This is my public apology to Christi. Back in February, she posted about running into some skanky (but in a good way) boys in her apartment complex who were playing and singing songs by a band called Travis.
I’d never heard of Travis before and asked her about them, and she recommended a bunch of songs, including (and I am not making this up) their cover of Britney Spears’ “Hit Me Baby (One More Time)” which, Christi insisted to me, was hawesome (although she might not have used that word). She also compared them to Radiohead, for which statement I berated her because there is no other band like Radiohead, past, present or into the future.
I made a trip to my favorite used music store and found two Travis albums in the used bin (I’m a cheap motherfucker), ripped them to my iPod and listened to them once through.
I bought “The Invisible Band” and “The Man Who”.
I liked them – melodic and synth-heavy and definitely BritPop.
Lately I’ve been shuffling through my library, but once every couple of days I still like to pick out a CD and listen straight through. And in the last couple of weeks, more often than not, I picked one of the two Travis CDs. They have been growing on me. I haven’t really added any new music to my collection in a while, mostly just picking up new releases from bands I already like, and I think my lack of newness has been affecting me – might explain why I’m letting the iPod do all the work of choosing my tunes lately. But Travis satisfies the need for new.
…to be perfectly honest, they’re still not as good as Radiohead. However, they do come close. All they’d need is lyrics that are far more angsty, and to try once in a while for a completely different sound, to stretch out musically. But they’re still good, and better than some of the other BritPop bands I’d tried.
(Like Manic Street Preachers. What the hell was I thinking? Blech.)
At any rate, this post is a public apology to Christi for doubting her and for dismissing the idea that Travis could have any comparison to Radiohead without, y’know, listening to the band first. I should know better.
I still haven’t heard their cover of Britney, however… dammit, iTunes Music Store! Why don’t you have that song? I’ve got all these free credits available for download…