The Seldom Seen Kid

Like wanking in a wheelbarrow. Uncomfortable and perverse.

One of my all-time faves. Every time I listen I'm reminded of my first Glastonbury festival when the Guardian was giving out bags with 'Throw those curtains wide/One day like this a year would see me right' on the side. Elbow were playing the Pyramid stage after Paolo Nutini, who was sloppy drunk and pretty terrible, but I met a nice girl who gave me one of those little packs of raisins. So anyway, I left partway through Nutini's set because I didn't know who Elbow were back then and I wanted to go and see Noah and the Whale or some shit. So now every time I listen to this masterpiece I get to remember how much of a moron I used to be. 10/10.

Like if Radiohead and Coldplay had a failson.

Britain, what the fuck. Do you guys just eat up anything that comes along and sounds like Radiohead? Have some self-respect. Oh, and…users of this site? You’re not off the hook on this one, either…this record has *the same* rating as Daydream Nation by Sonic Youth, one of the most influential records of the last 40 years; both currently sit at 3.29. It has higher ratings than The Stooges’ debut album and Funhouse (3.28 and 3.27, respectively) and Sly and the Family Stone’s “There’s a Riot Goin’ On” (3.27)….You’re off your rockers.

This is a beautiful record. Epic but fragile, romantic but truthful, outward looking but visceral. I wouldn't be surprised if this is found to have healing qualities. An hour listening and I feel soothed. And moved. Catharsis in sound. 5/5

Holy shit this hit me like a tonne of bricks. What a beautiful record. It's what post X&Y Coldplay could've been but never were. Emotive, evocative, poetic observations of the examined life. "Straight to my head like the first cigarette of the day." " We kissed like we invited it" "Yes I'm asking you to invest in a horse that's only good for glue." Never tepid, every song has an edge layered somewhere within it that captivates eg the Alt J style dirty baseline in The Bones of You or the straight up foals style shred monster that is Grounds for Divorce - it's fucking orchestral. THIS is a contemporary record that deserves to be here.

Not much to say about this one. I listened to the album on Friday and now it's Monday and I can barely even remember what it sounded like.

Not heard this before. Largely comes off as Radiohead-lite to me with flashes of Blur here and there. Got to respect the ambition though. Love it when the British don't hold back their accents while singing. Perhaps my favorite track is "The loneliness of a Tower crane driver."

Never heard of this. Wasn't missing much. It's mediocre "rock" music with a Northern accent. The breathy vocals become grating and creepy a few tracks in. There is a sparse smattering of interesting moments in here that aren't ruined by the vocals. I will happily skip over the bonus tracks at the end of this. Yet another album whose presence on this list confuses me.

Best new find yet. I listened to it three times already and I’m liking it more each time. Peter Gabrielish voice, clever lyrics, good stuff.

Boring album. Aggressively fine.

You know that saying 'you don't know your arse from your elbow'? Well, it's pretty apt here, because this is shit.

Meh

Fantastic album, I was very hesitant at first after turning up my volume during the first song to hear it better only to have my ears blasted by those trumpets but The Bones of You was such a great song that I forgave the first song. After that, the songs really just keep getting better and it's like each song feels like a different genre, and I was surprised that I liked most of the songs that had that country vibe to them. Definitely gonna add this to the rotation.

I’m a little more than a quarter of the way through this list and this is by far the most generic, dull and bland music I’ve heard. There have been albums I’ve disliked but are important to their genre, or represent an era and just haven’t aged well, or were cultural phenomena, or by iconic artists - this is none of that. This music is so lacking in anything its boringness is overwhelming.

Delicately balancing between a Pixar movie and a coked out Tim Burton film, this album resonates with that late 2008 art rock baroque folk scene. It’s beautiful yet eerie in parts- vague yet also grounded both in lyrically and instrumentally. All the songs are different enough to leave different impressions but similar enough to be considered as part of the same statement. Mirrorball and Audience With the Pope are the standouts to me- along with the fix. A great album

Elbow have an interesting sound, not quite what I was expecting. I know I've heard the odd track here or there, but I don't really remember them at all. The instrumentation is pretty cool and the layered vocals add another element. Grounds for Divorce is my favourite track so far.

It's like Coldplay only, and I can't believe this is even possible, musically less interesting (with one weird watered-down-Jack-White-impression in the middle). I like this guy's voice. And his arrangements are interesting. But I don't find the music engaging in the slightest. And the tracks are SO robotic; it sounds like the band members record snippets of themselves and then cut and paste to build songs up Lego-block style in a DAW. Yawn, Next!

I cannot convey my love for this in words. I wandered into a tent at Reading festival around 99 and discovered Elbow on their Cast of Thousands album. I was blown away. By this album i was a proper fan and saw them play this live a few times. My favourite was at the octagon in Sheffield when Richard Hawley came on to sing 'The Fix'. Its the album that played in the early part of my relationship with my now wife, so the romance is baked in. Elbow make music that paints with every colour. And the pictures they paint are of my home, my childhood and my life.

I had no clue who these guys were and had absolutely zero idea of what to expect, but damn, this was really great. Hearing lots of Dave Matthews Band, Coldplay, and Radiohead influences, but with a lot more dramatic and expansive soundscape. I saw them described as a “cinematic” pop group and I think that’s a great adjective as every song feels like a story bursting open. Each song has a unique timbre and mix of instrumentation/effects while the album still sounds pretty cohesive. Cant really say it’s like nothing I’ve ever heard before but it’s definitely really well done.

I was puzzled at first by this selection (pun intended), but then I read that it's a British band. Never heard of these blokes, but they're okay I guess. Nothing less than decent, but not many tracks that jump above decent either. The distorted guitar sound near the end of "Audience with the Pope" stood out to me. And "Lullaby" was nice, almost sounded like a different band. Overall this comes off like a generic amalgam of countless other indie/alternative bands. Music for commercials, or as the Brits would say, adverts. I wish I had a stronger opinion on this, but it was kind of in one ear and out the other. Extremely okay music. Favorite tracks: Lullaby, One Day Like This, Bones of You. Album art: As much as I love Rubik's cubes, this cover doesn't do it for me. Maybe it's too monochromatic. Maybe the drawing is just sloppy. Maybe it's Maybelline. Sorry, bad joke. I'm pretty bored listening to this. 3/5

What a wonderful album this is, one of my best discoveries on this project! Keeping this as favourite, that's for sure :-)

I’m giving this a 5 solely based on One Day Like This. As soon as it was over I had to pause the album and rewind to listen to that song again. As someone who loves Coldplay and Keane, how have I never heard of this band before?

The attention to detail on this album is incredible. From the quirky intro of Starlings to the outro of The Bones of You. Add in the beautiful lyrics. Put that all to one side. Guy Garvey has a unique and wonderful voice. This album is perfect and rightfully won the Mercury award when it came out.

Absolutely gripped me, like a schoolyard bully picking a nerd up by the collar to shake him down for lunch money. This would be an easy 5 stars, but there is juuuuussstttt a bit too much bloat for me to be quite so generous.

Heard Before? No. I listened to "Cast of Thousands" when it came out, then ignored them. Notes: - mallet percussion, layered background vocals and sudden horn stabs had me right from the intro. - dense, complex and subtle production with near-constant little tweaks to the arrangements. someone in the booth really cares about how these songs sound. - lots of 6/8, which makes me happy. - personally I'd rather not have pretty-crooning-guy lead vocals so far forward in the mix, but maybe that's just my singer's envy. - front-loaded, too long and at least half the songs, while lovely, go absolutely nowhere. Verdict: While obviously a member of the Radiohead-Coldplay axis of excess, they lack the preening pretentiousness of the former and the starry-eyed sentimentality of the latter. Cause for some celebration. Listen Again? Just maybe. I really wasn't expecting to enjoy this. I'm even interested in hearing more of them. Thanks, 1001!

Mercury Prize strikes again! As a Radiohead fan I think this probably sounds like Radiohead to those people who don't like Radiohead. Only thing saving this from one star was I liked The Bones of You some.

Felt like if Coldplay and Radiohead adopted a kid at maybe a discounted price Highlights: grounds for divorce, one day like this

Not horrible but a boring waste of time

I’m ready to take all the copies of this book I can find and throw them in Boston Harbor. The avalanche of bland boring British mediocrity that you are buried under when listening to the albums on this list is thoroughly demoralizing. The Britishness of the author of this book is a systematic flaw in this project that almost requires the entire thing be scrapped and replaced with a list of 1001 albums made by a person who was not a complete fuckwit. In sum, this album was a waste of everyone’s time and attention and I am sad.

Starting to see this list has two pools of boring general-rock music: 60s prog and 00s indie

Cant parse words here. All clichés apply. Masterpiece, hidden gem, diamond in the ruff, magnum opus, no skips. Almost every track has multiple moments you could listen to on repeat for 5 min.

Awesome from start to finish! Not a bad song on this track, the band are awesome (and tremendous live) but the real star is Guy Garvey and his lyrics! The man can write, the man can deliver the lines and hold you in the warm embrace of his astoundingly beautiful vocals. Breathtaking.

I love this album. I've been working on a cocktail called egg in a pint Ooooooooh oohh it's just an egg in a pint it's an ancient Chinese secret that I picked up in Leeds Ooooooooh ooohh it's just an egg in a pint.

Experimental enough to not be dull and familiar enough to not be annoying Did not expect it to be this good! A modern white band I like. How strange.

I liked their creative musical landscape! Dude sounds a bit like Peter Gabriel when he sings but it’s infinitely better than sounding like Billy Bragg / Robert Smith / etc like so many other British bandleaders do.

This was very good do you get to be a little much. I have no idea who the elbow is as I ever heard of them but I think they’re sounds a little ahead of their time. 2007 is a dark time for music, you could not pull out of the air anything you wanted, MTV had long stopped playing music, YouTube did not have music videos you can go find, and mp3 sharing services had been shut down. That’s why I think elbow remained all these years. This is a very gloomy sound but not entirely sleepy which is very soothing to me. I need to wallow in my exhaustion and sadness but still have enough rhythm to scoot me forward, accepting the reality that is the cold dark morning that starts every day.

high 3 / low 4

Hipster appropriate review: This is the musical equivalent of a DDH IPA. Fine, but nothing more.

I get why kid was seldomly seen

They say that this band is like Radiohead. But I hear them more like Coldplay with a slightly harder edge. Wish there was more Radiohead.

Not spectacular, I think this benefited from contemporary acclaim at the time of writing this list. Has certainly faded since. 3*

Not on par with how I’ve been rating 4s, but nevertheless a stronger 3. Never heard of the band before and was overall pleased.

the radiohead & coldplay comparisons are too funny. great artists copy? ok, elbow is not great, but you get the point. It's brit sad rock boy? it's just very fine

1st & 4th -May-2026 3/5 Elbow = The Seldom Seen Kid (2008) I liked the melodies, often in a minor key, giving them a kind of melancholic quality In some of the songs, the base lines often give them a jazz quartet feeling. I also liked to voice quality - here and there sounding like old Peter Gabriel?

There were 4 or 5 songs that were just fantastic! I honestly was baffled that I had never heard of this band before. I was trying to decide if I would rate it 4 or 5 stars as each song was a banger! Then the second half of the album was just boring background music

Cosy, easy listen. I don't consider this to be their best work, but I can relax while listening to it. It could do with a bit more edge, but I suppose that's not what they're aiming for.

Pretty good album that I have never heard. Kind of reminds me of Peter Gabriel on some songs. Great lyrics and excellent, not too aggressive, music. I will be listening to this one again.

Like it. Nunca había escuchado hablar de ellos. Pretty great.

It's good stuff - the kind of album that probably deserves multiple listens to appreciate. A lot of it captures a moody tone, with slower beats, and then there's tracks like 'One Day Like This' that is just a certified banger. Favourites: The Bones Of You Mirrorball Weather To Fly One Day Like This

I enjoyed this, I would be hopeful to enjoy more of their work

The songs in this album don't really tie into each other in tone. Some are very alt rock, but some are country-ish or meloncholy. Very hit or miss.

Plodding.

Nothing special British band

Soft ‘00’s rock

Before the first word was sung, I thought "now here's a record that didn't get caught up in the loudness war." And in reading the Wikipedia article, it seems they were specifically after that with the "turn it up!" notice on the packaging. Well done on that front. Further listening revealed not-very-subtle notes of Radiohead with the occasional whiff of blues and lo-fi garage rock. Smooth and full-bodied with an easy finish that left me looking forward to the next swallow. Like other tasty things, you can definitely overdo it, and I think after 2/3 of the way through the album, I had my fill and any more was just cramming it down so I could feel OK about no having leftovers that will certainly have gone bad. 3.49

Bit too artsy for my taste

3.5

I need a few more listens and this might go up to a 4. Has a Peter Gabriel feel to me - art damaged orchestral pop.

A friend described this as a step below Coldplay, and I'm in line to agree.

The Elbow albums I have heard all feature one great song ("Grounds For Divorce" here, which elevates the rating below) that are distinct enough from the plodding sameyness of the remainder to catch my attention. You wish they would be more bold more often, but instead seem content being a bit better the Coldplay, if infinitely better than the wretched Doves (who would kill for an ounce of Elbow's talent). Guy Garvey was born with the gift of a golden voice (a recent call-back for you, Mark!) but overall it's too grey and English for my patience these days.

It took me a few songs to warm to this album. It has a lovely warm sounds and has a great voice but none of these songs are memorable.

This band's level of popularity is baffling to me. The guy (yeah, I know) is a good lyricist, with a lovely mellow singing voice. But the overall effect to me is somehow less than the sum of its parts. Lounge music, but a wee bit more introspective and ultimately a bit of a downer.

really cool vibes already, raspy main vocals and kind of ethereal indie rock feel. I LOVE THIS ALBUM BASED ON THE FIRST SONG. cool orchestral feeling. oooooo I love it!!! i don't think it objectively deserves more than a 3 so i'll give it that but i love her :,)

..

We're on a really crappy streak of 2000s indie rock albums. And I'm sick to death of them. Same boring stuff over and over. DNF'd this. (I would still have rated this the same if it hadn't come up during the streak. The streak caused the DNF.)

I do not remember a single thing about listening to this record. At least I'm aware that I wasn't counting the seconds for it to end, which is a good sign.

I fell asleep several times while listening to this. It took several tries to get all the way through.

MMIIIIIIIDDDDDD, good lord this has a global rating higher than SKUNK ANANSIE. Can not be serious.

I actually bought this when it came out as I really enjoyed the track Grounds For Divorce. We all do silly things when we’re young lol. Not a terrible album by any means, just tremendously beige.

If you like depressing British orchestral pop that sounds vaguely like Coldplay mixed with the Hold Steady - boy do I have a record for you.

some pretty ideas but lacks focus and urgency, and is not interesting enough to sustain its stretch

eh

I'd never heard of Elbow before. As I listened to this I thought, it sounds like they're trying to do Talk Talk, Peter Gabriel, and OK Computer. I check the band's wikipedia and what'd'ya know are the three bands listed under "influences"?! They certainly wear these influences heavily on their sleeves. It's fine, they're decent enough songwriters and performers, but it's extremely uncool music. Way too blandly palatable and ready-made for commercial TV/film syncs.

Quite o.k. but what's the deal with this one? favourite: "Grounds For Divorce"

not a fan of boom clap hey wee-o music

not agressively terrible, more subtly terrible

the kind album that makes you fall asleep at your desk and fart yourself awake

This unfortunately didn’t hit the marks for me. But it’s cool to discover a new to me artist.

This guy's voice really annoys me and overall this album seems like it really wants to be clever and impress the listener. It's like a guy at university trying to get a girl by playing her his original songs on a guitar at a party to show her just how, like, deep he is, baby, like a lot of people don't really understand just how I'm feeling, yeah, like we all hide our true selves, you know? Anyway, what he / they have come up with are a bunch of songs with swooping but misplaced orchestral backing and belaboured metaphorical lyrics. Also the songs could all stand to finish about one minute sooner instead of having very prolonged outros. Oh, when One Day Like This came on I was like, this is it, this is the reason this album is on this list. This was the hit that was everywhere from 2008 onwards, and it is head and shoulders above the rest of the songs on this album. Having listened to the whole thing, this song is the sound of lightning striking, and it doesn't strike twice.

Crap

Ännu ett intetsägande indierockband från 00-talet som ingen längre minns.

I’ve never heard this before and knew nothing about it going in. It sounds like they recorded this after receiving a noise complaint and all of the instruments are turned down. It plods along, hardly ever getting out of second gear. The singer sounds like Chris Martin. If this was a color it would be beige. If it was food it would be oatmeal. If it was a feeling it would be malaise. For a moment in Tower Crane Driver it seemed like it turned a corner. The somehow the next track sounded like a show tune. One Day Like This finally has some urgency, but it’s too little too late. Overall very boring with nothing to make you want to listen again. 1.5 for One Day Like This.

A tricky one to rate. There’s something quite moany about most of these songs which make them a chore to get through. “One Day Like This” redeems the album.

I can appreciate the production but didn’t wow me

A couple songs caught my attention, but overall it was drab and boring. Much like my review.

It's not a bad album, but it is like a discount Coldplay. I don't really see the need to listen to Elbow if Coldplay is better and also right there.

I wanted to like this but it rubbed me the wrong way. I felt like it was derivative and contrived. Pretentious without being self-effacing, a sort of "know-it-all" attitude. There's a haziness over it all, and they HAD to throw in a *stompclap* song because it's the mid-aughts and that's what all indie rock was doing. Well executed, interesting and subtle production, but not very creative or novel.

I don't like this dude he annoys me

I have no desire to analyse why this well-made, intelligent record does nothing for me, though I admire how it captures the damp, cold texture of a smudgy cloud falling from the other side of the Pennines.

The blurb in Apple Music says this hits the sweet spot between Pink Floyd and Coldplay but I don’t know that that spot exists and, if so, this ain’t it. Elbow?!?? More like SMELLbow!

1.2/5 I've never heard of the band before and there's probably a reason why..very slow and boring and I didn't really like the singers voice. I'm surprised to see the band has such a big following. Each to their own I guess.

expected the most popular to track to actually be interesting and was disappointed. pretty forgettable

How did this album make the cut?

It’s very hard to believe that the sun never set on the British Empire when they willingly subject themselves to this shit.

This sucks it's boring

A completely unexpected, truly original work of art.

Elbow kneecap bicep playlist coming in hot

BEFORE: I already know this really well. Big fan of Elbow going right back to Asleep In The Back (which should be on this list for Newborn and Powder Blue alone) and I've seen them live a couple of times. We used Starlings as a reading at our wedding and I love this album, so this is going to be an automatic 5 stars for me but I'm more than happy to listen to this again. Guy Garvey is one of the best lyricists and singers around and the band are inventive and tight without showing off. I can accept Radiohead comparisons as they're both very good, although good luck finding any tech-driven paranoia here. If you can't distinguish this from Keane's two (2) decent songs or Coldplay's vegan stadium-pop you have no business reviewing music. AFTER: No technology-driven anxiety or bland anthems here - just incredible songwriting that makes the specific feel universal. The music on here is less obviously experimental than their earlier work but there is still plenty of unusual stuff going on if you care to look. Given I know this inside out, I am going to listen for new things and try to highlight some less well-known tracks. HIGHLIGHTS: Everything, obviously. The Loneliness of a Tower Crane Driver is majestic. Some Riot and Friend Of Ours are heart-wrenching. The weird guitar figure on Starlings just before the crescendo, the fuzz bass on The Bones of You, Garvey's restrained vocal on Mirrorball. The bass dropping in on Grounds for Divorce (Pete Turner is amazing), the looped vocal on Weather To Fly, the piano and ominous cello of Some Riot, the extended outro of One Day Like This (best enjoyed live). LOWLIGHTS: None. Fuck off. OK maybe Audience With The Pope isn't my favourite. VERDICT: 5 stars. No notes.

One of my favourite albums from the late naughties. So glad it made it onto this list. One day like like this is even better live. Elbowed me right in the ribs hahahaha