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The Seldom Seen Kid | 
 enlarge | Artist: Elbow
Label: Polydor Group
Category: Music
List Price: £16.99
Buy New: £6.98
You Save: £10.01 (59%)
New (20) Used (1) from £6.98
Rating:  77 reviews
Sales Rank: 18
Media: Audio CD
Discs: 1
Running Time: 56 Minutes
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.2
Dimensions (in): 5.6 x 5 x 0.5
UPC: 602517640986
EAN: 0602517640986
ASIN: B0013F2M52
Release Date: March 17, 2008
Shipping: Eligible for Super Saver Shipping
Availability: Usually dispatched within 24 hours
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| Tracks:
| • | Starlings | | • | The Bones Of You | | • | Mirrorball | | • | Grounds For Divorce | | • | An Audience With The Pope | | • | Weather To Fly | | • | The Loneliness of a Tower Crane Driver | | • | The Fix - Elbow, Richard Hawley | | • | Some Riot | | • | One Day Like This | | • | Friend Of Ours | | • | We're Away |
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| Editorial Reviews:
Amazon.co.uk Review
There are few things in life quite so liberating as the opening track on an Elbow album--they're like airlocks between the plainness of the outside world and the elaborate melancholic heave-ho that you are likely about to submerge yourself in. Following predecessors "Any Day Now", "Ribcage" and "Station Approach", "Starlings" opens their fourth album The Seldom Seen Kid rising from a bed of tumbling electronic subtlety like a depressed Atari game loading up, adding bare touches of piano, glimpses of ambient guitar, out of body background vocals, an understated pulse and a wisp of strings, before--EXCELSIS!--a fanfare avalanche of horns crashes the gate and elevates things to gasping palatial heights, before Guy Garvey's inimitable gravel tone and wrenchingly poetic reinterpretations of the everyday announce their arrival proper. It's astonishing, by far the most progressive moment on the album and if anything it sets the bar too high. But even when the pace dips, and songs like "Mirrorball" and "Weather to Fly" don't distinguish themselves quite enough, their textural peerlessness remains. This is a beautiful sounding record. Their collaboration with Richard Hawley may be more of a curiosity than a thing of beauty, but the highs, the riffing cross-stitch of "Ground for Divorce", the desolate grandeur of "The Loneliness of a Tower Crane Driver" and the enlightened string-laden anthem "On a Day Like This" (like their own Sound of Music--only substitute the Alpine peaks for a Manchester high-rise) number amongst the best of their career. --James Berry
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| Customer Reviews: Read 72 more reviews...
 Words, word, words... August 24, 2008
Mr. M. J. Turner (London, England)
...like water shouldn't be squandered so I'll keep it brief.
The least good album by a marvellous band whose output gradually returns less and less impact (listen to this alongside Asleep At The Back with decent ears and you'll know what I'm bleating about)...
...but despite this, a slightly diminished Elbow record rains filth from serious altitude all over any band they might be compared to. Why they aren't outselling Coldplay's brand of bland public school nyamming ennui by 10 to 1 is one of those anomalies you can only put down to the cloth-eared idiocy of Joe and Jenny Public.
Mirrorball, Starlings, The Bones of You, Weather To Fly all have the melodic and emotional clout to cast the ironically named Gary Lightbody's piffling efforts with Snow Patrol in a light that renders him a small kid mithering on about not getting his 10p mix from the local corner shop in comparison.
In summary: not their best but still better than everyone else doing this by many a country mile.
Heavenly... August 22, 2008
Ben (UK)
With "The Seldom Seen Kid" Elbow continue their healthy track record of making wonderfully emotive music coupled with quite appalling sleeve art. Guy Garvey's voice still continues to pierce right through the heart with that heavenly falsetto he occasionally wields (that presumably umpteen cigarettes cannot dent). Almost irrespective of what he is singing about it all sounds utterly gorgeous.
This album, perhaps more so than the others, is not initially quite as immediate. I've found it doesn't work quite as well as a casual listen either. Given it's structure, and the lengthy running time of a couple of tunes, it feels like more time is needed to sit and just digest the whole thing. In other words, apply a little patience and you'll be rewarded.
Countless other bands, with much higher profiles, have struggled to make valuable, important music album after album - but Elbow continue to do it with ease. This is lovely stuff.
This Is Beautiful. August 9, 2008
W. Joo (USA)
4.5 stars actually. 5 if slightly more ambitious. For example, the long ending of One Day Like This sounds too formulaic. (Like Paul McCartney?)But anyway, it's the most beautiful album in a few years, which makes me to write the first album review in a few years.
It is a great wonder how something that reminds me of Coldplay can still sound distinguished from Coldplay. Does this mean Coldplay could have been a much better band than now??
 Album of the summer? Year more like! August 2, 2008
The usual suspect
Some people are claiming this to be the album of the summer but having listened to them and bought it. They're are wrong! It's more like the album of the year! There are some big titles to come out later on in the year though so maybe I'll eat my words...
SSK is an instantly likeable album - no 'you'll come to like it' going on here. No weak tunes in the 13 strong tracklist and at last we have an album this year that isn't short.
It's my first Elbow album and I'll be sure to check out their previous work now.
Best Yet July 25, 2008
Mr. R. D. Morrison (Chester, UK)
Perhaps the first Elbow album that starts to transend groups of music lovers?. People have often wondered why Guy Garvey et al have not become as widely acclaimed as some their peers - this album may start to answer some of those questions. Every other Elbow album has been a grower and sometimes are such a treat that you cannot listen all in one go - an acquired taste perhaps...... SSK combines a string of songs that I defy anyone with the faintest of music taste not to appreaciate (I forgive and do not care about that ever growing band that seem to worship that American R&B vs Gansta Rap vs Diva (Rhiannon / Mariah) trash that is flooding our market at the moment). Whilst I am not going into specific songs Elbow have finally released an album that will be loved by so called 'mainstream' fans of Coldplay (they/we are not a bad bunch by the way) to us more obscure group of traditional Elbow fans. To sum up - the best album of the noughties (yes - that good) and their most most 'mainstream' album to date - that is not a bad thing as it may finally bring this great, great band the recognition they deserve.....
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