Still Raining

There was an audible strand of heartfelt but understated balladry in the British indie-rock of the 90s that started with Radiohead’s ‘High And Dry’ in 1992, traced its trajectory through the Verve in the Britpop era, then was carried along by Travis at the turn of the millennium and Keane shortly after, before finally being claimed forever by Coldplay. Many of my colleagues in the rock journalism community derided this form of huge-selling pop in public but sang along with it in private, the hypocrites; fortunately, neither the bands concerned nor the massive audiences who filled their gigs gave a damn what we in the press thought.

You may recall the long sequence of hits enjoyed by Travis, the Glasgow foursome made up of singer Fran Healy, guitarist Andy Dunlop, bassist Dougie Payne, and drummer Neil Primrose. They included ‘Writing To Reach You’, ‘Driftwood’, ‘Why Does It Always Rain On Me?’, ‘Turn’, ‘Sing’, ‘Flowers In The Window’ and many more, each ranging from the anthemic, to the subtle, but in all cases anchored by earworm melodies.

In 1999, success still lay ahead, however. Travis had, but it wasn’t until that year’s Glastonbury Festival that they found real recognition. During ‘Why Does It Always Rain on Me?’, the heavens fortuitously opened, the crowd went nuts—followed shortly by the attendant media—and the path was set. Travis headlined Glasto in 2000, selling 3.5 million copies of and snagging a bunch of industry awards for the album and its singles.