The Beat Surrender

Now best known for being “that band that isn’t Pulp that Richard Hawley used to play in”, Sheffield’s Longpigs perhaps deserve a little more than a mere polite, slighty embarrassed, footnote on some terrible future BBC3 ‘City of Steel Rock Family Tree’ starring a bald Martin Fry and a fat Alex Turner. Formed in 1992, if it wasn’t for some extreme misfortune (label goes bankrupt days before first release, singer falls into coma days before second release) the Longpigs would perhaps be the biggest rock act in the world today. Ha. Ha. Very funny.

By the time ‘The Sun Is Often Out’ was finally released, the press dug in their nails with glee, deriding them for basically ripping off ‘The Bends’ and calling it their own. The Longpigs suddenly became to Radiohead what Shed Seven were to Oasis. In other words: most definitely NOT cool. Indeed they had a point. You like ‘High & Dry’? try ‘On & On’; for a ‘Just’, how about this one called ‘Jesus Christ’? But the album had been ready in 1994, at least a year before Radiohead’s.

In fact, some very famous names rated their chances above the Oxford grumblers. Bono and U2’s management team for a start, who bailed them out of their first record contract to the tune of half a million quid just to get this band’s music heard. Plus, Crispin Hunt was a born pop star: the ladies loved him, he talked absolute shite about anything, he had a great haircut. And, let’s be honest, Thom Yorke is ugly and (worse) boring.

But it was too late, the damage was done. Despite a loyal live following, in 1996 the Longpigs had as much kudos as a Tory voter. America, on the other hand, loved them. US college radio came within a whisker of making a bona fide hit out of ‘On & On’, rather than taking the piss – being Yanks – they just adored Crispin’s poshness, they kept on getting asked to come back wherever they played. Too much as it turned out. By the time they’d stopped touring America it was 1999, they were on drugs and they hated each other.

After some much needed respite, they fired the drummer and, against all odds, made one of the greatest sophomore albums of all time. The problem is, three and a half years is a long time in pop music, and, frankly, nobody cared. Which is a tragedy. ‘Mobile Home’ is starkly different from its predecessor – it sounds like nothing else (at the time Crispin described as “Edith Piaf meets Busta Rhymes”).

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