What do you remember of the turn of the century? Y2K. Dotcoms. New media. Free and easy money. The dawn of the computer age and, perhaps, the tech bro, maybe? A hopeful and optimistic era, still, even as the shine of Britpop faded along with that of New Labour. A new century, though. A time to reset and start again anew. Different. To do things unexpected.
Could the same be said of pop music?
Pop tends to be formulaic. It always has. A conforming style of music in many respects, although not always. I’ve said before that I consider The Cure to be a pop band, yet they conform in ways that are not mainstream. Few, though, take the pop sensibilities and throw out the rule book. Yet, in 2000, perhaps the most non-pop of pop albums was released. The band that did it weren’t shy of showing their workings either, as they called themselves The Experimental Pop Band (TEPB).
For their third album, The Tracksuit Trilogy – which is finally out on vinyl through Unspun Heroes – the experimental was turned up to 11. This is a truly eclectic album, and yet it has all the hallmarks of the same band even as it hurtles from disco-tronic beats to art rock guitars, sometimes within the same song.
In the original City Slang press release, the album was described as “Adamantly refusing to stick to one style, THE TRACKSUIT TRILOGY embraces a wild variety of influences, but somehow offers a unified collection of songs that are as innovative as they are entertaining.”
On first listen it sounds, to the unaccustomed ears, like a compilation. The second listen brings a coalescence that wasn’t as discernible on that first run through; by the fifth listen and beyond, you begin to understand how it all hangs together. The fact that Davey Woodward and his bandmates resolutely refuse to conform to the standards many people apply to the ‘pop’ moniker, while making what is undeniably pop music, could well be the turning point where genre fluidity really hooked itself into the public psyche. Or maybe, as someone said to me recently, it’s all just prog?
That ‘prog’ label is as helpful here as Yacht Rock is to anyone attempting to understand Steely Dan. A chocolate teapot in an album review: fucking useless. And it doesn’t do the album justice, particularly in the extended digital version available for the first time ever after previously unreleased and – quite probably – unheard tracks were unearthed in the process of bringing it all together for its vinyl debut.
Of course, the band had a pedigree for those ‘in the know’ thanks to cult band The Brilliant Corners. Chris Galvin joined Davey Woodward in forming TEPB before succumbing to that shitty disease that is cancer after second album Homesick, making The Tracksuit Trilogy the first album written and released after his untimely death – accompanying song notes reference this sad event, as they provided grist to Davey’s songwriting mill on certain songs.
I saw The Brilliant Corners at the tail-end of their run, in the early 1990s, gracing the stage at Reading Festival. While I was sad that I’d missed out on the previous decade – and many of their sought after singles which now command a decent price on the secondhand market – like others I didn’t have long to wait for TEPB to arrive.
From the get-go they proved difficult to pin down when it came to genres and peers. Weirder than Beck, as easy and fun to dance to as Prince, yet as abrasive as The Fall and as oddball as The Velvet Underground, they still made music that you could sing along to. They made the Pop so obvious there in the band name and yet so obviously overlooked by many. This is the musical equivalent of Ronseal before they came up with their advertising tagline then.
Besides that knack for a catchy melody, the thread that clearly runs through every track on this eccentric and quintessentially English record is Davey’s wry, sardonic observations of life on this planet. And while some lyrics snap you back to that pre-century fervour, much of it remains relatable to 2025. Certainly musically. It sounds fresh and new, almost as if the rest of the world has finally caught on and caught up.
The album debuts on vinyl on 25 July, 2025. A little over a quarter of a century from when it first came out, it’s a different beast in many ways – more on that later – and yet it remains as experimental as it ever was. Wayward but focused, serious yet playful, it’s as wild a ride now as it was 25 years ago. And like all mavericks, the distance between its original release means it should finally be recognised for the genius it is.
And with just 222 copies of the vinyl available, it might be the rarest of gems for some time.