The Coulda-Shoulda-Woulda Files: The Tragedy Of The Divine Comedy

Time for another installment of the Coulda-Shoulda-Woulda Files, where we raid our archives in search of a lost gem.

Artist: The Divine Comedy Album: Regeneration (2001) What happened: The Divine Comedy is essentially Irish-born singer-songwriter Neil Hannon, whose long career has included forays into neo-classical, Britpop and even TV-show themes. Regeneration was his seventh album, and despite spot-on songs and production duties by Nigel Godrich, American audiences didn’t pay much attention (possibly because they could only handle one British band at a time). Why it should have been a hit: Regeneration is full of the sort of sneering torch songs that we Yanks can never quite get right: “Bad Ambassador” starts out as a last-call come-on and ends as a desperate plea, while “Note To Self” is a dark dirge that wouldn’t have sounded entirely out-of-place on The Bends. If you’re going to dig into Hannon’s eight-album-and-counting catalog, you might as well start here:

The Divine Comedy – Bad Ambassador [MP3, link expired] The Divine Comedy – Note To Self [MP3, link expired] The Divine Comedy [Official Site]