A Speedy recovery

It started with a tweet...

Now I like the folks behind 1p Album Club (just the sort of brilliant idea the internet was designed for, more about them another time) so I followed the link.

The title proclaims "The best Britpop album you've never heard of".  Okay, now you've got my attention.  A Britpop album I've never heard of? Come on then, try me!  News from Nowhere by Speedy.  Oh... Yeah, you win, I've never heard of it.

And there is a good reason why I haven't heard of it and I bet you haven't either, it doesn't exist.  It should have, but after recording the album and issuing its singles Speedy were unceremoniously dumped by their label, the album was canned and that was the end of that.  Well it should have been but Sean Hannam ("a technology, retail and music journalist, lyricist, broadcaster, web TV presenter, DJ, band/club promoter, broadcaster and a sometime musician and songwriter" - blimey), came by a copy of the mp3s.

Speedy, the great lost Britpop band?

Sean's review (which I've only just realised was written 3 years ago!) was mouthwatering. 

"Speedy were the great lost Britpop band" and "News from Nowhere is classic Britpop, pitched somewhere between Pulp and Blur".  

Okay now I had to listen to this album come hell or high water.  I can't reveal how I got my hands on a copy of News from Nowhere because the first rule of getting a copy of News from Nowhere is that you do not talk about how you get your copy of News from Nowhere.  So did it live up to the hyperbole?

Oh boy.  It is that good.  I listened to the whole thing with a huge smile on my face. And then I played it again, and then again. I even went onto Amazon Marketplace and bought the CD singles, just so that I could get the B-sides.  I'm not going to review the album track by track because I know that by now you've already read Sean's review!  Suffice to say that I am in full agreement with him, we even have the same favourite track (Time For You).

How was this not huge?  Well, because it was never released duh!  You know what?  It feels unjust that a band can take the time to craft such a fine slice of pop music and then not even get to release it.  If it had come out and bombed then fair enough but to never know what might have been...

I knew that I had to do something.  I had to get this album in front of people's ears (that doesn't really work does it?).  Well I've got this blog, a Facebook page and a radio show.  I should be able to get some people to listen to it and if even one person enjoys it half as much as I do then it will have been worth it.  Sean Hannam loves this album, 1p Album Club love this album and, as you may have guessed by now, I love this album.  I'd say (given that you are reading a Britpop blog) that there is a pretty good chance that you will love it too.

I'm delighted to say that in 2 weeks time, on Saturday 15th December, the great lost Britpop album News from Nowhere by Speedy will be available to stream from our mixcloud page (with links here and on FB).

I'm even more pleased to say that for our January show I will be joined by Philip Watson, former singer with Speedy, to talk about the band, the album and life during Britpop.

Truth be told, I don't remember Speedy. It was by chance that I saw a tweet, linking to a 3 year old blog post that has sparked this chain of events.  It lead me to a fantastic album.  If we can spread the word then maybe a long-forgotten band can get at least a tiny bit of the credit that they deserve, albeit 15 years too late.

So are Speedy the great lost Britpop band?  No, not any more.