100 Greatest Songs of the 00’s #75 Midlake – Roscoe

Released: 2006

It’s pretty hard for Europeans to contemplate the sheer size of Texas. In comparison the Lone Star state is roughly the size of France; it’s biggest ranch would comfortably take up almost a third of Yorkshire. One of the many consequences is that places there can flourish in near obscurity, away from the bright lights and brash one upmanship of Dallas or Houston. One of those is Denton, tucked away in the region’s north eastern corner.

So what’s in Denton? Well, there’s the University Of North Texas, supposedly a hot bed for jazz scholars whose alumni included Norah Jones and Don Henley, a thriving music scene compared to the likes of Portland and a bunch of former students who never completed their respective courses, forming Midlake instead. Singer Tim Smith claimed to never have listened to contemporary music in his youth, before a chance encounter with Radiohead’s Kid A helped reshape his perceptions.

Developing in relative obscurity, the quintet’s second album The Trials of Van Occupanther was a word of mouth revelation; steeped in the previously unsellable FM couture of Bread, America and Rumours era Fleetwood Mac, of Midlake were deemed the second coming of pastorally flavoured MOR.

This bucolic dream was best articulated on Roscoe, a song on which Smith breezily spoke of stonecutters and the 19th century, one that in tone felt like a rustic Lindsey Buckingham collaborating with a frontiersman Thom Yorke. It’s pied piper ripple effect ensured that Midlake were still the second biggest band in Denton, but the biggest if you foolishly counted the rest of the world as well.