ipsos MORI research poll in September 2018 designed to interrogate the public's trust of specific titles online, The Guardian scored highest for digital-content news, with 84% of readers agreeing that they "trust what see in it". A December 2018 report of a poll by the Publishers Audience Measurement Company stated that the paper's print edition was found to be the most trusted in the UK in the period from October 2017 to September 2018.
It was reported to be the most-read of the UK's "quality newsbrands", including digital editions. While The Guardian's print circulation is in decline, the report indicated that news from The Guardian, including that reported online, reaches more than 23 million UK adults each month. Chief among the notable "scoops" obtained by the paper was the 2011 News International phone-hacking scandal—and in particular the hacking of the murdered English teenager Milly Dowler's phone; the investigation led to the closure of the News of the World, the UK's best-selling Sunday newspaper and one of the highest-circulation newspapers in history. In June 2013, The Guardian broke news of the secret collection by the Obama administration of Verizon telephone records, subsequently revealed the existence of the surveillance program PRISM after knowledge of it was leaked to the paper by the whistleblower and former NSA contractor Edward Snowden. In 2016, The Guardian led an investigation into the Panama Papers, exposing then-Prime Minister David Cameron's links to offshore bank accounts.
It has been named "newspaper of the year" four times at the annual British Press Awards: most in 2014, for its reporting on government surveillance. The Manchester Guardian was founded in Manchester in 1821 by cotton merchant John Edward Taylor with backing from the Little Circle, a group of non-conformist businessmen, they launched their paper after the police closure of the more radical Manchester Observer, a paper that had championed the cause of the Peterloo Massacre protesters. Taylor had been hostile to the radical reformers, writing: "They have appealed not to the reason but the passions and the suffering of their abused and credulous fellow-countrymen, from whose ill-requited industry they extort for themselves the means of a plentiful and comfortable existence, they do not toil, neither do they spin, but they live better than those that do." When the government closed down the Manchester Observer, the mill-owners' champions had the upper hand. The influential journalist Jeremiah Garnett joined Taylor during the establishment of the paper, all of the Little Circle wrote articles for the new paper.
The prospectus announcing the new publication proclaimed that it would "zealously enforce the principles of civil and religious Liberty warmly advocate the cause of Reform endeavour to assist in the diffusion of just principles of Political Economy and support, without reference to the party from which they emanate, all serviceable measures". In 1825 the paper merged with the British Volunteer and was known as The Manchester Guardian and British Volunteer until 1828; the working-class Manchester and Salford Advertiser called the Manchester Guardian "the foul prostitute and dirty parasite of the worst portion of the mill-owners". The Manchester Guardian was hostile to labour's claims. Of the 1832 Ten Hours Bill, the paper doubted whether in view of the foreign competition "the passing of a law positively enacting a gradual destruction of the cotton manufacture in this kingdom would be a much less rational procedure." The Manchester Guardian dismissed strikes as the work of outside agitators: " if an accommodation can be effected, the occupation of the agents of the Union is gone.
They live on strife "The Manchester Guardian was critical of US President Abraham Lincoln's conduct during the US Civil War, writing on the news that Abraham Lincoln had been assassinated: "Of his rule, we can never speak except as a series of acts abhorrent to every true notion of constitutional right and human liberty " C. P. Scott ma
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, sometimes referred to as Britain, is a sovereign country located off the north-western coast of the European mainland. The United Kingdom includes the island of Great Britain, the north-eastern part of the island of Ireland, many smaller islands. Northern Ireland is the only part of the United Kingdom that shares a land border with another sovereign state, the Republic of Ireland. Apart from this land border, the United Kingdom is surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean, with the North Sea to the east, the English Channel to the south and the Celtic Sea to the south-west, giving it the 12th-longest coastline in the world; the Irish Sea lies between Great Ireland. With an area of 242,500 square kilometres, the United Kingdom is the 78th-largest sovereign state in the world, it is the 22nd-most populous country, with an estimated 66.0 million inhabitants in 2017. The UK is constitutional monarchy; the current monarch is Queen Elizabeth II, who has reigned since 1952, making her the longest-serving current head of state.
The United Kingdom's capital and largest city is London, a global city and financial centre with an urban area population of 10.3 million. Other major urban areas in the UK include Greater Manchester, the West Midlands and West Yorkshire conurbations, Greater Glasgow and the Liverpool Built-up Area; the United Kingdom consists of four constituent countries: England, Scotland and Northern Ireland. Their capitals are London, Edinburgh and Belfast, respectively. Apart from England, the countries have their own devolved governments, each with varying powers, but such power is delegated by the Parliament of the United Kingdom, which may enact laws unilaterally altering or abolishing devolution; the nearby Isle of Man, Bailiwick of Guernsey and Bailiwick of Jersey are not part of the UK, being Crown dependencies with the British Government responsible for defence and international representation. The medieval conquest and subsequent annexation of Wales by the Kingdom of England, followed by the union between England and Scotland in 1707 to form the Kingdom of Great Britain, the union in 1801 of Great Britain with the Kingdom of Ireland created the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland.
Five-sixths of Ireland seceded from the UK in 1922, leaving the present formulation of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. There are fourteen British Overseas Territories, the remnants of the British Empire which, at its height in the 1920s, encompassed a quarter of the world's land mass and was the largest empire in history. British influence can be observed in the language and political systems of many of its former colonies; the United Kingdom is a developed country and has the world's fifth-largest economy by nominal GDP and ninth-largest economy by purchasing power parity. It has a high-income economy and has a high Human Development Index rating, ranking 14th in the world, it was the world's first industrialised country and the world's foremost power during the 19th and early 20th centuries. The UK remains a great power, with considerable economic, military and political influence internationally, it is sixth in military expenditure in the world. It has been a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council since its first session in 1946.
It has been a leading member state of the European Union and its predecessor, the European Economic Community, since 1973. The United Kingdom is a member of the Commonwealth of Nations, the Council of Europe, the G7, the G20, NATO, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development and the World Trade Organization; the 1707 Acts of Union declared that the kingdoms of England and Scotland were "United into One Kingdom by the Name of Great Britain". The term "United Kingdom" has been used as a description for the former kingdom of Great Britain, although its official name from 1707 to 1800 was "Great Britain"; the Acts of Union 1800 united the kingdom of Great Britain and the kingdom of Ireland in 1801, forming the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. Following the partition of Ireland and the independence of the Irish Free State in 1922, which left Northern Ireland as the only part of the island of Ireland within the United Kingdom, the name was changed to the "United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland".
Although the United Kingdom is a sovereign country, Scotland and Northern Ireland are widely referred to as countries. The UK Prime Minister's website has used the phrase "countries within a country" to describe the United Kingdom; some statistical summaries, such as those for the twelve NUTS 1 regions of the United Kingdom refer to Scotland and Northern Ireland as "regions". Northern Ireland is referred to as a "province". With regard to Northern Ireland, the descriptive name used "can be controversial, with the choice revealing one's political preferences"; the term "Great Britain" conventionally refers to the island of Great Britain, or politically to England and Wales in combination. However, it is sometimes used as a loose synonym for the United Kingdom as a whole; the term "Britain" is used both as a synonym for Great Britain, as a synonym for the United Kingdom. Usage is mixed, with the BBC preferring to use Britain as shorthand only for Great Britain and the UK Government, while accepting that both terms refer to the United K
The Cribs
The Cribs are an English indie rock band from Wakefield, West Yorkshire. The band consists of their younger brother Ross Jarman, they were subsequently joined by ex-The Smiths and Modest Mouse guitarist Johnny Marr, a formal member of the group from 2008 until 2011. The band, who first became active on the concert circuit in 2002, were tied to other like-minded UK bands of that time, most notably The Libertines, by a British music press that were looking for a'British rearguard' to the wave of popular US alternative rock bands of the time, they had outgrown this tag by the time of the commercial success of their third LP. In 2008, Q magazine described the band as "The biggest cult band in the UK". In 2012, the band's 10th anniversary year, they were honoured with the Spirit of Independence award at the annual Q Awards. Several months they received the Outstanding Contribution to Music award at the annual NME Awards; as of 2017, their last 4 albums have charted in the UK Top 10. The Cribs were formed in late 2001 as a recording project for the three brothers.
After recording a demo and garnering label interest, the band started playing live around this time, at venues like the Brudenell Social Club in Leeds, "squats and warehouse parties" with artists such as Calvin Johnston, Subway Sect, Herman Dune, Ballboy. They released a split 7" single on Leeds based garage/riot grrrl/punk label Squirrel Records during this period with former Shove/Boyskout member Jen Schande. Limited to 300 copies on blue vinyl the record is now a rarity that sells for upwards of $150 on eBay. According to Mojo magazine,'On the strength of one demo, the rush to find the UK Strokes saw the three-piece fielding calls from major labels and label managers' in 2002. After several high-profile support slots, the band signed to the fledgling independent label Wichita Recordings in 2003 "we thought were great because they sounded a bit like Pavement and had a big hook. We went to see them at the Metro on Oxford Street and fell in love with them, they seemed like such an obvious pop band.
Every song sounded like a single" - Mark Wichita Recordings. After signing with Wichita Recordings, the band began re-recording many of the songs from the original demo, as well as several new tracks for what would be their debut record. Sessions began in London with Chicago based avant-garde musician Bobby Conn producing, after the band had supported him on some UK dates and impressed him "They had this cassette demo they had recorded on a boom-box, I suggested overdubs, they were too kitchen-sink for overdubs. I tried handclaps, they were'not sure about handclaps', it was all - Bobby Conn.. Sessions moved to Toe Rag Studios in Hackney with the band self-producing; the album live to 8-track tape, with Ed Deegan engineering. Released on 8 March 2004, the album found early supporters in the NME, who commented on its "supreme pop melodies", referred to it as "lo-fi, hi fun" giving it an 8/10 review. Lo-fi would be a term that would follow the band around for the next few years, something that became synonymous with the group.
Again, from the NME in 2011: "Recorded in a week, it's the definition of indie lo-fi. But not willful indie lo-fi. Radio 1 DJ Steve Lamacq was an early champion. Lois Wilson of Mojo magazine described the album in 2009 as "intelligent lyrics on a background of clipped guitars and tumbling drums, with nods to The Strokes, Beat Happening, C86's inept charm" Three singles were released from the album – the limited edition 7" only "Another Number"/"Baby Don’t Sweat" in November 2003, followed by first single proper "You Were Always the One", which climbed to No. 2 in the indie charts. "What About Me" was the third and final single from the album, again making the indie top 10. The Cribs toured extensively throughout 2004 and into 2005, both as headliners as well as supporting artists like old friend Bobby Conn, Death Cab For Cutie and The Libertines. Over the campaign they toured the UK and Ireland, Europe and the United States, as well as several significant international festival appearances such as Reading and Leeds Festivals, Summersonic, T in the Park and Pukkelpop amongst others.
Though only a moderate underground success at the time "Another Number" has gone on to become one of the band's most enduring ‘hits’ – being left off the set-list and accompanied by a full crowd sing-along of the signature, repeated guitar riff. After concluding touring duties for the first record, the band were taken off the road to start writing the follow up. However, the Cribs decided they still wanted to tour and took to posting their phone numbers and email addresses on the internet, professing to play anywhere for fuel money and a crate of beer; this DIY approach is something the band and label now feel was a key factor in their success, as it helped nurture a strong, passionate fanbase. The New Fellas, the band's second album release, was recorded with Edwyn Collins, the singer-songwriter and guitarist from Glasgow's influential Orange Juice in London at his own West Heath Studios. Again, it was a comparatively unpolished record sonically, as both the producer Collins and the band themselves were achieving sounds similar to those heard on the Orange Juice records.
This was, the intention and the reason the band and producer were put together. "They had definite ideas what they wanted the record to sound like…They had this work ethic, there was nothing spoiled about them - they were proper indie.
