The Music

Alongside the likes of The Coral and The Beta Band, The Music were billed as British guitar music's latest saviours when they emerged in 1999 as a gangly gang of 18-year-olds, kicking out an exciting brand of euphoric, psychedelic, post-Brit pop, indie rock. Led by lank-haired front man Robert Harvey, the Leeds schoolfriends were declared the best unsigned band in the country by the NME and Radio 1 DJ Steve Lamaq on the strength of their demo track Take The Long Road and Walk It, before debut album The Music (2002) shot to Number 4 in the UK charts. Their swaggering, baggy, shoegazing cacophonies earned them critical plaudits and a reputation as cult heroes with a revered live act. Follow-up Welcome To The North (2004) again made the UK Top 10, helped along by single Freedom Fighters. Relentless touring and associated problems burned them out as they scaled down activities, but they did return for a third album Strength In Numbers (2008) before splitting in 2011. Rob Harvey went on to collaborate with The Streets on the album Computers And Blues and, in 2012, released the album And That with Streets mainman Mike Skinner under the name The D.O.T