There is only one word that can encompass all the elements of this grandiose Britpop act: bombast. With twelve members, two string-soaked albums, and a pop star adorned in sparkly coats, merely calling My Life Story "extravagant" wouldn't do them justice. While they only released three albums, The Golden Mile, their 1997 sophomore effort, showcases their elemental sensibilities far more than the others. With its florid compositions and colorful lyrics, the album is highly theatrical in nature, and creates a niche within chamber pop that still has yet to be defined.
I was introduced to this album at the age of seven, when my full-time music enthusiast dad bought it from a primitive online store that sold imports. It stood out to me more than the Belle & Sebastian and Gene Loves Jezebel he'd been playing in the car for the past year, but being brought up in the nineties meant that I would spend most of my preteens immersed in bubblegum girl pop and Hanson. I didn't return to The Golden Mile until I was sixteen, when I was into bands with unusual and/or pretentious names like Gregor Samsa and the Heliocentrics. My Life Story (in junction with the Smiths) brought back my childhood, and catapulted my interest in music from across the pond.
Unfortunately, because of their homeland and timing, My Life Story was frequently grouped with the tail-end Britpop bands of the day. But these guys were nothing like Oasis or The Verve, and such a difference made it difficult to get any radio play. Their first album, Mornington Crescent, was completely disregarded by their peers. But after the band was signed to famed label Parlophone and released The Golden Mile, its opener, "12 Reasons Why I Love Her," entered the airwaves. The album spawned five more singles that entered the charts, Mornington Crescent was re-released, and the hype granted ringleader Jake Shillingford a brief spot in the limelight. However, the group faded into the background and after downgrading to a four-piece and releasing 1999's Joined Up Talking, the appealing bombast eventually met its demise. Regardless, The Golden Mile lives on as their creative and ridiculously wonderful (or wonderfully ridiculous) magnum opus.
With songs like "Sparkle," "Duchess," and "Marriage Blister," it's hard not to listen to the album in its entirety. "12 Reasons Why I Love Her" hooks the listener immediately and draws them in with its symphonic amenities. Shillingford's voice may initially seem a bit abrasive to be consorting such orchestral components, but it's so perfectly British that it seems to be just as Victorian as its accompanying arrangements. Such a unique pairing earned the album rave reviews in its heyday, and with good reason. While My Life Story's music is generally known for being ostentatious, there are a few songs on the album that are softer and resemble something similar to balladry, if not that. "Claret" advertises the band's affinity for strings, but lacks the bombast that most other songs provide; "You Can't Uneat the Apple" and "November 5th" follow suit with different select instruments . The Golden Mile's high points are certainly in the beginning and in the end, while the middle tends to be overlooked due to songs like "I Dive" and "The King of Kissingdom," which lack an unidentifiable characteristic the rest of the album possesses. But this small fault can be forgotten, seeing as twelve other tracks make up for it.
The fact that such an awesome band bit the dust is disheartening. My Life Story's bountiful extravagance, in both size and music, is what set them apart from the rest. The Golden Mile encompasses all of what they were about, and sadly, it seems to have gotten lost in America. However, the band has retained a reasonable following in their home country, thanks to sporadic reunion shows and the release of Megaphone Theology, a collection of b-sides and rarities. The re-release of The Golden Mile and a multitude of loyal fans undoubtedly guarantee that this band and their back catalog will never fully vanish from the pop culture lexicon.
Well, in the UK, anyway.
(And at least these guys won't tell Damon Albarn to catch AIDS and die. /jab at Noel Gallagher)
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