What silvery spark of genius have we overlooked? Tom Chaplin of Keane
Finally, one of these Best Albums Ever lists has produced a result you couldn't have seen coming. Guess which completely incongruous record has made the Top 10 of a 50 Best British Albums of All Time poll, as voted for by Q magazine readers and HMV customers? It's Under the Iron Sea by Keane, which is perched at number eight, triumphantly ahead of Dark Side of the Moon and the Verve's Urban Hymns.
Because the rest of the Top 10 is full of the usual suspects - Definitely Maybe, OK Computer and London Calling all figure - Keane's presence is all the stranger. Why them? And why that particular album, which isn't even their most successful? (It sold 2m, as opposed to the 5m of their debut, Hopes and Fears, which is in 13th place, ahead of The Queen is Dead and Never Mind the Bollocks.)
Keane undoubtedly deserve a slot in a Biggest British Bands of the Decade list (Tremulous Balladry Section), but when did they ascend to a place where they are considered equal to Radiohead and the Clash?
While I can't muster up actual antipathy toward Keane - I'm very fond of the Iron Sea track Crystal Ball - I am struggling to understand how they got more votes than Dark Side and Urban Hymns. Did their fans simply vote in greater numbers? Or is there something about Iron Sea's baronial pomp that deserves more respect than most critics have given it? Without Coldplay's influence, Keane wouldn't have sold 7m albums - yet Chris Martin's band only limp into the poll at 26 with A Rush of Blood to the Head, which makes this all the more disconcerting. Not to mention mysterious - what silvery spark of genius have we overlooked, those of us who gave Iron Sea mere three-star reviews?
I am prepared to be enlightened, as I was when I suggested that Celine Dion was the worst popular singer of our time. Dozens of people emailed to say that I was utterly wrong (but nobody could produce evidence that there is anyone worse than Dion, so I stand by my opinion). So if Under the Iron Sea has some quality that makes it deserve its place at number eight, let me know.
