Melting Pot (1998)

Not so much a greatest hits, more a fleeting and nostalgic glance backwards. There are obvious choices here, such as The Only One I Know, Weirdo, Just When Your Thinking Things over and One to Another but there are B-sides, remixes and album highlights too. The collection demonstrates to anybody that needs reminding (and by rights there shouldn't be many who do) what a fantastic, consistent and relevant band the charlatans have been and remain today. It is a certainty that the charlatans won't spend long reminiscing on past glories, their focus has always been the future; let's quote Tim Burgess - "that was then, this is now". Top.

Rating 4/5

Reviews

Stuart Maconie (Q Magazine 2000)
As the decade has worn on, The Charlatans must have wondered if they weren't, in the words of the blues standard, born under a bad sign. If it wasn't for bad luck, it seemed, they wouldn't have no luck at all. Death, depression, the law, all have dogged their steps like something out of a Robert Johnson song. A variety of things have sustained them in the midst of the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune. Firstly, within the band there seems to be a doughty, unfazed provincial hardiness, setting their faces against the worst of tribulations: who can forget the "we are rock" vow to carry on in the wake of their most profound trauma when keyboardist Rob Collins died? They also have one of the most loyal fanbases in British music. Of the Charlatans' five studio albums, three have topped the chart. With the minimum of fuss, they have become one of Britain's most successful bands. Who would argue against this, ostensibly a greatest hits collection but actually closer to an idiosyncratic history, repeating such success?

As a quartet, they'd made faltering efforts before singer Tim Burgess arrived with his puppyish good looks. Undeterred by lack of enthusiasm from majors and indies alike, they formed their own label, Dead Dead Good, with manager Steve Harrison and debuted with the Indian Rope EP in the first month of the '90s. They found themselves immediately co-opted (they're from Northwich and Wolverhampton) into the burgeoning Madchester scene. Indian Rope is a grand, evocative little artefact and it's baffling why the group haven't included anything from it here. Melting Pot assumes their story to begin a couple of months later with their first Beggars Banquet release. Even at this remove, The Only One I Know still conjures up images of flopping fringes, voluminous trousers and the bug-eyed, Ecstasy driven fervour of those early nights at The Hacienda and The Boardwalk. Compared to their mature work, it's a little naive maybe but still crazily contagious.

In the unlikely event of a Best Baggy Album In The World Ever, The Only One I Know will be right up there with Fools Gold and Sit Down, but it has a sound all its own, a combination of the thumping soul combo backbeat with Burgess's fey vocalising and, best of all, Rob Collins's authentically funky 1966 Hammond organ. This patented Charlatans sound, which had more to do with Deep Purple and The Brian Auger Trinity than Northside, was the dominant feature of the first album Some Friendly. Cynics at the time would talk of The Only Song We Know, a reference to the homogenous flavour of the Charlatans' work at the time. This is less apparent now. In fact, second single Then - darker, more prog-rock - could almost be an early Yes single.

1991 saw the band's first brushes with ill-luck. Their progress in America was stymied by the existence of another Charlatans who owned the name. Then, after a successful Albert Hall gig, guitarist Jon Baker announced his departure. When it was rumoured and finally confirmed that bass player and assumed stalwart Martin Blunt was suffering from depression and nervous exhaustion, the band's future seemed doubtful. Ironically, that period is represented here by the buoyant tuneful Over Rising and its curious B-side Opportunity Three.

Baker was soon replaced by the amiable Mark Collins (no relation), guitarist with minor Mancunian players The Waltones and the band began work on Between 10th & 11th in a murkier cultural climate. Madchester was over, Happy Mondays had collapsed in farce, The Stone Roses were dormant and so-called "shoe-gazing" held foul dominion. Unsurprisingly, this second album was altogether less peppy and immediate than its predecessor and met with bemusement from many. Weirdo, however, is a band at its peak. Like all great singles, it has a terrific opening with overdriven Hammond chords ushering in a jumpy '70s detective theme riff. Clearly it has a special place in the band's affections since they include not just the A-side here but two B-sides, the US version of Sproston Green and the cavernous, mesmerising Theme From The Wish.

On returning from an Oriental tour in late 1992, Rob Collins was invited out for a pint by an old acquaintance. The way Collins told it, he waited in the car whilst his passenger nipped into an off-licence for a packet of cigarettes. There was an altercation, the mate dashed out, having robbed the till at gunpoint. In the ensuing panic, Collins drove off, was captured almost immediately and wound up spending most of the next year in chokey. Understandably then, recordings of the next album Up To Our Hips and its singles was a tad haphazard. However, Collins was released in the same week as Can't Get Out Of Bed, and one of his first tastes of freedom was performing it on Top Of The Pops. It's an appealing tune, nonchalant and easy-going, which is little short of miraculous under the circumstances. I Never Want An Easy Life If Me & He Were Ever To Get There and Jesus Hairdo didn't set the charts alight, but both evidenced a growing interest in the minutiae of rock history ˆ la Primal Scream. This was fitting enough for a band who would decamp to the studio with Technics decks and a pile of CDs that covered the musical waterfront from Love to Wu-Tang Clan. They were one of the first bands to use the services of The Dust Brothers (now The Chemical Brothers), whose excellent Patrol remix is another of the curios included here.

It seemed that the curse of The Charlatans might have been laid to rest when their eponymous, fourth album entered the chart at Number 1 in the summer of 1995. It has the nice feel of a band at ease with itself as evidenced in the Black-Country-transplanted-to-the-West-Coast vibe of Just Lookin' and the louche, Stonesy Just When You're Thinkin' Things Over. Another track in this vein, Here Comes A Soul Saver, an anthem to the redemptive power of music, features here but is chiefly memorable for its cheeky purloining of the riff to Pink Floyd's Fearless from their Meddle album.

A proposed tour of America met with snags in the light of Rob Collins's criminal record but the band had come through the worst and seemed set for a productive few years. It was their habit when recording at their favoured Monnow Valley studios in South Wales to take a break in the mid-evening by popping into Monmouth itself for a pint or two unmolested by the regulars in spit and sawdust backstreet pubs before returning to play Northern Soul tunes, watch The Rutles or make more music until the small hours. It was also Rob Collins's habit to drive on such occasions, even when common sense would have dictated otherwise. On one such night on the road from the studio, he crashed his car killing himself instantly. Even to a band inured to difficulties, it was a crushing blow. It also deprived British music of one of its most fascinating characters. In a scene over-run with ersatz bad boys garnering column inches with high profile misdemeanours, Collins was a quiet, polite Black Country boy with a genuine dark side that was never hammed up or exploited. Remember the circus of fatuous nonsense that attended Liam Gallagher's few hours in the cells and then remember Collins's hellish eight months of bartering phone cards and enduring the "Mr Pop Star's not so big now" taunts. This is not to excuse him, merely to get events into some kind of perspective. He was also, it should be said, a marvellous musician, steeped in every great pop organist from Brian Auger to Keith Emerson to Jon Lord to Billy Preston without thought for hipness.

A month after Collins's funeral came the first fruits of those last Monnow Valley sessions. The best thing they've ever recorded, One To Another is also one of the best rock singles of recent years, loaded with drama and lit with incandescent moments. Musically, they share little but there's something reminiscent of Manic Street Preachers in The Charlatans' story. Both have gone on to greater things after early publicity storms and confounded critics by producing better and better work. Both are now at the peak of their powers and both outfits have a close-knit, siege mentality that has withstood the worst, even the very worst. And given that The Charlatans' singles are probably them at their very best, it follows that, for the casual buyer, Melting Pot is The Charlatans album they should own forthwith.

John Harris (Select)
Best Of package that marks The Charlatans departure from Beggars Banquet for MCA. Slightly spoiled, it has to be said, by flimsy packaging. Features more than just singles, hence the presence of album tracks, remixes etc.
The Charlatans were rubbish," said lan Brown recently. "They used to support us, but they were from Northwich in Cheshire, not Manchester... Their manager came and said, 'We've found this kid, he's like you. He's a young version of you.' He's still there, isn't he? Still stuck in that thing." It's not true, unfortunately. Though The Charlatans once seemed fated to forever be Joe Pesci to The Stone Roses' Robert De Niro, there were always distinct signs that their modus operandi was rooted some- where else entirely. They always drew on altogether different influences - Martin Blunt and the late Rob Collins' mod-ism, Tim Burgess' love of Joy Division and hardcore rap, the whole band's fondness for the Beastie Boys - and the simple presence of that Hammond organ guaranteed them their own niche. These days, they seem utterly unique: a guitar band born of the baggy era who are as fond of The Rolling Stones as they are of collaborating with The Chemical Brothers.

'Melting Pot' therefore seems a title that's both alarmingly corny and undeniably apt, skimming their history so as to prove that they were always some- thing other than a callow beat group. Thus, after 'The Only One I Know' and 'Then', we're treated to 'Opportunity Three'-,an impossibly lush remix of a track from 'Some Friendly' that comes close to approximating psychedelic hip hop. They've also been wise enough to include The Chems' remix of 'Patrol': the intentions that underpinned 'Opportunity Three' turned far more dirty and belligerent. In between lies a chronologically ordered array of songs selected by the group themselves, and thereby subject to their own foibles. They've long hated second album 'Between 10th And 11th', so only 'Weirdo' is included (they're being a little harsh - 'I Can't Even Be Bothered' and 'Tremelo Song' are as good). Four songs from 'The Charlatans' have been selected - a little unnecessary given the rather droopy nature of 'Here Comes A Soul Saver' - whereas only two from 'Tellin' Stories' make an appearance. Whatever, 'Melting Pot' manages to be the first Charlatans album that's consistently satisfying. LPs have never really been their strong suit - even the oft- lauded last two have patchy moments- whereas they've always excelled at singles.

The bookends of this album say it all: they begin with 'The Only One I Know', that alluringly fragile meeting of The Roses and early Deep Purple and close the album with the utterly charming 'North Country Boy' - the road travelled for seven years, the band sounding undeniably muscular, and their antennae leading them to combine their own character with the spirit of country-rock. A good three quarters of rock bands wouldn't grasp the concept at work, but it's generally known as Progression. Still stuck in that thing? Yeah, right...

NME
YOU KNOW THE CHARLATANS. Moody hip-hipsters from Nowhere Near Manchester, Actually. A band who've traded ups and downs like a couple of badly-wired elevators. Five blokes locked into a groove and licked into shape by sneaky circumstance. A group who would appear to deserve the down-to-earth salutary shout of 'Goodonyamates!' (rough translation: 'Well done, old chaps!') far more than any of their artier, tartier peers.
See, believe it or not there is a Charlatans hairstyle: a curious affair whose slight scruffiness suggests - but hardly proves - a committed avoidance of the Wash And Go way of life, this half-floppy, half-cropped follicle growth is an indication that here we have a collection of young-ish men who've come to realise that there are more important things in life than being obsessed with looking like a poncey pop star. Some of them are to do with music. Others revolve around just, like, staying alive.

Somewhat predictably considering the prevailing spirit of the late keyboard player Rob Collins, 'Melting Pot' is not a raucous celebration of Charlatans songs past. Forget an artwork explosion of images and snapshots and gleeful thank-yous - the best you'll get out of this package is a black-and-white shot of - wait for it - a cafe. Rather, in the true spirit of The Charlatans' torrid career, this is a contemplative glance back at various points - some beamingly high, others miserably low - over this decade, from 1990's wistful 'The Only One I Know' to last year's soul-swelling 'North Country Boy'.

Trickily, nor is this a definitive greatest hits selection: 'Indian Rope', 'Tellin' Stories' and 'Tremelo Song' are all absent, the band opting instead for more personal favourites such as the neo-experimental (and extremely long) 'Opportunity Three', the oddball instrumental 'Theme From The Wish' and the loping Chemical Brothers mix of 'Patrol'. It does, however, run in chronological order, which is darned handy because it proves that The Charlatans are one of those great homegrown rarities - a band who have actually got better as they've grown older, contrary to every entry in the live-fast-getta-record-deal-burn-out-bloody-fast rock rulebook.

True, they stole The Prisoners' thunder on the way to filching The Stone Roses' fanbase; they've persistently come across as being infinitely more glum than glam; their material has more often than not shirked the epithet 'sensational' in favour of a resolutely hard-working 'solid'; it feels as if they've had to prove themselves over and over and over a'bleedin' gain; and, typically, there are moments on 'Melting Pot' where you have to concede that the odd song has dated about as well as a banana in a heatwave - notably 'Over Rising', which in today's climate sounds like a very average demo tape.

Yet while some of the early choices betray a certain thinness when placed next to the more fulsome likes of 'Just When You're Thinkin' Things Over', 'Melting Pot' still captures the creative consistency of a band who, bizarrely enough, have endured various catastrophes whilst enjoying three Number One albums. Tracks like 'Here Comes A Soul Saver' and 'Weirdo' fizzle and twitch with ideas and quiet ambition; 'Then' surfs a gloriously twisted, brooding undercurrent; 'Can't Get Out Of Bed' has become some perverse kind of anthem for the doe-eyed generation; and 'Just Lookin'' is cheekier than a juvenile delinquent brandishing a flame-thrower. And snickering.

So they've worked hard for their money. They've been chirpy. They've been smart. They've been better, thanks. And now 'Melting Pot' brings to a close their deal with Beggars Banquet (imagine! A band actually fulfilling their contract!?) and grants the fivesome a brand new dawn on MCA. Where, no doubt, they will shimmy and shuffle and continue to play some cracking live shows and cultivate those curiously uniform, distinctly non-Jesus hairdos.

Yeah, goodonyamates...

Clark Collis (Telegraph 1998)
COMPARATIVE latecomers to the turn-of-the-decade "Madchester" scene, the Charlatans went on to gain a reputation as the baggy movement's lightning conductors. They've suffered more than their fair share of critical maulings, the departure of their original guitarist, the bass player's temporary nervous collapse and then, two years ago, the death in a car crash of keyboard player Rob Collins. Yet it's the Charlies who are still having number-one albums while their disbanded peers are using lawyers to speak to each other.
This chronological best-of collection comprehensively demonstrates why - they simply got better. Early anthems such as The Only One I Know or Weirdo, while energetic, now sound hopelessly in thrall to an indie-dance template that had a limited shelf-life. The turning point comes with the Chemical Brothers' remix of Patrol - one of a handful of rare tracks included - after which the band began to stretch their talent, gradually owing less to the Stone Roses and more to Exile on Main Street-era Rolling Stones.
Just Lookin', Here Comes a Soul Saver, North Country Boy and others from the last two albums are as good as Britpop gets, the band seamlessly interlocking behind Tim Burgess's increasingly soulful vocals. The result, or at least the second half, is a fitting tribute both to Collins and to a band that remain one of the country's most undervalued natural resources.

Caroline Sullivan (Times 1998)
Although the most slated of the Madchester era groups, The Charlatans have gone the distance where more cred contemporaries like the Roses and Mondays have disintegrated.

They have admirers all over the place these days, from old?timers hooked on their early psychedelia to kids recruited by Chemical Brothers remixes. While they've had a chequered album career, the last two records have demonstrated a steady improvement. 1997's Tellin' Stories is generally adjudged one of their best, and that wasn't just a sympathy vote because of keyboardist Rob Collins's death in a car crash.

Melting Pot is a compilation that surveys their seven years with Beggars' Banquet. Most of the 14 hits are included (though not Tremelo Song or Indian Rope), starting with the dizzying, Hammond organathon of The Only One I Know and ending with the Stonesy country swing of North Country Boy. The rest of the space is occupied by album tracks and B sides, including the American version of early LP track Sproston Green. Released as a US single, it didn't go very far toward breaking "Charlatans UK" as they're known there. Even in this guitared-up form, it was still too intrinsically British, too strange, head-spinning and close to the dividing line between rock and dance.

That describes most of the 17 songs, in fact. Even the most traditionally rockish have their own secret off-kilter places. Tim Burgess's vocals are full of them. So were Collins's keyboard parts, which made the Hammond organ, an archaic instrument that cropped up on nearly every mod hit of the Sixties, sound modern and sexy.

Most of these are instantly familiar and there's no mistaking the sound. That's not suggesting they haven't evolved along the way; au contraire the first single after Collins's death, One To Another, is many times more polished than those fuzzy catty efforts. But they don't sound like anyone else.

Obviously there've been mistakes - the seven minute Chemically remixed Patrol (apart from Burgess's vocal) and North Country Boy's experiment with country-rock. Don't do it again. But in the main, this is a Best Of that really is a best of.

Ian Watson (Melody Maker Feb 1998)
They've outlived baggy they've outlived Britpop, so it's surely time for a Charlatans retrospective
How did it happen? How did a band famed for distilling the attitude of the Stone Roses into three or so sweetly celebratory minutes manage to outlive their peers, several musical trends including Britpop, and the Tory Government? Listening to the first 15 minutes of this greatest hits album doesn't give many clues. We get all the baggy elements, of course -the hip, hustling drum shuffle, the angelic littleboy vocals, the vague psychedelic euphoria
- and there is a sense of easy style to gorge on, but the formula quickly wears thin. This is strictly here today, gone tomorrow stuff. But then something happens, the penny drops, and the Charlies burst out of the wannabe league with a sound that throbs with urgency and a steely knowledge of its own worth. How? Put it down to the death of Madchester and a band being forced to sprout wings in the absence of a safety net. It starts with the chrome plated confidence of "Sproston Green", where Tim and co reinvent rock'n'roll epiphany in a head-overheels rush; and really kicks in with "Weirdo", where the baggy utopia turns nasty, and Images of guns, drugs and grimy alleyways take us into

So Melting Pot starts patchily, but soars after an inspiring rebirth, right? Nope. Nothing ever goes to plan with the Charlies and the same applies in this case.

Just as you're getting excited the mood's shattered by an instrumental and the Chemical Brothers' remix of 'Patrol' which, with its huge sleaze bass and tumbling beats sounds like it's dropped in from another record. The problem here is that the Charlies are trying to provide an oddities album and a greatest hits. They fail on both counts. Perhaps they want to bump up the unrewarding early years. With the likes of "Tellln' Stories" needlessly absent, it sure looks that way. All is forgiven, of course, as soon as "Can't Get Out Of Bed" storms in out of nowhere and the compilation settles in for an unbroken run of knowing genius. As the tune makes you tingle in slow motion, Tim sounds like the coolest cat alive - seductive, stylish, sexy and totally in control - and here, if anywhere, is where you'll find the secret of the Charlies' longevity. By taking that feeling of victory against the odds which has characterised their lives and shaping it into supremely uplifting music, they make the everyday struggle sparkle a bit. And by never admitting defeat, they actually ensure our eternal emotional support.

Just listen to these songs. "Crashin' In" is a contented smile as you collapse in a heap, the sound of the weekend going up in smoke as you laugh and laugh and laugh. "Jesus Hairdo" puts a friendly arm around your shoulder, offering a sweet smile and a tender moment. "Just Lookin"' is liquid flirtation, honey committed to vinyl via the hearts of dreamers lost In lazy infatuation and romantics with five minutes to kill. "Here Comes A Soul Saver" oozes with the warmth and simple sincerity of a true friend. And the awesome "One To Another", a real bolt from the blue, is the Charlatans epitomised:
poignancy, solidarity, and quiet beauty
A strange album, then, but a fitting one. Ups, downs, moments where they run out of ideas as well as road, and a host of amazing, last-minute triumphs. In the end, it all boils down to keeping that passion and belief. They look good when their heart's on fire. And these boys are wearing well.