Track Marks: How The Electric Soft Parade Became This Week’s Biggest Band In The World
Welcome to another edition of Track Marks, in which your Idolators perform an autopsy on the latest band burning up the MP3-blogger charts.
Artist: Electric Soft Parade Hometown: Brighton, U.K. Album: No Need To Be Down-Hearted, out April 24th. First blog mention: A Feb. 17th, 2006 MP3 post on Wiredset. The Build-Up: Last May, a handful of sites (including sixeyes and You Ain’t No Picasso) wrote about the group’s 2005 Human Body EP. After that, Electric Soft Parade received only a handful of mentions until… The Dam-Break: Down-Hearted‘s “If That’s The Case, I Don’t Know” started was included on a SXSW sampler in February; shortly thereafter, it wound up on a slew of sites, including Music Of The Moment and fingertips. Last week, a pile-on of ESP love resulted in the band landing on Elbo.ws‘ “What’s Hot?” artists list. Odds of Backlash: 6-1. There are so many British guitar bands nowadays, it’s impossible one of them to become big enough to warrant a full-on backlash. Are They Worthy?: Yep. ESP has struggled for years to make it in America, and while Down-Hearted isn’t as strong as the group’s 2001 Holes In The Wall, it’s about time that brothers Alex and Thomas White get some big-ups. A brief career-recap follows:
The Electric Soft Parade – If That’s The Case, Then I Don’t Know [MP3, link expired]
The Electric Soft Parade – Bruxellisation [MP3, link expired]
The Electric Soft Parade – Empty At The End [MP3, link expired]
The Electric Soft Parade [MySpace]